POSTS

Florida issues new water pollution standards

By Craig Pittman, Times Staff Writer
Posted: Nov 02, 2011 05:07 PM

Amid a long-running political fight over new water pollution standards being imposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Florida officials Wednesday unveiled their own new standards for limiting the most common form of pollution in the state’s rivers, streams and estuaries.

The new standards for limiting nutrient pollution —- the kind that often causes toxic algae blooms —- have already drawn support from the Florida Pulp and Paper Association, Associated Industries of Florida and phosphate mining giant Mosaic, among other groups.
Also lined up in support: the EPA. Based on a preliminary review, the federal agency “would be able to approve the draft rule” as complying with the Clean Water Act, wrote Nancy K. Stoner of the EPA’s regional office in Atlanta.

However, while state Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Herschel Vinyard called the new standards “the most comprehensive nutrient pollution limitations in the nation,” some environmental groups say what DEP has come up with is worse than the rule already on the books.

“The toxic slime outbreaks in Florida will continue and get worse,” predicted David Guest of Earthjustice, one of the groups that previously sued the EPA for failing to protect Florida’s waterways from nutrient pollution. The new state rule, he said, was “negotiated with the polluting industries, and it reflects that.”

Guest contended the EPA is going along with the DEP’s rule to dissipate the political heat that ensued when the federal agency agreed to impose new pollution rules on Florida. The EPA’s rules have drawn opposition from Gov. Rick Scott, state business leaders and some members of Florida’s congressional delegation.

“They’re just lying down and letting the DEP do whatever they want to do,” said Linda Young of the Clean Water Network. The problem with the new rules, she said, is that they don’t apply to what comes out of the end of a drain pipe. That makes it harder to stop pollution at the source, she said.

Nutrients such as phosphorous and nitrogen flow into waterways from fertilized lawns, golf courses, leaking septic tanks and malfunctioning sewer plants. In the past 30 years, nutrient pollution has become the most common water pollution problem in Florida —- but the state’s rules for how much nitrogen and phosphorous are allowed in waterways were only vague guidelines.

The EPA told all states in 1998 to set strict limits on nutrient pollution, and warned it would do it for them if no action was taken by 2004. DEP officials started working on new standards in 2001, but 2004 passed without any change.

In 2008, Earthjustice and a coalition of other environmental groups sued the EPA to force it to take action in Florida. A year later, the agency settled the suit by agreeing to impose nutrient pollution standards — and the complaints began boiling up from Florida industry leaders about costly, unnecessary federal regulations hurting the economy.

Attorney General Pam Bondi, on behalf of Agriculture Commissioner Adam Hasner, sued to block implementation of the rules, and on Wednesday she filed a motion accusing the EPA of exaggerating the threat from nutrient pollution.

EPA officials have said all along that they would drop their pollution limits if the state would come up with some new standards. In the EPA’s letter Wednesday, agency officials said that if the state’s Environmental Review Commission and the Legislature ratify the new state standards, and the EPA gives its formal approval of the final version, the agency would then withdraw its controversial pollution standards.

Craig Pittman can be reached at [email protected]

[Last modified: Nov 02, 2011 05:08 PM]

The Inside Story – 

EPA Resists Call To Halt Radiation Surveys

Posted: September 9, 2011

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson is resisting GOP demands that the agency commit to halt aerial surveys that could inform a potentially precedent-setting cleanup of an area in central Florida where the agency fears that tens of thousands of people living on former phosphate mines are being exposed to dangerous levels of radiation.

An agency spokeswoman says that during a Sept. 7 meeting, Jackson told GOP critics that the agency has “no current plans” to conduct such surveys, but stopped short of agreeing to the lawmakers’ call to permanently halt the flyovers.

At issue are approximately 10 square miles of contaminated land near Lakeland, FL, where EPA has taken no cleanup action despite having had the concerns since the late 1970s. To address the concerns, which were first made public by an award-winning series of Inside EPA articles in 2010, the agency has so far conducted only one preliminary aerial radiation survey near the area in question.

But EPA’s survey has prompted opposition from GOP lawmakers representing the area, including Rep. Dennis Ross (R-FL), who is planning to push an amendment to EPA’s upcoming appropriations bill blocking further EPA survey work. Ross, together with other GOP lawmakers, sent a letter to Jackson earlier this year that criticized the agency for having recently conducted the preliminary survey and demanded that the agency conduct no further flyovers, saying they could hurt Florida’s economy. The lawmakers also called EPA’s long-held Superfund cleanup standards “arbitrary.”

In a Sept. 7 press release, Ross claimed that he had met with Jackson in his Washington, DC office and had won a commitment from the Administrator “to conduct no future radiation flyovers.” In the press release, Ross called the alleged commitment from Jackson “a giant step in the right direction,” because further surveys would “impact every Floridian in thousands of dollars a year in new costs and potentially devastating effects on an already depressed housing market.”

During the meeting with Jackson, Ross said he “made clear that decades of study, from industry to University, show that radiation levels at mining sites in central Florida contain less radiation than living in the suburbs of Denver, and that any radiation monitoring must be done with agreed upon benchmarks based on accepted scientific standards.”

But Ross’s press release “is misleading,” an agency spokeswoman says in a statement to Inside EPA. “Administrator Jackson did not commit to no flyovers – she simply stated at this time there are no plans to do any,” the EPA spokeswoman says.

The EPA spokeswoman also defended the use of aerial surveys, calling them “a common sense, low-cost way of detecting whether there is radiation in the soil, radiation that could harm people in their communities.” The spokeswoman says that “EPA undertakes a strict scientific and public process to determine what levels of radiation are unsafe” and that the agency “has a duty to gather information to ensure public health and the environment are protected.”

EPA is “committed to continuing to work with States to listen and address any issues of concerns,” the spokeswoman says.

Reaching a consensus with state officials regarding the Florida phosphate issue could prove difficult, however. The desire of EPA officials to use their Superfund standards as the basis for any cleanups in the area has long been a source of contention between EPA, Florida and phosphate mining industry officials, and the disagreement has prompted concerns amongst environmentalists who fear the precedent that could be set if EPA abandons its long-held standards.

In addition, Ross is preparing to insert his amendment blocking any additional survey work in the fiscal year 2012 budget bill when it is recalled to the House floor. The amendment would block surveys “of any facility in the State of Florida in Polk county or Hillsborough county that is listed in” EPA’s Superfund database, known as the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Information System (CERCLIS).

But Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA), who has raised concerns about the Florida phosphate issue in the past, may oppose the amendment. A Capitol Hill source said recently that Markey continues to track the issue and may speak in opposition to the Ross amendment when it comes up on the House floor.

In addition, Florida environmentalists are urging Jackson to reject the demands of Ross and the other Florida Republicans, which include Reps. Gus Bilirakis, Vern Buchanan, Richard Nugent and Thomas Rooney. In a July 20 letter, the activists say they “strongly support a fully scientific review of the impacts of phosphate mining, including the aerial radiation surveys which are long overdue.”

A Ross spokesman could not be reached for comment.

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