TAMPA, FLA. -- About 41 million gallons of acidic wastewater has been spilled by fertilizer company Cargill Crop Nutrition into a tributary of Tampa's Hillsborough Bay as Hurricane Frances swept through the area.
The unit of Minnetonka-based Cargill Inc. said Monday that water had stopped flowing through a reservoir breach that occurred during the storm Sunday. But although workers were pumping the overflow elsewhere on its property, Archie Creek continued to receive a discharge that local authorities said could amount to millions of additional gallons.
"It's a serious spill," company Vice President Gray Gordon said. "We're very upset about this, very concerned."
The environmental threat is to fish and other wildlife in and around Archie Creek and Hillsborough Bay, not to people, pets or livestock in the area. In Cargill's view, though, the spill was about as bad as it gets -- an unexpected event that the company wasn't unable to contain.
An overflow ditch couldn't handle the spill, and for a while the company ran out of a caustic solution used to buffer acidity in the escaping wastewater. Then, crews couldn't begin to make repairs because the lingering storm made work along the berm too risky.
What began as a 6-foot-wide gash created by storm-driven waves in the reservoir at midday Sunday, grew quickly to 30 feet across, and finally to 50 feet, Cargill said.
Phosphate wastewater is high in nitrogen and phosphorus, which enables algae to thrive. That can reduce the amount of oxygen in the water, killing marine life.
Rick Garrity, director of Hillsborough County's Environmental Protection Commission, said it could be days or weeks before a solid assessment is available.
"Hopefully, they buffered a significant amount of the discharge, but I understand a lot went into Archie Creek unbuffered," he said. "If we find significant impact, we'll keep following up."Associated Press
