Florida environmental agency sues owner of Piney Point over massive wastewater leak
CBSN
Florida's Department of Environmental Protection announced Thursday that it is suing the owner of Piney Point, the former phosphate mining facility that leaked millions of gallons of wastewater into Port Manatee, which leads into Tampa Bay, earlier this year.
Piney Point stores phosphogypsum — the waste from processing phosphate — in stacks that sit in reservoirs. The stacks are covered with a liner that separate the material from the phosphogypsum process water, mixed seawater and dredged materials that sit above it. From March 26 to April 9, approximately 237 million gallons of that wastewater, which has potentially toxic levels of nutrients, either leaked or was intentionally discharged from the facility, with much of that being dumped into Port Manatee. Officials stopped pumping out the untreated water on April 9, but the effects of the leak and disposal are still being felt in the area.Billions of cicadas are emerging across about 16 states in the Southeast and Midwest. Periodical cicadas used to reliably emerge every 13 or 17 years, depending on their brood. But in a warming world where spring conditions arrive sooner, climate change is messing with the bugs' internal alarm clocks.
Senate Democrats to unveil package to protect IVF as party makes reproductive rights push this month
Washington — A group of Senate Democrats is set to unveil a new package to protect access to IVF on Monday, as the party makes a push around reproductive rights this month — two years after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.