Florida reservoir leak puts ecosystems at risk

Abstract

Florida governor Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency April 3 as wastewater from Piney Point, an old phosphate-processing plant, threatened to breach one of its three holding ponds. The state began pumping water out of the pond to reduce the risk of flooding should the reservoir’s leaking lining cause the pond walls to fail. The reservoir’s levels are now low enough that the risk of catastrophic flooding has passed. According to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), workers continue to pump more than 35 million gal (about 132 million L) of the water per day into Tampa Bay. This large discharge has raised concerns among many scientists that conditions are ripe for harmful algal blooms and long-term ecological damage to the bay. The three wastewater ponds at Piney Point are filled with a combination of stormwater runoff, water used to process phosphate at the now-defunct plant, and seawater