Piney Point

Teams from Manatee County surveying damage found minor flooding along the Myakka River and the barrier islands, where some turtle nests were affected.

Emergency pumps have been installed to combat heavy rain and winds from the storm.

Several environmental advocacy groups sued last year to overturn the waiver, which would have allowed the use of the slightly radioactive waste in road construction.

The primary defendant is the state Department of Environmental Regulation, which allowed the plant's operators to refill the gypsum stack several years ago with sea water being dredged at nearby Port Manatee.

Business owners in Manatee County took their concerns to Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried.

While red tide remains a nuisance for Tampa Bay's beaches, manatees are dying on Florida's east coast due to algae blooms.

Tom Frazer, the dean and a professor at the University of South Florida College of Marine Science, said the wastewater spill at the phosphate plant could be helping to fuel the outbreak.

Three months ago, a rupture at the former Piney Point phosphate plant sent hundreds of millions of gallons of toxic water into Tampa Bay. We take a tour of one towering "gypstack" to see what's being done to keep that from happening again.

In our ongoing series on phosphate mines, WUSF reports on the long, tangled history of Florida's phosphate mines and the environment.

An emergency order issued in April by Florida's Department of Environmental Protection expired this week.

Even though recent water quality tests have not been detecting nutrients of the Piney Point wastewater spill, researchers believe current red tide and cyanobacteria blooms across Tampa Bay are likely being exacerbated by the nutrients which still exist in the bay's ecosystems.

Four areas in lower Tampa Bay that had low concentrations of red tide earlier this week now have medium concentrations.