Florida environmental agency sues owner of Piney Point over massive wastewater leak

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.