Piney Point: With more pumps in place, attention shifts to environmental impact
By Dan Matics and FOX 13 News staff
Published
Work continues at Piney Point to deal with a massive wastewater spill.
PALMETTO, Fla. - As of Tuesday morning, new pumps are now in place to help drain contaminated water left over from the former Piney Point phosphate plant to relieve pressure off the containment wall.
Federal engineers are using four major lines and many smaller pumps to drain the reservoir which holds a mix of seawater, rainwater, and wastewater from the old fertilizer plant.
Workers installed new pumps to ramp up efforts to drain millions of gallons of contaminated water to Port Manatee. There are 26 pumps and 10 vacuum trucks in place.
William Harley III was a wealthy hedge fund operator said to have managed $1.5 billion in assets. He owned a Hooters restaurant in New York, a pecan farm in Texas, and at one point he attempted to build a massive electric car plant in Syracuse with the help of friend and current U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
Also in Harley’s portfolio? Piney Point, a chemistry-set chunk of land in northern Manatee County he purchased for $4.2 million in 2006 and remains associated with, according to court records, though it is currently in foreclosure after Harley and his company failed to repay a $17.5 million loan secured by the property.
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Engineers and dam safety specialists evaluating the danger of a catastrophic flood from a leaking Florida wastewater reservoir determined that the threat of a possible second breach was unsubstantiated, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection said.
Officials said Monday that a drone discovered a possible second breach in the reservoir, whose east wall continues to show concentrated seepage. But by Monday evening, experts from four government agencies and outside engineers concluded that this second site was safe to continue working on, the agency announced.
Meanwhile, the agency said dozens of pumps and 10 vacuum trucks have been deployed to remove 35 million gallons of wastewater per day into the Tampa Bay estuary, where 11 different sampling operations are monitoring water quality and considering ways of minimizing algae blooms that kill marine life and make beachgoing hazar
Evacuation orders lifted in Manatee County; lawmakers plan $200M to deal with reservoir
Published: April 6, 2021 1:53 PM EDT
Updated: April 6, 2021 4:41 PM EDT
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But it was not immediately clear how officials plan to tackle the huge engineering challenge.
The state Senate president, Republican Wilton Simpson, said a legislative committee on Wednesday will take up an amendment to use federal money for the project. Its sponsor is Sen. Jim Boyd, a Republican from Bradenton where the Piney Point reservoir is located.
“This has been a catastrophe waiting to happen for too long,” Simpson said in a statement. “We don’t want to be talking about this problem again in five, 10 or 20 years.”
By Bill Galluccio
Apr 6, 2021
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection said that they found no evidence of a second breach at the 77-acre Piney Point reservoir in Manatee County, which has been leaking contaminated wastewater.
Last week, officials become concerned that the reservoir could burst, sending contaminated floodwater into surrounding neighborhoods. They ordered 300 people to evacuate from their homes and closed a nearby highway as a precaution.
The Piney Point reservoir was storing wastewater from an old phosphate plant. According to
Engineers have been working around the clock to contain the breach and pump the wastewater out of the reservoir. They have brought in dozens of pumps and ten vacuum trucks allowing them to remove 35 million gallons of water every day. The water is being pumped into the Tampa Bay estuary where officials are constantly testing water samples and working to ensure that algae blooms do not develop.