Massive blooms in Fisheating Creek Floodplain
Friday, October 30, 2009
Monday, October 19, 2009
Polluters Pay to Play in FL? Part II
http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2009/oct/18/david-guest-us-environmental-protection-agency/
Continuous discharge of polluted freshwater from Lake Okeechobee created a dark plume of water visible in the St. Lucie Inlet and along the Atlantic Coast in 2003. The plume caused economic and environmental hardships. Will better rules from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency be helpful?
It is hard to imagine anyone defending the polluters that are turning our waters green and slimy like the creek shown above. But hey, money talks.
At long last, The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is agreeing to set legal, enforceable limits on the nutrients that are poisoning Florida’s public waters. Now the state’s biggest polluters are trying to get out of complying.
Exploiters have been fattening their wallets by ruining the resources that belong to the public. State regulators — like former Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Virginia Wetherell — do little to stop it, year after year. Many of them, like Wetherell, work for polluters after they leave office (She’s lobbied for phosphate miners and utilities. Former DEP Secretary David Struhs went to work for polluter International Paper.)
When we — the public — finally win a victory for clean water, the polluters come out with the same stock arguments: No. 1, they say, “If we have to protect clean water, it will cost too much and we’ll go broke.” No. 2: “If we want to do anything to fix polluted waters, we have to do more studies for many more years.” And No. 3: “The fish like it!”
That third argument is now being peddled by a lobbyist for the Florida Farm Bureau, who claims cleaning nutrients out of Florida lakes will hurt fish populations. Huh? Florida was teeming with fish before fertilizer and cow manure spewed daily into our lakes and rivers, turning them pea-soup green.
A Florida DEP report last year found that half the state’s rivers and more than half of its lakes had poor water quality. When nutrient-poisoned waters are used as drinking water sources, disinfectants like chlorine react with dissolved organic compounds, contaminating drinking water with harmful chemical byproducts.
Exposure to blue-green algae toxins — when people drink the water, touch it, or inhale vapors from it — can cause rashes, skin and eye irritation, allergic reactions, gastrointestinal upset, serious illness, and even death. In June 2008, a water treatment plant serving 30,000 people shut down after a toxic blue-green algae bloom on the Caloosahatchee River threatened the plant’s water supply.
Florida polluters are trotting out their hackneyed arguments now because the U.S. EPA is finally acting. EPA’s decision came as a historic settlement with five environmental groups after we sued to stop polluters from continuing to slime our waters.
The polluters are now trying to block the settlement. Big Agriculture, developers, utilities, and phosphate miners have filed legal challenges to try to force the EPA to back down. Florida Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson is using our tax dollars to side with the polluters.
Remember: Polluters said the Clean Water Act would kill business. They said the Clean Air Act would bankrupt companies. Developers said the Growth Management Act would stop development. We can all plainly see that’s not true. Nutrient poisoning is Florida’s worst water pollution problem. We’ve got contaminated drinking water, beaches closed by dangerous bacteria, rivers fouled with green slime, dead fish, dead lakes, and excess nutrients bubbling out of our crystal springs.
It’s time to clean it up. It’s time to hold polluters accountable for what they are washing into our rivers, lakes, bays, and springs. The EPA is ready to do it, and so are Floridians.
Guest, of Tallahassee, is managing attorney for the Florida office of Earthjustice, an environmental-advocacy group.
Continuous discharge of polluted freshwater from Lake Okeechobee created a dark plume of water visible in the St. Lucie Inlet and along the Atlantic Coast in 2003. The plume caused economic and environmental hardships. Will better rules from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency be helpful?
It is hard to imagine anyone defending the polluters that are turning our waters green and slimy like the creek shown above. But hey, money talks.
At long last, The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is agreeing to set legal, enforceable limits on the nutrients that are poisoning Florida’s public waters. Now the state’s biggest polluters are trying to get out of complying.
Exploiters have been fattening their wallets by ruining the resources that belong to the public. State regulators — like former Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Virginia Wetherell — do little to stop it, year after year. Many of them, like Wetherell, work for polluters after they leave office (She’s lobbied for phosphate miners and utilities. Former DEP Secretary David Struhs went to work for polluter International Paper.)
When we — the public — finally win a victory for clean water, the polluters come out with the same stock arguments: No. 1, they say, “If we have to protect clean water, it will cost too much and we’ll go broke.” No. 2: “If we want to do anything to fix polluted waters, we have to do more studies for many more years.” And No. 3: “The fish like it!”
That third argument is now being peddled by a lobbyist for the Florida Farm Bureau, who claims cleaning nutrients out of Florida lakes will hurt fish populations. Huh? Florida was teeming with fish before fertilizer and cow manure spewed daily into our lakes and rivers, turning them pea-soup green.
A Florida DEP report last year found that half the state’s rivers and more than half of its lakes had poor water quality. When nutrient-poisoned waters are used as drinking water sources, disinfectants like chlorine react with dissolved organic compounds, contaminating drinking water with harmful chemical byproducts.
Exposure to blue-green algae toxins — when people drink the water, touch it, or inhale vapors from it — can cause rashes, skin and eye irritation, allergic reactions, gastrointestinal upset, serious illness, and even death. In June 2008, a water treatment plant serving 30,000 people shut down after a toxic blue-green algae bloom on the Caloosahatchee River threatened the plant’s water supply.
Florida polluters are trotting out their hackneyed arguments now because the U.S. EPA is finally acting. EPA’s decision came as a historic settlement with five environmental groups after we sued to stop polluters from continuing to slime our waters.
The polluters are now trying to block the settlement. Big Agriculture, developers, utilities, and phosphate miners have filed legal challenges to try to force the EPA to back down. Florida Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson is using our tax dollars to side with the polluters.
Remember: Polluters said the Clean Water Act would kill business. They said the Clean Air Act would bankrupt companies. Developers said the Growth Management Act would stop development. We can all plainly see that’s not true. Nutrient poisoning is Florida’s worst water pollution problem. We’ve got contaminated drinking water, beaches closed by dangerous bacteria, rivers fouled with green slime, dead fish, dead lakes, and excess nutrients bubbling out of our crystal springs.
It’s time to clean it up. It’s time to hold polluters accountable for what they are washing into our rivers, lakes, bays, and springs. The EPA is ready to do it, and so are Floridians.
Guest, of Tallahassee, is managing attorney for the Florida office of Earthjustice, an environmental-advocacy group.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Polluters Pay to Play in Florida? State to Intervene Against EPA
www.earthjustice.org/news/press/2009/florida-agriculture-commissioner-
charles-bronson-sides-with-polluters.html
Florida Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson Sides With Polluters
Commissioner fights against cleaning up poisoned waters
Earthjustice
October 1, 2009
Tallahassee, FL -- Florida Agriculture Commissioner Charlie Bronson is siding
with the state's worst polluters to fight against cleaning up poisoned waters.
In August, in a historic move, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
signed a consent decree in which it agreed to set legal limits for the
widespread nutrient poisoning that triggers harmful algae blooms, like the one
pictured to the right, in Florida waters.
Instead of working to make the public's water cleaner and safer, Bronson is
spending tax dollars to help special interests like the Florida Pulp and Paper
Association and Big Agriculture block the clean water settlement. The Florida
Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services filed a motion to intervene in
the case on the polluters' side.
"This is shameful," said Earthjustice Attorney David Guest. "There are toxic
algae blooms all over the state, water treatment plants closing due to nutrient
poisoning, and yet Bronson directs the state to work for the polluters and
against the people."
Nutrients like phosphorous and nitrogen poison Florida's waters every time it
rains; running off agricultural operations, fertilized landscapes, and septic
systems. The poison runoff triggers algae outbreaks which foul Florida's
beaches, lakes, rivers, and springs more each year, threatening public health,
closing swimming areas, and even shutting down water plants.
In a 2008 report, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection
concluded that half of the state's rivers and more than half of its lakes had
poor water quality.
The St. Johns River is currently under a health advisory due to a toxigenic
blue green algae bloom. In 2005, a similar bloom shut down all boat traffic on
the river.
Tampa Bay suffered an outbreak this year of Pyrodinium bahamense and
Takayama tuberculata has sullied waters around San Marco Island.
Potentially toxigenic cyanobacteria have been found statewide, including
Southwest Florida's Caloosahatchee River. In the Southeast, toxin levels in
the St. Lucie River and estuary during an algae bloom in 2005 were 300 times
above suggested drinking water limits and 60 times above suggested
recreational limits. Health authorities posted signs warning visitors and
residents not to come into contact with the water.
Lake Okeechobee, a South Florida drinking water source, is now subject to
almost year-round blue-green algae blooms due to nutrient pollution.
Nutrient pollution also fuels the explosive growth of invasive water plants like
hydrilla, which now clog countless springs, rivers and lakes.
The problem is compounded when nutrient-poisoned waters are used as
drinking water sources. Disinfectants like chlorine and chloramine can react
with the dissolved organic compounds, contaminating drinking water with
harmful chemical byproducts.
Exposure to these blue-green algae toxins -- when people drink the water,
touch it, or inhale vapors from it -- can cause rashes, skin and eye irritation,
allergic reactions, gastrointestinal upset, serious illness, and even death. In
June 2008, a water treatment plant serving 30,000 Florida residents was shut
down after a toxic blue-green algae bloom on the Caloosahatchee River
threatened the plant's water supply.
Florida and most other states have only vague limits regulating nutrient
pollution. Under the August agreement, the U.S. EPA agreed to begin the
process of imposing quantifiable -- and enforceable -- water quality standards
to tackle nutrient pollution.
"The federal government recognizes the urgency of cleaning up this pollution,"
Guest said. "But Charlie Bronson and the polluters wants to take us
backwards. The public won't stand for it."
The settlement with EPA came 13 months after five environmental groups filed
suit to compel the federal government to set strict limits on nutrient
poisoning in public waters.
The public interest law firm Earthjustice filed the suit in the Northern District
of Florida on behalf of the Florida Wildlife Federation, the Conservancy of
Southwest Florida, the Environmental Confederation of Southwest Florida, St.
John’s Riverkeeper, and the Sierra Club in July 2008.
Federal District Judge Robert Hinkle will hear arguments in the case on Nov.
16, at the federal courthouse in Tallahassee.
Contact:
David Guest, Earthjustice, (850) 681-0031
charles-bronson-sides-with-polluters.html
Florida Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson Sides With Polluters
Commissioner fights against cleaning up poisoned waters
Earthjustice
October 1, 2009
Tallahassee, FL -- Florida Agriculture Commissioner Charlie Bronson is siding
with the state's worst polluters to fight against cleaning up poisoned waters.
In August, in a historic move, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
signed a consent decree in which it agreed to set legal limits for the
widespread nutrient poisoning that triggers harmful algae blooms, like the one
pictured to the right, in Florida waters.
Instead of working to make the public's water cleaner and safer, Bronson is
spending tax dollars to help special interests like the Florida Pulp and Paper
Association and Big Agriculture block the clean water settlement. The Florida
Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services filed a motion to intervene in
the case on the polluters' side.
"This is shameful," said Earthjustice Attorney David Guest. "There are toxic
algae blooms all over the state, water treatment plants closing due to nutrient
poisoning, and yet Bronson directs the state to work for the polluters and
against the people."
Nutrients like phosphorous and nitrogen poison Florida's waters every time it
rains; running off agricultural operations, fertilized landscapes, and septic
systems. The poison runoff triggers algae outbreaks which foul Florida's
beaches, lakes, rivers, and springs more each year, threatening public health,
closing swimming areas, and even shutting down water plants.
In a 2008 report, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection
concluded that half of the state's rivers and more than half of its lakes had
poor water quality.
The St. Johns River is currently under a health advisory due to a toxigenic
blue green algae bloom. In 2005, a similar bloom shut down all boat traffic on
the river.
Tampa Bay suffered an outbreak this year of Pyrodinium bahamense and
Takayama tuberculata has sullied waters around San Marco Island.
Potentially toxigenic cyanobacteria have been found statewide, including
Southwest Florida's Caloosahatchee River. In the Southeast, toxin levels in
the St. Lucie River and estuary during an algae bloom in 2005 were 300 times
above suggested drinking water limits and 60 times above suggested
recreational limits. Health authorities posted signs warning visitors and
residents not to come into contact with the water.
Lake Okeechobee, a South Florida drinking water source, is now subject to
almost year-round blue-green algae blooms due to nutrient pollution.
Nutrient pollution also fuels the explosive growth of invasive water plants like
hydrilla, which now clog countless springs, rivers and lakes.
The problem is compounded when nutrient-poisoned waters are used as
drinking water sources. Disinfectants like chlorine and chloramine can react
with the dissolved organic compounds, contaminating drinking water with
harmful chemical byproducts.
Exposure to these blue-green algae toxins -- when people drink the water,
touch it, or inhale vapors from it -- can cause rashes, skin and eye irritation,
allergic reactions, gastrointestinal upset, serious illness, and even death. In
June 2008, a water treatment plant serving 30,000 Florida residents was shut
down after a toxic blue-green algae bloom on the Caloosahatchee River
threatened the plant's water supply.
Florida and most other states have only vague limits regulating nutrient
pollution. Under the August agreement, the U.S. EPA agreed to begin the
process of imposing quantifiable -- and enforceable -- water quality standards
to tackle nutrient pollution.
"The federal government recognizes the urgency of cleaning up this pollution,"
Guest said. "But Charlie Bronson and the polluters wants to take us
backwards. The public won't stand for it."
The settlement with EPA came 13 months after five environmental groups filed
suit to compel the federal government to set strict limits on nutrient
poisoning in public waters.
The public interest law firm Earthjustice filed the suit in the Northern District
of Florida on behalf of the Florida Wildlife Federation, the Conservancy of
Southwest Florida, the Environmental Confederation of Southwest Florida, St.
John’s Riverkeeper, and the Sierra Club in July 2008.
Federal District Judge Robert Hinkle will hear arguments in the case on Nov.
16, at the federal courthouse in Tallahassee.
Contact:
David Guest, Earthjustice, (850) 681-0031
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