Work crews were pumping millions of gallons of contaminated wastewater into an ecologically sensitive Florida bay on Sunday, as they tried to prevent the “imminent” collapse of a storage reservoir at an old phosphate mine.
Officials in Manatee county extended an evacuation zone overnight and warned that up to 340m gallons could engulf the area in “a 20ft wall of water” if they could not repair the breach at the Piney Point reservoir in the Tampa Bay area, north of Bradenton.
Guardian
Just in time for infrastructure negotiations.
Aerial images aired on local television showed water pouring from leaks in the walls of the retention pond.
Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor, declared a state of emergency after officials warned of the “imminent collapse” of the pond.
Surely not! He doesn't want any
federal assisance, does he?
The governor also attempted to downplay reports that the water contained traces of radioactive materials.
“The water was tested prior to discharge [and] the primary concern is nutrients,” he said. “The water meets water quality standards, standards for marine waters, with the exception primarily of the phosphorus and the nitrogen.”
It's fine. Except for.
The pond at the abandoned phosphate mine sits in a stack of phosphogypsum, a radioactive waste product from fertiliser manufacturing. The pond contains small amounts of naturally occurring radium and uranium. The stacks can also release large concentrations of radon gas.
Nothing but phosphorus and nitrogen.
Officials widened the evacuation zone late on Saturday from a dozen or so properties to more than 300 houses. [Some residents] were refusing to leave.
[...]
[Scott Hopes, the acting county administrator, warned that [...] the nearby area could be overwhelmed by a sudden collapse of the 77-acre pond, even though discharges had lessened the quantity of remaining water.
“What if we should have a full breach? We’re down to about 340m gallons that could breach in totality in a period of minutes, and the models for less than an hour are as high as a 20ft wall of water.
“So if you’re in an evacuation area and you have not heeded that you need to think twice and follow the orders.”
[...]
A local jail a mile away from the leaky pond was not being evacuated, but officials were moving people and staff to the second story and putting sandbags on the ground floor. Hopes said models showed the area could be covered with between 1ft to 5ft of water, and the second floor is 10ft above ground.
What about that 20ft wall of water?
County officials said well water remained unaffected and there was no threat to Lake Manatee, the area’s primary source of drinking water.
I'd buy bottled water for a while at any rate.
Nikki Fried, the Florida agriculture commissioner and the only elected Democrat in statewide office, warned of an “environmental catastrophe” and called on DeSantis – who described the toxic water as “mixed saltwater” in a tweet announcing the state of emergency – to hold an emergency cabinet meeting.
“Floridians were evacuated from their homes on Easter weekend. 480m gallons of toxic wastewater could end up in Tampa Bay – this might become an environmental catastrophe,” she said on Twitter.
Chicken Little Democrat.
The newspaper inspected records and found that staff documented small holes or weaknesses in plastic seams above the water line in July, October and December 2020.
[...]
“Phosphate companies have had over 50 years to figure out a way to dispose of the radioactive gypsum wastes,” the activist group Mana-Sota 88 said. “At the present time there are no federal, state or local regulations requiring the industry to make final disposition of phosphogypsum wastes in an environmentally acceptable manner.”
In a statement, the group added: “The current crisis can be traced back to the absurd 2006 decision to allow dredged material from Port Manatee to be placed into one of the gyp stacks at Piney Point, something the stack was never designed for and should have never been allowed.”
Yeah. We don't need no stinkin' federal regulations.
As long ago as 2003, the Sarasota Herald Tribune reported, reservoir walls were crumbling. The federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) previously authorized the dumping of hundreds of millions of gallons of toxic water into the Gulf of Mexico.
So much for federal regulatory agencies.
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