By Linda Young, Executive Director - Florida Clean Water Network
Speaking of pollution and shell games. The Florida DEP has become the national expert in making sure that big polluters are never held accountable for their pollution and that the Clean Water Act is never implemented or enforced in Florida. If you live in Florida, then you live near a polluted water body of some kind, whether it is a spring, lake, river, sound, estuary or coastal waters. Many of you have been actively involved in trying to work within
DEP's scheme designed to circumvent section 303(d) of the Clean Water Act which
basically says these polluted waters must be identified and then cleaned up.
Over
the past 16 years or so in Florida a series of steps have unfolded through the
regulatory process, driven by large polluters such as pulp and paper,
phosphate, agriculture, electric power companies, etc. to assure that citizens
have no voice in decisions about their waters and that these big polluters are
never required to reduce or stop their pollution. They demand assurance that
they will never be held accountable for the damage they have done and continue
to cause. Here is a short synopsis of what these steps are and how they
have created a trap for any possible enforcement of section 303(d) of the Clean
Water Act:
1
- First there is clearly a pattern across the state of doing as few TMDLs as
possible by keeping polluted waters off of the 303(d) list;
2
- then for the waters that do make the list, DEP adopts TMDLs that are based on
biased or faulty data;
3
- then eventually (usually late) DEP will develop a BMAP that is hideously
inadequate to result in any improvements and usually require very little action
by pollution sources;
4
- then by changing water quality criteria for numerous parameters such as nutrients,
dissolved oxygen, and others they can go back and revise the TMDLs to
either weaken the previous TMDL or eliminate them all together.
5
- Now they are developing the "pollution credit trading" rule which
uses much of the voodoo from items 1 - 4 as a basis and then makes it possible
for polluters to make money on their pollution.
In short - don't step in DEP's/polluters trap. Working within this system is
largely a waste of time. We need to expose it for what it is and find
other ways to deal with pollution. Most likely, working with your local
governments is the best way. Lee County is a good example of citizens and
local governments working together to overcome pollution that is being aided
and abetted by our government. Educate your friends and neighbors and
work locally. Eventually better people will get elected into office and
sanity will be restored. Right now the inmates have taken over the asylum and they are going crazy. With the re-election of Rick Scott, the polluters are foaming at the mouth over his talk of more deregulation. There will be no limit on what they will try to do. I'm not trying to depress anyone - just be ready for what may come and be thinking of a way to keep pushing your goals forward. We will eventually prevail.
Linda Young, Executive Director - Florida Clean Water Network
P.O. Box 5124, Navarre, FL 32566 Tel.: 850.322.7978
