Florida Senate to consider money for Piney Point cleanup

With work continuing to prevent a potentially catastrophic collapse of a reservoir wall, the Florida Senate will consider a budget amendment Wednesday to spend as much as $200 million to clean up the site of a former phosphate plant in Manatee County. Senate President Wilton Simpson, R-Trilby, and Sen. Jim Boyd, R-Bradenton, said early Monday evening that the money would be used to clean up and close hazardous phosphogypsum stacks, a byproduct of phosphate production, at the Piney Point site. Wastewater…