"DEP committed to improving water quality" in Miami Herald Opinion Section.

Posted on Tue, May. 29, 2012
Drew Bartlett, director of DEP’s Division of Environmental Assessment and Restoration.

The future of Florida’s environment and economy depend on the health of our waterways. That’s why one of the top priorities of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection is getting Florida’s water right, in terms of quality and quantity. As part of our efforts, DEP is taking additional action to protect Florida’s water by improving our water quality standards and setting restoration goals.

Florida has always been a national leader in assessing and addressing the health of our waterways. Our efforts to advance environmental science account for 30 percent of the national water quality dataset, more than any other state in the nation.

We use this science to set standards for the amount of nutrients or contaminants that can exist in a healthy body of water. These water quality standards are important to protecting public health and the aquatic life in Florida’s waterbodies.

DEP is also launching an effort to adopt new, Florida-specific water quality standards to protect our citizens from eating contaminated fish and to protect our fish from harmful low dissolved oxygen conditions.

Florida’s current standards are based on science created more than 30 years ago. As you can imagine, our scientific knowledge has advanced greatly since then. Better data about our waters are available, and the ways we protect water quality have changed. We intend to move forward with these new standards by using updated, Florida-specific research.

Along these same lines, DEP is taking action to establish a mercury reduction goal (known as a TMDL) to address levels of mercury found in some Florida fish. When adopted, this will be the nation’s first mercury TMDL that addresses both freshwater and marine fish on a statewide basis.

DEP is committed to using new information and science to improve the way we protect public health and aquatic life into the future. Public involvement will be vital as we move forward with our rules through an open and transparent rulemaking process.

We recently held the first round of rule development workshops and are grateful to those who participated. There will be another opportunity for public participation during the second round of workshops, which we plan to hold in July.

I encourage Floridians to learn more about these rules and efforts to protect water quality by visiting www.dep.state.fl.us. We can all play a role in getting Florida’s water right.

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"DEP moving into new areas of possible water quality controversy" in The Florida Current

Bruce Ritchie, 05/02/2012 - 04:04 PM

DEP is responsible for protecting the quality of Florida’s drinking water as well as its rivers, lakes, wetlands and springs. The Federal Clean Water Act requires states to publicly review and update their water quality standards in what is called a "triennial review." 

The department has scheduled hearings for later this month in West Palm Beach, Orlando and Tallahassee to consider its "human health criteria" involving exposure to chemicals through fish consumption.

DEP was conducting a similar review in 2008 before some environmental groups filed a federal lawsuit challenging the state's lack of numeric limits for nitrogen and phosphorus. That lawsuit led the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to set limits for nitrogen and phosphorus in Florida waterways, which prompted DEP to adopt replacement rules.

"That just became all-consuming," said Drew Bartlett, director of DEP's Division of Environmental Assessment and Restoration. "Now that we put that to rest, we can shift those resources consumed by the numeric nutrient criteria back onto this issue. We decided to pick it straight right back up."

The Legislature waived approval of those rules in February and the state sent them to the EPA for review. Environmental groups including the Conservancy of Southwest Florida, the Florida Wildlife Federation and the Sierra Club have a legal challenge pending at the Division of Administrative Hearings.

In 2009, the Clean Water Network petitioned the federal EPA to set human health criteria for fish consumption. Other environmental groups had sued in 1995, arguing that previous human health criteria were based on low fish consumption rates by Floridians.

DEP has conducted studies and determined that Floridians do eat more fish than those in other states, so proposed new human health criteria will have to reflect that, Bartlett said.

"It is going to become more stringent than it is currently on the books for all of those (pollution) parameters," he said.

Although Bartlett said DEP is moving forward as planned, Clean Water Network's Linda Young said her group has warned it will sue if DEP delays action again.

"(The federal) EPA has to make sure the criteria adopted are protective of human health when those fish are consumed," said Young, the group's director.

After the hearings from May 15-17, DEP hopes to adopt updated rules by the end of the year, Bartlett said.

The department also is proposing limits for nitrogen and phosphorus in estuaries along the Florida Panhandle. And the department will consider setting new requirements for dissolved oxygen, which affects the amount of pollution that can be discharged into waterways.

Florida's dissolved oxygen criteria were based on national criteria from studies conducted in the 1960s and 1970s, Bartlett said.

He said in more recent years, DEP has invested in a "huge" monitoring system in Florida to determine what dissolved oxygen conditions exist naturally in Florida. That science also will be presented at the workshops.

The Conservancy of Southwest Florida is tracking the dissolved oxygen issue and has raised serious concerns with DEP, said Jennifer Hecker, the group's director of natural resource policy.

"Sometimes by changing the goal and standard you can create compliance," Hecker said. "It doesn't necessarily make anything better -- that is the concern. We want to see things truly improve. I think that is what Floridians want as well."

Young warned that industry groups are seeking to allow pollution to continue by reducing dissolved oxygen -- along with setting weak nitrogen and phosphorus limits and creating new designated uses for waterways with their own pollution limits.

Bartlett responded the science behind dissolved oxygen standard needs to be updated based on new science, just like with the nitrogen and phosphorus limits. And he said DEP will looking for feedback from the public at its upcoming workshops.

"We can't really do anything at DEP that is not truly and soundly rooted in the science," Bartlett said. "There is no other way to do it really."

Reporter Bruce Ritchie can be reached at britchie@thefloridacurrent.com.

via thefloridacurrent.com