Nearly "catastrophic" Piney Point wastewater leak could irreparably harm neighboring marine life, experts say

Florida officials have been scrambling over the past week after a wastewater pond at the former Piney Point phosphate mining facility sprung a major leak — a situation officials described as a potential "catastrophe." While officials have managed to drain the reservoir enough so that a "tidal wave" of wastewater did not flood the area, experts told CBS News that the threat to the environment remains.

Residents who live immediately around the area are physically safe for the time being, state officials said, but millions of gallons of water have flowed into the ground and local waterways, and millions more were pumped directly into Port Manatee, an entrance to Tampa Bay on Florida's west coast, to prevent the reservoir from collapsing. From March 26 to April 9, approximately 237 million gallons of water either leaked or were intentionally discharged from the reservoir, the state's environmental department said. Officials stopped discharging water into the port on Friday, according to the state's water quality dashboard.