MANATEE COUNTY, Fla. — The process of pumping 252 million gallons of treated wastewater 3,300 feet underground at about 680 gallons per minute has begun.
It’s a massive undertaking, but for those who have been working on the site for years, they say it's monumental.
"It's such a huge sense of relief, you know, for the community and the environment," the site manager at Piney Point, Jeff Barath, said. "We are now controlling the discharge of process water that has been on the site since 1964."
Treated wastewater is now being pumped underground from gypsum stack that leaked in 2021 causing an environmental catastrophe at that time.
"We are injecting water that has already been treated eight times over, down a well over 3,000 feet deep," Barath said. "This is preventing any of the water from going out into Tampa Bay, you know, because there is still a nutrient concentration to this water."
Despite some setbacks, officials say they’re ahead of schedule as they pump as much water as possible before the rainy season.
"I'm very happy that we're able to reach this benchmark earlier than expected, the court appointed receiver for Piney Point, Herbert Donica, said. "We're gonna get the water level down in that pond to where it's safe for the community."
The water is pumped far enough down not to impact drinking water, and won't resurface for generations, Piney Point officials say.
"It'll take it about 75,000 years to come through natural filtration to come back up to the surface," Barath said.
Hundreds of gallons of wastewater are being pumped every minute, but the process is still expected to take three years to finish.
Once they fill the drain and fill the stacks, the site will finally close.
"At some point, somebody will take over the property, but they'll have to be responsible for the maintenance," Donica said. "And it's a long term plan that we're working on."