By Regan McCarthy
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wfsu/local-wfsu-996617.mp3
Tallahassee, FL – Florida has taken the next step needed to create its own set of water quality standards. The state has obtained special permission to create its own rules rather than following those set out by the Federal Environmental Protection Agency. But Regan McCarthy reports there are quite a few steps left to be taken before the standards will officially become state rule.
The state has already received preliminary approval from the Federal Environmental Protection Agency on its substitute rules to control the amount of nutrients like Nitrogen in Florida's water bodies. Environmentalists say those nutrients lead to algae blooms that are rending some Florida water systems nearly unusable at times. But they say the state's standards won't do enough. Monica Reimer is an attorney with the group Earth Justice.
"It is our belief that the proposed rules are not only going to not prevent this condition from continuing. It's also not going to keep it from getting worse."
Meanwhile, the State's Director of Environmental Assessment and Restoration, Drew Bartlett, says Florida's plan is not that different from the rules the Federal government initially proposed.
"EPA just adopted numbers, and said these are the numbers.' We did adopt those numbers as well and then explain how to implement them so we can get to the restoration quicker."
Florida's Environmental Regulation Commission considered 26 amendments on the proposal. Most of those were scrivener's errors. A few made what Bartlett calls small changes, like deciding whether to treat ditches and canals like they're rivers and streams. But Earth Justice's Reimer says she thinks the changes were significant.
After a waiting period, the state plans to send the recommendation on to the Florida legislature and then the Federal EPA for final approval. Reimer argues the changes should be sent back to the commission before heading to the legislature. In order to allow more public input. If that doesn't happen Earth Justice will challenge the rule on grounds of "procedural invalidity."