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Safer Water Has A Price

ROBERT BURKE / The Tampa Tribune

Carla Wright and Andy Mathiak with Environmental Protection Commission of Hillsborough County get a sample of water from Hurrah Creek Bridge, a small tributary to the Alafia River near CR 672 and CR 39. The results of the water monitoring will be used to determine whether the streams will be put on the state's impaired waters list and be slated for cleanup.

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By MIKE SALINERO, The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 25, 2007

After decades of inaction, the federal government is finally forcing states to clean up their polluted rivers, lakes and bays, but is providing virtually none of the funding to do so.

Neither is the state of Florida, which has appropriated $10 million a year to deal with what state officials estimate will be a $10 billion cleanup.

That means cities and counties, which are struggling with money problems of their own, will shoulder most of the financial burden.

'The bottom line is these problems are locally generated and are the results of increased development and increased pressure on water,' said Tom Singleton, whose job at the state Department of Environmental Protection is helping local governments develop cost-effective ways to reduce pollution.

For many counties, the costs will be enormous. Pasco County officials estimate they will have to spend $260 million building systems to clean up nutrient pollution that washes into the upper Hillsborough River and tributaries.

The Pasco County Commission recently approved an annual stormwater fee of $47 per home to pay for identifying the projects that need to be done and designing them.

Michele Baker, Pasco's chief assistant county administrator, said she anticipates the stormwater fee or some other revenue source will have to be increased once construction begins on the projects.

'In these times of reduced revenue, hard decisions have to be made, cuts have to occur,' Baker said.

Long-Delayed Cleanup

The federal Clean Water Act, passed in 1972, required states to identify water bodies that were too polluted to meet their designated uses, such as fishing and swimming. After they developed a list of 'impaired waters,' the states were to set pollution limits. The limits, called total maximum daily loads, are the maximum amount of a pollutant, such as mercury or nitrogen, a water body can take and still be healthy.

For decades, states dragged their feet on setting the pollution limits while the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency stood idly by. The problem was largely political: Everyone knew that cleaning up more than 100 years of pollution would cost big bucks and somebody would have to pay, whether it be industry, developers or taxpayers.

Environmental groups and other grass-roots organizations across the country tired of the delays and began filing federal lawsuits in the mid-1990s. Federal judges agreed with the plaintiffs and instructed the EPA to develop cleanup plans for waters in 20 states, including Florida.

Further delays in cleanup occurred when Gov. Jeb Bush's administration decided to throw out decades of water-monitoring data and retest all the state waterways. Testing started in 2001 and continues.

The state now has 650 water body segments classified as impaired, and more will be added, Singleton said. Close to 1,000 pollution-reduction plans are to be completed by 2012.

In the Hillsborough River watershed, 29 water body segments are considered impaired, and 43 pollution-limiting plans will be set for mercury, bacteria, and nutrients. The deadline is 2012.

Who Does What?

Unlike Pasco, most cities and counties don't know how much they are going to have to spend or how they'll pay for it. Tampa and Hillsborough County are waiting to see how much of the pollution will be deemed their responsibility. Once that's decided, they'll know what projects to design.

'Until you get a number, it's pretty difficult to put it in a budget and ask for a rate increase or whatever it's going to take to generate that revenue,' said Chuck Walter, director of Tampa's stormwater department.

Because the cost of cleaning up the waters is so high, there is potential for conflict over where the pollution is coming from and what government or agency will bear the brunt of cleanup costs. City, county and state officials have been meeting since early last year trying to find answers.

'Is it wastewater? Is it stormwater?' Walter asked. 'There are so many variables in the equation, that's one of the reasons we can't quantify it.'

This year, Singleton and scientists from the University of South Florida walked miles along the Hillsborough River and its tributaries, looking for possible sources of fecal coliform bacteria, one of the most common pollutants in area waters. Singleton said they found some small sewage treatment systems that weren't working right. The state got the owners to fix them.

Other possible sources of the bacteria, which come from human and animal waste, are being investigated. Possibilities are cattle, wildlife, leaking septic tanks and direct sewer line connections from homes to the water.

Solutions Not Simple

David Glicksberg, environmental manager for Hillsborough County's Stormwater Department, said scientists may have to use genetic tracking to determine whether the bacteria originate in humans or animals.

'Before they start making people spend a lot of money building stuff, they need to make sure the problem is not something caused by deer and rabbits,' Glicksberg said.

Nutrient pollution will be the most difficult and expensive problem to fix. Every hard rain carries nitrogen and phosphorus into waterways from thousands of yards, parking lots, farms and golf courses. The nutrients cause algae blooms that cloud the water and consume life-giving oxygen.

Stormwater treatment systems can be costly, especially in urbanized areas where there is less land available for retention ponds, wetlands and grassy areas that can slow down and absorb the pollutants. Pinellas County is spending $30 million to clean up Lake Seminole. Tampa has spent about $2 million on stormwater treatment projects, with the state matching that amount.

Sewer Plant Focus Called Unfair

Then there is Tampa Bay, where great strides have been made in seagrass restoration. The public and private members of the Tampa Bay Estuary Program have done more than 300 projects to reduce nutrient runoff into the bay.

But the EPA has signaled more needs to be done. Tampa officials worry the agency will cap the amount of wastewater the Howard F. Curren sewer plant can discharge into the bay, thus limiting new development.

City officials say the EPA is using an unfair regulatory approach by focusing on the sewer plant. Much of the nitrogen in the bay comes out of the air, a result of emissions from millions of vehicles and from power plants. Nitrogen also is carried down to the bay by the Hillsborough and Alafia rivers.

'What needs to happen in our opinion is you need to back way up and determine where this nitrogen is coming from and try to reduce it across the board and not just from the people who have permits,' said Steve Daignault, Tampa's administrator of public works and utilities.

The Southwest Florida Water Management District has pledged to help local governments pay for many of the stormwater projects. But the district, funded largely by property taxes, had to roll those tax rates back, as did local governments under directions from the Legislature.

That means the water management district will have to make hard choices on what cleanup projects it is able to fund, water district spokeswoman Robyn Hanke said.

'At some point, it may become overwhelming and we're going to have to prioritize projects,' Hanke said.

Reporter Mike Salinero can be reached at (813) 259-8303 or msalinero@tampatrib.com.

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