Manatee County commissioners began the process of cutting local wetland protections and handing oversight to the state with a controversial vote last year.
Closing Piney Point is personal for Jeff Barath. He has managed the site for 20 years, has watched the plant change ownership multiple times and has navigated several crises. Not by his choosing, Barath became the spokesperson for HRK Holdings, the company that owned the plant during a 2021 ecological disaster in which roughly 215 million gallons of tainted water from the fertilizer site were .
When will Piney Point close? We toured the troubled plant. tampabay.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from tampabay.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.