Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam on Wednesday outlined what he called the "hard economic truths facing Florida agriculture" including the need for a "smart" immigration policy, dealing with invasive animals and plant diseases, improving Florida seaports to gain new overseas markets and ensuring future water supplies.

"These (issues) aren't separate silos," Putnam said during a speech to the Economic Club of Florida. "The future of agriculture and the future of Florida are entwined."

"Agriculture is present on two-thirds of the acreage of our state," he continued. "If that goes away, what replaces it that's better than what we have --Citrus groves along highway 27, the magnificent pine forests up and down I-10.

"What replaces that -- that gives you the same economic value, the same tax base stability and the same quality of life issues? Chances are it's not better than what you have right now in terms of a vibrant agriculture industry."

Florida's agriculture industry produces $100 billion in sales annually and provides 1 million jobs, according to the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

The agriculture commissioner said he views child nutrition as an economic issue because the state every year spends $1 billion on school nutrition programs with four million meals served each day. Taxpayers are helping pay for many free and reduced cost meals as well as the health care costs resulting from poor diets.

"If we are content to serve Tater Tots and ketchup and call it a starch and a vegetable, we will pay the economic consequences of doing that," he said.

Putnam said he has about 50 people now in Hialeah, Kendall and West Miami looking for the giant African land snails that can eat almost anything including the stucco off homes. Agriculture must factor for the increased threat from foreign species and agricultural diseases.

"When there is a breakdown at the federal government level at an airport or seaport it is frequently the state taxpayers who are asked to pick up the tab and clean up the mess," he said.

The planned widening of the Panama Canal, he said, could be a boost for Florida agriculture. He said the port could bring consumer products that now are unloaded from ships in California to Florida if the state is ready. And those ships could return with Florida agricultural products.

He also said a smart immigration policy is needed the "best human capital" from around the world to fill employment gaps.

"The simple fact is if we want to be a free nation that can feed itself and not be as dependent on others as we are for our fuel, we need that stable legal workforce," he said.

The biggest long-term economic challenge facing agriculture and the state, he said, is water. He said the lack of water flowing from federal reservoirs in Georgia into the Apalachicola River is having "devastating" consequences for oystermen and the seafood industry at Apalachicola Bay.

Water supply, he said, must be a substantial component of state programs in the future the way land acquisition has been in recent decades.

"It is that connection to the water," he said, "that not only gives us an identity but gives us the economic foundation for everything that flows from it."

With rainfall at a record pace in some places, water managers are struggling to lower water levels in Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades.

From Lake Okeechobee to the marshes of the Everglades, South Florida has been saturated by what is shaping up as the wettest of wet seasons.

Water managers are struggling to deal with high-water concerns across a region left brimming by Tropical Storm Isaac and stubbornly steady storms that have followed in its drenching wake. Some spots are on pace for the rainiest year on record, with Miami leading the list at 79.51 inches through September.

On Wednesday, federal engineers ordered the drainage gates cranked open even wider on Lake Okeechobee, where water levels have climbed nearly a half-foot despite two weeks of release intended to slowly lower them. The decision by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to double the flow is primarily intended to ease pressure on the aging and leaky flood-control dike that rings the massive lake, but it will have a side-effect of pouring billions of gallons of polluted water into sensitive river estuaries on both coasts.

In the swollen marshes of the Central Everglades north of the Tamiami Trail, there are no similar relief-valve options to help deer and other wildlife, which have already spent the last month mostly confined to levees and small tree islands, shrinking swaths of high ground where starvation from dwindling food supplies, and diseases like hoof rot, are a growing threat.

Even without more rain, it could take another three weeks to a month for the water to drop to normal seasonal levels, said Michael Anderson, regional wildlife biologist for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

“Quite frankly, after about 30 days, they start to run out of groceries on the islands and we start to see impacts,’’ Anderson said.

The Corps’ initial effort to lower the massive lake has already dumped more than 11 billion gallons of freshwater laced with high levels of farm chemicals and nutrients into the St. Lucie River on the east coast and the Caloosahatchee River on the west coast. Similar but much larger dumps after hurricanes in 2004 and 2005 destroyed oyster beds and sea grass, and triggered massive foul fish-killing algae blooms.

But with two months still left in hurricane season and plenty of rain remaining in the forecast, the Corps’ lake managers said they had little choice but to accelerate the damaging releases.

“We just haven’t seen the results we wanted since we started,” said Lt. Col. Thomas Greco, the Corps’ deputy commander for South Florida.

Under the Corps’ management plan, the water level in Lake Okeechobee is supposed to stay between 12.5 feet and 15.5 feet above sea level, rising and falling with seasonal rain. It stood at 15.69 feet on Wednesday.

That’s still well short of the 17-foot level where engineers begin to worry about the integrity of its aging dike, which has sprung leaks during past hurricanes and is undergoing repairs that will take years. But a tropical storm like Isaac can quickly drive up lake levels by two or three feet, which would raise the risk of a potentially catastrophic failure.

The lake has to come down and the Everglades are already too full to send water there, Greco said.

State and federal water managers say they are doing the best they can do with an outmoded and overwhelmed flood-control system that operates under sometimes conflicting regulations to protect suburbs, farms and the Everglades from excessive flooding. A string of Everglades restoration projects, starting with a bridge along Tamiami Trail expected to be completed next year, promises to resolve many of the issues and eventually allow more water to flow south into Everglades National Park. But it could take a decade or more for enough of the projects to come on line to make a significant difference.

For now, water managers are diverting as much water as they can out of the biggest troubles spots in the Everglades — the marshy water conservation areas bordering Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties — and sending it down canals into southern Everglades National Park and Florida Bay. State wildlife managers also have temporarily restricted public access to flooded portions of the Everglades and the Francis S. Taylor Wildlife Management Area to ease stress on stranded wildlife.

Flooding decimated the Glades’ population of white-tailed deer in 1982 and 1995, knocking the herd from thousands to hundreds, and killed countless smaller animals that rely on high, dry tree islands for food and shelter.

The FWC’s Anderson said he doesn’t expect that level of loss this time around, barring another major storm, which could keep water levels high even longer.

According to the South Florida Water Management District, which runs the flood control system from Orlando to Key West, seasonal rainfall is running about 114 percent above normal with an average of 37.53 inches across 16 counties.

But some areas have been hit harder than others, with the district showing eastern Broward County experiencing the wettest April through September since 1955, with more than 44 inches of rain — more than nine inches above average. Eastern Miami-Dade has been even wetter, with nearly 50 inches of rain — 13.22 inches above average.

At the official rainfall gauges maintained by the National Weather Service, Miami is on pace to record its wettest year ever, with 79.51 inches measured at Miami International Airport through September. The annual record for that site is 89.33 inches in 1959. The Redland, with 72.69 inches, and Homestead, with 67.58 inches, also are on pace for the wettest years on record. Fort Lauderdale’s Dixie water plant, with 69.24 inches, is the second wettest mark through September on record.

-By CURTIS MORGAN

STUART — Several Martin County commissioners and residents Tuesday blasted the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' decision to release polluted water from Lake Okeechobee into the St. Lucie Estuary.

Releases of polluted water from the lake have historically harmed fish, sea grasses and other wildlife and made it hazardous for people to swim in the estuary.

"I suspect it's going to get worse before it gets better," said Commissioner Sarah Heard. "They need to see what the consequences of those actions are. It's an unhappy, unenviable, unfair consequence."

The commissioners voted unanimously to ask the South Florida Water Management District, which helps the Army Corps manage the lake, to provide information needed to discuss the discharges with Army Corps officials.

The commissioners also agreed to invite Col. Alan M. Dodd, the commander of the Army Corps district that includes Florida, to visit Stuart to see the problems caused by the lake discharges.

In addition, the commissioners agreed to send news articles, photos and other information about the releases to federal lawmakers to show them the need for funding for the C-44 Reservoir and Stormwater Treatment Area, the Herbert Hoover Dike Rehabilitation and other related projects.

"It continues to rain, the forecast continues to be wet and we do have the releases going on now," said Deborah Drum, the county's manager of Ecosystem Restoration and Management.

The Army Corps began releasing water from Lake Okeechobee to the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie rivers on Sept. 19 as part of its efforts to manage the rising lake level so the dike is not compromised.

Commissioner Doug Smith expressed sentiments similar to Heard's.

"I've been here for five colonels now. They all seem to tend to think as they go into their new position that they've got everything under control," Smith said. "They need to come and see and understand what it really means to us locally because it does change their perspective instantly when they see it."

Jacqueline Trancynger, a civic activist from Jensen Beach, said she thinks the lake releases are the result of the South Florida sugar industry's extraordinary political power. Massive sugar cane fields are located south of the lake.

Some observers think the sugar industry uses its wealth and political influence to block efforts to restore the historic flow of water from Lake Okeechobee south to the Everglades.

"It is certainly not a lack of the understanding of environmental facts that is causing the Army Corps to release water from the lake, so that if it continues (it) will kill our rivers and our lagoon forever," Trancynger said. "Think Big Sugar and all of their money, much of which is earned by subsidies from my tax money in the first place."

-TCPalm

Despite Hurricane Debby’s severe impact on coastal wildlife on Florida’s Gulf Coast, the state’s royal tern population has increased thanks to a successful breeding season at Huguenot Memorial Park.

“Huguenot is a truly unique habitat. Dozens of species of birds have relied on this one beach for survival for generations,” said Monique Borboen, an Audubon Florida policy associate.

Borboen said, thanks to a dedicated park naturalist assisted by volunteer bird stewards, progress is being made in protecting this special place.

“Residents of northeast Florida are fortunate to have such an important and beautiful bird habitat so close to home,” she said.

Huguenot Memorial Park is the only breeding colony of royal terns on Florida’s Atlantic Coast. This year, the colony fledged more than 2,000 royal tern chicks. These young birds will go a long way in helping statewide populations recover from the rain, wind and storm surge caused from a devastating Hurricane Debby in June. The storm made landfall at the height of Florida’s beach-bird nesting season, destroying the eggs and chicks of many beach-nesting birds on the Gulf Coast.

“Huguenot is a perfect example of why multiple breeding sites are the best defense for beach birds against natural or manmade disasters,” said Borboen. “Hurricanes are a common and natural occurrence in Florida, that’s why nature doesn’t like to put all her ‘eggs in one basket.’ One strong storm has the potential to devastate miles of shoreline habitat and cause the destruction of multiple breeding bird colonies.”

Huguenot Memorial Park is considered by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission as the most important seabird breeding colony site on Florida’s east coast. Located at the mouth of the St. Johns River, this coastal habitat hosts a wealth of declining species, providing vital stopover habitat for imperiled red knots, federally designated critical wintering habitat for threatened piping plovers, a state-designated critical wildlife area for one of Florida’s few laughing gulls and royal tern colonies, nesting habitat for marine turtles as well as historic nesting habitat for declining American oystercatchers, gull-billed terns, least terns, black skimmers and Wilson’s plovers.

The chairs of the state's five water management districts say their agencies are focused on the "prudent use of taxpayer dollars" rather than on raising taxes.

They wrote a letter on Monday in response to a missive sent to Gov. Rick Scott last week by 20 former board members of the districts . The former board members asked the governor to restore funding for the districts in the wake of cuts last year imposed by legislation.

The Legislature this year lifted the spending caps, but the districts have proposed keeping the same or slightly lower tax rates under reported pressure from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. A DEP spokesman said this month the department "collaborated" with the districts to hold down the cost of living for Florida residents.

The former board members, in their letter last week, described the economic benefits of proper water management and threats to future water supplies from a growing population. They point out that the owner of a $150,000 home in the South Florida Water Management District saved less than $20 in taxes paid because of the cuts last year.

They suggested the option of allowing "some discretion" for each of the five districts to adopt tax rates needed "to accomplish their core mission."

The five chairmen responded Monday that past spending on land acquisition, building expansions and local partnership projects had built good will but also had led to unrealistic growth their agencies' sizes along with salaries and benefits that exceeded those of state employees.

"Today, in a different fiscal climate, the governor and Legislature are focused on prudent use of taxpayer dollars and not increasing the burden of more government and higher taxes on Florida’s citizens," the letter stated.

The chairmen pointed to projects under way this year in each of the districts that when combined provide almost $1 billion towards restoration and water conservation. In addition, the South Florida Water Management District is moving "aggressively" forward on the governor's plan to spend $880 million over 12 years on Everglades restoration, including $87.6 million in this year's budget.

The board chairmen said they were pleased that the Legislature lifted the revenue caps.

"This will allow our budgets to grow as Florida’s economy grows -- rather than increasing the burden on current taxpayers," they wrote.

Eric Buermann, a former South Florida Water Management District board member, said he and some of the others who signed the letter last week were disappointed and taken aback that the governor did not personally respond.

"The districts are driven now right out of Tallahassee," Buermann said. "Anybody who doesn't think that is kidding themselves."

-Bruce Ritchie

Enough fresh water to fill more than 900 Olympic-size swimming pools every day started gushing into the St. Lucie River last week.

The water — arriving from Lake Okeechobee via the St. Lucie Canal — is laden with pollutants. It is brown and foamy as it cascades through the St. Lucie Lock & Dam.

We can expect it to kill oysters and sea grasses. Depending on how long the Army Corps of Engineers continues the releases, it might trigger algae blooms and fish kills.

"It's easily the most frustrating aspect of the current system that the Army Corps operates, just because the estuary bears the brunt of it," said Kevin Powers, vice-chair of the South Florida Water Management District Governing Board.

There is no debating that the releases — which started Wednesday as the Army Corps tried to lower a rising Lake O — will hurt the already ailing St. Lucie River estuary.

What is still being debated, after decades of abuse, is where to focus efforts for a solution.

Allies of the Rivers Coalition, a diverse collection of advocates for the St. Lucie River, have been clear about what must happen.

"The true long-term fix for the next generation is for them to be able to move and store the water south," said Leon Abood, chairman of the group.

If he had a nickel for every time he made a statement like that, he'd be able to buy all the land needed to restore the natural flow of water from Lake Okeechobee to the Everglades.

But the unwavering message has not forced the hands of those in power.

The Rivers Coalition has tried taking its battle to federal court. It has tried diplomacy with government agencies.

Neither approach has stopped the discharges into the St. Lucie River. On Thursday, 925 cubic feet of polluted water per second flowed through the St. Lucie Lock & Dam — less than what the Army Corps is allowed to send our way, but enough to cause damage.

Still hoping for a solution, the Rivers Coalition now intends to try its message on a new potential ally: the sugar farmers who control much of the land south of Lake Okeechobee.

"We don't have the political will to force it. We don't have the money to outspend them. We don't have the political influence to out-lobby them," Abood said. "So we've got to get them to the table."

Two representatives of the sugar industry — consultant Thomas MacVicar and David Goodlett of the Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida — will join the Rivers Coalition at 11 a.m. Thursday for a public meeting at Stuart City Hall.

They're bound to get an earful from fed-up residents who are tired of the federal government propping up the sugar industry with subsidies while the St. Lucie River suffers.

"What we're looking to accomplish is to have them be frank and candid in their answers to specific questions involving the flow way south, involving cleaning up their own water, involving their support for a flow way concept," Abood said.

Abood and other members of the Rivers Coalition were hopeful about a flow way in 2008 when former Gov. Charlie Crist announced a deal to buy more than 180,000 acres south of Lake Okeechobee from U.S. Sugar. That deal was dramatically scaled back after Gov. Rick Scott took office, though the South Florida Water Management District still has an option to buy the remaining 153,000 acres.

Powers, who is in the unique position of living on the St. Lucie River and sitting on the South Florida Water Management District Governing Board, is more focused on near-term projects than embracing the idea of a flow way.

He pointed to four things that, in combination, he believes could help the St. Lucie avoid at least some water from Lake Okeechobee:

Construction of the C-44 reservoir, which will capture local runoff in the St. Lucie Canal; rehabilitation of the Herbert Hoover Dike around Lake Okeechobee's 140-mile perimeter, which might allow the lake to hold more water; restoration of the Kissimmee River north of the lake; and water-quality projects to the south.

"I would rather focus on things that we have an actual chance of doing," Powers said.

Abood said he agrees with Powers to a point. He supports those four projects — yet he and many others in the Rivers Coalition want the larger fix, too. They raised their voices together Wednesday night, when about 50 protesters from the River Kidz group gathered at the St. Lucie Lock & Dam to oppose the releases.

As Powers pointed out, Martin County's voices often get drowned out amid the competing interests jockeying for Florida's water supply.

"Martin County's at a huge disadvantage. It's got 140,000 residents. It's got 100,000 voters," Powers said. "There's 5 million people in the counties south of us. Who do you think has a louder voice?"

-By Eve Samples

Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart in 1964 famously wrote of pornography, "I know it when I see it."

His statement exemplified the difficulty of defining pornography, much less regulating it against constitutional protections for free speech.

A similar question of definition is slowly unfolding in Florida as a result of growth management law changes approved by the Legislature in 2011.
HB 7207 reduced the state's role in overseeing local government growth policies and future land-use map changes. But the bill also called on state government to continue "protecting the functions of important state resources and facilities."

While environmentalists said the law would unleash urban sprawl and threaten natural resources, supporters said the state would focus its reviews on natural areas deserving of state protection.

Now a Brevard County proposal to revise its wetlands protection policies has begun to reveal how the state will define those important natural resources worthy of state protection.

Planners last year were left asking what areas the state would protect in addition to obvious environmental areas, such as The Everglades.

"(HB 7207) did not give a definition of what it (important state resources) was," said Merle Bishop, immediate past president of the Florida chapter of the American Planning Association and senior planner with Kimley-Horn Associates in Lakeland. "It was kind of like, 'We'll know when we see it.'"

Brevard County now has perhaps the most stringent wetland protection ordinances in the state, said Ernest Brown, director of the Brevard County Natural Resources Management Office.

The Brevard County Commission directed its staff to develop comprehensive plan language that brings the county to a "level playing field" with surrounding counties, Brown said. The proposed changes, he said, would allow development in wetlands along certain roadways for commercial and industrial properties and in some areas with agricultural zoning.

In reviewing the proposals, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection identified important state resources as federal national wildlife refuges, state aquatic preserves, the Indian River and portions of the upper St. Johns River Basin that have been identified as "Outstanding Florida Waters" requiring protection under state law.

DEP asked the county to either not adopt the changes or to provide maps to identify areas that could be affected and demonstrate that resulting changes would be minimal. The St. Johns River Water Management District and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission also filed comments.

Charles Pattison, executive director of the 1000 Friends of Florida environmental group, said the state for the first time is identifying areas where development deserves comment, but he also wondered whether the state will object if the county moves forward to approve

"Now the question is are they going to do enough to say, 'It's an important state resource, are you (Brevard County) doing enough to protect it?' And are we OK with it?'" he said.

There remain questions about which less obvious state resources deserve protection and how the state defines those, said Bishop, who was the American Planning Association chapter president until this past week.

"Is it things that impact the Peace River? Probably," Bishop said. "But what about somebody's little stream or small wetland in their backyard?"

Brevard County has revised the proposal to include maps showing specific areas along roadways where protection policies will be relaxed and other areas where higher quality wetlands will remain protected, Brown said. The Brevard County Planning Commission will consider the revised proposal on Monday and the Brevard County Commission will consider final adoption on Oct. 9.

1000 Friends of Florida was still reviewing the revised proposal on Friday, Pattison said. Mary Sphar, a Sierra Club member from Cocoa, said she thinks the revised proposal is worse than the earlier proposal because it allows higher-quality wetlands to be developed if a project is found to be in the public interest for economic reasons.

Brown said Brevard County is attempting to promote "flexible and balanced stewardship" of its resources. He said he agrees the case is important in defining what important resources are protected by the state.

"I think we have achieved a pretty decent middle ground," he said. "I think it was healthy the state weighed in. They helped us further refine the proposed outcome."

-Bruce Ritchie

OUR OPINION: No time to waste in updating Miami-Dade’s water and sewer system

By The Miami Herald Editorial

Federal engineers will start slowly lowering levels of Lake Okeechobee in an effort to minimize algae blooms that have tainted rivers during past releases.

By CURTIS MORGAN

By Andy Reid, Sun Sentinel

Building new $64 million pumps could finally get water flowing as once intended from a Palm Beach County reservoir plagued by controversy.

South Florida taxpayers already sunk $217 million into transforming old rock mines west of Royal Palm Beach into a reservoir intended to boost water supplies and help the environment.

Now, the South Florida Water Management District has approved a deal to design and construct a pumping station that has been on hold since the L-8 Reservoir was finished in 2008.

Budget problems and changes to Everglades efforts contributed to shelving pump plans.

But now the reservoir plays a key role in revamped Everglades restoration plans and more money is pouring in to get the pumps built.

"It's a very, very significant construction project," said Joe Collins, board chairman for the South Florida Water Management District. "It's something that has been a long time coming."

Even with the long-delayed pump plans getting back on track, questions remain about whether the reservoir will ever deliver the expected water supply benefits.

"They are trying to bail out a bad decision," Drew Martin, of the Sierra Club, said about the new plans for the reservoir. "It was just a bad investment."

The 15 billion-gallon reservoir built at Palm Beach Aggregates was once intended to store water that would replenish the Loxahatchee River — which had natural water flows diminished by decades of draining in South Florida.

The reservoir was also meant to supplement community drinking water supplies and provide drought relief for West Palm Beach and other areas.

While the reservoir has helped West Palm Beach during droughts in 2007 and 2011, without the pumps it hasn't delivered the water expected for the Loxahatchee River.

Also, water quality problems blamed on the depth of the reservoir and stagnation from lack of pumps have dogged the project.

Now the state's new $880 million plan for improving Everglades water quality includes sending the bulk of that reservoir water south.

Help for the Loxahatchee River instead would eventually come from plans to store and treat water on Palm Beach County's Mecca Farms property, west of Palm Beach Gardens.

The planned pumping station would include six large pumps capable of drawing water from 40-feet deep. The reservoir's 15 billion gallon capacity is enough water to cover 34,000 football fields one foot deep, according to the water management district.

The district chose Archer Western Contractors, based in Atlanta, to design and build the pumps. Archer was the low bidder among two other competing firms. It's expected to take 2-1/2 years to build the pumping station, with construction expected to start in May.

Controversy has followed the reservoir project.

Palm Beach Aggregates ended up reimbursing the district for a $2.4 million secret "success fee" that federal prosecutors contend was paid to an engineering consultant who pushed the reservoir deal to water managers — without revealing his work as a consultant for Palm Beach Aggregates.

That fee and a Palm Beach Aggregates home development proposal factored into separate federal corruption investigations that led to the resignations and jail time for two Palm Beach County commissioners ousted by scandals.