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A state staffer will keep an eye on Gulf of Mexico water quality as discharges are made miles from land.
State environmental officials agreed Thursday to step up their monitoring of the disposal of millions of gallons of wastewater into the Gulf of Mexico.
Following weeks of aggressive lobbying by the fishing industry, environmentalists and state politicians, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection agreed to put an agency staffer on the disposal barges to watch for changes in gulf water quality.
"We'll have a permanent staff member on the barge at all times and they'll be monitoring the disposal through GPS and satellite monitoring linkups," said DEP spokeswoman Deena Wells.
Disposal of 534-million gallons of treated wastewater from the defunct Piney Point phosphate plant is set to begin within two weeks and end in November.
DEP will use satellite imagery and a sophisticated tracking buoy in the proposed dumping area, which starts 40 miles offshore and extends up to 125 miles west into the gulf. The buoy will track gulf currents and provide other data from the disposal area, Wells said.
Fishing experts were encouraged after a meeting Thursday with DEP officials in Manatee County.
"They gave us a lot more information that they didn't have before," said Bob Spaeth, executive director of the Southern Offshore Fishing Association.
"I feel a lot more comfortable with the water quality and the treatment. And they are going to do plenty of independent reviews. They're really addressing a lot of problems at this point," he said.
The wastewater is being stored in an unstable earthen mound at Port Manatee. State officials worry that untreated water could spill from the mound, which is nearly full, and pollute Tampa Bay.
The threat mounts with the start of hurricane season and this week's heavy rain. The Tampa Bay area has absorbed about 20 inches of rain since January. Each inch of rain adds 12-million gallons to the storage stacks , Wells said.
Under the state's plan, barges will disperse the polluted water over a 19,500-square-mile area. The wastewater will be dumped where water reaches a depth of about 130 feet.
The plan calls for the treated wastewater to be pumped through a 2-mile-long pipeline to the Port of Manatee, where it will then be transferred onto barges headed for the gulf. Construction of the $1.5-million pipeline was completed this week, but DEP must conduct safety inspections before the project begins, Wells said.
DEP is ironing out a contract that will detail the scope of work for a citizen-selected independent scientist who will also monitor the disposal.
Mitchell Roffer, the Miami-based commercial oceanographer selected by the fishing industry to conduct the review, attended Thursday's meeting at Piney Point. DEP is considering Roffer's proposal for the dumping to begin as far out as 100 miles from shore.
He and other scientists worry that dumping the wastewater too close to a shifting, circular current in the gulf could carry the treated wastewater to sensitive areas where fish are likely to spawn.