More wastewater may end up in Tampa Bay

PALMETTO -- State environmental officials want to more than double the amount of treated wastewater dumped daily into Tampa Bay from a toxic cleanup.

The Department of Environmental Protection asked for an emergency order Thursday to allow 2-million gallons of treated wastewater from Piney Point, a former phosphate fertilizer plant, to be dumped daily into the bay for three months, a DEP official said.

The DEP has been dumping about 800,000 gallons of treated wastewater into the bay daily, but recent heavy rains require increasing the output, said Phillip Coram, a DEP engineer.

The DEP wants to empty reservoirs of 1.2-billion gallons of acidic wastewater left at the abandoned plant. But each inch of rainfall adds about 12-million gallons to that storage, Coram said, and more than 22 inches of rain recently has filled those reservoirs to near capacity.

Site engineers estimate the reservoirs could accommodate 8 more inches of rain before the acidic water overflows and spills into the bay, Coram said. Increasing the output of treated water for three months should accommodate expected heavy rainfall.

Considering the bay's size, 2-million gallons daily is "a trickle," he said, less than 1 percent of the freshwater that Tampa Bay receives daily from rivers and stormwater runoff.

Since the DEP took over Piney Point in February 2001, the wastewater has been trucked, pumped and transferred to other sites, but those sites are full, Coram said.

Local authorities who met with DEP officials Thursday agreed with the agency's proposal.

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