(Naples, Fla. NaplesNews.com)
Environmental groups challenge state's water quality rules for bays, rivers
By ERIC STAATS
Friday, December 2, 2011
NAPLES — Environmental groups have renewed their legal fight against Florida regulators over water quality standards.
The tussle is over the state Department of Environmental Protection's proposed numeric limit for nutrients, like nitrogen and phosphorus found in fertilizers or animal waste, that are blamed for turning rivers and bays into slime-slicked messes of algae.
Algae blooms, some of which can be toxic, suck oxygen out of the water and can kill marine life, poison water supplies and give people rashes.
The fight has its roots in an earlier lawsuit that prompted the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to impose its own set of standards in Florida. The EPA has since backed off, allowing the DEP to come up with its own rules.
A coalition of environmental groups filed a petition this week calling the DEP's proposal to rein in nutrients inadequate and asking an administrative law judge to order the DEP back to the drawing board.
"The state has gone through the motions but hasn't done what the EPA asked it to do," said Jennifer Hecker, natural resources policy director for the Conservancy of Southwest Florida.
The Conservancy filed this week's petition, along with the Florida Wildlife Federation, the Sierra Club, the Environmental Confederation of Southwest Florida and St. Johns Riverkeeper.
The groups' petition won't delay next week's vote by the state's Environmental Regulation Commission. From there, the state Legislature must ratify the proposal and the EPA must approve it.
"The Florida Department of Environmental Protection remains confident that adopting our nutrient rules is the right thing for Florida," the DEP said in a written statement this week.
The DEP proposal uses numbers to set allowable levels, replacing Florida's existing standard that requires only that nutrient levels not "cause an imbalance in natural populations of aquatic flora and fauna."
Critics say the numbers won't help protect water bodies from pollution because of the way regulators will apply them.
The numbers wouldn't apply at a discharge point but rather would be used to measure an annual geometric mean of water samples taken throughout a given waterway.
Beyond that, a water body would be allowed to have one year in violation of the standard and, before cleanup requirements are triggered, the violation would have to be proven to be linked to biological degradation.
Opponents call those provisions loopholes, but DEP rule-writers say they are meant to take into account natural variability in water quality over time.
Hecker also takes issue with the DEP not taking into account whether the proposed numeric limits in Collier County will maintain healthy levels of oxygen in the water.
The proposal sets no numeric limits for canals, creeks or rivers in Collier or Lee counties, except for the Caloosahatchee River.
This week's petition cites algae blooms on the Caloosahatchee in 2005, 2010 and this year, when a drinking water plant on the river had to shut down and the health department posted warning signs.
0 comments:
Post a Comment