Officials in Florida have been scrambling for the past week after a wastewater dam at the former Piney Point phosphate mine plant caused a major leak – a situation that officials described as a possible ‘disaster’. While officials managed to drain the reservoir enough so that atidal wave“of wastewater did not flood the area, experts told CBS News that the threat to the environment still exists.
Residents government officials felt physically safe for the time being, but millions of gallons of water flowed into the ground and local waterways, and millions more were pumped directly into Port Manatee, an entrance to Tampa Bay, Florida. west coast, to prevent the reservoir from collapsing.
From March 26 to April 9, about 237 million gallons of water either leaked or intentionally leaked from the reservoir, the Department of Environmental Affairs said. According to the state’s water quality dashboard, officials stopped exporting water in the harbor on Friday.
The water was determined not to contain harmful levels of radioactive material, and officials said the water in the reservoir met the quality of seawater “with the exception of pH, total phosphorus, total nitrogen and total ammonia nitrogen.”
When contacted by CBS News, the state’s environmental department did not specify what the water quality standards are for both the plant and the marine waters. “It is slightly acidic, but not at a level that is expected to be of concern,” the department said in a statement. “Field industry teams are now using treatments to reduce and remove nutrients from the water on site to address the necessary discharges in the future. This will significantly reduce the supply of nutrients to Port Manatee and reduce the impact on water quality.”
Dr. Henry Briceño, a professor and water quality researcher at Florida International University who holds several degrees in geological engineering, told CBS News that despite what officials say, water does not meet water quality, and that officials should not ‘try to play games with people. ”
“The concentration of the nutrients is much higher than the water reservoir,” he said, referring to Port Manatee. “The waters do not fall within normal, regular water quality criteria for Tampa Bay.”
The nutrients that most get to the wastewater – which is a combination of saltwater from a local dredging project, process water and stormwater – are nitrogen and phosphorus. Although both are essential for plant life, excessive amounts can destroy ecosystems, experts say.
A joint statement issued this week by the environmental groups Suncoast Waterkeeper and Tampa Bay Waterkeeper estimates that the amount of nutrients entering Tampa Bay is equal to “about 100,000 bags of fertilizer” and that the wastewater is about ten times the nitrogen of raw has sewage. “According to the groups, these figures are based on recent samples and nitrogen levels may differ in the water column.
Jenna Stevens, state director of the organization Environment Florida, described the impact of this ‘food pollution’ to CBS News.
“Every body of water has a certain amount of pollution that it can take before things get really bad and we start having big problems with the water quality. And this amount of pollution by nutrients can be really harmful,” Stevens said. “When [officials] was like, ‘Oh, well, it’s no more sour than a cup of coffee’, well, it still does not meet the water quality standards for marine waters. It is too acidic for our waterways and it is too loaded with these pollutants. ‘
The Tampa Bay Estuary program, which tracks water data near Piney Point, says on its online database that they are most concerned about the increase in total nitrogen and ammonia entering coastal waters because of the drastic impact these nutrients have on the ecosystem’s health can have. Nitrogen concentrations higher than 5-10 milligrams per liter can be problematic, the program says, and reports show that water has been recorded near Piney Point with nitrogen levels significantly higher than that.
On March 31, five days after the company that owns Piney Point submitted a report to the state that water was seeping into the plaster pile containing the water, one water sample from Piney Point Creek, in which the wastewater initially leaked, 191, 5 milligrams registered. per liter of nitrogen, an amount more than 19 times higher than the observed limit. Another point in the area registered 214.4 milligrams per liter, which is more than 21 times higher, according to the database.
According to environmental officials, the total nitrogen concentration in seawater should be limited to 0.74 milligrams per liter.
A week later, on April 7, officials said ‘elevated levels of phosphorus’ were being observed in Port Manatee, where wastewater is being dumped from the Piney Point reservoir. A water sample from April 5 detected 2.1 milligrams per liter of orthophosphate, a form of phosphorus. The level is 21 times higher than the marine quality for phosphorus, which is 0.10 milligrams per liter. Other samples taken out of port on that date also have levels of at least double the standard threshold.
Stevens, of the Florida neighborhood, fears that this spill, or anything in the future, could do to Tampa Bay, which has been the focus of recovery and protection for decades after being catastrophically polluted in the 1950s and 1960s. In the 1970s, locals, the state, and the federal government made extensive efforts to revive the area.
Tampa Bay Estuary Program
The priority of these efforts was to maintain the appropriate nitrogen levels. Excessive amounts of nutrients lead to more algae, which reduces the amount of light that can enter the water. Algal blossoms, Briceño explained, create a devastating effect on marine life, as the algae oxygen levels change as it continues to expand, and even as it dies and rots.
“It’s a mechanism that feeds itself and is ongoing,” Briceño said, adding “will not be surprised” if that happens.
Environmental officials told CBS News on Saturday that there were “visual observations” of elevated algae in the water.
“Algae flower samples have been carefully collected and are currently being processed,” they said.
And if it does, it will negatively claim seagrass, an important plant for Tampa Bay’s ecosystem. Seagrass, together with the fact that it is an important food and habitat source for hippos and other marine life, is essential to improve the overall water quality.
Stevens has taken decades and millions of dollars to repair seagrass, and all it takes, Stevens said, is extra acid to wipe it all out.
“So much of our lifestyle here in Florida is about our time on the water … This is where we get out there and enjoy our lives,” Stevens said. “Scientists and lawyers have been saying for decades that this is a problem, and polluters have not been held accountable. And now Floridians have to pay the price for their rubbish.”
And if the seagrass goes, it could happen to Florida hippos, which are an endangered species, amid an unexpected death, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Between January 1 and April 2, more than 600 hippos were found dead. Between 2016 and 2020, the population averaged 203 deaths per year.
Experts believe that access to hippo food is a contributing factor, though not the only reason, for the sudden death.
“Of course, more needs to be studied to determine the causes of all these deaths,” Stevens said. ‘But what we see is making us believe that these hippos no longer have food, and that they may starve to death due to seagrass loss around the state. ‘
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has made similar statements, noting that food loss is a contributing factor to the death of hippos.
“Like many plants, seagrass needs sunlight to grow,” the commission said on its website. “Since 2011, the persistence of algae blossoms has led to reduced water clarity and light penetration, leading to a dramatic reduction in seagrass. Seagrass is the primary food for hippos in these systems.”
The Florida Senate voted to grant $ 3 million for the 2021-2022 financial year to clean up the wastewater at Piney Point. But if the funds are included in the final budget, the funds will only be available on July 1 – a month after the hurricane season officially began.
Tropical storms and hurricanes pose a greater risk to local and environmental safety around Piney Point, as strong storms can cause damage to dams and infrastructure. These storms have become more frequent and more intense over the years and this year the National Hurricane Center will regularly monitor tropical weather.
Todd Crowl, director of the Institute of Environment at Florida International University, said that although wastewater in Port Manatee is bad, ecosystems can recover normally as long as they are not infiltrated continuously.
“But if you beat it once, and then again in a short time,” he said, “it never has time to recover completely.”
Tampa Bay, he said, “comes so close” to such a problem, and a hurricane that hits before the system can recover can cause permanent damage.
It could take months to see the full effects of the wastewater spill, but Briceño fears the effects will have an impact on South Florida’s already fragile waters.
“That’s what I’m afraid we may have in those ecosystems … that we go beyond the tipping points,” he said. “And then we don’t know what’s going to happen, but it’s definitely not going to be good.”