MANATEE COUNTY, Fla. — Piney Point officials said on Wednesday they are preparing their latest attempt to recover from the environmental damage from when millions of gallons of wastewater were pumped into Tampa Bay to stop a leak at Piney Point.
About two years ago, 215 million gallons of wastewater were injected into the waters at the former phosphate-processing facility in Manatee County.
High contaminant levels in Tampa Bay may have worsened a wave of red tide at the time of the leakage that later hit local area waters, officials say.
Since then, polluted water from the Piney Point industrial site's gypsum stacks has been kept in reservoir ponds.
But now, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and Piney Point officials are preparing in April to inject 400 million gallons of treated Piney Point wastewater into a well that's thousands of feet below the surface to help avoid another leak in the future.
"It's very clean, it won't cause any harm," Herbert Donica, court-appointed receiver for Piney Point industrial sites, said. "It'll go straight down the well, 3,300 feet down, and it'll keep us safe from having too much water in that stack when the rainy season comes.
"We want to make the public feel safe by getting the wastewater out of the way and getting the danger controlled so don't have that problem again."
FDEP and Piney Point officials say that the latest project allowing one million gallons of water injected into the deep well each day, it will give them a head start to prevent issues down the road before the rainy season in Florida begins around the end of May.
If you'd like to do your part in helping the environment due to the millions of wastewater dumped into Tampa Bay, the Florida Museum recommends people keep up with the latest developments surrounding Piney Point, reduce the number of nutrients they put into the environment and support organization that work to conserve Florida's waterways.
To learn more about ways you can help, click here.