ST. PETERSBURG - Time is running out for dumping waste from the abandoned Piney Point fertilizer plant into the Gulf of Mexico.
With less than two months remaining for the dumping operation, more than 500-million gallons are left in the towering gypsum stacks along Tampa Bay.
So, the state Department of Environmental Protection is considering asking federal officials to extend the emergency dumping in the gulf past their current deadline of Nov. 30.
The DEP, which also hopes to hire a second barge to help speed the dumping of the treated waste, announced Thursday that the dumping has so far caused no apparent ill effects in the gulf.
The barge New York has made 18 trips into the gulf since dumping began in July. On those 18 trips, the barge has sprayed out about 117-million gallons of treated waste.
By the end of next month, when the dumping permit expires, that amount may reach 200-million gallons, said DEP project manager Phil Coram.
But that will fall far short of the 587-million gallons the DEP had hoped to dump off the barge by the time the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency permit runs out.
EPA officials, who rarely grant permits to dump in the ocean, could not be reached for comment Thursday on whether they might consider an extension for Piney Point.
George Henderson, a senior scientist at the Florida Marine Research Institute, predicted at an Agency on Bay Management meeting Thursday that EPA approval is unlikely, telling Coram, "I wouldn't count on that."
David White of the Ocean Conservancy, an environmental group, said an extension would not be legal because the original permit was issued to deal with an emergency. That's not really the case anymore, he said.
As for trying to add a second barge, White said, "This is too little, too late."
The DEP took over the Piney Point plant just south of the Hillsborough-Manatee county line two years ago when the owners went bankrupt and walked away.
State officials feared the waste atop the plant's gypsum stacks would accidentally spill into Tampa Bay, devastating the state's largest estuary.
In late 2001, the wastewater had crept so high that DEP officials dumped hundreds of thousands of gallons of partially treated waste into Bishop Harbor, an aquatic preserve at the mouth of Tampa Bay - until local officials found out and protested.
The dumping resumed later, but only after the water was treated with lime to lower the acid content.
In a report Thursday, an environmental consultant hired by DEP, Tony Janicki, said that so far Bishop's Harbor does not appear to have been damaged. But he said some of the credit for that must go to the heavy rains that diluted the pollution.
"If you have a real dry season," he said, "you might run into a problem."
But the rains have been something other than a blessing for Piney Point.
DEP officials persuaded federal officials to approve the rare ocean-dumping permit by pointing out that it would be better than continuing to discharge treated waste into Bishop's Harbor or risking the spill of untreated waste into the bay.
Dumping in the gulf "is not only our last choice, but it may also be our last hope of removing enough water from the abandoned phosphate plant to prevent a catastrophic spill during this hurricane season," DEP Assistant Secretary Allan Bedwell wrote to EPA officials in July.
When the barge made its first trip to the gulf, DEP halted its dumping in Bishop's Harbor.
But heavy summer rains forced the DEP last month to resume dumping into the harbor. So far this year the DEP has dumped nearly 300-million gallons of treated waste there, far more than has been sent to local sewer plants, phosphate plants or the gulf for disposal.
Yet as of Sept. 30, the gypsum stacks at Piney Point still held 537-million gallons of acidic waste. Shutting down those stacks will require ridding the plant of much of that waste before the rainy season begins next spring, a DEP consultant reported.
Hillsborough County Commissioner Jan Platt was particularly critical of the DEP for resuming the Bishop's Harbor discharges while conducting what she called a "half-hearted" effort to barge the waste into the gulf.
"What I'm hearing is that Bishop's Harbor is your ace in the hole, and that's pretty bad," she said.
Most of the discharges into Bishop's Harbor, like those into the gulf, consist of waste treated twice with lime to lower its acid content. What remains is still high in ammonia, a nutrient that can cause harmful algae blooms and fish kills, as well as other pollutants that make it illegal to spread on crops and sod.
- Times staff researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.
