Officials: Minimal Impact For Bay Life TAMPA (WUSF) - Untold numbers of fish were killed the last time water was dumped into Tampa Bay from the shuttered Piney Point phosphate plant. But this time, the water being pumped into Bishop's Harbor on the Manatee County side of the bay is being treated.

State officials are using reverse osmosis to remove any impurities in the water. That process removes pollutants by passing water through a pressurized membrane. Fresh water is allowed to pass, while the impurities found in the phosphate process water are removed.

Reverse osmosis has typically been used to convert seawater into drinking water. This is the first time be used to treat process water at a phosphate chemical plant.

State regulators had to take over the plant after its owners declared bankruptcy last year. Lucia Ross is a spokeswoman for the state Department of Environmental Protection.

ROSS: We are trying to prevent an uncontrolled overflow of the acidic water from the Piney Point phosphogypsum stack, so this is a preventative measure.

The heavy rains during the past several weeks have threatened to overflow the earthen embankments. The phosphogypsum stacks hold water that has been processed during the production of fertilizer. It contains minerals that are highly acidic and slightly radioactive that can harm fish if not filtered.

Ross says the outflow will be treated for all those contaminants.

ROSS: The water will be treated to meet drinking water standards before it's discharged into the bay, so it's going to be cleaner than the water that's already in the bay. And these are going to be controlled releases, so it's not going to be hundreds of thousands of gallons all at once, it's going to be a controlled discharge.

The state has authorized up to 650,000 gallons a day to be released into the bay. The controlled releases will go on likely through the end of the summer rains.

Although environmental groups howled last year when untreated water had to be released into the bay, this time they're quiet. Dick Eckenrod is executive director of the Tampa Bay Estuary Program.

ECKENROD: I think the impact on the bay is going to be minimal. We're light years ahead of where we were last October, when the first emergency discharge was necessary.

He says the acidity of the process water will be neutralized before the water is sent through reverse osmosis. It will be mixed with some well water before being discharged so some minerals will be in the mix.

Eckenrod says a monitoring program will be set up to make sure there is no impact to fish and plants in Bishop's Harbor.

ECKENROD: We have come a long way, D.E.P. has come a long way, in the last six months to greatly reduce the risk of a discharge to the bay by implementing this reverse osmosis treatment. But the risk of a catastrophic dam failure is still there if this excess water is not discharged now. So while we would prefer this discharge not have to take place, we certainly understand that it is necessary.

Ross says the state has been contacting local businesses and power plants that could use the water in the future.

Eckenrod says the state needs to put financial regulations into place to make sure this situation doesn't happen again.

ECKENROD: One of the lessons I think we have learned from this is the need to put in place and enforce some strict financial responsibility requirements on industries that have the potential to do a lot of damage, so that when they attempt to walk away or find themselves in a bankruptcy situation, the funding, the resources are there to correct the situation without having it to fall back on to the taxpayers.

Ross says 650,000 gallons a day is less than one quarter of one percent of the total amount of fresh water that flows into the bay every day.

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