a clean water supply is

worth every drop.

It’s clear, really. Saving the Everglades equals protecting Florida’s drinking water supply. More than 7 MILLION residents of Florida, or about 1 of every 3 of us, rely on the Everglades for our daily supply of fresh water. Now, this resource that we value every day is in serious jeopardy. The State Senate released a budget that ZEROES OUT funding for critical Everglades restoration projects. It’s time to send a clear message to those who represent us to let them know this is unacceptable. Please join us by contacting Governor Scott and members of the Florida Legislature to tell them a clean water supply is worth every drop!

Tell Tallahassee to restore funding
to protect the Florida Everglades

I would like to ask a favor of you. The Florida Senate recently proposed a budget that ELIMINATES funding for critical Everglades Restoration projects. These restoration efforts directly affect South Florida’s clean water supply and the 7 million Floridians who use this resource every day.

Working with our conservation partners, the Foundation is actively engaged in a campaign to restore Everglades funding. Since it is still early in the budget process, we are asking the Senate to reconsider their initial budget proposal. You can help convince them to restore the Everglades restoration budget.

Please visit www.fundtheeverglades.com and urge Governor Rick Scott and your state legislators to approve a budget that includes a minimum of $40 million to restore our Everglades. It only takes a minute.

At that hearing, the Florida DEP will testify that EPA’s proposed permits should be weakened to allow more sugarcane pollution of the Everglades. Come out and testify in support of EPA permits for STA discharges and clean water for the Everglades.

In 2008, Judge Alan Gold, who presides over this case, issued a summary judgment decision in favor of Friends and the Tribe. Judge Gold’s decision was issued within the backdrop of another federal lawsuit, initially brought in 1988 by the federal government also to protect the Everglades from excessive phosphorus from EAA. That case resulted in a consent decree (1992), which is currently administered by federal judge Frederico Moreno and his appointed special master. The Moreno Consent Decree resulted in the construction of large treatment marshes (called STAs) along part of the southern perimeter of the EAA and the imposition on sugarcane farmers of minimal Best Management Practices (25% Phosphorus reduction). The STAs were constructed and are owned and operated by the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD). While interpreted for many years as encompassing the entire Everglades Protection Area and the Everglades National Park, the Moreno Consent Decree was recently limited by court decision to the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge on the eastern part of the Everglades. This ruling has substantially reduced the importance of the Moreno consent decree and increased the importance of the Gold case in achieving water quality protection for the Everglades.

After Judge Gold’s 2008 Summary Judgment decision in favor of Friends, it soon became clear… that the State and EPA were not going to move forward to protect the Everglades. By 2009, Friends and the Tribe were forced to file additional motions to have the EPA and the State held in contempt of court for violating the Court’s 2008 ruling.  In April, 2010, Judge Gold ruled in favor of Friends’. In his Order, Judge Gold stated: “So, we have now increased by 30 percent the amount of the Everglades that has been irreversibly damaged. If we allow continual discharge of this pollutant into the Everglades, into impacted areas which expand into unimpacted areas which become laden with phosphorus, that is irreversible damage. In my mind, that is unreasonable given the fact that it supposed to be stopped. We are supposed to be restoring the Everglades, not just stopping it and we haven’t even stopped the damage, yet…”

Judge Gold issued further Orders requiring EPA to issue an “Amended Determination” on its review of Florida State Water Quality Standards by September of 2010.  Judge Gold also required the Florida DEP to amend its Phosphorus Rule and required the State Legislature to revise the Everglades Forever Act Amendments to conform with federally-approved Water Quality Standards. Neither the State nor the State Legislature has complied with Judge Gold’s Order to this day. In his April 2010 Order, Judge Gold also ordered the State to conform the discharge permits (NPDES permits) for the STA treatment marshes within 60-days of EPA’s submission of the Amended Determination. The EPA did submit the Amended Determination in September of 2010. In the Amended Determination , EPA clearly set forth the standards and provisions that the NPDES permits should contain. Sixty-days later, the State submitted “sample permits”, not for EPA or Court review, but merely to avoid being held in contempt of Judge Gold’s Order.

Once again Friends was forced to file another motion for contempt against the State of Florida DEP. As a direct result of Friends’ motion, Judge Gold issued yet another Order in April 2011. In that Order, Judge Gold states: “To its credit, the EPA now has come forth – following a lengthy history of inaction – with an Amended Determination that serves to protect the Everglades resource. What also is clear is that the State of Florida and the South Florida Water Management District (“SFWMD”), notwithstanding protests to the contrary, have not been true stewards of protecting the Everglades in recent years.”

Judge Gold ordered the EPA to “review the permits filed by the FDEP and take all necessary action to conform the permits in accordance with the instant Order and the Court’s prior orders…” The Court deemed the draft State NPDES permits submitted for purposes of EPA review (even though the State had refused to submit them for review and tried to create a “Catch-22” log-jam by submitting them as “sample” permits). In his April 2011 Order, Judge Gold set in motion a process that could eventually result in the issuance of federal NPDES discharge permits for the STA treatment marshes, instead of the State-issued permits. The EPA and the State were further ordered to submit a Joint Notice of Compliance by July 1, 2011. On June 27, 2010, the EPA sent to the State a letter outlining its objections to the draft NPDES permits. The EPA stated that it “primarily objects” to the State draft permits because the permits still contained Administrative Orders and schedules that had been previously ruled illegal by Judge Gold and did not demonstrate that the Water Quality Standard of 10ppb of Phosphorus could be met in the Everglades Protection Area. Also, the EPA wrote that the SFWMD had not fully implemented Best Management Practices in the EAA. Finally, the draft State permits allowed to many diversions or by-passing of the STA treatment marshes, a defect first pointed out by Friends’ expert, Tom Lodge, Ph.D.

As required by Judge Gold, EPA and the State submitted a Joint Notice of Compliance on July 1, 2011. At that time, EPA indicated that under the Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. Sec. 1342(d)(2) & (4); 40 C.F.R. 123.44(h) that the State or other interested party could request a public hearing on the EPA objections to the State draft NPDES permits, as set forth in the June 27, 2011 letter. The State and other parties did request a public hearing within the 90-day period (Sept. 25, 2011). Prior to this time, the State had declared publicly in Court and otherwise that it was prohibited by State law from complying with Judge Gold’s Order and by issuing conformed NPDES permits that were immediately enforceable, as opposed to containing Administrative Orders with lengthy compliance schedules.

Subsequent to the State’s request for a public hearing, however, Friends became aware that the State was making overtures to the EPA to replace the EPA’s proposed WQBEL with its own standard and to replace the EPA’s STA expansion proposal with its own alternative remedy. Meanwhile, the EPA was stalling on setting a date for the public hearing, which was an essential step in complying with Judge Gold’s Order and moving forward with federalization of the NPDES permits. The threat of federalization of the STA NPDES permits was clearly having a positive impact on the State, in that the State did not want the permits “federalized” under Gold’s Order. If the STA permits were federalized, the State would no longer be able to protect Big Sugar from additional restrictions on its ability to pollute the Everglades at taxpayer expense. So, the pressure imposed by Gold’s Order (Friends’ lawsuit) was beginning to show results. The EPA, however, was letting this pressure dissipate by failing to schedule the required public hearing.

Given EPA’s delay in scheduling the public hearing on the draft State NPDES permits and EPA’s objections to them, Friends once again went back to Court and, on November 18, 2011, moved for a Status Conference. Judge Gold granted Friends’ motion and set a status conference for January 12, 2012. It was not until January 6, 2012, after Judge Gold granted Friends’ request for a Status Conference, that EPA finally scheduled a public hearing on its objections to the State’s draft NPDES permits. That hearing is now scheduled for March 13, 2012 from 6:00pm to 10:00pm at the South County Civic Center, 16700 Jog Road, Delray Beach, FL 33448.  After the hearing, EPA will review the comments presented and prepare a responsiveness summary.

At the January 12, 2012 Status Conference, Judge Gold asked EPA what, besides undertaking a technical review of the States’ WQBEL and alternative remedy, it had accomplished? Gold asked EPA if it had asked the State hard questions about funding and enforceability of the State’s proposal. The EPA attorney said that it had not asked the hard questions and had not received any information or data from the State on funding or enforceability of its proposals. In its “Report on EPA Actions Taken Since July 1, 2011”, EPA wrote to Judge Gold: “EPA assures the Court that it remains committed to its responsibilities under the Clean Water Act and to moving forward expeditiously.” Friends has heard these assurances before and remains highly skeptical, now. Judge Gold also requested and EPA committed to provide the Court and the parties with a summary status report on the hearing and EPA’s determinations within 30-days. According to EPA, it will either “reaffirm its original objections, modify the terms of the objections or withdraw the objections, and so notify the State…If EPA does not withdraw the objections and FDEP does not submit permits revised to meet the objections (or modified objections) within 30-days of the notification, then exclusive authority to issue the permits passes to EPA. 40 C.F.R. Sec. 123.44(h)(2)&(3).”

So not only do the sugar billionaires get unearned taxpayer dollars through unnecessary federal import quotas and subsidies, but they get their pollution cleanup costs paid by the taxpayers of South Florida. Our legislators need to swear off their addiction to sugar campaign money and make them pay all their cleanup costs.

Albert Slap, Key Biscayne

GOVERNOR SCOTT’S SENDS LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA — FRIENDS’ WATER QUALITY LITIGATION IS HAVING A POSITIVE IMPACT

On February 1, 2012, as a direct result of pressure from Friends’ legal action to control sugarcane pollution of the Everglades, Governor Rick Scott wrote a personal letter to President Obama (SEE LINK) stating that he is “committed to moving forward on meaningful projects” for the cleanup of the Everglades. Governor Scott told President Obama that he wants to work with the federal government on an alternate to EPA’s cleanu plan. Friends is skeptical that the State plan will be adequate to cleanse the polluted run-off from sugarcane production and that the State legislature will provide adequate funds. CALL OR WRITE GOVERNOR SCOTT AND TELL HIM THAT YOU SUPPORT HIS EFFORTS TO STOP SUGARCANE POLLUTION BEFORE IT GETS TO THE EVERGLADES. AND, TELL GOVERNOR SCOTT THAT YOU WANT SUGARCANE GROWERS TO PAY 100% OF THEIR POLLUTION CLEANUP COSTS – NOT THE TAXPAYERS OF SOUTH FLORIDA!

The CLEO Institute amplifies civic engagement on environmental issues by bringing together scientists, educators, private and public sector leaders, and young people.

Please email written comments to tgarcia@mdxway.com by this Friday, January 27, 2012.

Here’s a sample comment to cut and paste or put in your own words:

I ask the MDX board to remove the 836/Dolphin Expressway Southwest Extension (project 83618) from its 5-year plan. I question the necessity of the this project and am concerned about the impacts to residents, agriculture and America’s Everglades.

I believe this road is unnecessary and will actually will increase, not alleviate, congestion on SR 836. Commuters currently have the option of taking several highways into downtown Miami. The existing 836, the Florida Turnpike, the 874, the 878 and the 826. Most of these roads have been or are currently being rebuilt to handle greater capacity. Future and existing toll revenues should be used to maintain these roads and provide for public transit alternatives, not to build new roads into environmentally sensitive areas.

The project will threaten Everglades National Park and nearby federally-protected wetlands. A new layer of highway extending away from the city will fuel sprawl because of its proximity to the Urban Development Boundary. This highway would attract development of agricultural and wild lands buffering the Everglades and pose a direct threat to the $12 billion federal-state Everglades restoration project.

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Festival Site – La Quinta Hotel
8101 Peters Rd., Plantation, Fl. 33324 * (954) 476-6047
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Learn about our other trips and programs.
SPACE COAST BIRDING FESTIVAL
For those going on to the Space Coast Wildlife & Birding Festival January 25-30, 2012, I can recommend places to bird in Florida: www.spacecoastbirdingandwildlifefestival.org

Friends of the Everglades is a small, Miami-based grass roots environmental group founded by Marjory Stoneman Douglas in 1969 during the battle to stop the Everglades jetport. Marjory’s goals– vividly described in her fabled and historic book, “The River of Grass”– guide us today. Our priorities are: to educate young students to the extent we are able, through our Young Friends program, and to hold government agencies accountable to the promise of restoring Everglades water quality.

Over the years, we have reached tens of thousands of students in Miami-Dade County. Our classroom presentations aim to ingrain the sense of wonder and a sense of stewardship for the Everglades in younger generations.  We begin by helping students understand what makes the Everglades unique; a wilderness that exists nowhere else in the continental United States.

Protecting water quality requires citizens to apply common sense to the importance of taking a long view. Everglades restoration that will take generations to accomplish, requiring clear and enforceable remedies.

There are no short-term fixes for fixing Everglades water quality. Our main obstacles are short-term thinking by businesses and government that often pay lip service to protecting the public commons as provided by law. Along this line, Friends of the Everglades has been a plaintiff in major, precedent-setting federal litigation on water quality.

Friends of the Everglades is playing a central role in two federal court battles that have proceeded over many years, with respect to cleaning up the pollution caused by industrial farming (Big Sugar) and polluted stormwater runoff.

In 2010, federal judge Alan Gold affirmed the position of Friends and our co-plaintiff, the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians, and required the US EPA to produce enforceable remedies for sugar’s phosphorous pollution of the Everglades. Part of the remedy relates to water quality-the 10 parts per billion standard memorialized in federal law, that the state has failed to comply with-and part relates to water quantity-vast treatment marshes that can reduce the tremendous volumes of phosphorous pouring off sugar fields and from polluted municipal sources, including water from Lake Okeechobee.

With your support, in 2012, we will continue our course in holding government accountable to water quality standards that are necessary to restore the remnant River of Grass. In 2012, we hope that government agencies will pay greater attention to a pernicious poison afflicting the Everglades, methyl mercury.

Friends of the Everglades is reminded that in 1996, a majority of Florida voters amended the Florida Constitution to provide that Everglades polluters are responsible to clean up 100 percent of the pollution they cause, and that ever since that time, the Florida legislature has not lifted a finger to help the enact the people’s will.

2012 could be the year, with your support, that Friends of the Everglades reaches even more young people in South Florida. With your help, 2012 could also be the year that the polluters really pay for the full costs of their pollution of the Everglades.

Your fully deductible contribution to Friends of the Everglades, a nonprofit 501(C)(3) organization, serves a very valuable purpose: to ensure that no stone is left unturned in the effort to force the state and federal government to back up its promises with results. Please contribute generously to Friends. You can renew your membership and/or make a contribution showing support securely online at our Join & Donate page. Also, please pass this message along to others interested in promoting our work preserving and protecting the Everglades for future generations.

Sincerely,

Alan Farago

Friends of the Everglades, President

Our State of Florida Solicitation of Contributions Act Registration Number is CH2632. A COPY OF THE OFFICIAL REGISTRATION AND FINANCIAL INFORMATION MAY BE OBTAINED FROM THE DIVISION OF CONSUMER SERVICES BY CALLING TOLL-FREE (800-435-7352) WITHIN THE STATE. REGISTRATION DOES NOT IMPLY ENDORSEMENT, APPROVAL, OR RECOMMENDATION BY THE STATE.

(For immediate release) Yesterday, the United States Court of Appeals rejected an attempt by the State of Florida, sugarcane growers, and the South Florida Water Management District to block a federal EPA plan to protect the Everglades from cane farming pollution. EPA’s new plan to save the Everglades was mandated in 2010 by federal District Judge Alan Gold as a result of a lawsuit brought by Friends of the Everglades and the Miccosukee Tribe. The State, sugarcane growers and the Water District challenged the federal plan in the appeals court, but the court ruled that the challenge was premature since the plan was still being implemented. Alan Farago, president of Friends of the Everglades said, “The appeals court rightfully rejected these challenges as yet another delay tactic by the State and sugarcane polluters.”

Sugar cane growers in the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA), located directly north of the Everglades, use the Everglades as their waste treatment facility, flushing billions of gallons of agricultural wastes containing high levels of phosphorus, sulfates, and pesticides, directly and indirectly into the Everglades Protection Area, Big Cypress and Everglades National Park. Agricultural wastes runoff damages the Everglades and also causes high-levels of toxic mercury contamination. Mercury contamination in the Everglades poses a direct, immediate threat to human health, particularly to pregnant women and small children who may consume fish taken from the Everglades. All of the Everglades is under Florida Department of Health Fish Consumption warnings. Mercury in Everglades fish is toxic to the unborn fetus and can cause brain and nervous system damage.

Fifteen years ago, the people of Florida passed a Constitutional Amendment, Art. II, Sec. 7, “Polluter Pays”, which requires those who cause pollution in the Everglades to bear primary responsibility for the costs of stopping and cleaning up the pollution that they cause.

In the past fifteen years, instead of adhering to the Constitution provision adopted by voters, the Governor and Legislature have acted to protect the sugar industry from paying the its fair share of pollution treatment. The Governor and Legislators have illegally shifted the cost of treating pollution to the taxpayers of South Florida. This scheme has not only created one of the nation’s largest environmental catastrophes, it has also perpetrated one of the largest rip-offs of taxpayers in American history to benefit billionaire industrial farmers.

The Bush EPA turned its back on the Everglades and sided with sugar cane polluters over Florida taxpayers, requiring them to foot Sugar’s pollution cleanup costs. As a result of successful legal efforts by Friends of the Everglades and the Miccosukee Tribe, the EPA under President Obama changed direction and has now identified a realistic plan to clean up the Everglades.

Delaying tactics by the State, Sugar, the Florida Legislature and the South Florida Water Management District continue. Damage to the Everglades and injury to the health of Florida citizens continues unabated. Friends of the Everglades hopes the public clearly sees what is being done to their health and their irreplaceable Everglades. Farago adds, “Florida taxpayers must demand that Governor Scott and the Legislature enforce the Florida Constitution and make the EAA Polluters Pay for their own waste treatment and cleanup, now.”

Pictured: Florida sugarcane field, U.S. Department of Agriculture

For decades, politicians allowed more growth and development and agriculture than our aquifers could reasonably sustain. Within government agencies, scientists and policy makers and attorneys treaded on the subject like walking on egg shells.

Over the decades, at the same time politicians talked in high terms about “Everglades Restoration”, managers stuck wells and routed water to serve an unsustainable volume of growth. This secret is at the heart of government in Florida and has been known within government offices in South Florida for at least 40 years.

Once drinking water wells are pumping salt, the facts will emerge. Reporters will scan the blogs, for where to start. One story worth recounting is Gary Pesnell’s. Pesnell, a retired District wildlife biologist, worked for the South Florida Water Management District in the early 1970′s. He was given a remarkable assignment; to take as much time as necessary to inventory and catalog the natural resources of Lake Okeechobee. In the course of his work, he began to expose how the Everglades would be sacrificed– willfully– for the political imperatives for growth. Scientists were fearful for their jobs then, as they are today. Now that he is retired– watching from a distance the drought disaster unfold in South Florida– Pesnell spoke out, last week, on a Sierra Club listserve. Perhaps more will speak out, a kind of chorus in a kind of Greek tragedy that is Florida.

Lake Okeechobee, locally referred to as The Lake or The Big O, is the largest freshwater lake in the state of Florida. It is the seventh largest freshwater lake in the United States and the second largest freshwater lake contained entirely within the lower 48 states. Okeechobee covers 730 square miles (1,890 km²), approximately half the size of the state of Rhode Island, and is exceptionally shallow for a lake of its size, with an average depth of only 9 feet. The lake is pided between Glades, Okeechobee, Martin, Palm Beach, and Hendry counties. Maps of Florida show that all five of these counties meet at one point near the center of the lake.

Historically, the entire southern Florida peninsula was influenced by Lake Okeechobee and seasonal flooding. It is still the sick heart of the dying Everglades. To one extent or another, water management uses Lake Okeechobee as a key determinant in canal levels for all the counties south of the lake, comprising millions of water users. Here is what Pesnell has to say:

Pesnell wrote me: “I have a degree in Wildlife Management from Louisiana Tech and a masters in fisheries biology from LSU. I was hired by the district right out of graduate school. I was an Environmentalist for the South Florida Water Management District from June 1971 until November 1979. I was the district’s biologist for the Lake Okeechobee marshes and later on for various projects in Conservation Area #3 and Conservation Area #2. I covered pretty much everything from the Lake south to Tamiami Trail. For eight years I practically lived on the Lake or in CA3. I worked primarily with the ecology and taxonomy of marsh vegetation.

Shortly after I went to work with the district I landed the Lake Okeechobee project. The district published a vegetation map that Bob Brown and I put together on the marshes of Lake Okeechobee and a small publication that was primarily descriptive that we did regarding the relationship of marsh vegetation and land elevations in Lake Okeechobee. I was promised a Cadillac operation and I pretty much got it. Everyone was aware that the littoral zone of the lake was big and valuable, but it was largely unknown. I was told that Lake Okeechobee was going to have to hold more water and that the proposed increase in the regulation schedule was a foregone conclusion. However, they wanted the littoral zone documented. If it was going to be destroyed they needed to know what was being destroyed. That is why Bob Brown and I prepared the vegetation map of the lake’s marshes. Up until the end my position was one of the best research positions in the country.

The district and the corps (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) knew in the late 1970s the predicament (as in now) south Florida was facing. They were developing a water use plan. Both ran separate routings and tried to calibrate the routings by plugging in historical data to try to duplicate historical records. I do not know how close they came to duplicating what happened in the past. I do know that every biologist, engineer, hydrologist, whatever that reviewed the routings saw what they showed under the proposed higher regulation schedule with projected increases in water use. They showed higher stages during wet periods and lower stages during dry periods, the proverbial yo-yo effect at ranges far beyond anything previously seen.

The effect on the Conservation Areas and water supply in general were quite obvious. Environmentalist, yes me too, were campaigning against the higher schedule. We have no way of knowing what would have happened if the regulation schedule had not been raised in the face of increased demand. I do not recall seeing an alternative routing like that. It did not happen so the point is moot. As I remember it this water use plan was supposed to determine the mode of operation into the foreseeable future until something else was needed.

I had a source at the corps Jacksonville office of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers who would periodically send me copies of the Corps routing attempts so I had been following the situation long before it was made public. This was top secret stuff. This person sent them to me in mailing tubes with the address in box letters cut out of magazines. They were probably even wiped for finger prints. I managed to keep it quiet for a while. Eventually, I had to respond to what I was seeing and did so with a memo to the director of our pision at the time. It was Bill Storch. He tried to fire me and would have had not Walt Dineen done some fast talking on my behalf.

The bottom line is that, the water managers knew what demand was going to do many years before it happened, not only to the environment, but to the water supply in general. They actually predicted what is happening right now. And nobody did anything.

I can tell you what happened to me. This is how the water managers thought at the time and just one small indication of why south Florida is in the mess it is in. No one wanted to face the music. I was supposed to have been supplied with a routing from which to work on the data from years of research involving water levels and marsh vegetation. It was to be a treatise for evaluating environmental impact for the water use plan and eventually go to peer review for publication. One day out of the blue I was handed a routing in a meeting of the Environmental Resources pision and told I had two weeks to write an entire volume of the water use plan on the environmental impact of the plan on Lake Okeechobee. I stood up in front of 140 people, said a few choice words and walked out.

When I walked down the hall after that, most district employees walked over to the other side. When I sat down in the coffee shop, suddenly everyone had places to go and things to do. I did write the document in two 80 hour weeks. It was not a very scientific work, but I did the best I could. A number of people convinced me if I did not write it, the truth would never come out. I was accused of writing with a negative attitude and the district did not like it.

I can guarantee that same thing that happened to me happened to people all down the line. Just nobody else said anything. Everything went to hell with that water use plan.

I practically lived on the lake for several years, staying at the Clewiston Inn, camping on the islands, sometimes just sleeping on the levees. I would be out for several days at a time. After the Okeechobee project I was looking for another job when the Area 3 projects came up. I could not resist that. Again, I would be out for days at a time. At that time there were no cell phones and we had no radios. I could leave Holiday Park fish camp on Tuesday morning and no one would see or hear from me until Thursday night or Friday. I would not be missed unless I did not show up at the house when I was supposed to. Fortunately, it seldom happened and my wife had little reason to panic. That was one of the most complete, the most satisfying feelings of freedom, heading out on Holiday Park trail for the 30 or so miles to the gap in the levee where the Big Cypress was and where I would stay at a camp when working in the lower part of the pool. 45 gallons of aviation fuel and three days to roam. I think there is not a tree island or a slough or saw grass flat in Area 3, or Area 2 for that matter that I have not seen, air boated or traversed in some form or fashion. When the northern part of Area 3 got really dry and I was tearing up my airboats trying to get around, the district bought a Roll-a-gon. That roll-a-gon could go just about anywhere when there was no water. I often went alone in the airboat to keep weight down. I knew better than to try to manage the Roll-a-gon by myself and usually had a couple of people with me on that.

Needless to say, I had some very interesting experiences. I had a photographic memory for my field trips and wrote trip reports for each trip.”

Why would a enduring, severe drought wreck South Florida’s drinking water wells? It’s simple. Once salt water gets into the aquifer surrounding a well, it can’t be forced out by fresh water. Four years ago, the drinking water well in Homestead serving the entire Florida Keys came perilously close to being contaminated. Just like you don’t always hear the stories about fighter jets scrambling to meet a perceived threat of unidentified, potentially hostile aircraft; most Floridians are oblivious to the scrambling that goes on, through a persistent drought. Water managers measure the threat and meet in war rooms to plot out responses with gates, locks, and canals. They are tracking the rapid march of salt water inward as, year-by-year, the growth and water consumption of South Floridians sucks more and more water out of the aquifer.

Think of Florida’s water supply and demand as an elastic band, with the competition for water resources being stretched tighter and tighter by serial assaults on the supply by Big Sugar and developers insisting that the primary purpose of water managers is to deliver as much water as they need, whenever they need it. These are the politics– backed by unlimited campaign contributions– a rain of toxic cash– that forced environmentalists and civic activists to the fringe over the past 40 years, in no small part because the mainstream media refused– and still refuses– to give weight to the ethical lapses that will ultimately determine whether we can afford to live in South Florida.

Reprinted from the blog I co-write: Eyeonmiami.  – Alan Farago, President

Florida Power and Light (FPL) is attempting to swap a utility corridor it owns inside the 109,000 acre East Everglades Expansion Area (Everglades National Park) for a new corridor on the east side of the park – but still inside current park boundaries.  If permitted, one of Florida’s most unique natural areas will gain a new industrial horizon consisting of 3 sets of powerlines carrying up to 500,000 volts of electricity across towers as high as 150 feet.  The lines would connect proposed new nuclear reactors at Turkey Point to points north and are a part of FPL’s application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.  Although grave concerns regarding these reactors have been discussed on this list previously – the issue right now is not Turkey Point or south Florida’s energy future. The only issue NPS will be considering at this time are FPL’s power lines across Everglades National Park.

A map of the proposed “swap” can be found here:

http://m1e.net/c?70086600-A0GbSQzJWV//o%406544834-G0MaQUuUY9mGU

A photo of existing powerlines heading north from Turkey Point (much smaller than the ones proposed for Everglades National Park) is here (photo by Matt Schwartz – feel free to reproduce with credit):

http://m1e.net/c?70086600-Ca0ETWOBCFSPg%406544835-TTLWmFuufK09%2e

Potential consequences of the powerlines to the park could be enormous.  They include: damage to sensitive wetlands due to construction of towers and maintenance roads; spread of exotic plant species on disturbed lands; impacts to federally listed endangered and threatened species including the Everglades snail kite, eastern indigo snake, wood stork, and Florida panther; likely increase in mortality of native and migratory birds due to collisions and electrocutions; and degradation of the public’s ability to enjoy a significant area of land already declared “wilderness eligible” by the NPS.

Of the 3 alternatives put forward by the National Park Service, South Florida Wildlands Association is strongly advocating the selection of ALTERNATIVE 3: ACQUISITION.  As described in the NPS newsletter:

Last week the online journal, The Florida Independent, returned to mercury pollution in the Everglades. Typically, the state spokesperson sought to diffuse responsibility. “There are many sources of sulfur – it is abundant in nature occurring as sulfides and sulfates” Sterling Ivey, spokesperson of the state Department of Agriculture, told the Independent. She added: ”It would be difficult to obtain a quantified measurement of how much sulfur is present in the environment, specifically from agriculture products/use.” Sulfur and sulfates bind to form the most toxic form of mercury.

That is not why is is “difficult”. It is difficult because polluters control the state of Florida. The state could require reporting the volume of sulfur being used by agricultural operations in the Everglades Agricultural Area or other mercury hotspots around the state, but that would be “regulatory overload”. As though, deforming fetuses is not.

There is a radical new interpretation on the balance between economic development and the economy: it doesn’t matter if mercury from sugar plantations wreck wildlife, wetlands, or unborn children: not as long as jobs are at stake. In fact, tolerating mercury without any enforcement limits against sulfur or sulfates is a new yardstick in Florida’s race to the bottom. (click ‘read more’, for the full story by the Florida Independent.) There has never been a more radical interpretation of the role of government than the denial of responsibility for cleaning up toxics in Florida waters. Federal lawsuits Friends of the Everglades has filed– over a very long period of time– have focused on nutrient pollution in the Everglades. Too much phosphorous, measured in parts per billion, chokes and disrupts the web of life in the Everglades. Mercury doesn’t just kill wildlife in the Everglades, it can kill people too.

Mercury deforms fetuses, changes sexuality, and causes developmental disabilities. These costs are horrendous, and yet the state of Florida turns a blind eye to agricultural practices that significantly contribute to this unfolding disaster.

For decades, the prevalence of mercury has been attributed to atmospheric deposition from power plants or waste incinerators. But there is accumulating evidence of “hot spots” of mercury below canal outfalls where contaminated water from private sugar fields flows into public lands and the Everglades. Behind the mercury issue are billionaire sugar barons like the Fanjuls of Coral Gables and Palm Beach. To maximize the production of sugar in the Everglades Agricultural Area, very large inputs of sulfur are deployed. There is no state record keeping or even standards for sulfur/sulfate that triggers the formation of mercury. From sugar fields, the pollution drains into the remnant Everglades through where signs blazoned with skull and bones mark the banks of canals operated by the South Florida Water Management District.

Governor Rick Scott and the legislature recently decided to cut the budgets of the state’s water management districts, making far less money available to protect people and the Everglades.

Write or email Governor Rick Scott.

Ask him why the state of Florida refuses to crack down on the powerful interests that are turning Florida into a toxic dump for mercury pollution:

Governor Rick Scott
The Capitol
Tallahassee FL 32399-0001

 

From the Florida Independent
Sulfate in the Everglades: Whose problem is it, and what should be done?
By Virginia Chamlee

The presence of methylmercury in the Florida Everglades has been documented by scientists and researchers in the area. The chemical can cause significant damage to developing fetuses and children, and leads to major hormonal imbalances in animals native to the Everglades.

The state’s environmental regulators have been slow to tackle the problem. State agencies have almost no regulations for the use of sulfate, one of the chemicals that may be largely to blame.

The Everglades contain mercury in its pure form, but when it combines with other chemicals, it can become much easier to absorb, and therefore more dangerous. Sulfur in the form of sulfate (which is commonly used by the agricultural industry) can combine with mercury to create methylmercury (MeHg) – a neurotoxin that can be harmful to wildlife.

“Methylmercury bioaccumulates in an organism,” says Dr. Melodie Naja, Water Quality Scientist with the Everglades Foundation. “It sticks to the cells of those that ingest it.”

The environmental concern, according to scientists, is that mercury can throw off an entire ecosystem, as mercury poisoning can lead to odd mating behavior that generally doesn’t yield offspring. In a study conducted by University of Florida Professor Peter Frederick, even levels of mercury typical of store-bought fish were found to cause homosexual behavior in wading birds. Male birds ingesting even minimum amounts of mercury-laced fish mated with other males, and established a long-term commitment to a nest with their same-sex mating partners.

Mercury on its own is difficult to regulate, because it often arrives in the Everglades through rainfall. Because it would be nearly impossible to remove mercury from the ecosystem, some scientists argue that the most promising way to control the effects of methylmercury would be to control the levels of sulfate.

“Mercury emissions are out of control,” says Bill Orem, a scientist with the United States Geological Survey. “So the other approach is to reduce sulfate.”

One issue, in terms of regulating sulfate and determining how great a problem it poses, is figuring out whose problem it is. The state Department of Environmental Protection claims a certain amount of responsibility, but doesn’t have specific regulations for sulfate. The South Florida Water Management District says it is conducting sulfate research, but has not said when the research will be complete or whether it will yield a call for regulation.

“DEP is responsible for implementing the state’s water quality standards program. While EPA has not issued a suggested water quality criteria and there is no state water quality criterion for sulfate, many of the state and federal agencies conduct water quality sampling and analysis in the Everglades to evaluate sulfate concentrations,” says Jennifer Diaz, Policy Communications Specialist for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

There are also no sulfur-specific regulations in either the South Florida Water Management District nor the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

“Sulfur can be a component in some fertilizers (e.g. ammonium sulfate) and, therefore, the amount of sulfur applied would be limited by the nitrogen requirements of the crop to which the ammonium sulfate was being applied,” says Department of Agriculture spokesman Rich Budell. “There is no shortage of scientific opinion on all sides of [the relationship between sulfur and methylmercury.] Unfortunately, there appear to be as many questions as there are apparent answers.”

A set of proposed criteria to regulate the amount of nutrients (phosphorus and nitrogen) in waterways has proved to be highly controversial. Environmentalists argue that the criteria are necessary to the health of state waterways, but agriculture and industry have come out hard against them, arguing that they would have to take costly measures to prevent the nutrients from reaching Florida waterways. Attempting to create a new set of regulations for another set of damaging chemicals could prove politically difficult.

Though scientists agree that the agricultural industry is largely responsible for the widespread use of sulfate, no one seems able to answer the question of how much is being used in the area. According to Dr. Melodie Naja, Water Quality Scientist at the Everglades Foundation, farmers use sulfur for three purposes: to lower the pH of the soil (which makes phosphorus more available to plants), as a fungicide in the form of copper sulfate and as a fertilizer counter-ion in the form of potassium sulfate.

Still, according to Alan Wright, Assistant Professor of Everglades Research at the University of Florida, “There is no source of information for how much sulfur is being used in agriculture.”

“There are many sources of sulfur – it is abundant in nature occurring as sulfides and sulfates” says Sterling Ivey, spokesperson of the state Department of Agriculture, who adds: ”It would be difficult to obtain a quantified measurement of how much sulfur is present in the environment, specifically from agriculture products/use.”

“We do not know the exact amount of sulfur that the farmers are using,” says Dr. Melodie Naja, a water quality scientist with the Everglades Foundation. “It is an investigation that someone should conduct.”

A 2011 report conducted by the South Florida Water Management District found that methylmercury poses a serious problems for the Everglades that may warrant new regulations on its chemical components:

As a highly toxic form of mercury that bioaccumulates in food chains, methylmercury (MeHg) is a risk to wildlife and humans that consume Everglades fish. Regional effects of elevated mercury and sulfur concentrations are evident ? and the Everglades has among the highest mercury levels in fish in Florida. Options for reducing these levels include mercury and sulfur source reduction, although the predominant remaining mercury source to the Everglades may be atmospheric deposition from international sources.

The report found that about 60 percent of the Everglades marsh area has sulfate concentrations “that exceed the desired restoration goal,” but that “further research is needed to quantify sulfur sources and better understand sulfur-related effectson the Everglades ecosystem.” According to the report, “during periods of normal or high rainfall, the [Everglades Agricultural Area] is a key source of sulfur to the downstream Everglades, mostly due to sulfur release by soil oxidation as well as agricultural sulfur application and runoff.”

Because it much of it comes via rainfall, not much can be done by state regulators to stymie the amount of mercury in the Everglades. Sulfates, however, can be reduced.

“Any reduction in sulfate inputs would reduce sulfate as a whole,” says Bill Orem of the United State Geological Survey. “Even the slightest reduction would benefit the entire ecosystem.”

There is currently at least one regional sulfur study underway, which will determine the amount of sulfur exchanged between the Everglades Agricultural Area, and waterways within the Everglades. In the meantime, Orem says both farmers and state agencies need to make strides in addressing the problem.

“There are currently Stormwater Treatment Areas in the EAA that filter out Phosphorus,” he says. “Those could be re-engineered to mitigate sulfate. And farmers need to be encouraged to use less sulfate. There’s certainly enough [in the soil already] that they don’t need extra. Recent work has shown that elemental sulfur isn’t even effective any more for agriculture because the soil is changing over time. Farmers are using protocol from the 1960?s, so they need to change the way they do business.”

Image Credit: Everglades National Park, Army.mil

The State of Florida cannot be trusted to protect Florida’s waters.

Governor Rick Scott and the legislature have decided to create a new “use” or water quality goal/expectation in waterbodies that are “altered” or “artificial” – including natural unchannelized rivers or streams with control structures! This would:

• Make currently verified impaired waterbodies compliant again simply by lowering water quality standards.
• Since new Florida standards applies to inland “altered” waterways, lower standards will apply upstream, passing costs and responsibility from private sector (through lessened pollution source control requirements) to public sector and from inland areas to coastal areas where swimmable/fishable standards will still apply.
• Allow multiple water quality standards for various types of pollution to be lowered (not just for nutrients), even where a waterbody has historically met those standands!
• Further inhibit Everglades Restoration efforts, by allowing increased pollution loading from upstream areas.

EPA needs to take a tough stand on Florida. But there are plenty of big money interests pushing hard to keep EPA on the sidelines while Florida’s waters continue to decline. Please write a letter now to EPA Regional Administrator Gwen Fleming.

Urge EPA to reject this rule for inconsistency with the Clean Water Act. We need a strong federal response to help Floridians because Florida won’t lift a finger to clean our dirty waters.

Write to:

Ms. Gwendolyn Keyes Fleming, Regional Administrator
US EPA, Region 4
Sam Nunn Atlanta Federal Center
61 Forsyth Street, SW
Atlanta, GA 30303
(404) 562-8357
lovett.queen@epa.gov