Clean Water Act rules under attack by Farm Bureau and Fla. Cong. Steve Southerland

In a media release this morning, the Florida Conservation Coalition declared certain factions in Washington are trying to weaken federal clean water rules in a way that will have a negative impact on Florida’s waters.

It hasn’t been enough that our inept governor has already castrated the water management districts by firing their scientists, slashing their budgets, and reversing their regulatory mission from protection to serving special interests.  Now, one of those special interests, the Farm Bureau, an insurance company turned Big Ag advocate, and other industry groups, are trying to do the same thing to the regulatory authority of EPA at the federal level with the help of Florida Panhandle Republican Congressman Steve Southerland.

“The Florida Conservation Coalition (FCC) is composed of over 50 conservation organizations and thousands of individuals devoted to protecting and conserving Florida’s land, wildlife and water resources. The first priority of the Coalition is to protect and preserve Florida’s waters.”

The Coalition is encouraging Floridians who value healthy wetlands and a strong economy to express their opinion of H . R .  5078 to their congressman.

Here’s the Coalition’s media release in full:

Florida Conservation Coalition Calls on Public

 to Support Clean Water Act Rules

Congressman Southerland’s Bill, H.R. 5078, Muddies the Water

In the face of attacks by the Florida Farm Bureau and a narrow group of elected officials, the Florida Conservation Coalition calls on the citizens of Florida to support the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposed rule to protect Florida’s water resources.

The Clean Water Act prevents activities that would harm the nation’s rivers,

streams, lakes, wetlands and coastal waters. As required by the Act, EPA regulations protect water quality, help to prevent flooding and limit the impact of droughts. However, federal court decisions have made it essential that the EPA clarify which waters must be protected. 

Legislation proposed by Congressman Steve Southerland and supported today by the Florida Department of Agriculture, the Farm Bureau and other industry groups would prohibit adoption of an important new rule being proposed by EPA in cooperation with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to provide this clarity. The legislation would also shut down the public comment process, denying the public the opportunity to voice its position on the proposed rule.

This effort by Representative Southerland and others to keep the Clean Water Act rules muddy is not in Florida’s best interest. Clarifying that streams and their wetlands are protected but uplands are not regulated brings certainty to landowners and assures protection of Florida’s most important natural resources.

The proposed rule actually excludes regulation of most dry ditches, the subject of the Farm Bureau’s objections. All historical exclusions and exemptions for agriculture are preserved, and the proposed rule provides exemptions for many farming, timber and other land-use activities. 

“Southerland’s legislation is a misguided reaction to the proposed rule.  This legislation intervenes in the middle of the public commenting process and raises suspicion that the industry groups demonstrating today do not want to allow citizens to voice their support of our natural resources. Clean water depends on clear standards,” said Vicki Tschinkel of the Florida Conservation Coalition and former Secretary of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.  

It is especially important that Floridians support EPA’s efforts to protect wetlands which are an integral part of many Florida waterbodies. They are essential to human life in Florida, providing safe drinking water, flood protection for our homes and roads, and our food supply.  In addition, wetlands are vital to the health of Florida’s waters; to wildlife which depend on them for food and habitat; and to our fisherman, tourists and all citizens who depend on the productivity of our estuaries, Atlantic and Gulf.  There is nothing more central to Florida’s economy than the health of our water resources.

Despite the political fracas created by the Farm Bureau, EPA’s proposed rule does not increase or decrease regulation of farming or other activities. The rule simply makes clear the boundaries between flowing waters, wetlands and uplands.

“We are puzzled by the fierce reaction against something that only seeks to provide needed clarity to the Clean Water Act. The proposed rule does not regulate any new types of waters that have not historically been covered under the Act.  Clarity of these regulations is desperately needed to protect our precious, yet deteriorating waters and to stop endless litigation,” said Tschinkel.

 

Scott - desperate for environmental love

Please read this Ocala Star Banner article: Florida Governor pledges major spending on environment .

Okay, thanks.  So, what do you think about it?

If you think that because of this announcement Rick Scott has seen the light and has become a virtuous soul of piously good environmental intent, you should read the rest of this … and then go see your therapist.

• Scott’s announcement is a desperate, insensitive, disingenuous ploy by a weak re-election campaign to grab reluctant support from an environmental community he has callously disregarded for the last four years … and which he is only now realizing was a very significant political mistake.  It is such a complete reversal of his positions for the last four years, his credibility should now be as embarrassing to his supporters as it is a joke to the environmentalists he disparaged so vehemently.
• $500 million for new water supplies?  If Florida is going to continue to have an economy at all, it must have more new water if enough cannot be conserved to meet the expected demand.  So, this could be a signal that conservation is going to be given a back seat.  If so, where are the new supplies going to come from?  In terms of the state’s projected needs, groundwater is not the answer.  More pumping is going to require many MFL’s (Minimum Flows and Levels) to be exceeded, more lost wetlands, impacts on springs, rivers, lakes, salt intrusion, etc.  If it’s from surface bodies, there’s not even a handful of rivers that might not be significantly impacted by large diversions.  Large diversions are only feasible on flashy rivers, like the Peace, that have huge “excess” flows on few occasions annually that can be effectively captured and stored.  The main body of most rivers’ flows cannot be impacted without commensurate impacts to all else that depend upon their continuous historic average flows.  Desalination?  Not even in the conversation.  And, where and for what purpose will this new water be used? Mining, power, big agriculture, “planned communities” that really aren’t? Finally, who’s going to receive the money to build the production, treatment and delivery systems?  The private sector?  That’s just transfer of more public wealth from working taxpayers to the pockets of special interests. Seems that’s what Tallahassee is all about anymore. If he lays $500 million on the table, it’ll be like the California gold rush to grab the last cheap water before someone else does.  MFL’s and the environment will be damned and you and I will pay for it.
• $500 million for springs protection?  That just means a whole lot more waste water treatment plants, a good thing for certain if it’s truly and only to get the nitrate production out of the springsheds.  But what if it’s a ruse just to have you and me pay agriculture to clean up their messes.  More “big ag” welfare?  Aren’t they subsidized enough?  New waste treatment plants?  For whom?  Use to be when a developer wanted to build a community, the cost of water production and waste treatment had to be covered by the developer and recovered from the folks buying the rooftops, even when the money went to the local government to build the facilities - a user-pay thing.  Is Scott now proposing to help out a lot of developers under the guise of protecting springs? Certainly could be. It is completely consistent with his actions so far and highly doubtful the man could change his colors so fast. His disparagement of natural Florida's economic and aesthetic values has been so systemic and complete within Florida government the damage will be lasting for many years.  No, strongly suspect subterfuge here.
• Regarding Amendment #1 - Placing this Nouveau Scott plan on the table now will give strength to the argument that this is how we need to pay for environmental protection and preservation, and why Amendment 1 is not needed.  The timing and inexplicable reversal of it smells an awful lot like a Trojan Horse.  Do we want to just forget how the environment has been subjected to the whims of a thoroughly (and embarrassingly) anti-environmental legislative and gubernatorial sentiment for the last four years and why the Amendment is needed to overcome the annual unpredictable whims of the legislature?  No we will not, but watch for the anti-amendment legislators to scurry out from under the baseboards on this.  Do not buy this Trojan ruse.

  

  This would be condos were it not in public ownership.

• $150 million for Florida Forever?  If it’s not guaranteed by a constitutional amendment for certain purposes, rest assured it’ll be spent in ways that favor special interests and not the environment, e.g., subject to utility and roadway easements, not with mineral rights reserved, not for connecting wildlife corridors, not for protecting and preserving remote environmentally unique areas, not to prevent destructive private leasing, not limited to passive public uses ... and billboards will be allowed in the swamps.  Scott has spent the last four years weakening the protections our public dollars have bought and placed upon public lands.  Why should we think he’s going to do any different with any new lands bought under this guise?
• Finally, increased regulatory scrutiny of permit holders is going to require a huge, really huge, shift in the anti-regulation culture Scott, Vinyard and Jeff Littlejohn have so meticulously constructed in place of the “pro” culture they destroyed.  It represents a stark and unbelievable 180 degree reversal of a major campaign platform.  Can we actually believe there is even an ounce of sincerity in this man and the army of anti-environmental minions he has strategically positioned within his administration?  Where from and how did they come upon this near-religious revelation?  Are we simply going to let them say, The devil made us do it, and thank them for their service?  I don’t buy it and you shouldn’t either.  The last four years have been a disastrous reality for natural Florida, much worse than just a bad dream from which we can now awaken.  If we believe this man now, it’ll just be four more years of that same horrid destructive reality.

Carl Hiaasen wrote today about Rick Scott’s credibility and where he might hang the head of the deer he killed at King Ranch recently, “The bathroom wall would be a fitting place, hanging right over the toilet where he flushed his integrity.”

Yes.