Some residents of Manatee County, Florida, were evacuated from their homes over Easter weekend as officials feared a sewage pond could collapse “at any time.” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis declared Saturday a state of emergency for the area.
County officials said the pond, located at the former phosphate processing plant in Piney Point, has a “significant leak,” according to CBS subsidiary WTSP-TV. Manatee County Public Safety Department told people near the factory to evacuate because of an “imminent uncontrolled discharge of sewage.”
“Part of the containment wall at the site of the leak has shifted laterally,” said Jake Saur, Manatee’s director of public safety, “indicating that structural collapse could occur at any time.”
Manatee County Public Safety Department initially issued emergency evacuation notices on Friday for those within half a mile of Piney Point, and on Saturday at 11 a.m., evacuation orders were issued to people within a mile north of the reservoir’s piles of phosphogypsum – a fertilizer waste product – and those within half a mile south of the site. Surrounding stretches of highway were also closed to traffic.
Mandatory evacuations were extended a further half a mile to the west and a mile southwest of the site Saturday night. Manatee County Public Safety Department said 316 households are within the entire evacuation area.
According to the Center for Biological Diversity, phosphate ore is the “radioactive waste” that remains after processing phosphate ore into a state that can be used for fertilizers.
“In addition to high concentrations of radioactive material, phosphogypsum and processed wastewater may also contain carcinogens and heavy toxic metals,” the Center said in a statement Saturday. “For every ton of phosphoric acid produced, the fertilizer industry produces 5 tons of radioactive phosphogypsum waste, which is stored in mountainous piles hundreds of acres wide and hundreds of meters high.”
Manatee County Commissioner Vanessa Baugh said in one statement Saturday that the “public must heed that notice to avoid harm.”
Officials perform a controlled delivery of water on the spot, about 22,000 liters per minute.
The water currently being pumped out by officials to avoid a full-blown collapse is a mix of seawater from a local dredging project, rainwater and rainwater runoff. The water has not been treated.
“The water meets water quality standards for seawater, with the exception of pH, total phosphorus, total nitrogen and total ammonia nitrogen,” the state said in a statement. “It is slightly acidic, but not at levels expected to be of concern, nor is it expected to be toxic.”
Florida Commissioner of Agriculture Nikki Fried wrote a letter to DeSantis on Saturday urging an emergency session of the Florida cabinet to discuss the situation. She wrote that the leaking water is “polluted, radioactive waste water” and noted that this leak is not the first on the property.
“For more than 50 years, this mining operation in Central Florida has caused numerous human health and environmental disasters and incidents,” Fried wrote. “There have been numerous, well-documented failures – which still continue – of the property’s reservoir lining, including leaks, bad welds, holes, cracks and weaknesses that existed before its purchase by the current owner, HRK Holdings, and have since been aggravated. ”
Video of a meeting of Manatee County Commissioners provided insight into what had happened before the leak. On Thursday afternoon, Jeff Barath, a representative from HRK Holdings, the company that owns the site, appeared emotionally upset when he informed Manatee County commissioners of the situation.
“I’m very sorry,” he said. He told the commissioners that he had only slept for a few hours that week as he tried to resolve the situation, and through tears said he first noticed “increased conductivity within the site’s seepage collection system” 10 days earlier on March 22. . said, provides drainage around the plaster piles.
He said he immediately notified the FDEP of his concerns.
“The water changed around the seepage. We entered a very aggressive monitoring program,” he said, to find out where the seepage came from.
They found that the south side of the chimney system had “increased in conductivity” and that the acidity of the water, which is normally around 4.6, had dropped to about 3.5, indicating a problem.
After a few days, the water chemistry had not improved, and water flows increased from about 120 liters per minute to over 400 liters per minute in less than 48 hours, Barath said. Last Saturday night, the flow rates increased to “speeds I couldn’t even estimate,” he said.
Water filled the piles so quickly that the ground started to rise, Barath said. This “bulging” was temporarily stabilized but then extended hundreds of meters.
Barath filed a report with the state on March 26, according to the state-run “Protecting Florida Together” website, which was created by DeSantis to enable greater transparency on state water issues.
“I expected the Gypsy himself to be destabilizing at a very rapid pace and advised us to consider emergency resignation,” he told the commissioners. He said he feared that “overpressure” of the system would result in “complete failure.”
“I’ve spent most of my days and nights constantly monitoring all aspects of this gypstack system and identifying points of failure in it,” he said, noting that there was “constant, I mean every hour”. points of failure occurred.
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection said it has instructed the company to “take immediate action” to prevent further leaks. On March 30, the department said “plumbing in the facility is being repaired” and that controlled discharges were initiated to prevent pressure build-up.
However, based on Barath’s testimony at the meeting, the situation was far from over. He concluded his speech by saying that they “did everything possible to prevent a real catastrophe.”
On Friday, another leak was discovered in the facility’s southern containment area. Despite working nightly to stop this and other leaks, Jake Saur, Manatee’s director of public safety, said on Saturday that the situation “escalated”.