State, EPA battle over cleaning up polluted waters

A political battle is heating up between Florida and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over how best to clean up the state's polluted waters.

A lawsuit filed by environmentalists has forced the EPA to begin setting hard numeric limits on nutrient pollution in Florida waters. Those waters exceeding the limits would be considered "impaired," triggering forced reductions on polluters.

The environmental groups say they were forced to file the suit in July 2008 because the Florida Department of Environmental Protection had done little to halt the degradation of rivers, lakes, springs and bays. Nutrients, mostly from fertilizers and minimally treated sewage, can trigger algae blooms that are deadly to fish and unhealthy for humans.

"We say that Florida's economy and environment are linked," said Manley Fuller, president of the Florida Wildlife Federation, one of the groups that filed suit. "If we can't stop the state from degrading our waters now, they'll just get worse."

State environmental officials say they agree numeric criteria are needed for nitrogen and phosphorus, the main nutrients. But they claim EPA's numbers are too stringent and would require pollution reductions in many rivers and lakes that are in good shape.

"We've got legitimate water pollution issues, but are we going to spend time on things that are not impaired?" said Michael Sole, secretary of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. "We need to spend our resources in places that need to be improved."

Up to now, the state has judged the health of each water body based on its unique response to nutrients. State scientists sampled rivers and lakes multiple times, using an average to determine whether they were impaired, meaning not suitable for fishing and swimming.

Environmentalists derided the state criteria as phony science and said the state was ignoring water quality standards already in state law.

Now, state scientists say they're ready to set the numeric limits, but want the caps based on their proposals, gleaned from nine years of sampling every Florida water body.

"When we take EPA criteria and evaluate it against our most pristine waters, a large percentage of those would be deemed impaired under EPA criteria," said Jerry Brooks, a director at the Department of Environmental Protection.

State environmental and agriculture officials have raised the specter of crippling expenditures to meet EPA's more-stringent limits, expenditures that could break the back of local governments and recession-weakened industries. Municipal sewer operators, phosphate mining and agriculture have joined in, using their political clout to enroll state legislators and the Florida congressional delegation in the fight.

"The EPA is going to cost state public and private utilities, business and agriculture billions of dollars when the state is in economic hardship without any expectation by many experts that these nutrient standards are even attainable," said Terry McElroy, spokesman for the state Department of Agriculture and Consumer services.

It's not clear what effect the lobbying has had. The EPA recently extended the comment period on its proposal by a month, until April 28. The agency has held three public hearings on the draft rule and is scheduling three more, in Tampa, Jacksonville and Fort Myers in coming months.

In an e-mail Friday, the EPA said its proposed nutrient limits are based largely on data collected by Florida. EPA worked with state environmental scientists on analyzing and interpreting that data.

"Some allege these new standards will cost too much," wrote Betsaida Alcantara, EPA deputy press secretary. "These arguments fail to recognize that Florida already has standards, but they require site-specific evaluation, costing the state huge amounts of time and money to figure out on a case-by-case basis the right limits for dischargers."

The state counters that they already know which waters are polluted and won't waste money on those that don't need improvement.

Environmental groups accuse the state and industries of inciting a wave of unfounded hysteria. They agree cleaning up nutrient pollution will cost money, but not the tens of billions of dollars that local governments and industries are trumpeting.

"For the amount of money these guys are saying it's going to cost to comply with numeric nutrient limits, you could buy a gold-plated toilet for every home and trailer in the state," said attorney David Guest of Earthjustice, which filed the lawsuit against EPA.

Guest said nutrient discharges could be reduced substantially by simple, inexpensive changes. For instance, farmers could use liquid fertilizer, which is absorbed quickly by a plant's roots, reducing the amount washed away with rainfall. That saves the farmers money and cuts down on phosphorus runoff into streams.

Local governments can use marsh systems to clean storm-water runoff, Guest said, instead of installing costly treatment systems. And the state could follow the lead of at least a dozen Florida cities, including St. Petersburg, that have passed bans on using phosphorus-based lawn fertilizers during the rainy months.

Guest, like other environmentalists, says even EPA's rules could be tougher. But establishing exact limits on the amount of nutrients is the only way polluted waters will be restored. He compared Florida's current rules to a speed limit sign that says, "Don't drive so fast or you'll get in a wreck.

"We want a speed limit that says 55 or 70 mph," he said. "We don't have that right now."