The end may finally be near for cleanup of a toxic industrial site that triggered a public emergency and environmental crisis on Florida’s Gulf Coast five years ago.
Piney Point, an abandoned fertilizer processing plant in north Manatee County on the edge of Tampa Bay, is approaching the end of a state-supervised remediation effort. The plan aims to address contamination that the phosphate industry left behind — and prevent it from ever causing another catastrophe.
In April 2021, a tear in the liner of the site’s largest holding pond threatened to breach and flood surrounding homes with a wall of polluted water up to 20 feet high. To prevent disaster, the state ordered an emergency discharge into Tampa Bay…