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FDEP Considers New EPA Standards for Toxins

Easy Way Out2 In: FDEP Considers New EPA Standards for Toxins | Our Santa Fe River, Inc. (OSFR) | Protecting the Santa Fe River

Easy Way Out2 In: FDEP Considers New EPA Standards for Toxins | Our Santa Fe River, Inc. (OSFR) | Protecting the Santa Fe River

We have seen this so many times before.  Under our current federal administration health and environmental protections have been shot to oblivion, and our own Florida Department of Environmental Protection  shamelessly gives concessions to industry or anything that has to to with money.

Why should it be otherwise with toxic algae?  Stopping the algae at its sources (nitrates from fertilizer and septic tanks) will cost tons of money and require drastic changes in our way of life.  The easy way out is just raise the limits.

Simple and quick, and problem solved.

But rage is building.  The norm is becoming a short list of where one can even swim in our state.  Even recreational bass fishing tournaments are being forced to find new locations.  Soon an area of reasonably clean water may not be found for fishing or swimming in our state known in the past for water recreation.

The rage is because polluters are taking from the residents of Florida their basic rights to clean rivers, beaches and lakes.  And they are doing to make a profit for themselves.  And our government agencies are helping them to do it legally.   The end of this road is that we will all be drinking polluted water and we will all get sick.

Toxic algae is not just a problem of South Florida.  It is now in Putnam Co., and in 2012 it was in the Santa Fe River.

Let’s get leadership, we currently have none.

See the original article here at WJCT.

Comments by OSFR historian Jim Tatum.
-A river is like a life: once taken, it cannot be brought back-


 

EPA Sets Limit For Toxic Algae. Environmentalists Worry It’s Too Low

By Jenny Staletovich • 9 hours ago

 

  • A boat motors through thick algae blooms in the Caloosahatchee River near LaBelle last summer.
    A boat motors through thick algae blooms in the Caloosahatchee River near LaBelle last summer.
    Miami Herald/Pedro Portal

New federal limits for dangerous toxins linked to blue green algae in water where people swim, boat and fish could help Florida fight the dangerous blooms.

The recommended criteria is the first ever set by the Environmental Protection Agency for two common toxins found in algae caused by cyanobacteria and would need to be adopted by Florida. But environmentalists say there’s a problem: the limits are double what was originally proposed in 2016.

“We believe the 2016 standards supported by a number of state organizations and others were protective and absolutely necessary,” said Jason Totoiu, an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity.

This week, the center – along with the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation and Calusa Waterkeeper -asked Florida environmental officials to adopt the original recommended limits.

The EPA took the step of establishing new safety limits for recreational waters as dangerous blooms have increased in Florida, Lake Erie and around the U.S.

Last year, slimy foul-smelling blooms spread down the Calooshatchee river and the St. Lucie estuary, fueled by water from Lake Okeechobee polluted with phosphorus. Similar blooms have occurred regularly since 2005.

Toxins in algae have been linked to brain diseases and other illnesses. Earlier this year, University of Miami researchers found the toxins in the brains of dead dolphins from Southwest Florida that also showed Alzheimer-like damage.

DEP officials are now considering the new recommendations “including the science and methodology behind their development,” spokeswoman Dee Ann Miller said in an email.

The state’s new blue green algae task force will also review them, she said.

Adopting a limit would not only better protect swimmers, divers and others from polluted water, but expand monitoring. The state now tries to tackle its pollution problem by limiting nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen that can fuel blooms from flowing into springs, lakes and other water bodies. But so far, the effort has mostly failed: hundreds of tons of phosphorus continue to flow into Lake Okeechobee, three to four times higher than a limit set in 2000.

“It’s certainly necessary, but it doesnt give you that specific performance mesaure that’s really needed to hone in on what our ultimate goal is here,” Totoiu said. “The ultimate goal is to have clean estuaries and lakes and rivers.”

Limiting only nutrients also ignores other conditons that make blooms worse, like hotter water and heavier rain driven by climate change, he said.

Until a decision is made on the new criteria, Miller said the public should steer clear of where blooms are visible. Water sampling results can also be found at the DEP’s web site.

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2 Comments

  1. The state has many standards for water quality. This state has begun testing for certain markers related to water quality. However, the state simply refuses to enforce the laws that are already on the books and has no interest in identifying where are sources are coming from. Rather, they blame lack of manpower, money and other agencies. When is the last time you heard the EPA walk into a agricultural business and tell them they’re going to be fined unless they cease polluting the water? You haven’t and you never will in this political climate. People will have to die first and sue somebody before the government does its job and enforce the laws that Floridians have voted for. And that is what’s happening. We have all this knowledge and all these great laws but the Carnage to our water continues

  2. Thank you for this extremely important information. I will be interested in learning who letters should be sent to to recommend that the new standards for dangerous toxins linked to blue-green algae where people swim, boat, and fish, should go back to the 2016 standards as they were protective and absolutely necessary.

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