Florida DUers - any updates? Collapse 'imminent' at Florida phosphate mine leaking

[malaise]

millions of gallons of contaminated water

A cracked reservoir at a former Florida phosphate mine is leaking millions of gallons of contaminated water into the Gulf of Mexico.

[Native]

1. I'm near Tampa. Things are looking better...

At a Sunday afternoon press conference, Manatee County officials reported “no news was good news” from the Piney Point reservoir leak.

Vanessa Baugh, chairman of the Manatee County Commission, said that “we have thankfully avoided an uncontrolled breach.”

Baugh assured county residents that their drinking water was safe, saying, “There is no threat to our primary source of drinking water Lake Manatee.”

Dr. Scott Hopes, acting Manatee County administrator, said that there is now below 300 million gallons of water left to be pumped from the leaking reservoir. Last week that number was around 480 million gallons. Hopes said with the additional pumps being provided by the state, by tomorrow morning the amount of water being pumped out will be nearly doubled.

https://www.tampabay.com/news/environment/2021/04/04/live-updates-on-manatee-plant-potential-collapse-what-you-need-to-know-sunday/

The next news conference will be tomorrow at 12:30 p.m.
Bottom line - the 20' wall of destruction is being kept in check by flooding our bay with polluted water. Tampa Bay was in sorry shape for years and had only recently been turning around. Well, here we go again.

[leftyladyfrommo]

2. That's so sad. Another huge dead zone. nt

[Native]

4. Yup. We never learn.

[malaise]

5. Thanks

[Native]

3. Btw, the link I posted in my previous post is a link to all the updates.

[malaise]

6. It's an excellent link

Thanks again

[taxi]

7. Thanks for asking. Here is a link and a short explanation of things.

It looks like this:

In a 2003 story, a top state regulator called Piney Point “one of the biggest environmental threats in Florida history.”
snip
State regulators knew in 1995 that the owner, Mulberry Corp., was struggling. If it went under, the state would be stuck with hundreds of millions of gallons of highly acidic wastewater in towering gypsum stacks perched on the edge of Tampa Bay.
snip
A bad situation soon become dangerous. State officials finally took control in 2001 – after the owner walked away.

Now a top state regulator calls Piney Point "one of the biggest environmental threats in Florida history." State officials fear the waste will spill into Tampa Bay, killing millions of fish and destroying plant life for miles. https://www.tampabay.com/archive/2003/07/06/bending-the-rules-at-piney-point-a-140-million-mess/

emphasis mine

I read elsewhere that there are about 40 homes that were evacuated - that's bad enough, but as is shown in the link it is the environmental damages that are most devastating. On top of that with the owner walking away, it's the same old story - privatize the profits, socialize the costs.

[malaise]

8. Thanks for this

Bending the rules is right - it never fails to make this worse.

The for profit greedy posse claim dominion over all things - they'd better hope that Mother Nature doesn't have hurricane plans for the area.
What is wrong with human beings? s

[taxi]

9. I know, right?

People have been yelling from the rooftops for 30 years there.
Now suddenly everyone is asking, How did this happen?
We try malaise

[malaise]

10. We can only try

[taxi]

11. This April 5th update from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (tweet)

Basically, as we know, the authorities lacked the support to remedy the problem over the years. With no choice but to let it happen on purpose (LIHOP), the DEP, the Florida Division of Emergency Management (DEM), the Southwest Florida Water Management District, and others are now 'raking the forest floor after the fire'.

Soon when the toxic algae clogs waterways and the red tide blooms in the gulf, fingers will point to the same old, same old villians and scapegoats, who incidentally will not care.

The point is that it is how we do things, not who is doing them, that has to change. (but won't)

Link to tweet

?s=20

[onethatcares]

12. 35 million gallons a day

initial estimates of wastewater were 780 million gallons in the pond and a surface area of acres. On Saturday they were discharging 22,000 gallons a minute into an emergency channel which probably went into the bay. For some strange reason I have a hard time believing anything that comes out of this administration so I figured they were lying.

While driving today I heard on the radio that another breach is raising it's head as I was driving to fish at the St Petersburg pier which is 29 miles waterwise from Port Manatee close to where the leak is occurring. The tide was incoming to high at 1;57 pm today. There is no way to control the spread in the bay and Cockroach Bay is an estuary where sportfish spawn, manatees winter, and dolphins are pretty plentiful.

It probably wasn't the leak fault but I caught nothing, not even pinfish or pinfish bites. There were no dead fish on the surface in the area I was at.

It's going to be a wasteland for quite a while.