For the next Governor of Florida

For the next Governor of Florida

Linda Young

1. Designated Uses changes – Another component of the Clean Water Act is protection of the designated uses of waters. These uses include: drinking water, shell-fishing waters, swimming waters, and fishing waters. DEP has appointed a “Political Action Committee” (PAC), to review Florida’s current water uses and make recommendations for adding new uses. The PAC is representative of all the major polluters in the state (e.g. pulp and paper mills, sewage plants, phosphate, ag, municipal stormwater dischargers, etc.) and is working to expand the “designated uses” of Florida’s waters to include categories such as: waters good enough to fish in but not suitable for human contact; water suitable for boating but not good enough to sustain aquatic life; and so on. The end result will be that canals dredged through wetlands and used to move water from one place to another will no longer be required to meet Class III standards, altered streams will no longer be required to meet Class III standards, and reservoirs would be downgraded, among others. The state DEP has stated that its primary goal is to relieve business from the requirement to clean up the state’s widespread nutrient pollution problems which are resulting in unprecedented toxic algal blooms across the state.

Our Goal: Stop DEP from creating new categories of waters that will not be protected for fishing and swimming;

2. Weakening provisions to the state’s water quality standards – In January 2006 the DEP changed Florida rules to allow for alternative criteria to be used by dischargers and even the DEP instead of state adopted water quality criteria – in unlimited circumstances and on a statewide basis (previously these alternative criteria were only available where natural conditions required an alternative or where man-made pollution was unabatable). In May 2006 EPA approved this major change to Florida’s water quality standards and in July Clean Water Network of Florida and the St. Johns Riverkeeper filed suit to stop the weakening of this water protection rule. If not stopped, the change will allow the state, local governments, and polluting companies to dump more pollution into our waters than the federal rule allows. These pollutants can promote the growth of algae, deprive the water of dissolved oxygen, make waters unsafe for swimming, kill grassbeds and cause a host of other serious problems.

Our Goal: Defeat the rule (62-302.800) that allows for weakened water quality criteria.

3 . Impaired Waters Rule – In 2002 Florida adopted Chapter 62-303 (called the Impaired Waters Rule) purportedly in response to a requirement in 403.067, F.S. which was passed into law in 1999 and named the Watershed Restoration Act of 1999. The Impaired Waters Rule was NOT designed to restore polluted watersheds. The rule was designed to provide an end-run around section 303(d) of the Clean Water Act, which requires states to list all impaired (polluted) waters and prioritize them for pollution reduction plans (TMDL’s). Essentially it was designed to be used in lieu of Florida’s adopted and EPA approved water quality standards/criteria for pollution. Environmental groups sued EPA for allowing Florida to change its water quality standards/criteria without first getting EPA’s approval. That suit resulted in an order from the 11th Circuit Federal Appeals court which agreed that Florida had illegally changed its water quality standards. EPA then also agreed and issued a statement that partially corrected the problem. The district court is now building a record to substantiate the balance of the issues that have already been decided by the appellate court. (see 11th circuit order).

Now - just 2 weeks ago, DEP took a slightly revised version of the Impaired Waters Rule to the ERC (Environmental Regulation Commission) for adoption and not only did it get approved but it was ADDED to Florida's water quality standards - which is completely contrary to Florida and federal law.

We are calling on the next Governor of Florida to abandon the Impaired Waters Rule and to use the guidance established by the Clean Water Act and its subsequent regulations and guidance to determine Florida’s impaired waters. Then we can move on with setting pollution limits on those waters and restore them to their designated uses.

4 . Moratorium on new permits for discharges of nutrients into already polluted waters - On the Gulf Coast of Florida, the lower east coast and in the St. Johns River, harmful algal blooms (HAB) have become bigger, more frequent and longer-lasting. Toxins from these blooms have killed hundreds of sea mammals and caused emergency rooms to fill up with nearby residents suffering respiratory distress. High levels of nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) from sewage plants, septic tanks, fertilizers, dairies, paper mills, phosphate operations, citrus farms, etc. are causing these algal blooms to develop uncontrolled. The result is hundreds of square miles of rivers, lakes and estuaries that are too polluted for fishing, swimming or even walking near.

Both the laws of Florida and the federal Clean Water Act prohibit a discharge into surface waters that will cause or contribute to a violation of water quality standards.

However, FDEP has adopted a legal philosophy – that federal actions under the Clean Water Act are not binding on Florida – with respect to waters that are designated as

“impaired,” or not meeting water quality standards. This is critically important because the Act prohibits both new discharges and any increases in existing discharges into such impaired waters. Furthermore, the Act requires limits on existing discharges so as to allow the receiving waters to attain water quality standards.

We are calling on the next Governor of Florida to implement a strict moratorium on any new or expanded permits for discharges of nutrient-rich wastewater to Florida’s surface waters that are already over-loaded with nitrogen and/or phosphorus. Additionally, a plan of action to reduce nutrients in our waters should be developed and implemented on an emergency basis.

5 . Champion a movement to stop the destruction of wetlands. In the past 15 years Florida has lost 84,000 acres of wetlands despite the nation's "no net loss of wetlands" policy. Florida DEP rarely denies a permit to dredge, fill or otherwise destroy wetlands. This vast loss of wetlands - our natural (and free ) water filtering systems - is causing dangerous and expensive flooding, depletion of our aquifers, and greater vulnerability to storm surges during hurricanes, loss of fish and wildlife and degradation of the water quality in our lakes, rivers and estuaries.

We are calling on the next Governor of Florida to uphold and enforce state law and stop the unnecessary destruction of wetlands. If stronger regulations are needed, then the next Governor should insist that these regulations be adopted as quickly as possible. Different, more effective and less destructive approaches to resolving the stormwater and sewage effluent problems also need to be adopted in order to stop the polluted discharges from new developments.