State to close Piney Point after phosphate mine leak
MANATEE COUNTY, Fla. – The state is going to shut down Piney Point after the phosphate mine leaked last week, Gov. DeSantis announced at a news conference on Tuesday.
“We want this to be the last chapter of the Piney Point story,” DeSantis said.
DeSantis announced that he is redirecting $15.4 million from existing appropriations at DEP to be used for technologies to pretreat water at the site for nutrients. In the event that more discharges are needed as the plant shuts down, pretreating the water would help reduce harmful algal blooms and fish kills, he said. He further...