Bradenton Herald

Bradenton Herald, The (FL)

May 11, 2003

SPECIAL REPORT: CLEANING UP PINEY POINT

	Author:
	Kevin O'Horan, Herald Staff Writer

Edition: BRADENTON
Section: front
Page: 1A 
Dateline: PINEY POINT 

Estimated printed pages: 3

Article Text:
PINEY POINT --- Sometime next month, if all goes as planned, a barge will glide to a halt at a Port Manatee dock, tie off and tap into the terminus of an abbreviated pipeline.   Through the 1.5-mile stretch of piping, which snakes back across port property and U.S. 41 to the abandoned Piney Point phosphate plant, will course the first of a half-billion gallons of wastewater pumped from the fertilizer facility.
	
Water bound for deep in the Gulf of Mexico. Water treated to ease the taint of sulfuric acid, heavy metals, ammonia and phosphorous, residues of a time when the plant converted phosphate ore to fertilizer.

 Deep into the belly of the barge, in the massive cargo holds or ballast tanks, the water will flow. A million gallons. Two million, three. Maybe even as much as 10 million gallons per ship, taking up to a week to feed the ship.

 Sated and weighted, the barge will let loose its grip on the dock, slide away and set course for a line in the waves some 40 miles removed from the sandy shores of the Suncoast.

 There, in a 19,500-square-mile region with waters at least 130 feet deep and free of sea turtles, marine mammals or critical marine habitat, the barge's captain will give the order to start the releases.

 As the ship cruises along at a pace of at least 4 mph --- shadowed or followed soon after by monitoring vessels --- crew members will open the taps or power the pumps to release the treated water into the salty gulf.

 "The treated water is free of pathogens and meets all marine water quality criteria, with the possible exception of ammonia-nitrogen," said Deena Wells, press secretary with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

 By cutting steadily through the waves, she said, the ship will disperse the ammonia and nitrogen over a wide area, reducing the risk that the nutrient load would lead to a bloom of algae that chokes out marine life.

 Just such a risk pushed Florida regulators to the barges, as they try to rid the site of a toxic mess left behind when Mulberry Corp. leaders fled in February 2001 for the cover of bankruptcy court.

 DEP officials took control of the site in the days after Mulberry's vanishing act and have worked since to drain about 1.2 billion gallons of wastewater from the plant's gypsum stacks --- an array of earthen vats.

 Despite a pair of emergency releases and a slew of efforts to truck water for treatment off-site, including Manatee County's sewage system, they have fared poorly.

 Each time the agency has drawn down the water level, Mother Nature has intervened to again push the ponds to near-overflow, with each inch of rain at the 700-acre site adding 12.5 million gallons of water to the toxic soup.

 "If water levels are not reduced," Wells said, "the approaching spring and summer rain seasons --- and hurricane season --- could cause a catastrophic failure of the containment dikes, resulting in a devastating spill of untreated acidic wastewater into Tampa Bay."

 Just such a spill in 1997 at a Mulberry Corp. plant in Polk County sent 50 million gallons of wastewater gushing into the Alafia River, killing thousands of fish for miles.

 So, bring on the barges, EPA leaders said.

 "It isn't necessarily the first choice," said Carl Terry, a spokesman with EPA's Region IV office in Atlanta, "but we believe emergency conditions exist. Emergency conditions exist, and this was the right step to take."

 And DEP plans to take the steps. The agency has started negotiations with a half-dozen different shipping outfits, Wells said, hoping to ready a fleet of ships by inking a contract with one or more.

 They also started work Thursday on a pipeline that will link Piney Point and the port.

 The line, complete with pressure-sensing equipment and emergency shutoff valves, likely will carry less than half its designed carrying capacity of 4 million gallons of wastewater each day, Wells said.

 But it won't be ready for another six to eight weeks.

 And the barges can't wait. Florida leaders have only until Nov. 30 to use the ships, per the EPA decision.

 "Depending on timing," Wells said, "DEP is exploring a concept to begin barging before completion of the pipeline by trucking water from Piney Point to the port."

 That's not the ideal, though, since each truck would tote about 5,000 gallons of treated water. That makes for a minimum of 200 truckloads to ferry water to fill just the smallest ship.

 And 2,000 trucks to fill the biggest barge.

 They may want to save a truck or two to haul the cash needed for the barges. DEP officials estimate Florida taxpayers will have to pay $16 million to $37 million for the shipments.

 That's on top of the $30 million already spent for treatment efforts at the site.

 And at least $6 million still is needed to treat the wastewater and prepare it as barge bilge.

 "Based on preliminary cost estimates," Wells said, "ocean dispersal may be one of the most expensive water management options."

Caption:
Photo illustration by MERRY ECCLES/The Herald
 Top, the Piney Point phosphate plant in northern Manatee County holds more than a billion gallons of contaminated wastewater.Copyright (c) 2003 The Bradenton Herald
Record Number: 0305120189