Factory owner fined for' 04 spill
By CRAIG PITTMAN
Published July 2, 2005
Fish-killing wastewater escaped through a broken dike at a Riverview phosphate plant during Hurricane Frances.
The owner of a Riverview phosphate factory has been fined $270,000 over a dike that broke during Hurricane Frances, dumping millions of gallons of acidic wastewater into a nearby creek.
An investigation by state environmental regulators determined that the breach allowed 65-million gallons of waste from a phosphate processing plant to flow into Archie Creek, which leads to Hillsborough Bay.
The spill posed no threat to humans but killed fish and other sea life and may have damaged fragile mangroves and sea grass beds. A federal-state investigation is continuing and could lead to more penalties.
The fine, announced Friday by the state Department of Environmental Protection, covers only the factory's violations of state water quality standards by allowing the waste to flow unchecked into the creek. The waste, which is both slightly acidic and radioactive, violated standards for arsenic, heavy metals and a variety of other pollutants.
The DEP can levy fines of as much as $10,000 per day for each violation, agency spokeswoman Cragin Mosteller said.
DEP levied the fine against Mosaic, the largest phosphate producer in the world, with annual revenues of $4.5-billion.
Mosaic was formed last year when Cargill Crop Nutrition, which owned the Riverview plant, merged with industry giant IMC-Global.
"We hoped we would not have a fine," said Mosaic vice president Gray Gordon, pointing out the company has spent $30-million so far to improve safety systems and avoid a repeat of last year's spill. "We feel like we have taken all the appropriate steps."
Nevertheless, Gordon said, Mosaic will not appeal the fine, which is part of a settlement of the DEP enforcement case.
The settlement also calls for Mosaic to spend another $10-million to enhance evaporation and treatment systems that will allow the Riverview factory to hold at least 41 inches of rainfall.
Factories producing fertilizer from phosphate also churn out a radioactive byproduct called phosphogypsum. To dispose of it, the phosphate industry stacks it into white sandy mountains, and stores wastewater in ponds atop the stacks.
At the Riverview plant, 18 inches of above-average rainfall in July and August 2004 left the plant holding more than 300-million gallons more wastewater than usual atop its 100-foot-high gypsum stack. DEP officials sent the company letters warning it should reduce the excess.
Then, when Hurricane Frances hit, waves driven by the storm bashed a hole in the dike's southwest corner, causing the spill.
Company officials tried to neutralize the acidic water by mixing in lime, but they ran out. In addition, a pump used in the mixing process broke down.
The spill occurred just a month after the Alafia River Basin Board honored the company for its restoration of 4 miles of company-owned coastline. The board said it provided "significant environmental benefits to the Tampa Bay estuary."
It was not the first time a gypsum stack pond has spilled waste. During heavy rains in December 1997, a dike broke and 55-million gallons of the water poured into the Alafia River near Mulberry in Polk County. The spill killed more than 1-million fish. The owner, Mulberry Phosphates, promised to spend millions to make up for the error. Instead, it went out of business.
The same company owned another plant with a gypsum stack in Manatee County, in an area known as Piney Point. When Mulberry went out of business, the DEP wound up taking over the plant and dumping waste into Bishop Harbor.
Ultimately, to get rid of as much as possible before hurricanes hit, the state got federal permission in 2003 to dump 240-million gallons of Piney Point's waste into the Gulf of Mexico.