Gov. Ron DeSantis inspects a failing phosphogypsum storage site near Tampa Bay on April 4, 2021. Credit: Governor s Office
Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday declared the ecological emergency ended at the old Piney Point fertilizer plant in Manatee County, which forced release of hundreds of millions of gallons of polluted water, and announced plans to permanently close the facility.
“We want this to be the last chapter of the Piney Point story,” the governor said during a news conference at the site. “So, today I’m directing the Department of Environmental Protection to create a plan to close Piney Point.”
DeSantis said the Department of Environmental Protection would spend $15.4 million to develop “innovative technology to pretreat water at the site for nutrients so that, in the event that further controlled discharges are needed, any potential adverse environmental impacts such as algal blooms and fish kills are mitigated.”
Piney Point crisis leads DeSantis, state leaders to put together a full closure plan insurancenewsnet.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from insurancenewsnet.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
To fund those efforts, DeSantis announced that $15.4 million of existing DEP appropriations will be used in the short-term to pay for innovative technologies to pretreat wastewater at the site for nutrients to minimize any adverse environmental impacts of any future discharges, if they are necessary. Florida Senate President Wilton Simpson said that the Legislature also is pushing forward plans to appropriate $100 million this year for DEP s effort. I believe this year we are going to appropriate $100 million for the initial funding, and by the end of the year we hope to get a full closure plan with a fully funded amount that may be required, Simpson said. The object would be to come back next year and have a fully-funded plan.
The state expects to put more than $115 million toward closing the site of a former phosphate plant where a reservoir leak set off a wastewater crisis in Manatee County.
Florida Plans Cleanup Of Old Piney Point Plant Site wlrn.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from wlrn.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.