If you do, you are pretty darn lucky because clean water is becoming a rare commodity in the State of Florida. It's a good day for a lot of rivers and bays if there is no toxic algae blooming and people can get on or near the water without their eyes burning and having coughing fits. How did things get so bad?
(Clean Water Network of Florida, Inc.
The Clean Water Network of Florida is a Coalition of more than 155 groups that are committed to full implementation, enforcement and strengthening of the Clean Water Act and other safeguards of our water resources.
It includes a variety of organizations representing environmentalists, family farmers, recreational anglers, commercial fishermen, surfers, boaters, faith communities, neighborhood associations, environmental justice advocates, and civic associations.
DIOXIN DUMPING IN THE GULF OF MEXICO: 01/15/10
By Linda Young
Last night I attended a public hearing in Perry Florida, regarding the permit for the Buckeye pulp mill. DEP is trying to get approval for the first of many loopholes for this extremely polluting pulp mill, so that it can build a 15 mile-long pipe to the Gulf of Mexico.
Buckeye's industrial waste is approximately 45 to 50 million gallons per day. It contains high levels of dioxin, is chronically toxic and causes fish and insects (and people???) to change genders. It is not the kind of stuff that should be dumped in the middle of an Aquatic Preserve, but that's what DEP is trying to clear the way to happen. The discharge to the Fenholloway River (26 miles upstream) has already caused a 10 square mile dead-zone in the Gulf.
Clean Water Network of FL has been fighting this permit for the pipe, for the past 15 years. We have also spent a lot of money on experts and lawyers, trying to help Buckeye find environmentally and economically sound solutions to their pollution. We found several, but they still just want to build a pipeline.
Please contact the Governor and/or EPA and let him know that we don't want a pollution pipe to the Gulf of Mexico. If you would like more information on this issue, then click on issues, then pulp and paper, then Buckeye.
WANT TO GIVE THE GOVERNMENT MORE CONTROL OVER YOUR LIFE? OKAY, THEN DO NOTHING NOW!!!: 01/12/10
By Linda Young
Would you like to give some Florida bureaucrats even more control over health and economic matters in your life? Would you like to have even less power in your own back yard and community? Would you like to give away your power to big corporations that have inordinate influence over your elected officials? No? Neither would I, but that’s what the Crist administration is about to do to us.
If you are thinking that this has to do with health care or banking “reform”, . . . well, not exactly. It has to do with water quality in your community and maybe even in your back yard. Florida is moving forward at tsunamic speed, to give bureaucrats with the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) the ability to downgrade many waters in Florida and to take away the few rights that you now have to protect those waters. Who is giving them this unprecedented ability to seize your rights? They are empowering themselves and they feel no compunction to inform you about it in advance. Imagine that!!!
DEP shared their scheme with the taxpayers of Florida on Christmas Eve, ho-ho-ho and we all have until January 21st to read approximately 45 pages of legalese and submit comments. There was one public meeting held on the January 7th, at which the public had an opportunity to discuss the matter and ask questions. Oh, you say that you didn’t know about the meeting? Well, don’t you read the Florida Administrative Weekly on a regular basis so you can know when you are about to be robbed by your government?
All cynicism aside, DEP plans to finalize major changes to Florida’s water quality standards in March. The exact plan is changing all the while, but as it stands today, they want to create a new category of waters in Florida that are not swimmable and barely fishable, if at all. These would be things like lakes, canals, and sloughs that were artificially created or natural water bodies, like lakes and streams that were altered before 1975. These waters today would be part of the long (and growing) list of Florida waters that are overly polluted and in need of a clean-up plan. Many of them receive and discharge pollution that causes toxic algal blooms, fish kills, polluted groundwater, and other serious problems that are rampant in Florida. Today, they are not legally eligible for further new pollution. Today, the goal for most of these waters would be to locate the pollution sources that are fouling these waters and try to correct the problems, near or at the source and primarily (in most cases) at the expense of the polluters. DEP wants to change that.
DEP’s new category of unswimmable/barely fishable waters would be allowed to remain overly polluted forever. How polluted? You won’t know until DEP decides. Today these waters have numeric pollution limits that you can look up on the internet. That will change and the new pollution limits will be decided by DEP. There will effectively be nothing that you or I can do to stop them or reverse their actions.
DEP says that this will save money. For whom? The people who live downstream of these permanently polluted waters? Not likely! For the people who may live right on the permanently polluted waters? Possibly. However, does someone living on a polluted canal or lake save money when their property values are lowered because it’s harder to sell polluted-water-front property? Do you save money when you are constantly getting sick from breathing air-borne toxins that are drifting into your yard and home from a nearby algae bloom?
If you would like to know more and think that the taxpayers of Florida deserve to have a public meeting on this issue, near your community, then you need to write, email or call the governor and your legislators TODAY! Tell them that you want to know more about this and have a meaningful opportunity to participate in the decisions that DEP is making about your water, health and money. The rule that is being weakened is Chapter 62-302.400 F.A.C. (designated uses). You can learn more about this issue by reading some previous posts below.
Governor Charlie Crist
Via E-mail Charle.Crist@myflorida.com
Phone 850-488-7146
Fax: 850-487-0801
Address: Office of the Governor
The Capitol
400 South Monroe Street
Tallahassee, FL 32399
Here are a few of our concerns about what they are proposing:
1. Artificial waters (lakes, canals, streams, etc.) or natural waters that were significantly altered before 1975 (there's many of those) would be eligible for downgrading to a lower classification;
2. If any of these waters are impaired, then anyone who has the money can apply to have a water body changed to a lower classification and get one or more SSACs for the pollutants that are not meeting standards;
3. DEP can downgrade a water whenever they feel like it and they don't have to pay for it (besides they have our money to spend on this stuff);
4. Even if a water is meeting numeric criteria for all pollutants, if it doesn't meet DEP's biological requirements, then it can be downgraded;
5. DEP would allow new and expanded discharges into the downgraded waters;
6. We would have no idea what the criteria would be for the new "Class III Limited" waters. DEP would set the criteria on a case by case basis. Affected citizens would have little or no hope of influencing or changing this.
7. Current avenues for getting greater protection for our waters (provided by the Clean Water Act) would be undermined by the new DEP guidance (technical support document which would be incorporated into the new rule);
8. DEP's biological assessments (LDI, SCI, TSI) would take the place of current water quality criteria without going through the approval process. EPA has warned DEP that this is unacceptable;
9. DEP continues in this rule to treat wetlands as sources of pollution;
10. Many water quality problems in our estuaries are due to too much fresh water and not nutrients. Developing a big loophole to avoid limits on nutrients does not get at the major problem of too much fresh water flowing into our estuaries;
11. Many of our nutrient problems are created in urban areas with stormwater pollution. There is very little data on stormwater and DEP does not coordinate between the stormwater program (MS4) and the TMDL program. These programs should be better coordinated and constructive solutions sought, instead of creating a new rule to reclassify impaired waters.
Many in the environmental community believes that this rule (even if the negative parts were removed) is premature. Numeric nutrient criteria is being developed now, and to create new loopholes in the law to get around the new criteria, before they are even developed, does not make good policy or good sense.
There's more to discuss, but our main message to elected officials now is that this major change in policy needs to be slowed way down. We and many others have asked DEP to hold workshops all around the state so citizens/taxpayers can attend and have a voice in what happens to their waters.
Please contact the Governor's office, Sec. Mike Sole at DEP, your local government officials and your legislators and let them know that this is too important to be in a hurry about it. Ask for a local hearing and demand to know more.
ONCE THESE STANDARDS ARE WEAKENED, IT WILL BE NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE TO TURN THEM AROUND AGAIN. TAKE A STAND FOR FLORIDA'S WATERS!!!
Thank you again for all your help!!! Linda
DEP HURRIES TO CREATE “NOT SWIMMABLE/BARELY FISHABLE” WATERS WHY THE RUSH?: 01/07/10
By Linda Young
If you are unaware that the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is rapidly moving to change Florida regulations to greatly reduce protections for some Florida waters, then don’t feel alone. Other than the state’s largest polluters, who are quite pleased, very few people are being notified that the waters in their backyards or their communities may be in danger of being downgraded in status or even worse.
Currently all Florida waters are designated for at least one of the following: drinking, harvesting shellfish, fishing/swimming, agriculture. In February, your state environmental agency (supported by your tax dollars) plans to finalize its efforts to create a new category of waters that allows fish consumption but the water is too polluted to swim in and the water quality will only support a limited fish and wildlife population. In other words, don’t expect to find many fish there.
The most troubling thing about DEP’s plan is that the amount of pollution that will be allowed, will be determined on a case-by-case basis, by DEP. So unlike current water classifications, which have numeric limits for most pollutants, the new “non-swimmable, barely fishable” waters will not have statewide pollution limits.
Essentially what the state plans to do, is take a temporary loophole that currently exists in Florida law for individual polluters (called a variance), and make it available for entire water bodies on a permanent basis. DEP says in its 41 page technical document, that explains the 4-page rule that the downgrade can only happen to:
1. Wholly artificial waterbodies that were created entirely by excavation of uplands, or
2. Altered waterbodies that were dredged, filled, or canalized prior to November 28, 1975.
There . . . do you feel better now? If you’d like to understand all this, you can go to the following website and read all about it:
http://www.dep.state.fl.us/secretary/designateduse.htm
Unfortunately, unless you are an environmental attorney, or have a knack for bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo, it may take you a while to make sense of it all. You could have attended the one public workshop that DEP held since they came up with this scheme, if you knew about it. But the voluminous documents that explain everything (sort of) were not made available to the citizens of Florida until Christmas Eve. So we had only two weeks to read the dozens of pages of legalese, digest it and be prepared to participate in a public meeting that was held in Pinellas Park. That’s an eight-hour drive from where I live.
Yes, there were a few previous workshops over the past 6 months, but those were for a totally different scheme for creating permanent legal loopholes for waters too polluted to swim in or for fish to thrive in. Those of us who attended them and have been trying to make sense of this, are still scratching our heads and asking, what’s the rush? This is a major change in Florida water policy. Don’t the taxpayers of Florida deserve to know about it? And have time to debate its merits? And then have an opportunity to comment and participate? If you agree, Governor Crist may like to hear from you. Remember back when he first got elected and he promised that his administration would be fully transparent? Anything moving this fast is blurry at best and is certainly not transparent.
If you decide to write him, the issue here is called Chapter 62-302.400 F.A.C. His contact information is:
Governor Charlie Crist
Via E-mail Charle.Crist@myflorida.com
Phone 850-488-7146
Fax: 850-487-0801
Address Office of the Governor
The Capitol
400 South Monroe Street
Tallahassee, FL 32399
National Academy of Sciences peer review of the SJRWMD study on water withdrawals from the St Johns River: 12/21/09
By Linda Young
From the NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS of Washington, D.C. of the NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine, comes the Committee to Review the St. Johns River Water Supply Impact Study Water Science and Technology Board Division on Earth and Life Studies. A blistering peer review of and recommendation to SJRWMD's plans to withdraw water from the SJR. Here is the link. The full report is available on this site to read or a printed copy can be purchased. If you care about the St Johns River, then you should read this review by the NRC. I have only read the summary section so far (a few days before Christmas, so time is precious right now). It confirms what the St. Johns Riverkeeper organization and others have been working so hard to prove in court and to the public: that massive withdrawals of water from the river will have devastating consequences and that the St. Johns River Water Management District is not adequately or accurately portraying these consequences in their analyses. The Riverkeepers group is being persecuted in the legal system by local governments that are demanding water from the river, at great expense to this non-profit defender of the river. Why is the State of Florida and the Division of Administrative Hearings (an agency of the Governor's office) allowing a relatively small organization to be so viciously attacked for doing what the government should be doing itself? Riverkeepers is simply taking an honest look at the consequences of what is being proposed and permitted. This review by the NRC explains that well. Friends, please stop for a minute to consider the government that you have elected in Florida. These types of attacks on us (yes, it affects all of us sooner or later) will continue until we elect better people to office. The Governor's office, the Legislature and many of our local government representatives are there for their own personal gain and glory. Please pay close attention.
An update on boatable/splashable waters: 12/18/09
By Linda Young
Dear friends of Florida waters - DEP has completely changed course with the boatable/splashable water categories. They are not giving up though, just trying a new trick. I do think that they have had a small reality check in thinking that they could create a host of new, weaker, water classifications and not even tell us what the standards would be. So, it looks like now they plan to create a new bigger loophole in the SSAC rule and then weaken protections with that.
They are still trying to rush this through the approval of the ERC in February and that is our first complaint at this point. I sent an email letter to that effect yesterday and I have copied it below for you to see if you have time to read it now. If not, save it and you can read it later. I’ll keep you posted on what response, if any, I receive. If you have time after the holidays to send a quick email to DEP and/or the Governor, asking for them to stop racing against an imaginary clock to get these new loopholes in place, that would be very helpful. Watch our website for quick and easy ways to do this.
Thank you again for all your help and have a safe and wonderful holiday season. Linda
Linda Young
Director
Clean Water Network of FL
850/322-7978
Dear Eric and others at DEP: Thank you for sending the notice below. I would like to think that your reconsideration of your proposed changes to Chapter 62-302.400 F.A.C./designated uses and related rules and policies is at least slightly due to the public outcry against DEP’s plans to significantly weaken protections for Florida waters. We look forward to spending time thoroughly reviewing your significantly altered new proposal for changes to these water quality rules and guidance. We note that the implementing guidance for your proposed changes is not yet available and won’t be until approximately Christmas. That will not leave much time to review the new rule language and the new Technical Support Document before the workshop on the 7th. Additionally, the 7th is not going to be a convenient day for many members of the environmental community due to conflicting meetings related to the Everglades, so many interested parties will miss the workshop.
It is my understanding that the Department has not adjusted its plan to take these significant rule changes to the ERC in February. Is this correct?
If I am correctly informed, then I would respectfully request that you reconsider this schedule. There is no way that the public can be fully informed and have time to digest and comment on your new proposed changes to these rules and guidance within that time frame. Governor Crist has promised many times, that the people of Florida would get full transparency from his administrative agencies. Anything that is moving this fast will be blurry at best and certainly not transparent. There does not seem to be a compelling reason to fast-track these significant changes to such an important public policy. Our water quality is critical to our health and economic well being, as well as our quality of life. Not only does it seem pre-mature to change our water quality standards in the midst of EPA establishing new numeric criteria for nutrients, but the Department’s ADD approach to making these proposed changes is challenging to those of us who are accustomed to taking a little time to reflect on and study major shifts in policy. Again, we ask you to please reconsider your schedule.
Last week, CWN-FL and The Conservancy of SW Florida sent comments on the previous proposed language for Chapter 62-302.400 FAC. Our letter had more than 50 organizations signed on to it. It required considerable time and effort to inform and educate these organizations, located all over Florida on what the state is proposing to do. Additionally, DEP has met with dozens of local governments around the state building support for the new rules and policies and now all that is to be radically altered. Don’t our constituents (the taxpayers of Florida) and local governments deserve time to understand what the state is planning to do?
Your serious consideration to this request will be greatly appreciated,
Linda L. Young
Director
Clean Water Network of FL
850/322-7978