Item T11
Board of County Commissioners
Agenda Item Summary
Meeting Date: October 15, 2003
Bulk Item: Yes [FJ No [J
Division: Board of County Commissioners
Department: George R. Neugent
AGENDA ITEM WORDING:
Approval of a resolution of the Board of County Commissioners of Monroe County, Florida
urging the legislature to enact new laws regarding criminal liability laws for falsifying
individual financial statements ad pollution/hazardous material reports.
ITEM BACKGROUND:
PREVIOUS RELEVANT BOCC ACTION:
CONTRACT/ AGREEMENT CHANGES:
STAFF RECOMMENDATIONS:
TOTAL COST:
BUDGETED: YES [J NO [J
COST TO COUNTY: $
~f\
Source of Funds:
REVENUE PRODUCING: YES [J NO [J AMT PER MONTH:
YEAR:
APPROVED BY: COUNTY ATTY 0 OMS/PURCHASING [J RISK MANAGEMENT 0
APPROVAL: '1Wl ~ ~~e.-1 /n~kt.AJ
Commi ioner GEORG R. N€U-G~NT
DISTRICT II
DOCUMENTATION: INCLUDED B" TO FOLLOW 0 NOT REQUIRED [J
DISPosmON:
AGENDA ITEM #
~
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Commissioner Neugent
RESOlUTION NO.
- 2003
A RESOUITION OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF MONROE
COUNTY, FLORIDA URGING THE LEGISLATURE TO ENACT NEW LAWS
REGARDING CRIMINAL LIABILItY LAWS FOR FALSIFYING INDIVIDUAL
FINANaAL STATEMENTS AND POLLUTION/HAZAROOUS MATERIAL
REPORTS.
WHEREAS, without an enforceable requirement for financial security bonds or other surety
sufficient to secure the safe closure of phosphate processing facilities and properly dispose of all
toxic, hazardous and other unsafe materials on site there is no efficient method to ensure that
safe closure for the long term;
WHEREAS, without such provisions the emergency situation that occurred at the Piney
Point facility will inevitably happen again; and
WHEREAS, to focus the executive mind there should be criminal liability laws sufficient to
hold corporate officials liable and criminally responsible for falsifying individually financial
statanents and pollution/Hazardous Material reports; now therefore
BE IT RESOLVED THAT THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF MONROE
COUNTY, FLORIDA hereby strongly urges the Legislature to enact new laws to hold corporate
officials liable and criminally responsible tor falSifying individually financial statements and
pollution/hazardous material reports.
PASSED AND ADOPTED by the Board of County CommiSSioners of Monroe County, Florida,
at a regular muting of said Board held on the 15th day of October, 2003.
MlJyor Spehar
Mayor Pro Tem Nelson
Commissioner McCoy
CommiSSioner Neugent
Commissioner Rice
(SEAL)
Attest: OANNY L.KOLHAGE, Clerk
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
OF MONROE COUNTY, FLORIO A
By
By
Deputy Clerk
jresphotphcl'e
Mayor/Chairperson
MONROE COUNTY ATTORNEY
PP F M:
')tate: DEP let phosphate waste flow into preserve
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=::ft5:?l Exmail thi~ -Gtorv 5. P.,"int thia. '5tOr-y
DEP let phosphate waste flow into
preserve
State officials sayan old Manatee
phosphate plant had to release the
tainted water or risk a spill.
By CRAIG PITTMAN
<<J St. Petersburg Times,
published November 22,2001
The state agency in charge of protecting Florida's
environment has allowed the dumping of millions of
gallons of waste from a shuttered Manatee County
phosphate plant into an aquatic preserve at the mouth
of Tampa Bay.
Since Oct. 22, the state Department of Environmental
Protection has allowed the Piney Point Phosphates
plant to pump 10-million gallons of water with
elevated levels of acid and nitrogen into Bishop
Harbor, just north of the Sunshine Skyway bridge.
"That's an aquatic preserve, very pristine grass beds --
everything we want the bay to have," said Suzanne
Cooper of the Agency on Bay Management, an arm of
the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council. "This is
very bad news."
DEP officials say they had little choice but to allow the
plant to discharge the treated water after Tropical
Storm Gabrielle dumped more than 18 inches of rain
on the area in mid September. The storm caused so
much flooding at the phosphate plant that it raised
fears of an accidental spill of highly acidic, untreated
water that could have killed thousands of fish and
wreaked untold environmental damage on the bay.
"Obviously nobody wanted to do the treat-and-
discharge, but the choice was between that or an
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1011 /2003
Slale: DEp. let phosphate waste flow into preserve
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uncontrolled discharge," said Janet Llewellyn, DEP's
deputy director of water resource management.
DEP officials abruptly halted pumping Monday after
local officials raised concerns about the effects on
water quality in the Terra Ceia Aquatic Preserve and
the bay -- and about the fact that DEP had not notified
most of them about what was going on.
Not even the aquatic preserve's own personnel, who
work for DEP, were aware ofthe pumping, Llewellyn
said.
"Now we're trying to get everybody better
coordinated," she said.
After a month of pumping up to 500,000 gallons a day
from the plant, the waters of Bishop Harbor have
become "a little murky," said Rob Brown, Manatee
County's water quality administrator.
During the fall and winter "the tides are not as strong
and the harbor doesn't flush as well," he explained. If
the nitrogen persists into the summer, it could lead to
an algae bloom and fish kills, he said.
Brown questioned why DEP was not better prepared
for Gabrielle, noting that other phosphate plants in
Manatee County did not experience similar problems.
He said Manatee officials had urged DEP to prepare
for the rainy season, but Llewellyn said she was not
aware of any such warnings.
DEP's emergency order allowing the pumping, signed
Oct. 16 by Secretary David Struhs, called for sending
up to 68-million gallons of water from the plant into
Bishop Harbor over six months, although Brown said,
"I don't know if we could've handled 120 days of this."
But the court-appointed receiver overseeing the plant's
operation, Tampa attorney Louis Timchak, predicted
the pumping will resume at some point.
"We've stopped it temporarily, and we're looking at the
options that are available," Timchak said. But he
added that daily monitoring shows that so far "there
has been no algae bloom and no fish kill."
Piney Point has a long history of environmental
disasters, dating back to the fish kills and cattle
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State: D~P let phosphate waste flow into preserve
poisonings that occurred after it opened in the 1960s.
During the next 20 years its owners were repeatedly
fined after discharges killed trees and forced the
hospitalization of workers.
In 1989, a sulfuric acid spill forced the evacuation of
hundreds of people. Two years later three workers died
in industrial accidents at the plant, and the accidental
release of a toxic cloud of sulfur gases sickened more
than a dozen nearby residents.
The plant's last owner closed it in 1999 and went
bankrupt. But it still contains a mountain range of
phospho gypsum stacks, which hold the highly acidic
water. Pumps keep it circulating within the mounds to
prevent it from leaking into the groundwater. Because
of the bankruptcy, this year Florida Power & Light
threatened to turn off electricity to the pumps, which
could have resulted in a spill. So the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency took over the plant,
then handed oversight to DEP.
DEP wants to seal off the stacks completely but must
await a decision by a bankruptcy judge before that can
happen, Timchak said.
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10/1/2003
Slate Pla~s Belated Phosphate Protection - from Tampa Bay Online
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State Plans Belated Phosphate Protection
By MIKE SALlNERO msalinero@tampatrib.com
Published: Sep 20, 2003
TALLAHASSEE - It's too late for
Piney Point, but state environmental
regulators are ready to put tough
new financial requirements on
phosphate companies to cover
future disposal of abandoned
phosphogypsum stacks.
David Struhs, secretary of the state
Department of Environmental
Protection, said Friday that the
agency will use its rule-making
authority to require more stringent
financial guarantees. The phosphate
companies also will have to supply
the DEP with engineering plans in
case gypsum stacks have to be
closed before their permits expire.
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State taxpayers were left
shouldering a $160 million cleanup
at the abandoned Piney Point
phosphate processing plant in Manatee County when the owners went bankrupt in
August 2001. The state has to reduce massive stacks of gypsum, a radioactive
byproduct of fertilizer production, and remove 1.3 billion gallons of acidic wastewater
from the closed plant on the banks of lower Tampa Bay.
Existing rules allow companies to supply the DEP with an audited statement that
shows they have the ability to pay for closing their gypsum stacks. In the case of
Mulberry Corp., which owned Piney Point and a plant in Mulberry in Polk County, the
company ran out of money during a downturn in the phosphate industry, said John
Alden, a DEP attorney.
.. And during that time the cost associated with removing the gyp stacks exceeded
revenues," Alden said. "The company went through all their liquid assets and failed."
Alden said the audited statement test no longer will be allowed for new gypsum
stacks. Companies with stacks may use the audited statement as guarantees, but
the DEP will tighten the rules governing those statements.
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)talc Plant) Belated Phosphate Protection - from Tampa Bay Online
Page 20f2
~ The DEP also will provide incentives for companies to adopt advanced technologies
News to treat and reduce the amount of water at plant sites.
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The agency held discussions with the phosphate industry as it developed the
proposed rules, but industry representatives didn't see the final product until
Thursday, said Mary Lou Rajchel, president of the Florida Phosphate Council. She
said the industry is evaluating the proposal.
The DEP will hold a workshop on the new rules Oct. 22 in Bartow. It can be seen at
www.dep.state.f1.us/water/mineslrules.htm .
Phosphate bills with strengthened financial assurance measures stalled in the
Legislature this year but will be resurrected in March. Sen. J.D. Alexander, R-Lake
Wales, who sponsored one of the bills, said it would complement the new DEP rules.
"From the beginning, DEP told us they thought they had in their rule-making
authority, without a bill, the ability to really tighten up and stop another Mulberry
[Corp.] from happening," Alexander said.
Alexander's bill also would provide criminal penalties for phosphate managers who
misrepresent finances. And it would increase the phosphate severance tax to beef up
a fund used to reclaim mined-out phosphate land. The money in the fund has been
depleted to pay for Piney Point.
In April, federal officials gave the state permission to dump more than a half-billion
gallons of wastewater from Piney Point into the Gulf of Mexico. The previous
disposal method of treating the water and piping it into Bishop's Harbor had not been
adequate.
But authorities resumed dumping water from the defunct plant into the harbor this
month to avoid a spill.
Reporter Mike Salinero can be reached at (850) 222-8382.
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1011 /2003