Evacuation in Manatee County, Possible environmental disaster
 

I haven't seen a thread about this situation. Here is the background as I understand it.

The area near Tampa has deposits rich in phosphates and nitrogen. These deposits have been mined for the production of fertilizer for many decades. You all recall how high phosphate detergents were eliminated years ago because of the harm high phosphates did to the environment.

A large phosphate mine in Manatee County did what many of these mines did to handle the high phosphate waste water produced by the mining process. It stored the water in large reservoirs. The walls of the reservoirs are built up walls, call stacks, made of another waste product, phosphogypsum. Physophogypsum is radioactive at a low level but too high for general use. It is allowed to be used to build the wall of the retention basin which is above the level of the land. So a large lake is not dug into the ground, rather it is built atop the land like an above ground backyard pool, just huge.

The mining company declared bankruptcy and left in 2001 and a new company, HRK Holdings LLC, bought the land. HRK declared bankruptcy in 2012 For many years the risk that the wall of the basin might fail has been recognized and local citizens have been asking for some action to get rid of the ponds. Nothing has been done.

An excellent news report as of last evening is on YouTube HERE

I really suggest you take the 8 minutes to view the video. Small leaks in the wall have developed and there is a very real concern that this break will expand and the wall will collapse. An attempt to fill the hole with rocks and mud has failed. Water of course is able to rapidly erode when it is under pressure, you know this from using a water pressure cleaner.

There are 800 million gallons of toxic water being held. And now 800 million gallons may flood the locality damaging soil and wells. The local TV station has a 2014 report on the risk of the stacks, nothing done then or since.

HERE is a story from 2013 on the toxic risk and nothing being done

HERE is a newspaper story from a reporter who has been following and details the story since 2003

Now they are pumping the toxic water out of the reservoir at 22,000 gal/minute untreated into Tampa Bay. This human pollution of the Bay would produce high levels of Phosphates and nitrogen in the Bay causing a massive algae bloom and wildlife kill.

Local citizens have been forced to evacuate but the governments have not opened any evacuation shelters nor from what I have found provided any support to these displayed people forced out of their homes because of the sudden risk of harm caused by the failure of business, local and state government to do something with over a decade of warning.

Do we have Gypsum stacks nearby? There are at least 70 gypsum stacks in the United States and about 27 in Florida, mostly in the region of west-central Florida. The wastewater stored in the gypsum stacks is radioactive! I hope we can find out info on this, and why no action was taken on this!

So sad for all that live on Tampa Bay and the creatures that will die.

Fortunately...
 

it hasn't happened as of yet and they will find a solution before it does. The sky isn't falling...yet.

If the stack, wall, fails the damage will be to the local land and potentially to the surface water table as well as the damage done by moving water. However, the damage to the Bay is happening because the Bay is where the polluted water is being pumped in an attempt to empty the ponds before they collapse. No one knows how severe the damage to the water will be but the most likely outcome will be a major algae bloom which chokes out the fish similar to a red tide event.

This situation is a classic case of government knowing of a potential hazardous situation and doing nothing about it until it’s an impending catastrophe to life and property. This didn’t develop overnight. Be prepared for mucho finger pointing.

No action was taken because politics.

This is a problem that's existed since 1995. There's a newspaper article dated 2003 about the state government (at the time) making the right sounds about doing something, but then delaying the consequences to give Mulberry Group a chance to back out and walk away from the problem. Which is exactly what happened.

When the utilities threatened to shut the power off (thus making it impossible to adequately cool and safely control the stacks and flow of refuse drainage), the owner (Mulberry) declared bankruptcy and just let it happen. And so did the state government. And the voters continued voting for people who would continue to allow this to fester and become worse.

Now you're seeing the consequences of inaction. You're seeing the consequences of living in a bubble and rejecting the reality that surrounds it.

Thank you for explaining this so clearly.

So sad and horrifying. I hope all that have had to evacuate are okay.

Manatee County Evacuation
 

Before we moved here in late 2017, we lived about 4.5 miles from the evacuation site in Palmetto. Glad we're not there now!

Doesn’t sound like much if a plan B was in place. So pollute the world is the plan B.

government, the employer of last resort. . . you get what you pay for. . .

I don’t understand why those phosphate pools/lakes didn’t evaporate over the years leaving behind the bad stuff in solid form?

The environmental repercussions are terrible!

Government at its finest. Do nothing until it is too late. Hasn't the latest Pandemic taught us anything?

The annual rainfall for Tampa Florida is 50.6 inches. There are many lakes, like Lake Sumter, that do not have a stream flowing out of them. They have been pumping excess water out of Lake Sumter for several years.

And whose fanny was seated in the Governor's seat when this all began? Who knows????? We have to have industry. It is as important to all of us as MONEY which in itself is NOT a bad word. I am a little tired of those saying AHA to everything. Industry has halved poverty and starvation since 1990. It also sends plumes of bad stuff into the atmosphere. We gotta eat. We gotta have people manufacturing stuff.

And the radioactive stuff. It appears to be quite minimal...see here; "The pond at the old Piney Point phosphate mine sits in a stack of phosphogypsum, a waste product from manufacturing fertilizer that is radioactive. It contains small amounts of naturally occurring radium and uranium."

316 families within a half mile. Always, always good to save money, somehow, some way, you never know when some disaster will strike and you might need shelter. The government is NOT your mother.

Very true never understood why so many people want the govt to do more and more for you.

A true conundrum.
The stuff probably has a market value, but not enough for anyone to recover it....shame. Sounds similar to the Everglades story all over again.

Because it is radioactive. It has to be kept cooled, and that involves water.

You have it backward.

Hasn't the radioactive gypsum stacks problem taught you all anything? If it had, you would not have been surprised about the "do nothing until it's too late" of government inaction during the pandemic.

This aspect of the pandemic is not news. Government inaction, relaxed safety standards, removed and rejected environmental protections, relaxed, reduced, and eliminated health standards, are all things you should have been aware of for as long as you've been cognizant of government.

I didn't pay much attention to this until I was in my 40's. I had only myself to blame up until that point for my ignorance. I've tried to keep track of politics and government actions and who is passing what laws about which environmental/health/safety topics since then. I might not be able to do much about it even now that I'm almost 60, but at least I've chosen to learn what I can, and promote the idea of "paying attention even if it isn't affecting you personally" to others.

It is bad for humans, not just creatures. The fertilizer in the water causes red tide blooms that not only cause fish to die, but causes spores of red tide algae to blow inland for many miles and cause respiratory problems in humans. And especially since the Sarasota area has many senior citizens that already have COPD. Also, the dead fish wash up on the beaches and drive tourists and tourists dollars away.

They have tried to find a solution for 10 years to no avail. The sky has just fallen - and the oceans are in trouble.

US Americans routinely brag about "taking action" and being "problem solvers". Those may be just MYTHS! The "SUPPOSED" 1st principle of government is to protect its citizens. Yet it was ssssooooo easy for the phosphate mining company to declare bankruptcy and just walk away - leaving local citizens holding the "TOXINS"!

They have been given no evacuation center to stay at - just kicked out on the street.

All governments are not necessarily bad. Australia, New Zealand, and Japan did a good job with the Pandemic. They probably could handle the removal of toxic waste better.

"Industry has halved poverty and starvation since 1990" That is probably WORLDWIDE starvation. In the US before WW2 most families lived on farms and usually had plenty to eat. They could even shoot plentiful game, or have fished. India and China and other 3rd world countries had populations too large for their natural resources. American agriculture methods of machines and fertilizers used in foreign countries may have alleviated much WORLDWIDE hunger around 1990. The US had many advantages.

That is not correct. The water is not radioactive other than the normal background radiation of the earth. The stack which means the wall which encloses the water is mildly radioactive and does not require any kind of cooling. Nor is the level of radioactivity dangerous in this application. This is not a nuclear power plant. The water has not evaporated because the pond is filled by rainwater at a rate that keeps it full.

Yes!

Nothing in your post is true. “To be clear the water (currently) being discharged to Port Manatee is not radioactive. It is primarily saltwater from the Port Manatee dredge project mixed with legacy process water and stormwater runoff. … The primary concern is nutrients.”

Actually government in some situations is your mother. When you lived in Ohio and needed your streets plowed, the government did it. When you needed fire or police, the government provided that. When your daughter needed help with her education, the government was there to back up whatever private resources you provided. The government subsidized the schools and the education of the teachers. The government made sure your water was potable and the air non-poisonous. The meat wasn't filled with maggots and the restaurants you visited kept roaches out of your salad.

You love that our local government, the CDD, get into the nitty gritty of forcing people to trim their bushes and paint their houses the correct color. I bet you expect the CDD wouldn't let a toxic waste lake exist a 1/2 mile from your home and would demand that if it did exist it be kept from leaking or flooding your home. Yes the government is your mother, sometimes. And that's a good thing. Trim those bushes and pull those weeds is a much more involved and intrusive government than protect me from toxic waste and flooding from a man made lake.

And when the government said it was ok to dig a mine and extract materials which left toxic waste, it took on some responsibility to be sure that the toxic waste was not dumped into your yard. When the business that did the mining reneged on its requirement to manage the toxic waste it then becomes the obligation of the government to force the business to comply or fix the problem any other way it sees fit.

You asked who the governors were that have let this situation incubate since the mine closed in 2001: that would be Jeb Bush (R) 2001-2007, Charlie Crist (R) 2007-2011, Rick Scott (R) 2011 -2019, Ron DeSantis (R) 2019 -present

If you want to know who were the Manatee County Supervisors during this time, Google can tell you. 2020 2016 2012 You can find the rest going back if you care to know.

Totally agree that it is the government's obligation to make industry maintain and correct the situation.

It also is not the homeowner's fault that the current situation exists. They definitely should be fully compensated if not by the industry then at least helped out by the government. Government should be reimbursed by the industry.

Oh wait a minute, i am talking common sense and common decency here.

This really feels political. This seems to be carefully watched at this time by Governor Desantis and his staff and the national guard has been called in. The "toxicity" from ground chemicals seems to not be very dangerous. Do you think that people caused this on purpose? Do you think the fertilizer manufacturers were given a pass for political reasons? Do you have something that supports that the acidity/alkalinity of this water can cause Red Tide? We all read this and were duly alarmed. I thought the big wave from this breach would affect the surrounding counties at first. That doesn't seem to be the case. 316 homes have been evacuated. I am missing your point. You may have missed mine. I am very careful with money. Even when we had very little, we saved (very little) so that if a tire needed replaced, a holiday approached for our littles that needed extra cash, or a disaster required us to stay at a hotel for a few days we could do it without immediate financial help from the government. You will say something about minimum wage and I will say something about two jobs and long hours. We are on different pages Doctor. You are brilliant and dedicated and blessed to not only been born with great intelligence but had the personal responsibility to diligently study for years and years. I respect you and your expertise. I understand your worry about this environmental issue. I am very worried about certain issues more than others too, just like everyone else. We all must try to see all things in their proper perspective. On an unrelated matter; Did you see Sixty minutes last night? Did you read the article from CNN this morning. It was fair. Sixty minutes was not fair. Equal money was given to BOTH campaigns.

It would be so good to not be barraged all of the time with opinions. OPINIONS...where facts are maximized or minimized. Most of us are aware and worried about Climate change and how industry affects it. WE STILL NEED INDUSTRY.

Industry does not affect climate. The sun, or the lack of sunlight controls the climate. Industry & humans affects pollution.

Gov. DeSantis directs Florida to close Piney Point wastewater reservoir after averting disaster

And just FYI ... It was NOT the result of mining. They were manufacturing fertilizer.