The State of Florida has no plans to restore our springs, rivers and aquifer, nor even keep up with increased pollution. The DEP and the water management districts carefully bow to industry and polluters, and any activity on their part is carefully done to avoid offending any polluter. At the same time they beat their chests for spending huge sums of money hoping to hoodwink the public into believing they are fixing our water problems.
In Florida the legislators do not write their bills, they are written by corporations. In order to fix this we need to fix Citizens United.
Mr. Cassani is right; our hope lies with Floridarighttocleanwater.org
Read the original article here in Florida News Press.
Comments by OSFR historian Jim Tatum.
jim.tatum@oursantaferiver.org
– A river is like a life: once taken,
it cannot be brought back © Jim Tatum
The myth of progress on restoring Florida’s waters
Officials unwilling to make meaningful policy changes to stop the pollution
It is becoming obvious that Florida’s water restoration programs cannot keep pace with the pollution generated from poorly planned growth and development that has skyrocketed in Florida over the past decade.
A case in point is the Caloosahatchee River Basin Management Action Plan (BMAP). Adopted in 2012 and implemented by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP), the BMAP is aimed at reducing nitrogen pollution to levels consistent with state and federal water law.
The ecosystem goals are to lower the loading of nitrogen and phosphorus to avoid harmful algal blooms, prevent oxygen depletion that kills fish and wildlife and eventually enable restoration of seagrass within a 20-year timeframe.
The 2022 draft BMAP review, required by the Legislature, summarizes various elements of the plan spun mostly as progress. However, a closer reading of the report reveals some systemic failures that are anything but progress.
Since the adoption of the BMAP in 2012, additional tributaries to the river have been verified impaired by FDEP for nitrogen and phosphorus pollution. Not surprising in a basin dominated by agriculture.
Based on the draft review, only one percent of the required nitrogen reductions and 0.8 percent of the required phosphorus reductions have been attained. Nitrogen and phosphorus are the two primary pollutants that contribute to harmful algal blooms which are becoming more frequent.
The draft BMAP review states that stakeholders assigned pollutant load reduction targets have exceeded the 10-year milestone adopted in the plan. In contradiction to the stated progress, the report goes on to describe nitrogen loading reported by the SFWMD in 2022 has increased 77 percent since the BMAP was adopted ten years ago. The situation is apparently worsening rather than improving.
Unfortunately, we have seen similar outcomes statewide where water quality impairment has increased significantly in Florida waters for pollutants like nitrogen and phosphorus since 2010. Yet, we don’t see concurrent and significant increases in water quality restoration programs or timely and effective implementation of the Blue-green Algae Task Force (BGATF) consensus recommendations….
These outcomes are especially perplexing when reading the recent press release from FDEP Secretary Shawn Hamilton proclaiming historic progress on water issues, based largely on funds spent.
Florida voters have proved time and again that we are largely for water quality and conservation initiatives, yet continue to elect officials who are unwilling to make meaningful policy changes to stop the pollution. It’s hard to see a way out of this paradox without an innovative new approach, such as the Right to Clean Water petition, which would amend the Florida Constitution to finally hold policy makers and state agencies accountable. floridarighttocleanwater.org/
