Tampa Bay Red Tide Investigation - Piney Point Aftermath (Pt.2)

The spectre of red tide finally came to Tampa Bay in the worst algae bloom event the area has ever seen. The red tide inside Tampa Bay slaughtered millions of animals, including: dolphins, turtles, birds, manatees, and countless fish and shellfish. The devastation was so bad in some places that the air was unbreathable. The city of Saint Petersburg was literally using heavy equipment to haul out dead goliath grouper off the city beaches. I saw all manners of fish dead, dead turtles, horse shoe crabs, dead manatees, dead dolphins. I've never seen so much devastation and loss of life before, I'll never forget it. The hand of Death on our Shores.

Nearly the entire coast of Pinellas County from Saint Pete Beach to Clearwater was getting fish kills from the red tide. The air irritated the lungs, eyes, and nose. Even driving over the skyway bridge, you can still smell the stench of dead fish in the air.

The story goes way back a couple of decades to when the Florida DEP was responsible for the land at Piney Point Phosphate plant. The gypsum stacks that remain hold hundreds of millions of gallons of phosphate and nitrogen laden waste water. The State had a plan to place dredging materials from the Port Manatee expansion project into the gypsum stacks at Piney Point nearby. However, their own engineers said that these stacks were not engineered to hold such materials. The state sold the land to HRK holdings, who used the land for other industrial purposes, will the port manatee project in mind. The dredge material was pumped into the stacks at Piney Point. Afterwards, a leak in the gypsum stack formed, spilling contaminated water into Bishops Harbor. There was a huge fish kill.

Flash Forward to 2021. Another leak forms and this time they are concerned that the entire containment stack is going to fail and flood the surrounding area. The decision was made to release over 200 million gallons of phosphogypsum waste water into Tampa Bay. The red tide that followed was the worst the Tampa Bay Area had ever seen in terms of size and death toll.

Please, lets ban together and hold those to blame accountable.

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Many thanks to local and national news outlets such as ABC, NBC, and FOX news for creating the reporting and investigation videos seen here.

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