Four days after the declaration of a state of emergency, a former phosphate processing plant in Manatee County, Florida, continues to leak and is on the verge of a “catastrophic” collapse. But for those who live inside or outside the evacuation zone of the Piney Point reservoir, they say there is little communication from the authorities and their current situation is like “living at the base of an active volcano”.
Melissa Fitzsimmons lives on five acres of land just one block from the border of the evacuation zone in Palmetto, Florida. She told CBS News on Monday that officials did not keep her family up to date on the situation and that they had to resort to local news for information about what was happening just a few miles away. To go to her home, she said, they need to show their identities to the police to prove where they live.
Fitzsimmons said she and her husband are “absolutely terrified” of what could happen if the facility collapses, especially because of their baby.
“When we heard about it [this incident], it was like you were almost in the evacuation zone, “she said.” When we saw on the map how close he was to me, my stomach churned. I have a 19-month-old daughter … Honestly, I feel ashamed and very angry that this is happening. ”
On Monday, officials told reporters that the leaks have not yet been corrected. Additional pumps are being moved to the site to help pump additional water through the end of the day. Acting Manatee County administrator Scott Hopes said he expected to pump between 75 and 100 million gallons of water a day, starting late Monday.
Breaks were detected along the east wall of the facility, and last night, a drone with thermal images detected what could be a second breach in the southern reservoir, which engineers are investigating. The most visible gap remains the one along the southeast corner, where water can be seen flowing continuously.
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Not everyone living in the evacuation zone, however, has left.
Sari Lindroos lives inside the evacuation zone and described a very typical Monday scene to CBS News.
“People were going to work, walk the dogs,” said Lindroos. “I asked the neighbors if they plan to leave, they said [there’s] Nowhere to go. ”
Nobody was in a panic, Lindroos said, and the only thing that seemed strange was that FedEx trucks were not on their usual routes. Authorities did not provide Lindroos’ family with information about the situation, they said, and this generated skepticism about the gravity of the situation.
Inmates at Manatee County Jail, which is less than two miles from Piney Point, have not all been removed. On Sunday, the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office told CBS News that 345 inmates would be moved to a new facility to “free up bed space for the remaining 721 inmates at the top level” of the prison. On Monday, however, the office told CBS News that only 267 were transferred to a correctional facility in Polk County “based on risk factors involving the classification of inmates”.
“MPs are working to get 34 additional prisoners awaiting prison sentences (currently on hold due to COVID protocols) to be transferred to the Florida Department of Corrections,” the office said. “As an additional precaution, we have the ability to move another 200 inmates to another facility (not disclosed at this time), if necessary.”
Others in the area tweeted about the situation. One woman said that her family chose to stay at home, despite being in the evacuation zone, because they were not comfortable leaving the cattle to “take care of themselves”.
A major concern for Fitzsimmons now is to have safe and reliable water. Many of the homes in her area, she told CBS News, have a well.
“Normally, being in a waterhole is incredible because it is fed by a spring in Florida, so for our purposes, we are extremely concerned because it is a private well.”
Manatee County officials said on Sunday that water from the well is not affected “as long as the emissary continues to flow safely to Piney Creek”.
“If a breach occurs, we believe that the surface layers of dirt and soil will safely filter out any harmful nutrients near the surface. In addition, if an uncontrolled breach occurs, the Department of Health will issue all necessary warnings about the safety of the water well” , the authorities said.
Fitzsimmons said they received a toxicological report on the water when they moved to the area four years ago, and everything went “beautifully”, but she said that as soon as she learned of the situation on Saturday, she asked for another test. Regardless of the results, however, she said she does not trust how the authorities are handling the situation.
“They keep saying, ‘oh, we are so concerned about the breach,” said Fitzsimmons, “but the biggest breach is the breach of trust between the local community and the government and the private company that owns the location.”
She said she does not think their home will necessarily be flooded and, if there is a problem, they have a family just a few miles away, but Fitzsimmons and her husband are concerned about what this could mean for health and the environment. The hurricane season is just two months away, and the Florida Gulf Coast often becomes a target along the path of storms.
“Even if it’s an inch of this water in your yard, would you like an inch of water like that in your yard?” she said. “It is not the flood that we are concerned with now. We are more concerned with the long-term lasting effect, if it violates or even if it does not violate … It is just so irresponsible.”
“There will be many questions and many decisions that we will have to make,” she added. “And a lot of people need to give us answers.”
On Monday, Florida representative Vern Buchanan, who has long tried to raise awareness and oversight of the former phosphate processing plant, said at a news conference that he shares the concerns of many local residents. He said he flew over the site in a helicopter and that the water appeared “very contaminated”.
He helped coordinate the involvement of the Environmental Protection Agency, as well as the Army Corps of Engineers. Until their involvement, employees relied on third-party engineers through HRK Holdings to deal with the situation.
“Enough,” Buchanan told reporters. “… We cannot continue with more than a billion gallons of contaminated water in this region … It is really worrying that we are not dealing with these things.”
Buchanan asked the EPA to get involved in October, asking the EPA Regional Administrator, Kathy Walker, to enforce federal rules on the storage and cleaning of hazardous materials. Since the Piney Point plant was opened in 1966 and abandoned in 2001, he said in a press release, “several stakeholders have not reached an agreement on a solution to safely drain the property’s plasterboard piles.”
He warned Walker that the area “faces a potential environmental nightmare” as lakes filled with water and toxic piles of plaster waste were “approaching maximum capacity”.
“The contaminated water from an abandoned phosphate processing plant is threatening to leak into our region’s water supply,” Buchanan wrote to Walker, according to a press release. “Federal oversight is urgently needed to ensure the safe management and disposal of contaminated water and to prevent an environmental disaster.”
Residents like Fitzsimmons also told CBS News that they are concerned about new housing developments that have become commonplace in the area in an attempt to sell the place to new residents. Several new developments in the area can be easily found on Zillow and other home search sites.
“They are really promoting this area as an incredible place for families,” said Fitzsimmons. “People are moving into this area and it is expanding rapidly. And there is no awareness of how close it is, how big the environmental and health impact is. [the phosphate facility] could have had, just for existing. There is no awareness of this in the local community that I have seen. ”
“All of our quality of life has been destroyed. We cannot feel safe,” she said. “… They are pushing and trying to make this area look so attractive to live in, knowing that there is a time bomb right here. It is like living at the base of an active volcano that you didn’t even know existed.”