Sen. Denise Grimsley was credited with bringing the opposing sides together to resolve their differences over her water supply planning bill. File photo by Ana Goni-Lessan.
A bill that was shaping up to be the most controversial fight over water in the legislative session now has support from environmental groups that were opposing it.
SB 948 by Sen. Denise Grimsley, R-Sebring, would place the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services on par with utilities in water supply planning. The bill is a priority of Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam.
Agriculture department officials said the bill would help ensure water is available to support agricultural jobs and to ensure that estimates of water use are standard across water district lines. Environmental groups, though, said they were concerned the bill would place a priority on agricultural water use at the expense of springs, wetlands and streams during droughts.
But a series of amendments offered by Grimsley on Monday in the Senate Committee on Agriculture won support from opponents. The bill passed with support from The Nature Conservancy, Sierra Club Florida, Audubon Florida and the Florida Wildlife Federation.
"We had some concerns about the bill," said Janet Bowman, director of legislative policy and strategies for The Nature Conservancy's state chapter. "Some comfort language that tightened up the bill was worked out."
Eric Draper, executive director of Audubon Florida, said environmental groups "remarkably" now are supporting an expansion of the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services into water planning, an issue where he sees a historic alliance among the agricultural water users and environmentalists.
"The sponsor, Denise Grimsley, took a controversial subject and brought people together to resolve the other issues and demonstrated what is often missing in these environmental debates: a willingness to really sit down and give people a chance to talk through things," Draper said.
A series of amendments offered by Grimsley ensured that water conservation be factored into projections of agricultural water use and water projects on private lands. The amendments also ensured that water supply projects on private lands meet the state "public interest" test for water use and don't harm existing users.
The bill passed with support from the Florida Farm Bureau Federation, Associated Industries of Florida and the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.
Adam Basford, director of state legislative affairs for the Florida Farm Bureau Federation, said the bill wasn't a power grab by agriculture and the amendments made that "explicitly clear."
"Agricultural water use is important to our state," he said. "Having the Department of Agriculture (and Consumer Services) being able to provide accurate data, we think it's a no-brainer."
Elements of the bill are in SB 1684, which is being heard Tuesday by the Senate Committee on Environmental Preservation and Conservation. That's the Senate companion of a wide-ranging environmental permitting bill, HB 999, that has faced environmental opposition in the House.
Portions of SB 948 also are contained in HB 1063, which passed its first committee stop in the House last week and has two more to go.