Wastewater Leak at Florida Plant Fuels Federal Oversight Debate

The EPA—not states—should regulate fertilizer waste storage sites, environmental groups say, pointing to problems like those in Florida where a leak in a reservoir wall nearly unleashed millions of gallons of wastewater.

The vast pools of acidic, radioactive wastewater are “environmental disasters waiting to happen,” said Jaclyn Lopez, senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity’s Florida office.

Such pools sit atop huge piles of wastes generated by fertilizer production at about 70 sites across the country, including the Piney Point facility in Manatee County, Fla., near Tampa Bay.

The center and 16 other environmental groups in Florida, Louisiana, Texas, ...