Piney Point owners left town, live in luxury, left clean-up to taxpayers

[madfloridian]

One is said to be living in luxury in Morocco, taking care of another phosphate venture. Another is in New Jersey in a wealthy neighborhood with no regrets at all over Piney Point. He has a new thriving business.

Florida let them go, did not hold them responsible. Price tag in 2003 was 140 million and counting. We are paying for it. Piney Point, an abandoned phosphate plant, is most likely in great party responsible for a lot of the devastation in the Gulf of Mexico.

Executives turn their backs on the Piney Point disaster

Now, I know the phosphate industry is an entrenched and powerful player in laissez-faire Florida. But the story of Mulberry Corp. and the ease with which it fled two years ago from the environmental disaster at its Piney Point phosphate plant is one big load of . . . fertilizer.

Located just south of the Hillsborough-Manatee county line, Piney Point is a 700-acre site well chronicled earlier this summer as "one of the biggest environmental threats in Florida history" in a front page story by St. Petersburg Times reporters Craig Pittman, Julie Hauserman and Candace Rondeaux. The phosphate plant's woes also have received ample coverage for more than a decade in neighboring newspapers in Tampa, Bradenton, Sarasota and Lakeland.

"After taking control of Piney Point, Mulberry later declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy and simply walked away after dumping the phosphate plant and its problems on state regulators. The price tag to clean up the billion-gallon mess: $140-million and counting.

The business executives, now scattered and working in the New York area or Texas, never should have left. And state regulators should not have been so lax in letting them go. It's one sorry precedent.

The owners and operators who got off scott free:
Philip Rinaldi, a French investor Judas Azuelos, Robert Stewart

After telling one newspaper earlier this year that he has no remorse over Piney Point - "no guilt at all" - Rinaldi now lives in a wealthy New Jersey neighborhood and works as president of P.L. Rinaldi & Associates, a "business development company."

Stewart and two other Mulberry managers were last seen in Texas working outside Houston for Agrifos Fertilizer, which like the Florida company reportedly has a history of financial and environmental problems.

As for Azuelos's whereabouts, no one seems sure. A former Mulberry board member told the Bradenton Herald in May that the French investor(Azuelos) is in Morocco tending another of his phosphate-fertilizer projects.

And Jeb and our legislatives and our Florida Dept of Environmental Protection have allowed the waste from this plant to be dumped through the years into the Gulf of Mexico. Protests made no difference. Phone calls made no difference. They just did it. They put it on barges and dumped that wastewater out in the Gulf.

[Rebellious Republican]

1. Well now the gulf coast is paying the price for it, Red tide has been

very extreme this year and early. I know some biologists that say if you look at the dead zone, it coincides with the current flow and last years dumping into the gulf waters. But it seems no one is willing to make that connection. Business is suffering big time as a result.

:banghead:

[madfloridian]

2. Burtworm had a thread about a Bay News 9 article.

http://www.baynews9.com/content/36/2005/8/10/112685.html

It is worse than we ever thought.

[PurgedVoter]

3. Corporate Responsibility does not exist when republicans control

When corporations do crimes the people in charge should be held responsible for those crimes. It seems simple to me. This is personal responsibility. When you can afford to live without causing damage but choose to profit through others loss, you should be held responsible. 140 million? Lets take everything they got, and let them live on enforced minimum wage for the rest of their lives. It's good enough for the common folk, it should be good enough for those who use their financial power to impoverish the masses and reduce everyones standard of life.

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. Welcome to DU. You are so right.

[madfloridian]

5. Yes, you are right.

I think the very arrogance of this bunch will someday be their undoing. But it will far too late for the environment and the economy.

And on edit, welcome to DU. I seldom notice post counts, just the quality of the post.

[madfloridian]

6. Just noticed these other companies mentioned...

"But in 1993, a Netherlands-based, New York-run company called Fertilizer Development Investments bought both the Manatee site, renamed Piney Point Phosphates, and its parent, Mulberry Phosphates. The acquiring company was run by chairman and French investor Judas Azuelos. Mulberry was put in the hands of president and CEO Philip Rinaldi. Azuelos and Rinaldi were partners in Seminole Fertilizer Corp.'s $260-million purchase in 1988 of W.R. Grace & Co.'s Polk County phosphate business."

I remember something about Seminole Fertilizer and an FDI, which might have been the Fertilizer Development Investments.

[madfloridian]

7. Cargill has been involved since 1993 as an owner.

Involved with Piney Point owners under a different name.

CARGILL EXTENDS FERTILIZER STAKES

Cargill Fertilizer Inc., a subsidiary of agribusiness giant
Cargill, paid $150 million for the phosphate fertilizer
production, mining and working-capital assets of Seminole
Fertilizer Company of Bartow, Florida. Seminole operations
currently produce 750,000 tons of phosphoric acid, the basic
material from which most fertilizers are made, while Cargill
Fertilizer puts out 830,000 annually . "This agreement reflects
Cargill's long-term commitment to the phosphate fertilizer
industry. Cargill is confident that farmers worldwide will
require more fertilizer to meet the food needs of the world's
constantly growing population," said Fritz Corrigan, vice
president of Cargill Fertilizer.

Source: "Cargill Subsidiary to Take Stake in Seminole Fertilizer
of Florida," Journal of Commerce, March 3, 1993.
http://sunsite.tus.ac.jp/pub/academic/agriculture/sustainable_agriculture/discussion-groups/mailing-lists/1992-1993/susag-news/susag.news.3-12-93

Here is the timeline I posted yesterday in another thread about ownership.

http://www.baysoundings.com/sum02/pineypt.html

The Story So Far
A troubled history

1966
Borden Chemical Company constructs Piney Point phosphate plant; four owners since then.

1989
23,000-gallon leak of sulfuric acid from a holding tank, forcing the evacuation of hundreds of people, including Port Manatee workers.

1991
Two air releases of sulfur dioxide and sulfur trioxide.

1993
Mulberry Corporation purchases Piney Point facility from Royster Phosphates, Inc. after Royster declares bankruptcy. (Cargill apparently involved as well)


1997
Dam failure at Polk County plant sends 54 million gallons of acid water into Alafia River, killing more than a million fish.

Dec. 28, 1999
Citing a depressed fertilizer market, Mulberry Corp. notifies Florida Department of Environmental Protection of proposed facility shutdowns, with intent to re-open in six months.

2000
DEP increases frequency of inspections and hires consulting firm to verify water storage calculations.

Jan. 30, 2001
Mulberry Corp. contacts DEP to say that financial difficulties will prevent it from assuring environmental security at its Polk County and Piney Point plants; abandons plants 48 hours later.

Feb. 7, 2001
EPA jumps in on emergency basis to run operations for two weeks.

Feb. 8, 2001
Mulberry Corporation files for bankruptcy.

Feb. 21, 2001
DEP takes over with initial $4 million in state emergency funds, most of which is needed to pay the electric bill to keep water pumps and water treatment devices working.

Nov. 2001
DEP authorizes emergency discharges into Bishop Harbor following Tropical Storm Gabrielle; 10 million gallons of partially treated wastewater released to prevent total collapse of dikes.

Jan. 2002
Agency on Bay Management forms task force to develop alternatives to discharging partially treated wastewater from site.

Spring 2002
DEP hires FSU finance professor to develop recommendations for strengthening corporate financial assurances.

May 2002
Cargill Fertilizer announces plans to take over Mulberry Corp.'s defunct Polk County plant. (But they were involved since 1993)

[annabanana]

8. I gotta Piney Point for them:

Right Here!

[madfloridian]

9. Ha Ha.

Just saw that. About how I feel. :D