Residents in the Pasco County neighborhood where a massive sinkhole swallowed two homes saw more activity Wednesday. 

Kevin Guthrie, Pasco's Assistant County Administrator for Public Safety, said sand underneath the ground near the sinkhole isn't supporting much weight, allowing grass and dirt, as well as larger items like concrete and a hot tub to slide into the hole.

"As the water table goes down, that sand gives way, gives way to the soil, gives way to the grass, gives way to potential portions of these houses," Guthrie said. 

Guthrie said the hole grew about another 10 feet. He added crews could use about 135,000 cubic yards to completely fill the hole, but only a fraction of that would be used to stabilize the hole. Guthrie called the sinkhole repair a potentially a "multi-million dollar response and recovery."  

Ground penetrating radar is being used to test the strength and stability of the area surrounding the hole so dump trucks and backhoes can be brought in to begin stabilization.

"It is not a time of panic, we have someone out here monitoring the sinkhole," Guthrie said. "The sinkhole is dormant. What we're seeing now is movement above the ground and that sandy Florida soil doesn't have the support structure to keep it stable. We have to bring sand in here to create a slope similar to that of a beach." 

Meanwhile, county water tests for E-coli are complete and proved negative for contamination. However, Guthrie said tests on some of the older wells did return components consistent with total coliform, bacteria that are (with few exceptions) not harmful to humans. 

Some residents, like Mike Holiga, are worried about future problems with water. 

"The water is a little bit of an issue, because a car sunk, and it's going to take years for that to break down before the oil and the gas leaves that tank," Holiga said. 

Officials are rechecking samples and stressed there is no health issue at this time.

Duke Energy crews are in the area clearing some overhead lines but also restoring power to homes still impacted by an outage that started when the now 235-foot wide hole opened last Friday. 

During the news conference Wednesday, Pasco County officials said everyday will be a small step toward cleaning up the site. 

Also, engineers are on site test the ground stability near around the sinkhole. Right now, county officials are not sure what are the safe distances around the lip of the hole. 

Guthrie said any decision made on repairing the area will be based on caution.

"Right now we are looking at over the weekend or early next week," he said as far as dirt being brought in. "Once we determine there is no seismic activity underneath. We don't want to get anybody hurt."