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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's proposal to establish stringent, numeric nutrient water quality standards throughout the state will be impossible to meet and impose serious economic hardship, according to a coalition of Florida businesses, associations and public entities.
A Tallahassee federal judge's recent ruling on the matter may have national implications, but it could also put more downward pressure on Florida housing prices. It's estimated that a typical Florida resident's sewer bill would increase by $740 per year to meet the requirements.
To educate Floridians on the issue, the coalition has created a Web site, www.DontTaxFlorida.com. According to the site, “These one-size-fits-all, litigation driven requirements have no scientific basis and would force utilities to increase wastewater rates by 100%. Total capital costs of meeting the EPA's requirements that will be passed on to Florida's families could reach into the billions.”
The coalition maintains Florida is being singled out and that the new standards are technically and scientifically unsupported; arguably economically unattainable, creating major hardships for every sector of Florida's economy and local governments; and not reasonably related to the health of freshwater and marine-based plant and animal life in Florida's waters.
The group supports the adoption of numeric nutrient standards provided they are science based and developed over an appropriate timeframe.
In July 2008, environmental law firm EarthJustice filed a lawsuit in federal court against the EPA administrator on behalf of five Florida environmental organizations, including the Conservancy of Southwest Florida and the Environmental Confederation of Southwest Florida.
The suit alleges that the EPA failed to comply with the federal Clean Water Act to force the state to expeditiously adopt numeric nutrient criteria. The criteria relate largely to phosphorus and nitrogen as primary causes of blue-green algae blooms and can harm water life.
On Aug. 19, the EPA entered a consent decree in the federal lawsuit under which it would proceed to propose federal criteria for the state in January 2010 and adopt rules by October 2010. U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle approved the consent decree Nov. 16. For numeric nutrient criteria for coastal waters and estuaries, the EPA would issue criteria by January 2011 and adopt them in October of that year.
After having spent $19.6 million on the state's science-based effort to comply, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection is now considering whether to discontinue its own rulemaking efforts on this issue.
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