Conservation Groups Plan To Sue State, Others Over Piney Point

PALMETTO, FLA – Several local conservation groups have filed a notice of intent to sue the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the Manatee County Port Authority and HRK Holdings for releasing hundreds of tons of toxic pollutants into Tampa Bay and groundwater, which endangers the public, marine life, and protected species.

In a news release posted to its website Tuesday, Suncoast Waterkeeper announced the intent to file the lawsuit against the groups. The letter of intent comes a month after of the phosphogypsum stacks at Piney Point failed and after state officials ordered the evacuation of hundreds of Manatee County homes and authorized the discharge of 480 million gallons of wastewater into Tampa Bay, the group said.

“The Piney Point disaster was the direct result of bad decision-making by Florida regulators,” said Jaclyn Lopez, Florida director at the Center for Biological Diversity said in the news release. “The state has failed miserably in its duty to protect Floridians from the toxic waste at Piney Point and the two dozen other gypstacks threatening our communities. Things have got to change, or these disasters will continue.”

The letter of notice of intent to sue the groups said that by failing to maintain the gypstacks and storage ponds and approving the discharge of the wastewater, Florida environmental regulators, HRK and the Port Authority violated the Clean Water Act Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and Endangered Species Act, the group said.

“Piney Point was and still is a ticking timebomb,” Justin Bloom, Suncoast Waterkeeper founder and board member said in a news release. “Instead of appropriately closing this toxic-waste site when they had the chance, the FDEP allowed the site to become even more perilous, knowing full well the risk of collapse and catastrophic contamination. In addition to calling the site owner, HRK, to be held accountable, the state of Florida needs to be held accountable as well.”

In an emailed statement to Patch on Tuesday evening, a spokesperson for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection said:

"While we cannot comment on pending litigation, what I can tell you is the department is committed to holding HRK Holdings Inc. and all involved parties accountable for this event, as well as ensuring the closure of this site once and for all so that this is the final chapter of Piney Point. DEP remains engaged in first response activities at the site for the protection of public health and safety. To be clear, this site is privately owned by HRK Holdings Inc., who is responsible for the site’s short and long-term care in accordance with all state regulations."

Last month, a state budget amendment was introduced that could provide more than $200 million in funding for a full clean-up and restoration of the Piney Point reservoir site.

The amendment, proposed by Sen. Jim Boyd (R-Bradenton), will be considered by the Florida Senate when it discusses Senate Bill 2500, the General Appropriations Act, last month. If approved, the state would provide funding to clean up and close the phosphogypsum stacks at Piney Point, according to a news release from the senate.

Suncoast Waterkeeper officials maintained Tuesday that Piney Point was a problematic phosphate fertilizer plant that the Florida Department of Environmental Protection turned into a disposal site for dredge material.

After the owner went bankrupt and abandoned the property, the agency owned and operated Piney Point from 2001 to 2004, during which time it oversaw the installation of inadequate liners and approved the use of Piney Point for dredged material storage, despite knowing that the Piney Point gypstacks were not engineered structures and at risk of failure due to foundation settling, the group wrote in the news release.

In April, Patch reported that Neighbors of Piney Point filed a lawsuit against HRK Holdings, which owns the property. The site is surrounded by phosphogypsum stacks, the radioactive waste leftover from the process of turning phosphate ore into materials used in fertilizer.

The civil lawsuit initially filed April 6 on behalf of Leigh Iannone, owner of Gulfside Dive Services, invites others “who have already suffered harm or are at imminent risk of suffering harm due to the nuisance presented by” the site to join the suit against HRK Holdings.

Manatee County commissioners at a meeting last month approved a more than $9 million deep injection well to remove the remaining contaminated wastewater at Piney Point.

Commissioners voted 6-1 to execute a construction agreement with Youngquist Brothers Inc. of Fort Myers, a contractor that builds deep injection well systems, WWSB reported.