“Life’s a beach” is one motto on Anna Maria Island.
So is “get ’er done,” a saying I’d not heard until I went to work for The Islander about 15 years ago.
A lot of folks I know are more in the “get ’er done” mindset these days.
They’re righting a struggling business or organization more than a year into the coronavirus pandemic.
They’re lining up for their vaccines or arranging for friends and family to get a shot.
They’re balancing, juggling, striving.
And, looking out for the best interests of Anna Maria Island and the surrounding waters, they’re rallying to act in response to an environmental crisis at Piney Point.
Piney Point in northeast Manatee County is the site of a defunct phosphate production operation. The plant ceased operations in 1999 and has since been managed to maintain and monitor the pollution left behind — a radioactive phosphogypsum stack and wastewater containment system.
In late March, the site management found a leak in the containment system and, seeking to avoid a catastrophic collapse of the system, asked the state to authorize the release of polluted water — a mix of seawater, rainwater and wastewater that contains phosphorous, nitrogen and other materials.
You’ll hear and read references to this water being “nutrient-rich” but pollution isn’t like fresh produce and nutrient-rich is no bonus.
So island officials are ready and on watch. Anna Maria commissioners voted April 8 to declare a local state of emergency while Holmes Beach officials are creating a water quality committee.
The Anna Maria Island Chamber of Commerce is sending out updates regarding Piney Point just as it stepped up to disseminate information last spring when the pandemic hit.
Island businesses are providing an assist, lobbying, educating.
How many of us watched via Twitter as Chuck Wolfe, CEO of the Chiles Group of restaurants on Anna Maria Island and Longboat Key and a Parrish farm, guided Florida Agriculture Nikki Fried on Piney Point and the importance of water quality to “Fresh from Florida” business.
“We’re watching the water rise. We’re watching the quality change,” Wolfe said. “We’re doing our part. …The involvement of business, the involvement of the government, the involvement to making sure that the for the entire state this is important.”
Local charter captains and conservationists are on the water, guiding clients to great catches but also keeping watch.
Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch and Shorebird Monitoring is stepping up — as always. The nonprofit monitors for nesting activity — sea turtles and shorebirds – on the island May 1-Oct. 31 but volunteers are watching our beaches now for signs of sick or dead animals.
The Center of Anna Maria Island — known for its sports leagues, fitness classes, children’s camps and fun days — also runs a green initiative.
The center recently formed the Blue Waters Coalition and invites people to help “defend our waters” by installing mini-reefs at their docks or volunteering to collect and analyze water samples or submit beach conditions observations.
Most recently, in response to the Piney Point crisis, the center offered to help monitor water quality around the island in cooperation with a student-driven research program at Eckerd College.
“We stand ready,” center director of development Jim McDaniel said April 8 in an email to The Islander.
We stand ready.
All this movement is taking place so perhaps someday we can get back to more of “life’s a beach” — and “it’s 5 o’clock somewhere,” too.
Petition in circulation
Sierra Club Florida is circulating a petition asking the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to do more to address the threat of phosphate mining and the waste that’s produced.
The chapter launched the petition drive as polluted wastewater from the defunct Piney Point phosphate site was being discharged into Tampa Bay to avoid a large-scale breach and collapse of the phosphogypsum stack system.
The EPA and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection maintain the wastewater meets water quality standards and is not radioactive.
However, phosphogypsum is radioactive and the stack system remains a threat.
The petition is online at sierraclub.org.