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?
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CLEANING UP POLLUTED RUN-OFF IN FLORIDA: 04/29/08
By Linda Young
Dear friends of Florida's waters:
The Florida DEP is in the process of making changes to Florida's statewide stormwater treatment rule, which is an effort that is long over-due. Most people understand and witness daily the devastation of our waters (springs, lakes, rivers and estuaries) from polluted run-off. In a state that is so terribly addicted to development, controlling run-off should be a top priority. So, we are very supportive of the concept of improving/strengthening the statewide stormwater rule.
HOWEVER - we have some concerns about how DEP is positioning this rule to eventually develop and we are not the only ones with concerns. EPA has written a comment letter to DEP in which they outline a number of concerns. You can read this document on DEP's website which gives EPA's comments and DEP's responses. This is very technical stuff and it may not appeal to everyone. We will be providing regular updates on what's happening with this rule so you can weigh in on it as you have time. The next meeting will be on May 28th at UCF in Orlando. Please go to the DEP website for specific information about past and future meetings.
http://www.dep.state.fl.us/water/wetlands/erp/rules/sw_swt_rule_dvlpmt.htm
THIS RULE IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT!!! It is going to require your help and participation if we are going to overcome the strong political power from the development community and others. For those of you who do not have the time to read through EPA's comments, here are some of the issues that you will see throughout the coming months in regards to this proposed rule:
1. An independent review of the Harper Methodology must be done. DEP is having one done by the University of Florida but the review will not be completed until the TAC meetings are almost over - which may be too late to matter;
2. Harper Methodology treats wetlands as land-uses and leaves pollutant loading rates for natural wetlands up to the user. THIS IS A HUGE ISSUE FOR US AND MUST BE RESOLVED IF WE ARE TO HAVE AN IMPROVEMENT OVER OUR CURRENT RULE! This effectively means that DEP assumes that wetlands are a source of nutrient pollution, which is a concept contrary to the Clean Water Act.
3. Pre-project condition should be treated as the land as it was in its natural condition - prior to ANY development including agriculture and silviculture, not as it is now. Right now, this is how the proposed rule reads and the Governor's office is in support of this position. We need to let the Governor's office know that this is a critical issue for us and we want them to stick to their guns. The developers are going to be lobbying for this policy to be changed and we must not let that happen.
There are other important issues as well, however, I don't want to bog you down with too many details right now. Please just accept this as a heads up about a very important issue that will need your attention. The sooner the better!
You will be seeing more about this on our website over the next few months and please go to the DEP website when you have time and start educating yourself about this important policy work that is underway.
For the waters we love! Linda
SWFWMD Board appointment - You Can Help: 04/22/08
By Linda Young
The environmental community in the northern part of the South West Florida Water Management District (SWFWMD) is excited about the potential of being part of framing and deciding SWFWMD policy and actions. Al Grubman is an applicant for a seat on the SWFWMD board. Please contact the Governor's appointment office to let them know your thoughts about this vacant seat. (Governor's Appointments Office, LL10 The Capitol, Tallahassee FL 32399-0001, (850) 488-2183). Clean Water Network of Florida is supporting Al Grubman for this board position. Here's what he has to say on his own behalf:
When several environmental group representatives asked me to apply for the new SWFWMD Governing Board seat, I was overwhelmed but it is an opportunity. It is an opportunity to continue the movement I have fostered as president of TOO FAR, to build bridges with the environmental community and the water management community.Below is an excerpt from the application (hope I do not sound like a politician, I am not one):
17. A. State your experiences and interests or elements of your personal history that qualify you for this appointment.
· As a registered professional engineer, I am able to understand and work with the technical and planning issues. · As an outdoorsman, I understand and value access to and preservation of our natural blessings. · As a practical environmentalist, I am committed to sustainable growth by working together.· As a businessman, I understand finance, return, profit and worth.- I work hard and get things done.
Lawmakers Should Halt Airport Funding: 04/15/08
By Linda Young
Florida lawmakers are grappling over the $4 billion shortfall in the state budget. Some of the spending cuts are going to be painful, and include funds for life-saving medical care for the poor, millions from our schools and many other important services and programs.
Yet at the same time, the state is pouring large sums of money into an unneeded $331 million new airport for Bay County, largely to enrich the adjacent land values of one politically connected property owner, the St. Joe Company.
So far the state has sunk $10 million into the project, with at least another $67 million earmarked from state coffers. And given the debt it will incur, taxpayer-funded financial bailouts are likely in this airport's future.
It would be bad enough if this airport, which will destroy 2,000 acres of wetlands, were truly needed, but the fact is, it isn't. The current Bay County airport is not only adequate, but is actually underutilized.
Traffic at the current airport has fallen over the past few years and keeps heading downward, with now only about half the number of flights it hosted in 2001. Market projections show that it will be adequate to meet expected demands for at least the next 20 years. The FAA's own benefit-cost analysis showed only very modest aviation benefits for this project, but substantial real estate benefits for private companies.
The only issue worthy of any consideration, runway length, can be addressed with onsite changes at a fraction of the cost of a new airport. It is notable that 40 percent of the airports in the United States, including Reagan Airport in our nation's capitol, have similar or shorter runways, yet have much greater air traffic and are not building new airports.
In the only real poll taken, the citizens of Bay County said they don't want this airport. The site chosen, in the wetlands of West Bay, is far from population centers, and there is no firm commitment from any airline to bring more, or cheaper, flights into this end-of-line small market.
Voters gave it a thumbs-down in a 2006 nonbinding referendum, 56 percent to 44 percent, even though the ballot language promised it would be "at no cost to taxpayers."
The local citizens could not be fooled, but decision-makers have been hoodwinked into spending vast sums of public money on an environmentally destructive fiasco.
Unfortunately, this boondoggle, which dwarfs the infamous Alaskan "bridge to nowhere" in the scale of its waste, currently has the support of Gov. Charlie Crist and our state and congressional legislators.
What's needed is for citizens to let them know that this kind of throwaway spending at a time like this is not only irresponsible - it's unconscionable, and must be stopped.
What to do with anti-Florida Hometown Democracy mail: 09/13/07
By Linda Young
Some folks are reporting that they received in the mail a request that they revoke their signatures on the Florida Hometown Democracy petition. This mail is coming from the developer interests around Florida who can't stand the thought of you having a say in what your community looks like.
Here is my suggestion of what to do if you receive such a request:
These requests come with a self-addressed stamped envelope, so I'd suggest
putting a huge X over the revocation sheet, and perhaps some epithets of
your choosing as well, and then stuffing the envelope with that sheet and as
much additional paper as you can fit in, and mailing the envelope back, to
increase the costs of this revocation effort to the business interests
conducting this anti-environmental crusade.
And if you haven't signed a petition yet, then contact Florida Hometown Democracy and ask them to send you as many as you can get signed and turned in. This is the number one thing you can do for Florida's environment.
PLENTY OF MONEY FOR THE PRIVILEDGED: 06/16/07
By Linda Young
Soaring taxes have dominated headlines, legislative sessions and household budgets for the past couple of years. Governor Crist vetoed a record number of appropriations this year in an effort to keep Florida in the black (financially). Local governments wring their hands and wonder how they will cope with proposed property tax cuts that are needed to help keep people in their homes. There are money woes everywhere we look, except . . .
Not at the Department of Transportation. Not if you are St. Joe Development Corporation. St. Joe wants to develop its land in Northern Bay County – approximately 85,000 acres, but most of it is swampy – very swampy. It will cost millions to remove the massive cypress trees that are deeply rooted in muck, dig drainage canals, and refill all the swamps with good fill dirt. So St. Joe came up with a great idea for getting Florida taxpayers to mostly pay for the infrastructure needed to develop its lands. Donate the land – 4,000 acres – for a new airport. This will require new roads, drainage systems, water supplies, etc. All of which can be used for the surrounding development St. Joe envisions for its thousands of acres of swamp riddled pinelands.
The new airport is projected to cost $331 million and rising – that’s because it will be bigger than Tampa International. The Florida DOT has already given the Bay County Airport Authority about $40 million dollars – much of which has been squandered. The FAA says it will kick in about $80 million and the current, perfectly good but underused airport will sell for about $75 million. That leaves the rest of the money to come from us – the taxpayers of Florida. Yes us! The same people who are wondering how to pay their rising property taxes and how to keep their schools functional.
But FDOT says that’s not their problem. They have promised to keep funding the new airport even if there’s no need for a new airport and even though the state is strapped for cash. Tell Governor Crist, that his people at FDOT need some adult supervision. Please ask him to do something about this waste of our hard-earned tax dollars. Go to our action alert page to send Governor Crist an email.
Big Brother - go away!: 04/16/07
The Florida Homebuilders and the Florida Fertilizer Industry are trying to make it illegal for your local city or county commissioners to pass an ordinance regarding wetlands protections and/or fertilizer use, that is more protective than state law. These industries are linked to several of Florida's most serious water pollution problems. We must fight back and stop them from turning Florida into a totalitarian state.
Every year, developers turn 75,000 acres of undeveloped land into lawns. There's no telling how much land they pave over with asphalt and concrete. And now that they have succeeded in destroying more than half the wetlands in Florida (wetlands are mother nature's water filters, aquifer rechargers and flood protectors)they want to make sure that the few local governments around the state that are trying to protect wetlands will not be able to do it. The state and federal agencies that are supposed to see that wetlands are not destroyed, stopped doing their jobs long ago.
We have replaced so much land with houses and lawns that now the fertilizer and other run-off has over-whelmed our waters (along with sewage, agricultural runoff, industrial pollution, etc.). We are seeing harmful algal blooms all across the state - in springs, lakes, rivers and estuaries. Coral reefs are being smothered and grassbeds are dying. We have a serious problem.
And can you believe the audacity of Frank Matthews (Hopping, Green & Sams law firm) and Mary C. Hartney (Florida Fertilizer & Agrichemical Association) who think their industries have the right to control what happens in our communities? These are the same people who fight against the Clean Water Act implementations in Florida. Not only do they want no limits on pollution, but they want you to have no local control over what happens in your community.
If this makes you mad, then let your legislators know about it. Chances are pretty good that your state representative and state senator have gotten big bucks from developers, agri-biz, and the fertilizer industry. But if enought people raise cane, we will defeat these efforts.
See the Southwest Florida Regional Planning Council Fertilizer Resolution on our Red Tide, Caloosahatchee, or TMDLs issue pages.
White crosses -- symbols of lost battles: 04/04/07
By Linda Young
This past Sunday a local church in my community held a special service for the thousands of Americans who have been killed in the Iraq war. Speaker Designate Ray Sansom was there and other local dignitaries. The churchyard was over-flowing with white crosses and hundreds of grieving Americans. The Harleys showed up too, protectors of a community’s right to express a deep sorrow for our losses. Some attendees were against the war, some were for it, but everyone was united in their grief over the losses.
Yesterday the AP reported another 26 dead manatees were found near Ft. Myers over the past two weeks. Scientists suspect red-tide as the cause. Forty manatees have died in the Lee County area since the beginning of 2006. Last year 417 manatee deaths were recorded statewide, the worst year on record. These deaths mark losses from a different type of battle – one between polluters and clean water. The casualties are not unlike the innocent victims who are killed in Iraq – the women and children just trying to survive in the middle of a war zone.
My question is: where are the white crosses for the manatees? Where is Ray Sansom or any other legislator for that matter? Oh yeah – they are busy in Tallahassee creating new laws for the rest of us. Are they working feverishly to implement solutions to Florida’s coastal pollution problems that scientists suspect are causing the red-tide and other toxic algal blooms, which are killing hundreds of manatees, turtles and dolphins? Uhhhh no???? Not exactly, in fact, they are doing just the opposite.
For instance, today, Wednesday, April 4th, the House Environment and Natural Resources Council will consider HB1031 which would make it quicker and easier to destroy wetlands. The bill will put pressure on DEP to approve wetlands destruction applications faster, even if the project will have major impacts – discouraging any consultation with other agencies and affected citizens in the community.
What does that have to do with manatees dying? Wetlands are nature’s water filters. They trap and treat nutrients that fall in rain (from coal-fired power plants for instance) and that are washed from developed areas. Here’s a link for the bill.
A similar bill sponsored by Representative Trudi Williams – HB 957 would delegate part of the federal wetlands permitting program to the state of Florida and would prohibit local governments from having more protective wetlands ordinances than the state program allows, in most cases. What this boils down to is less opportunities for citizens or local government to have a voice about what happens to wetlands in their communities. Developers will have more power to destroy the FREE water treatment systems provided in nature – which means that the rest of us end up paying through the teeth for artificial treatment systems after our waters get polluted to death.
Two good bills that would help significantly with reducing coastal water pollution are being lobbied for by Surfrider Foundation – SB444 and HB 57 are moving through committees right now – or more like making their way through a mine-field. The bombs are being thrown by your legislators – people like Senator Paula Dockery, who are acting on the behalf of cruise ships that want to keep dumping sewage in the same waters that people swim in – which is why Surfrider is trying to get legislation passed that would require these ships to pay for sewage disposal at the port. Today the bill goes through the House Environmental Council and Surfrider hopes to keep it free of detrimental amendments like the one Senator Dockery tacked onto an otherwise good bill in the Senate.
I would like to see someone plant white crosses on the lawn of the Capitol, symbolizing the death and losses that we are all experiencing as our manatee, dolphin and turtle friends wash up on our beaches; killed by toxic plants that they had no choice but to eat and ingest through their food and the air that they breathed.
I wonder how many of our Legislators would walk outside their offices to mourn the loss of these innocent animals.
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