MANATEE COUNTY – After a leak was discovered, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection issued an emergency order authorizing the release of up to 480 million gallons of wastewater from the Piney Point phosphogypsum stack and ponds into a channel at Port Manatee in order to avoid the imminent threat of an even more catastrophic release of wastewater.

"This order highlights the greater issue regarding the safety of our waters in the Tampa Bay community," said Megan Eakins, board chair at Tampa Bay Waterkeeper. "Emphasizing why we need to make protecting our watershed a priority."

Yesterday afternoon, crews began emptying a 77-acre reservoir containing toxic process water in order to "maintain the structural integrity of the water management system." The site is located at the northernmost reaches of the county, adjacent to both Port Manatee and Bishop Harbor.

"Florida can’t keep ignoring the catastrophic risks of phosphate mining and its toxic waste products," said Jaclyn Lopez, Florida director at the Center for Biological Diversity. "No community should have to suffer the consequence of this toxic legacy for some corporation’s short-term financial gain."

Manatee County Commissioners have been working for years with the state on a plan to deal with what they've called a "ticking time bomb." Recently, the BOCC told FDEP that it wants to prioritize deep-well injection, sending the toxic slurry into a contained well within the aquifer beneath the site after attempts to use a spray dispersion technique proved inadequate.

Officials worry that a hurricane or slow-moving tropical storm could flood the site, sending massive amounts of discharge into Bishop's Harbor.In 2011, a rupture in the liner of one of the stacks led to the discharge of 170 million gallons of poisonous water into Bishop Harbor.

"We have great hopes that this spill will be short-lived, but greater fears that this will be an ecological disaster for Tampa Bay," said Justin Bloom, Suncoast Waterkeeper founder, and board member. "Either way, it highlights the need to stop the expansion of phosphate mining in Florida and deal with the ticking timebombs of legacy hazardous waste sites like Piney Point."

The site has not been operational in decades and the company that owned its mining operations has long since gone bankrupt leaving the state ultimately responsible for cleanup.

Piney Point Has Earned Public's Apprehension On Injection Well