PALMETTO, Fla — Editor's note: The video above is from Aug. 17, 2021.
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection is continuing to monitor the amount of rainfall collected at Piney Point as the site nears its capacity.
In a weekend update, FEDP reported the site received .4 inches of rain overnight Saturday.
At this time, Piney Point has received about 24.4 inches of rain since the beginning of June and is expected to see another 10 inches by the end of September, FDEP reports. At that point, water levels would be near capacity. The current storage capacity for additional rainfall is about 11 inches.
The capacity in which it has left is expected to change with rainfall amounts, in addition to water management activities at the site.
As part of the site's water management efforts to minimize the risk of overflowing, trucking of water to nearby water treatment facilities has resumed, officials say. Since Friday, 13 trucks have hauled about 83,000 gallons of process water offsite to the Manatee County Southeast Water Reclamation Facility.
Currently, 262 million gallons are currently held within the NGS-South compartment. FDEP says pond level readings are expected to fluctuate due to a few factors, including rainfall, water management activities and wind/associated waves in the pond.
Aug. 14, FDEP filed a motion for an emergency hearing over the former Piney Point phosphate mining facility after concerns of storms causing the untreated wastewater inside the facility's reservoirs to overflow.
The original lawsuit filed earlier this month is the "final chapter for the Piney Point site," according to FDEP. The state agency said it was fulfilling its mission of holding HRK Holdings responsible for the leak at one of the facility's reservoirs, resulting in more than 200 million gallons of untreated wastewater being dumped into Tampa Bay.