Sen. Nelson To Help Phosphate Neighbors PLANT CITY (WUSF) - Senator Bill Nelson had some comforting words to Plant City residents whose air and water may have been contaminated from the nearby Coronet Phosphate Plant. Nelson said if they have any problems with state or federal health officials, come see him.

Florida's junior senator addressed a group of about 50 people during a town hall meeting at city hall in Plant City. Earlier, he took a tour of the Coronet plant with company officials. Nelson then met with Hillsborough County's health and environmental officials, as well as Plant City commissioners.

Joanne Pugliese lives in a subdivision less than a half-mile from Coronet. She told Senator Nelson that many wells in the neighborhood have been found contaminated with arsenic and boron.

PUGLIESE: I don't want you to forget Coronet's front-door neighbors. We have a well there that is now not operative, but it was for 20 years. We drank that. We need somebody to commit, I don't care where the money comes from.

The senator replied he's writing a letter to the secretary of the federal Department of Health and Human Services.

NELSON: So I am writing him a letter today, it will be delivered tomorrow. And writing also for delivery tomorrow a letter to the acting administrator of the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, that both of these agencies should give full cooperation with Hillsborough County and with the state so that we're not talking about some six-to-nine-month study. So that we're talking about getting answers now.

Nelson says he wants answers about whether there is any toxic contamination coming from the Coronet site and what should immediately be done to protect the health of nearby residents.

Health and environmental officials are looking at the area around the plant to see whether it or the landfills are contaminating the environment. They're also are trying to determine whether cancer rates in the neighborhoods are higher than average, as some residents assert.

Nelson also says he has a trump card: Senators will soon have to confirm President Bush's the new choice to lead the EPA. Nelson says that gives him some leverage to get the attention of federal officials.

NELSON: And this is the governor of Utah, Governor Leavitt, and so it is my intention to work with the committee, the Environmental and Public Works Committee in the Senate, to get them to get a commitment from the new head of EPA before we confirm him, that in fact he will cooperate in a timely manner with the state and local governments as they determine what are the problems, and how to go about solving the problems immediately.

State environmental officials have also issued an emergency order to Coronet. The company is being asked to take a number of actions to stabilize its water retention facilities and tell the public before releasing treated wastewater into nearby waterways.

Last week, Coronet Industries discharged about 35 million gallons of stormwater and treated wastewater to lower the levels of its holding ponds. The water flowed into a tributary of the Alafia River.

Health officials stood outside City Hall, giving out the number of their hotline
to call for anyone suspected of having health problems from the Coronet plant.

SOUND:(Ambience of state health officials giving out their hot line numbers.)

Cece McKiernan is an environmental administrator with the state Department of Environmental Protection. She says part of the emergency order is to stabilize the earthen berms holding back toxic water at the site.

McKIERNAN: We felt that in the last couple of days, the department has done some inspections on the site and we have found that there are some concerns with berm integrity. So we are ordering the company to move forward to retain engineers that can help them to put together a berm safety plan. They will be reporting to the department on a daily basis as far as their progress goes.

McKiernan says there is no immediate danger to nearby residents.

McKIERNAN: I think right now, we're just looking at a situation that we have a serious concern about. We want them to address it immediately, because our goal is to protect the public health and safety of the residents, and also to make sure that there is no environmental impacts from any kind of concerns we might have regarding pond safety with the berms.

Environmental officials say they are also ordering Coronet to stop adding any wastewater to the ponds on the site. © Copyright 2012, WUSF