For two years, Florida's Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has focused on getting rid of toxic wastewater stored atop of an abandoned gypsum stack in Palmetto. But DEP officials now are considering that the ponds, drained of acidic phosphate waste, could be used to collect and store rainwater to irrigate crops and provide drinking water for a growing population.
“We're standing on a giant reservoir,'' says Allan Bedwell, DEP's deputy secretary for regulatory programs. “If using it for a water supply reservoir makes sense, we should explore it.”