Crews working around the clock trying to use steel patch to stop leak at Piney Point
Crews are working around the clock trying to stop the leak at the largest retention pond on Piney Point — fabricating a temporary steel patch that dive teams hope to place over a rupture in the lining.
Using submersible cameras, dive teams brought in by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection found exactly where the rupture is. That rupture is several feet in length, according to an internal report from the Manatee County Department of Public Safety.
Dive teams are also using SONAR to scan the entire retention pond as they continue to try to get a complete understanding of the current situation and what caused the initial breach.
The breach of the southeast wall of the 77-acre New Gypsum Stack South pond at the former phosphate processing plant was found a week ago and prompted evacuations to the surrounding areas.
Three retention ponds sit on the lined gypsum stack at the 676-acre site. Gypsum is a radioactive byproduct of phosphate mining that cannot be used for anything else. Water in the ponds includes process water that is rich in ammonia, nitrogen and phosphate — all which could contribute to or cause an algae bloom.
A full breach could have sent a wall of water up 20 feet high into the surrounding area and destabilized the stack of radioactive material.
Evacuation orders were lifted late Tuesday afternoon, and residents were allowed to return to their homes and businesses after the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers team determined that should a collapse still occur that flooding would be limited to the site, nearby farmland and Buckeye Road. On Thursday, the only remaining road closure on Buckeye Road was lifted.
The discharge to Tampa Bay through Port Manatee remained temporarily shut off on Friday as crews also worked
to finish setting up water treatment technologies, according to an update from FDEP. But about 215 million gallons of contaminated water have already been dumped into Port Manatee — more than any discharge ever from Piney Point.
As of early Friday afternoon, the leaking south pond still held about 223 million gallons of water.
When the discharge resumes, the rate of water will remain at about 5 million gallons per day in order to enable crews to monitor pressure in the system and so the water can be treated. Two companies, Nclear and Phosphorous Free Water Solutions, have been contracted to clean and treat the water before it is released to prevent further contamination to the bay.
A team from the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers remains on site, and has recommended patching the rupture and that the water level needs to be lowered further.
Water from the breach continues to be channeled into a lined pond on site at Piney Point. On Thursday, dye tests were used to confirm that the water is in fact flowing to the other pond.
