David Guest - Palm Beach Post - May 10, 2015

Commentary: Proposed bills entrust water protection to worst offenders

The toxic green slime that killed pelicans, dolphins, fish, and manatees in South Florida two summers ago is back, lurking in Lake Okeechobee, where, as we all know, it will likely spread to the coasts once the government starts releasing water to lower the lake’s level.

It is important to remember that Lake Okeechobee belongs to all of us. But our lake has become a private sewer for agricultural corporations. Instead of strengthening laws to keep agriculture’s polluted runoff out of our water, some politicians in Tallahassee are trying to rescind the currently required state pollution permits altogether. Their new scheme would replace permits with — incredibly — voluntary compliance.

This is like some bad dream, and it will be a forever nightmare for everyone who lives near the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers, where the pollution flows to the coasts. We know this toxic algae kills wildlife and makes people and animals sick, causing flulike symptoms, skin lesions and respiratory problems. Why on earth would we make it easier for these polluters to dump this stuff on us?

This is a get-out-of-jail free card for polluters, and the public shouldn’t stand for it.

At Earthjustice, we have represented citizens groups for decades in legal battles against polluters, trying to require common-sense controls on the toxic slime that’s wrecking our natural areas. It is simply not right for one class of water users to pollute the resource for the rest of us, and then stick us with the cleanup bill.

The water policy legislation was near a vote in the Statehouse right before the House abruptly adjourned. The lobbyists for these big agricultural corporations created a world of double-speak to obscure the fact that they are trying to get away with no regulation. This wholesale destruction of the pollution permitting system was buried in a giant bill that included many other aspects of state water policy, including protections for our springs. It’s the old Tallahassee bait and switch.

Under the legislation, polluters would merely have to write a plan that says they are trying not to pollute — no more permits, a mere promise would be enough. The state admits that it has only a handful of inspectors available to check up on these voluntary pollution plans, and the inspectors would have to get special permission to come on-site to see whether the company is actually doing what it said it would do.

Give us a break! This is a recipe for more green slime in Lake Okeechobee, and more nauseating pollution and fish kills on the east and west coasts.

The Big Ag lobbyists will be in the front row when the Legislature reconvenes for its special session in June, trying to get this nefarious legislation passed in a hurry. We need to tell our legislators that we want them to protect our interests by stopping this political move to repeal water pollution permits. When you think of the heartbreaking images of dead pelicans, dolphins, fish and manatees we’ve witnessed in South Florida, think about what the Legislature should be doing to stop it. Instead of controlling pollution, these politicians are trying to legalize it.

We need to tell our legislators clearly and loudly: When our water is at stake, a polluter’s promise just isn’t good enough. The state simply has to be able to impose consequences when a polluter doesn’t comply with clean-water requirements.

Environmentalist Nat Reed Slams Rick Scott: "I'm Getting Scared About Our State"

By Jessica Weiss

Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Environmental activists say Amendment 1 must be implemented to protect the Everglades. Photo by Flickr user Eric Salard

Legendary Florida environmentalist Nathaniel Reed has added his voice to the chorus of disapproval of Florida's Legislature. He says the body's failure to enact key legislation — as the house quit early over a Medicaid funding fight — has made the state “the laughingstock of the country.”

Among the many bills that died as a result were laws to put into motion Amendment 1, which dedicates millions of dollars to acquire and restore conservation and recreation lands. “We’ve never had such a nonfunctioning legislature as we have now,” Reed tells New Times. 

Reed, who is now 81 years old, would know. He has served seven Florida governors and was assistant secretary of the interior for Fish & Wildlife and Parks in the Nixon and Ford administrations. He serves as chairman of the Commission on Florida's Environmental Future and sits on the board of directors of the Everglades Foundation.

Because of what many say are worrying trends in conservation across the state, 75 percent of Florida’s voters took matters into their own hands last year when they voted for Amendment 1, which would divert millions to Florida Forever, a fund for conservation land acquisition.

The program was approved in 1999 and envisioned to raise $300 million a year, but it has been a target of budget cuts over the years. Since 2009, the program saw a 97 percent drop in funding. So last year, a coalition comprising more than a dozen groups devised a way to fund the program through part of a state real-estate tax. They gathered enough petitions to put Amendment 1 on ballots, and on November 4, voters approved it — overwhelmingly.

Amendment 1 is supposed to set aside about $750 million a year for land purchases to “keep drinking water clean, protect our rivers, lakes, and springs, restore natural treasures like the Everglades, and protect our beaches and shores — without any increase in taxes,” according to Florida’s Water and Land Legacy. No implementing legislation was required; the legislature simply needed to divvy up the funds.

Though environmental leaders had been preparing for cuts to the $750 million figure, they didn’t expect complete inaction in appropriations for the program.

Now, Reed says that progress made under the governorships of Bob Martinez, Bob Graham, Lawton Chiles, and Jeb Bush is being lost all too rapidly under the administration of Rick Scott — where “growth is God again.”

Reed stresses the critical importance of funding a range of projects, such as getting more fresh water to flow south to the Biscayne Aquifer, the vast basin beneath South Florida that supplies drinking water to a huge portion of the state’s population. Because of development projects in the path of the water’s flow, not enough fresh water is getting to the aquifer. As sea level continues to rise, the drinking water of South Florida’s 7 million people is at risk.

“The governor has said twice that water must go south, yet he hasn’t done a single thing to accelerate that process,” Reed says. “Our children are going to pay for it.”

Reed says we should all be worried about the “growth-at-all-costs” mindset of the current administration.

“To them, whatever green land is left is developable,” he says. “I’m getting scared about our state.”

Lawmakers still have a chance to address Amendment 1 funding during the special session of the legislature that will begin at some point this spring.

Palm Beach Post - April 21, 2015

Palm Beach Post - Frank Cerabino: Did you vote to protect Florida’s environment? Who cares?

Posted: 3:33 p.m. Wednesday, March 25, 2015

By Frank Cerabino - Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

If you were one of the 4,238,739 Floridians who voted for an environmental protection measure four months ago, I have news for you.

You don’t matter. Your vote was meaningless.

It’s not supposed be that way, but welcome to Florida.

The vote on Amendment 1, the Florida Water and Land Conservation Initiative, was the biggest vote-getter on Florida’s ballot in November, with a 74.9 percent approval rate.

It was 1.3 million voters more popular than Gov. Rick Scott, who was re-elected on the same ballot.

But Scott, the state’s big business interests and the state legislature had nothing to do with Amendment 1, and in many cases actively opposed it.

Amendment 1 was on the ballot because Florida’s leaders had all but abandoned Florida Forever, a $300 million-per-year state program to purchase environmentally sensitive land.

The program started by Gov. Jeb Bush was nearly wiped out under Scott and state legislators. So environmentalists brought the land preservation issue directly to voters through a ballot referendum.

Florida’s Water and Land Legacy, an environmental group drawing members from the 1000 Friends of Florida, Audubon Florida, Defenders of Wildlife, Everglades Foundation, Florida Conservation Coalition, Florida Land Trust Alliance, Sierra Club and other state environmental groups, collected over 1 million signatures to get the amendment on the ballot.

The ballot question asked voters whether they were in favor of funding the Land Acquisition Trust Fund to “acquire, restore, improve and manage conservation lands including wetlands and forests; fish and wildlife habitat; lands protecting water resources and drinking water sources, including the Everglades, and the water quality of rivers, lakes, and streams; beaches and shores; outdoor recreation lands; working farms and ranches; and historic or geologic sites.”

The funding source for this wouldn’t be a new tax, but a dedication of 33 percent of the net revenues from an existing excise tax on real estate deed and loan documents, commonly known as doc stamps. These doc stamps are a huge source of state revenue, bringing in about $2 billion a year.

So the voter-approved Amendment 1 made close to $700 million available each year for the acquisition and protection of environmentally sensitive land in the state.

Theoretically. That’s because the buying and protecting is still in the hands of the people who gutted Florida Forever to start with, and have little to no interest in protecting environmentally sensitive land from business development.

And there’s the rub, as Shakespeare would say.

Despite the windfall of money available to preserve this land, Scott put $100 million for Florida Forever in his budget this year — $200 million shy of the traditional level.

But his intent to shortchange the will of the voters is minor compared to the Florida Senate’s budget, which includes just $22 million in environmental land acquisition, with $20 million of that money going to Kissimmee River restoration land and $2 million going to Florida Forever.

So to recap, to restore the previous $300 million-a-year program to buy environmentally sensitive land in Florida, voters approved a measure freeing up an estimated $700 million a year for that purpose.

And despite this vote, the most popular vote-getter on the ballot, Florida lawmakers are doing other things with the money and proposing to spend a measly $2 million on Florida Forever this year.

“There’s no way that anyone could have read the amendment and consider this budget to be adequate,” said Aliki Moncrief, the executive director of Florida’s Water and Land Legacy.

But it gets worse. The Associated Industries of Florida has begun a radio and television campaign to give lawmakers cover by trying to persuade voters that Amendment 1 was not about buying environmentally sensitive land, but about protecting existing water supplies.

“Lawmakers are now deciding how to spend Amendment 1 money,” the ad said. “And special-interest groups want the lion’s share for their pet projects.”

So the 14-year-old Florida Forever program has become a “pet project” and you have become a special-interest group.

All 4,238,739 of you.

You’re a bothersome distraction from the sideline, one that must be ignored by the Floridians who really matter.

So stop getting in the way of the real business of lawmakers, which is finding a way to serve the Associated Industries of Florida and any other business group that might want to, as Joni Mitchell once sang, “pave paradise and put up a parking lot.”

Everglades CALL TO ACTION!

Save Our EVERGLADES Video

Amendment #1

It Just Aint’ So!

My reaction to Attorney General Bondi’s assertion when questioned during her campaign swing through Martin County that she had joined the litigants opposing the Environmental Protection Agency’s involvement with the six states that control the Chesapeake Bay watershed as a “Federal Takeover” of states’ rights doesn’t hold water!

The facts are: for far too many years unregulated manure and fertilizer from industrial-scale agricultural operations flowed from the six watershed states and the District of Columbia into Chesapeake Bay.

The once prolific aquatic plants that provided ample food for tens of thousands of migrating waterfowl died.  Acres of the world famous Chesapeake oysters are sadly diminished.  The most important breeding areas for the prized striped bass is so polluted that the young bass survival is threatened.

For 30 years the governors of Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, plus the District of Columbia were bombarded by their concerned citizens to form some kind of a pack to begin a joint effort to control the gross pollutants from entering the Bays’ watershed.  Their efforts were plagued by changes in governance and the failure of New York and Pennsylvania, both major contributors to the massive pollution loading of the Bay, to join in a joint effort.

The Clean Water Act passage in 1972 dramatically increased enforcement of industrial wastes disposal and offered the states’ millions of dollars of funding to upgrade and build modern sewage treatment plants.

The states formed a Chesapeake Bay Commission that finally successfully urged the states of New York and Pennsylvania to join the downstream states in a unified effort to restore the once prolific Bay.

Progress has been slow but increasingly effective.  The Bay is responding.

Factory hog farms generate 44 million tons of manure a year in the Chesapeake Bay watershed and cleaning up the run-off from those operations is a major problem.  That is similar to the manure pollution of Lake Okeechobee – the second biggest lake in the United States – and the fertilizer run-off problem that has plagued the Everglades, the St. Lucie Estuary, and hundreds of lakes and streams throughout Florida. 

The combined states and the District have agreed on a new timetable for action and enforcement. They requested assistance from the Environmental Protection Agency to set water quality standards that must be met.

Far from General Bondi’s assertion that EPA is attempting to ‘seize control’ over the combination of the states and District joint efforts, the vast majority of the citizens who live and make a living from the Bay welcomed EPA’s involvement and expertise.

Farming interests that will be required to reduce runoff of their manure into the tributaries filed suit claiming that EPA  was orchestrating a ‘take over’ of the pollution control measures required to produce clean water to restore the Bay’s productivity.

Frankly, General Bondi should have applauded the effort to cleanse Chesapeake Bay as a model of what Florida’s five Water Management District's and our states Department of Environmental Protection should be championing with her assistance instead of filing as a Friend of the Litigants who do not want to obey strict water quality standards that are being developed and enforced.

A close examination of the continuing water quality violations impacting thousands of miles of Florida’s river, estuaries and lakes should be her main concern rather than sticking her nose into Chesapeake Bay at the request of the ‘usual suspects’ whose campaign contributions prove that Florida’s agricultural polluters fear EPA’s ability to set rigorous water quality standards that are so desperately needed not only to save Chesapeake Bay but the vast majority of Florida’s precious waters.

Nathaniel Reed