An article in the Gainesville Sun comments on the Florida Springs Council’s letter to Drew Bartlett and the DEP’s reaction. It lists the amounts of money spent on springs restoration, but fails to mention Scott’s refusal to direct Amendment 1 funds as intended. The DEP brags about the amount of water returned to the aquifer, failing to mention the millions upon millions permitted for personal use to irrigators. The DEP extols its programs to subsidize legal polluters to bribe them to pollute less.
The Sun quotes Kevin Wright, engineer with SRWMD, as saying the projects “…receive public funding because cutting nitrate pollution and reducing water usage in order to protect springs are in the public interest.” To that we would say to that permitting nitrate pollution and excessive damaging water withdrawals from “impaired waterways” already damaged from over drawing is not in the public interest to begin with.
The water management district is remiss in allowing these damaging practices. That is why OSFR continually requests moratoria on excessive permits. The district is not following the model water code as set up in the Florida Statutes.
Bottom line is the DEP fails equally in defending itself as it does in protecting our water resources.
Read this article in the Sun at this link.