Leak at Piney Point raises fears of red tide in Tampa Bay
Marine scientists and local fishermen are worried about the negative impacts the Piney Point leak will have on Tampa Bay water quality. It could lead to algae blooms.
Hoping to avoid a catastrophic flood at Piney Point, officials have already sent nearly 200 million gallons of contaminated water flowing into Tampa Bay — an action that might trade one potential disaster for another.
Shortly after a leak was detected in a pond that held 480 million gallons of water, state leaders approved an emergency discharge, hoping to empty the pool before it burst wide open, potentially sending a 20-foot surge of water into the surrounding area.
The odds of that happening have eased but now the risks are raised for the bay’s marine life, everything from sea grass to sea turtles.
As a former phosphate processing plant, Piney Point
contains three massive ponds of polluted water. Technically known as “process water” because it was used to help run the machinery, it is high in nutrients like nitrogen, phosphorous and ammonia.
As that nutrient-rich water gets into the bay, marine biologists and local fishermen fear it will fuel algae blooms that can trigger fish kills and damage the entire marine ecosystem. It may take weeks, one scientist said, before the full impact becomes clear.
“It’s such a sad situation because Tampa Bay has had a long history of nitrogen pollution,” said Todd Crowl, executive director of the Florida International University’s Institute of Environment. “These extra nutrients restore a sort of balance for the algae, so even when organisms like red tide aren’t flourishing, all of a sudden you dump a bunch of phosphorous in and you’re adding dessert to their meal,” he added.
A new harmful algae bloom could impact marine life, human health and local tourism’s bottom line. In an interview with the Bradenton Herald, charter fishing captain Justin Moore, who has made a living on the water for more than 20 years, said he’s worried about his business but is more concerned with the wildlife.
“We lose business because of it,” Moore said. “We’ve dealt with it in the past in different scenarios. We work around it. The most important thing for us — we will survive — but it’s really hard to watch the ecosystem go through this. It’s hard on all of us to watch that.”
Algae blooms are nothing new in Florida. State waters are filled with a variety of naturally occurring microscopic plants that usually go unnoticed. But dump excess nutrients into the system from urban, farm or industry pollution and algae can explode. The impacts also can linger.
The last time Southwest Florida dealt with a bloom of red tide, for instance, it lasted for months, leading to fish kills, respiratory irritation for humans and a devastated local service economy.
Moore’s father, Scott, has been on the water twice as long. Over the years, he’s watched Tampa Bay’s water quality continue to sink. He described parts of the bay that are no longer recognizable.
“My biggest fear is it creating that. It’s definitely going to create algae blooms, and we’re going to have problems with growth,” Scott said of the wastewater entering the bay near Port Manatee.
“Bishop Harbor at one time was very pristine. I’ve been a resident of Manatee County since the ’50s and in the ’60s; Bishop Harbor was an incredible estuary. It’s recovered a little bit, but it looks like we’re revisiting again.”
There are several kinds of algae in marine waters. Blue-green algae and red tide algae are some of the more commonly known species. In general, algae blooms suck up oxygen in the water and tend to rise to the surface of the water and block the sunlight that other marine life needs to survive.
For instance, algae tend to compete with sea grass, which has been a primary focus of restoration efforts in and around Tampa Bay. Sea grass is a food source as well as a key source of oxygen in the water. Sea grass also improves water quality by stabilizing the sand on the seafloor. Without access to sunlight, sea grass tends to die off, leaving less food, less oxygen and less shelter for everything from fish to crabs to dolphins.
“We cannot take any more loss. We need it for the fish larvae. We need it for the small fish, for habitat,” Justin Moore said. “The manatees need it for food. It’s a big, big problem for our manatee population. That’s another big concern of ours.”
As locals brace for what comes next, Tom Frankovich,
an algae expert and assistant research professor at FIU’s Institute of Environment, predicted that a bloom could still be three weeks away. “With some rough calculations, I’d say 21 days. That assumes optimal conditions, such as high temperatures and lots of light,” he said. “That’s a theoretical estimate, but what happens in nature is a whole different story.”
Based on conditions in Tampa Bay as of Wednesday morning, there’s some hope that the bloom might not be so bad. Water temperatures are low and the wind and currents could make it difficult for algae to form a bloom.
Researchers said the Florida Department of Environmental Protection made the right call by pumping the nutrient-rich water out into a part of the bay where the water is deep and there’s lots of movement.
In an interview with the Bradenton Herald, FDEP Secretary Noah Valenstein said that was their reasoning — to get the dirty water out into an open environment that could better mitigate the impact.
“You get more dilution,” Frankovich said. “You get more flushing. If you put it in a smaller body of water, it’s less diluted and it’s not going to build upon itself.”
But as the days go on, natural factors such as water temperature, wind conditions and the amount of sunlight are going to be critical in determining whether a bloom pops up.
“Water temperature is an important driver,” Crowl said. “If it gets really warm, you’re certainly going to see algae blooms. You could see a red tide event.”
FDEP has also committed to monitoring the water seven days a week in several locations to keep track of any impact to local water quality. Those measurements, Valenstein said, will be used to hold HRK Holdings, LLC, the company in charge of Piney Point, financially accountable for any damage to the environment.
“We will monetarily hold the company accountable for any impacts on our environment,” he said. “Piney Point has a long story with many chapters to it. It’s our commitment to make sure this is the last chapter and last story about this site.”
That may be difficult as the company is already in bankruptcy, declared when it said it could not afford to clean up a previous spill in 2011.
The department’s water quality results are published online at ProtectingFlorida Together.gov/PineyPoint Update, but according to Larry Brand, a professor of marine biology and ecology at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, there’s still not enough information to determine what the impact could be on Tampa Bay.
Some of FDEP’s latest samples are still pending results on key measures — ammonia, nitrogen and phosphorous — that could affect algae growth. Until then, it’s tough to say how algae might respond to the contaminated water.
In an update provided Wednesday, the agency announced that some of their tests have begun to show an elevated level of phosphorous near Port Manatee.
Following a tour of the Piney Point site on Tuesday morning, Florida’s Commissioner of Agriculture Nikki Fried said she was also directing staff to put together a remediation plan to repair the bay after the emergency discharge. Fried added that she hopes to put together a plan that addresses other phosphogypsum stacks in Florida that pose similar threats to water quality.