Lawmakers secure millions for Piney Point cleanup, other Manatee County projects

A potential environmental disaster looming over the Piney Point phosphate plant that defined a portion of the 2021 legislative session prompted state lawmakers to secure $100 million to permanently close the site.

The money to clean up the former phosphate plant in Manatee County is all coming from federal relief funds that the state is expecting to get from President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan. Those dollars are folded into Florida’s record $101.5 billion spending plan for the upcoming 2020-21 fiscal year, which is awaiting approval — and possible vetoes — from Gov. Ron DeSantis.

DeSantis is very unlikely to veto the Piney Point money. He has already come out in support of cleaning the site, after a leak was detected in a wastewater pond there, threatening to flood the area with hundreds of millions of gallons of polluted water. Hundreds of Manatee County homes and the first floor of the county jail were evacuated while officials scrambled to pump the wastewater from the site.

Under the state budget, the Department of Environmental Protection would have control over the $100 million and may use it to address the “environmental impacts either directly or indirectly related to the emergency response and site closure.”

“I am absolutely thrilled that the project has been funded,” said Commissioner Vanessa Baugh, chairwoman of the Manatee County Board of Commissioners. ‘For me, it is a dream come true that we’re going to have Piney Point taken care of. … It’s really a shame we had to wait and have a massive leak because that just added so much more to the cost involved.”

Baugh said she believes the $100 million “could be more than enough to get the site closed.”

Manatee County projects

▪ Moccasin Wallow Road Expansion Segment 1 phase 2, $3.6 million

▪ State College of Florida, Manatee-Sarasota construction for Science & Technology building, $2.9 million

▪ Safe & secure campus — Jewish Federation Sarasota Manatee, $1 million

▪ Manatee Schools STEM Career Pathways Pilot, $950,000

▪ State College of Florida, Manatee-Sarasota Nursing Center of Excellence, $250,000

▪ Manatee County Rural Health Services, $82,283

Bradenton Herald reporter Ryan Callihan contributed to this report.

This story was originally published May 4, 2021 at 6:00 AM.