What's the whole story behind Piney Point? Bottom Line: Governor DeSantis’s decision to put an end to the site, as he ordered Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection to create a closure plan brought this back into the news and it’s a good opportunity to establish how we arrived here. Also, because everything seemingly is politicized these days, it’s helpful to cut through some of the incomplete reporting about how the Piney Point reservoir became an environmental catastrophe in the making. The story began in 1966 when a company called Borden Chemical opened a plant which began processing phosphate for fertilizers used by Florida’s agriculture industry. The processing of phosphate produces toxic wastewater. Originally there wasn’t a plan to deal with the wastewater and Borden collected and discharged the wastewater directly into Bishop Harbor which resulted in fish kills. That caught the attention of state officials. In 1970, it was determined a reservoir needed to be created to contain the wastewater. The plant changed hands numerous times between 1966 and 2001 and the last year of operation when a company called Mulberry operated it.