When the suit went to trial for the liability phase in March 2019, the Waterkeepers packed the 2,428 samples into boxes, drove them to the courthouse in downtown Victoria, and presented them as evidence. Plaintiffs’ marine science expert, Dr. Jeremy Conkle, also testified that from 2017 to February 2019, Formosa’s contractor cleaned up between 7.6 billion and 75 billion individual pellets, meaning that Formosa had discharged well more than this amount since extensive plastics still remained in the environment. Other concerned local citizens testified about seeing extensive discharges of pellets and powder from Formosa’s wastewater discharge pipe directly into the middle of Lavaca Bay.