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.
PASS OR NO PASS: 06/23/09
By Linda Young
Clean Water Network of Florida has its first youtube presentation. Please use this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7Zf5ZGn5c4
to find out why there should not be a pass dredged through Santa Rosa Island at Navarre Beach. Let us know what you think!
FL - CWN petitions EPA to regulate toxic chemicals in Florida: 06/18/09
By Linda Young
CWN-FL TAKES FISH PROTECTION EFFORT TO FEDS
Florida Fish Eaters Need Protection From Toxic Chemicals
It will come as no surprise to anyone that people who live in Florida (generally) are fond of eating fish. In fact, a study done by the University of Florida found that Floridians eat a lot more fish and shellfish than your average American. Fish can be an inexpensive source of healthy protein and doctors recommend several servings per week for most people.
“You would think that we would make sure our fish are safe to eat and that we would protect their habitat and living conditions, to ensure an abundant supply,” said Linda Young, director of the Clean Water Network of Florida. “But the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) does not have the backbone to properly regulate 90 toxic chemicals that the US Environmental Protection Agency says all states should either be regulating or demonstrating (every three years) that some pollutants are not discharged within the State in sufficient quantities to need regulation. These include many known carcinogens such as dioxin, which we know Florida industries are releasing into fishing waters,” Young said.
On Thursday, June 18th, the Florida CWN sent a formal Petition (posted at www.enviro-lawyer.com/EPA_Petition.pdf) to the US EPA asking the agency to do what Florida is failing to do – regulate toxic and carcinogenic chemicals now being released (or could be in the future) into Florida’s waters. EPA has identified ninety (90) toxic pollutants with recommended water quality criteria, based on human health end-points. EPA data shows that subsistence fishers consume on average 142.4 grams of fish per day. Florida data reveals even higher consumption rates by some people in the Sunshine State.
“The Florida Department of Environmental Protection has been studying the revision of water quality criteria for the protection of human health in Rule 62-302.530, F.A.C., since August
1994 and has failed to adopt revised criteria to adequately protect the designated uses of Florida’s waters,” said David A. Ludder, attorney for the Florida CWN. “In the meantime, Floridians that have used and continue to use these waters for drinking, shellfish harvesting/consumption, and fishing/consumption, have not been adequately protected from exposure to excessive toxic pollutants,” Ludder said.
In 1980 EPA adopted guidelines for calculating how much toxic chemicals could safely be ingested by humans through the consumption of fish. At that time, EPA estimated that the national average of the daily consumption of fresh and estuarine fish was 6.5 grams. In October 2000, EPA recommended a national “default fish intake rate of 17.5 grams/day to adequately protect the general population of fish consumers, based on the 1994 to 1996 data from the USDA’s CSFII Survey.
On December 7, 1990, the Florida Department of Environmental Regulation adopted water quality criteria for approximately thirty-one (31) toxic pollutants that may have an effect upon human health. Such criteria were developed based on the default national average freshwater and estuarine fish consumption rate of 6.5 grams per day.
“Seventeen years later, the default standard based on national averages is still all the protection that Floridians have from toxic chemicals in their water,” Young said. “And that meager protection is still only for 36 of 90 toxics that EPA says may need to be regulated. There are at least two papermills that are known to be dumping excessive and unsafe levels of dioxin into waters that are heavily fished by thousands of people, and yet Florida refuses to even consider adopting EPA’s promulgated dioxin standard for Florida waters,” Young said.
While states and tribes are allowed to chose the fish intake rate that they use to calculate water quality criteria for toxic chemicals, EPA recommends “that States and Tribes give priority to identifying and adequately protecting their most highly exposed population by adopting more stringent criteria, if the State or Tribe determines that the highly exposed populations would not be adequately protected by criteria based on the general population.”
On August 31, 1994, the Florida Agricultural Market Research Center at the University of Florida published Per Capita Fish and Shellfish Consumption in Florida, the results of a 7-day recall survey commissioned by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection in 1992 and performed between March 15, 1993 and March 13, 1994, of the fish consumption habits of three survey populations: the general population across the state (46 gram/day); the general population in communities where paper mills are located (52.2 grams/day); and households receiving food stamps (24.2 grams/day). The results of the survey, confirm that fish consumption in Florida is far greater than the 6.5 grams per day rate (2.4 kg/year) now used by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to establish water quality criteria for the protection of human health. In addition, the survey revealed that the majority of the finfish and shellfish consumed were of saltwater origin and the majority of seafood consumed was saltwater finfish. Relatively small volumes of freshwater finfish or shellfish species were consumed.
In 1995, Florida environmental groups petitioned the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to amend the surface water quality criteria for thirty one (31) toxic pollutants identified in Rule 62-302.530, F.A.C., that may have an effect upon human health based on the 46.0 g/day mean fish consumption rate presented in Per Capita Fish and Shellfish Consumption in Florida.
In 1996 and 1997, FDEP has conducted five rule development workshops. Finally in 2003 FDEP recommended a fish consumption of 71.4 grams/day (2.5 ounces/day) which FDEP said then, “represents the 90th percentile fish consumption level of Florida species by Florida’s adult population. This level will reduce the risk of cancer to less than one in a million for most carcinogens and reduce the hazard index to less than one for most noncarcinogens. It is also protective of child consumers.”
Since that recommendation, FDEP has held several more workshops. On July 23, 2008, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection held its ninth rule development workshop (the triennial review workshop). At this workshop, the Department advocated a fish consumption rate of 32 grams per day for 36 toxic pollutants. Another fifty-four (54) additional toxic pollutants identified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency were not addressed in the proposed criteria revisions or Final Baseline Risk Analysis for Chap. 62-302, F.A.C.
On March 6, 2009, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection announced that it was going to delay any further workshops on the triennial review and therefore, the proposed criteria revisions for the toxic pollutants.
The Florida Clean Water Network, Inc. ("FWCN") is a Florida non-profit corporation and an alliance of local and state conservation, recreation and civic groups, as well as individuals, with a common interest in protecting Florida’s precious water resources. FCWN works to strengthen state and national water policy; to protect and restore Florida’s water resources; and to encourage and enable citizens to play an active role in the decision-making which affects waters in their local communities. Members of FCWN reside all across the state.
Panama City airport builder faces environmental fine: 04/28/09
By Linda Young
To see the whole article - use the link below.
St. Petersburg Times
Panama City airport builder faces environmental fine
By Craig Pittman <http://www.tampabay.com/writers/article381007.ece> , Times staff writer
Published Monday, April 27, 2009
A contractor building the new Panama City airport has repeatedly violated water pollution rules and now is likely to face a fine from the state Department of Environmental Protection, a top DEP official said recently.
"We really want this fixed," said Dick Fancher, who oversees the DEP in the Panhandle.
But the contractor, James Finch of Phoenix Construction, denies causing any pollution problems.
"We've not had any violations," said Finch, a sponsor of NASCAR driver Mike Wallace's team. Finch's construction company has been penalized before for violating water pollution laws.
Told that Fancher had mentioned fining his company, Finch blurted out, "A fine?!"
He blamed "birdwatchers" for reporting problems that didn't exist, noting that environmental groups had sued in a vain attempt to stop construction of the controversial new airport.
In November 2007 Gov. Charlie Crist led the groundbreaking for the airport, the first to be built in the United States after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The airport, being built on a 4,000-acre site donated by the St. Joe Co., will eventually be larger than Tampa International Airport, although it serves a far less populated area.
At the time, Crist hailed it as "a national model for economic transformation and environmental preservation." To secure the state and federal permits to build the airport, St. Joe agreed to preserve thousands of acres of land nearby — although it also expects to develop and sell 70,000 acres around the airport itself.
The $330-million airport project has drawn strong support from elected officials ranging from the Republican Crist to Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson. They view it as using taxpayer dollars to stimulate the Panhandle's economy.
St. Joe's former CEO, Peter Rummell, told the St. Petersburg Times in 2002 that unless the airport is built, much of his company's development plans for the region would be stillborn.
However, the new airport is not popular locally. In a 2004 nonbinding referendum, Bay County residents voted 54 percent to 46 percent to oppose it, even if it wouldn't cost them a dime. They were satisfied with the current airport, which is located in the city and draws very little air traffic.
The airport is being built on what Finch called "a virgin site" amid a former wildlife management area adjacent to Florida's oldest state forest, Pine Log State Forest. Linda Young of the Clean Water Network, one of the groups that tried to stop the airport, said the site had "crystal clear streams which slowly fed two sandy-bottomed creeks that eventually opened into West Bay."
MAJOR ECOLOGICAL DISASTER ON PANHANDLE ESTUARY: 04/20/09
By Linda Young
MAJOR ECOLOGICAL DISASTER ON PANHANDLE ESTUARY
St Joe dumped swamp for airport --- Airport now dumps tons of mud in estuary
Panama City, FL -- Dire predictions of ecological disaster made by environmental groups who vigorously opposed building a new airport in a deep swamp, have come true in tragic proportions for West Bay, which was recently (pre-construction) part of one of the most diverse and pristine estuaries in all of North America.
Four-thousand acres of deep swampland, donated by the St. Joe Development Company for the construction of an international airport, is situated at the bottom of an 80,000 acre bowl and was, pre-construction, remarkable for hundreds of acres of deep cypress swamps, high ground-water, abundant wetlands, and crystal clear streams which slowly fed two sandy-bottomed creeks that eventually opened into West Bay. To date, 5.7 million cubic yards of fill have been placed over these wetlands and streams. In addition, a crosswind runway will require approximately one million cubic yards of fill dirt.
Since the land clearing began in January 2008, rain events, large and small, have created a deluge of mud and standing water on the airport site. The 80,000 acres above the airport still releases a tremendous amount of water through the airport site, but instead of being absorbed by thousands of acres of wetlands, the water now finds an impervious runway and an inadequate stormwater treatment system. The 7,200 linear feet of slow-moving winding streams are now paved over and the groundwater no longer flows evenly through the cleansing soils. The water rushes over the newly filled and graded land and carries tons of mud to Crooked Creek and Burnt Mill Creek which, as expected, are discharging rivers of mud into the highly productive fish-nursery marshes of West Bay.
Onsite workers have told the Clean Water Network of Florida (CWN-FL) that the contractor who is building the airport is diverting the water on and around the runway to Crooked Creek with a 24-inch pipe. Aerial photos of the site (attached) bear this out. Any discharge to surface waters is prohibited by the general permit that the Airport Authority is utilizing and no permit for a discharge has been granted for the pipe.
“The destruction of Crooked and Burnt Mill Creeks and West Bay has been happening for many months now and finally after many requests to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection for appropriate enforcement action, apparently some enforcement is being initiated,” says Linda Young, director of the Clean Water Network of Florida, the organization that led the fight to stop the destruction of West Bay with an unneeded airport. “We have also alerted the US Environmental Protection Agency and sent the photos that document the violations. We are in a wait-and-see mode. This situation demands more than a slap on the wrist. It requires a re-thinking of the entire airport/West Bay development scheme,” Young said.
The airport construction was opposed by the voters of Bay County as well as numerous groups such as the CWN of FL, Citizens for the Bay, Friends of PFN, Sierra Club, NRDC and Defenders of Wildlife. Experts for the groups warned FDEP officials, the public and the courts, of the dangers of destroying the vast wetlands that capture the voluminous amounts of groundwater and rainfall, and then slowly release the water into West Bay, which was known as an abundant fishery and one of the six most diverse estuaries in all of North America. The only environmental group that supported the destruction was Florida Audubon, who received large donations in cash and land from the St. Joe Company.
“Protecting West Bay from after effects of bad development in its watershed, such as this airport, has been a long battle with our local officials, in the courts, and with environmental agencies that are charged with protecting our resources,” says Diane Brown, member of Citizens for the Bay. “We are now seeing the results of their failure to enforce local, state and federal laws that would have prevented this airport from being built in this environmentally sensitive location. It has been a predictable disaster waiting to happen,” Brown said.
Before the airport construction even began, CWN-FL filed complaints with the US Army Corps of Engineers and the Florida DEP regarding illegal dredge and fill activities on and near the airport site. Eventually the Airport Authority signed an enforcement/consent letter for these violations prior to the COE’s 404 wetlands/dredge and fill permit being issued. The current violations indicate they cannot keep their commitments to protect the natural resources.
The Airport Authority and St. Joe have announced plans to fill thousands of more acres around the airport for commercial and residential development. The company essentially owns the entire watershed for West Bay and needed the airport as a means to get publicly funded infrastructure into the watershed, which is very wet and had few paved roads and no water, sewer, power or other infrastructure.
At its meeting last week, the Bay County Airport Authority discussed how they could get $400,000.00 to construct two large canals from the site to nearby creeks to keep the site drained. The FAA rules do not allow standing water near airports because the water attracts wildlife (especially birds), which are a hazard to planes.
“Any attempt to secure a permit to construct a direct discharge to the creeks or the bay will be aggressively opposed,” said Young. “Any future filling of wetlands in the West Bay watershed should be disallowed by state and federal agencies and the Airport Authority should be required to take immediate actions to stop the destruction of this important estuary – including removal of the runway if necessary. This was a failed project from its conception,” Young says.
New Ocean Report Card: 03/03/09
By Linda Young
The Florida Coastal and Ocean Coalition released its 2009 report card yesterday on how well Florida is protecting its coastal resources and nearby oceans. You can read the full report at:
http://www.flcoastalandocean.org/blueprint/2009/FCOC_oceans_report_card_feb09.pdf
Please take a few minutes to download the report or print it out for reference purposes. It's chocked full of good information. If you really want to help Florida's coastal resources, you could send a copy to all of your elected officials with a personal note asking them to read it and follow its recommendations.
Congratulations to the FCOC for a great report that should be required reading for all Floridians.