From Abandoned Phosphate Plant to Eco-Friendly Industrial Park
Piney Point Transformed to Eastport

On a clear day you can see Tropicana Field from the top of the closed gyp stacks at Eastport. Fully lined, the stacks will be used to store dredged material from Port Manatee.

It’s a totally different view from the highest point in Manatee County today than in November 2001 when bay managers faced a potentially catastrophic spill of nearly a billion gallons of highly acidic and nutrient-laden water into pristine Bishop Harbor. Forced to release 10 million gallons to prevent the stacks from collapsing, they discharged water carrying three times the annual nitrogen budget to the poorly circulating harbor and caused a significant algae bloom.

Eight years, over 1.6 billion gallons of wastewater and $140 million later, the abandoned phosphate plant at Piney Point has been transformed to Eastport, a fast-track industrial park being developed by a New York investment group that’s attracting attention from businesses across the country even as the real estate market lags.

“We probably have one or two companies a week get past the telephone and email stage and actually walk in the door,” says Arthur Roth, a principal in HRK Holdings LLC. “The site almost sells itself because you have Port Manatee, the interstate and rail all right here. Yesterday we met with a company headquartered in Hawaii with offices in Ontario, Kansas and California – it was the first time they’d been in the area.”

Two sites already are leased: the storage shed that once housed diammonium phosphate now stores up to 46,000 tons of salt imported from Chile for industrial uses throughout south Florida. A nearby 32-acre site surrounded by a separate stormwater system holds slag, a byproduct of iron production that is used to make concrete.

Photo: Jeff Barath

Up to 46,000 tons of Chilean salt are now being stored in the former fertilizer facility.

And the gyp stacks that caused countless sleepless nights for bay managers are now empty and lined with 80 mil high-density plastic. With an anticipated capacity of about 14 million cubic yards, they’ll hold 25 to 30 years worth of dredged material from expansions and maintenance work at Port Manatee, piped under US 41 at up to 40,000 gallons per minute in a very cost-efficient operation.

Over the very long term, Roth would like to see a wind farm developed atop the filled-in stacks. “It’s 1.3 miles from water and 86 feet high so there’s always a breeze there – and FPL’s main transmission lines run adjacent to the site.” But that’s a long-term dream. “We haven’t done any feasibility studies yet, I’d just like to see some kind of green energy developed on the site.”

Greening Piney Point
While the Florida Department of Environmental Protection is still wrapping up the final details on closing the gyp stacks, HRK has focused on cleaning up the site. More than 20 million pounds of metal has been recycled, from steel beams used in constructing the original phosphate beneficiation plant built by Borden Chemical Company in 1966 to abandoned automobiles.

“Borden didn’t spare a dime when they built this plant,” says Jeff Barath, manager for HRK who started working at Piney Point in 2004 as a consultant to a FDEP subcontractor. “We’ve recycled so much steel that chances are good that your new Ford or Toyota includes a little bit of metal from Piney Point.”

Recycling the material from demolished buildings was harder than just knocking them down and hauling scrap off to the dump, but it did help cover the cost of demolition, he adds.

Largely neglected for decades, the site itself was covered in dense stands of Brazilian peppers and other exotics. “We attacked that in 25-by-25-foot blocks at a time and tried to do two or three a day,” Barath said. “It was so thick we discovered 16 trucks and a crane that someone had somehow lost.”

Funded primarily through severance taxes paid by other Florida phosphate companies, the redevelopment of Piney Point is the “Cadillac of restoration,” Barath said. The sealed stacks are surrounded by lined dykes that drain to a separate 10-acre pond to ensure that any contaminants that may leach from stacks are captured onsite. The rest of the 660-acre site has been sculpted using satellite-controlled bulldozers to direct all stormwater into a central area where it is monitored before it is released.

“DEP truly doesn’t get enough credit for what they’ve done here,” Barath said.

Never Again
And while managers proved that even a large-scale disaster could be prevented with enough time and money, Piney Point also changed the way the state governs phosphate operations. Regulations enacted since then require an annual review of the cost of closing each of the 28 remaining gyp stakes in the state, audited annual financial statements with quarterly financial statements that meet accepted accounting principles and immediate notification if the owner or operator defaults on other obligations. The regulations also impose criminal penalties for misrepresenting the financial condition of a phosphogypsum stack owner or operator.

Separate regulations require that gyp stacks can accommodate the equivalent of a 100-year storm, even after multiple years of heavier-than-normal rainfall and establish water level targets to determine whether water consumption and treatment levels are sufficient.

Win-Win
The redevelopment of Piney Point is the classic case of taking lemons and making lemonade, Barath said. The prime site will provide hundreds of well-paying jobs into the future and support the growth of Port Manatee. “Port Manatee makes money when they move goods on or off ships, so having available land developed with private dollars supports the port without requiring public dollars.”