The Florida Department of Environmental Protection announced Friday that polluted water is no longer being discharged from the Piney Point reservoir into Tampa Bay.
The state says two companies will now begin treating the water from the reservoir at the former phosphate plant in Manatee County before releasing it. The goal is to reduce nutrients flowing into Tampa Bay that can trigger algae blooms.
The state says that 223 million gallons remain in the reservoir that had started leaking over a week ago.
Officials feared the leak would cause a massive breach, sending a wall of polluted water into the surrounding area. To prevent that, about 215 million gallons of polluted water has been discharged into Tampa Bay at Port Manatee.
The DEP says it continues to take water quality samples in the bay to evaluate environmental impacts to Tampa Bay and is reporting the results.
