Environmental Intersection by George Lindemann

Posted on Sun, May. 13, 2012

By CURTIS MORGAN

Walter Michot / Miami Herald Staff

At Hillcrest Golf & Country Club in Hollywood, the fairways and greens are irrigated with 'reclaimed' waste water.

South Florida has suffered through some dreary declines of late — home values, paychecks and the Miami Dolphins, for instance.

But in the case of the public thirst for one precious commodity — fresh water — the decline has actually turned into a major money-saving plus.

The 53 water utilities serving Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe counties pumped about 83 million fewer gallons a day in 2010 than they did in 2000 — despite a population that grew by some 600,000 over the decade — according to a new draft analysis produced by the South Florida Water Management District.

Do the math and it adds up to South Floridians using about 20 percent less water each day for drinking, bathing and sprinkling yards per person than they did a decade ago. That’s about 30 billion gallons over the course of a year, enough unused water to fill 45,900 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

It’s an unexpected but entirely welcome drop-off in public demand in a region that only a decade ago was worried about taps running dry in relentlessly sprawling suburbs.

“It’s not a surprise that it went down,’’ said Mark Elsner, administrator of water supply development for the water management district. “It’s a surprise it went down so much.’’

WHAT’S BEHIND IT

Though water consumption per person has been declining for decades, water managers point to a combination of factors that are accelerating the trend. They include newer water-efficient toilets and other fixtures, tougher restrictions on lawn irrigation and stepped utility rates designed to make customers pay a premium for excessive water use.

Water managers and state and local environmental regulators have pushed conservation programs and also demanded that utilities expand use of “reclaimed” wastewater — often by using it to irrigate parks and golf courses.

At Hillcrest Golf & Country Club in Hollywood, for instance, every drop from the sprinklers is recycled wastewater — cheaper and in totally unrestricted supply.

“We have a very good deal for water. We could use a million gallons or 10 gallons and we pay the same amount,’’ said Lewis Rissman, Hillcrest’s general manager. “The city of Hollywood doesn’t even know what to do with all their reclaimed water.’’

Clearly, South Florida’s economic downturn, housing market collapse and flattening population growth have contributed to the slaking thirst as well.

“There are a lot of things working together,’’ said Elsner, whose agency oversees the water supply for 16 counties stretching from south of Orlando to Key West. “What you’re seeing is a conservation ethic being developed. People are understanding the value of water.’’

What the decline in demand from public utilities does not mean is South Florida is in the clear when it comes to water shortages

South Florida depends on wildly varying annual rainfall to replenish its underground aquifers and Lake Okeechobee. Right now, for example, an unusually dry winter has left ground water levels lower than normal.

The district’s long-term planning analysis, revised every five years with new consumption and population figures, also covers only four counties in the region and doesn’t track similar trends for agriculture, which consumes an estimated 37 percent of the region’s water. It also doesn’t account for some critical future demands — such as the massive volumes of water needed to help restore the Everglades. The draft study predicts the four counties will still need to expand the public water supply by 18 percent by 2030.

But improved conservation has eased pressure on traditional public water supplies and utilities contemplating new, far more expensive water systems designed to reclaim wastewater and tap other new sources, from deep aquifers to sea water.

SCALING BACK

The drop-off has been significant enough that Miami-Dade’s Water and Sewer Department has been able to scale back projects considered essential only five years ago, saving the utility — and its customers — hundreds of millions of dollars.

In 2007, Miami-Dade, which had historically relied almost entirely on the cheap, clean Biscayne Aquifer, was forced to draw up a $1.6 billion expansion plan to serve a then-booming population. Under pressure from water managers, who warned that drawing more from the underground supply could hurt regional water supplies, the Everglades and Biscayne Bay, Miami-Dade designed projects to tap the deeper brackish Floridan aquifer or to treat wastewater.

Bertha Goldenberg, assistant director of the water and sewer department, said the county has since been able to cancel or defer a handful of projects, including one that would have piped highly treated wastewater back into the ground near Zoo Miami to increase ground water supplies.

“We basically saved $300 million by changing that,’’ she said.

Alan Garcia, director of Broward County’s water and wastewater services, said the decline has allowed the agency to push back a $46 million project to tap the Floridan until at least 2023 and explore other potentially cheaper options for the future, such as teaming up with other Broward and Palm Beach utilities in constructing a massive reservoir.

Garcia said county figures show per person usage falling sharply in some areas, down almost by half between 1990 and 2008 in one area that includes Lighthouse Point and parts of Pompano Beach.

“People have finally started to see they don’t need to water their lawns four or five days a week,’’ he said. “It’s expensive water and they don’t need to use it.’’

Miami-Dade’s Goldenberg also points to irrigation restrictions the district first imposed in 2006 during a severe drought as a major factor in the decline, with county usage dropping by 20 gallons a day per person over the following two years. In 2010, both Miami-Dade and Broward made twice-weekly lawn watering rules permanent.

Miami-Dade programs to offer rebates and exchanges for high-efficiency toilets and shower heads and to improve homeowner associations’ irrigation systems also combined to save nearly 8.5 million gallons a day last year, according to a water department report completed in April.

The district analysis shows that, based on 2010 figures, Miami-Dade remained the largest consumer of the public water supply, slurping some 347 million gallons a day. Broward trailed with 217 million gallons a day, followed by Palm Beach County with 207 million gallons and Monroe with 16 million gallons.

But Palm Beach County’s agricultural industry, dominated by sprawling sugar farms, made it the thirstiest county overall. Farms, which draw from their own wells and pumps, pushed Palm Beach’s total daily demands to over 600 million gallons. Miami-Dade’s combined farm and public total runs just over 400 million gallons a day, according to the report.

Measuring by usage per person, Palm Beach recorded the greatest decline between 2000 and 2010, at 28 percent, followed by Broward at 19 percent and Miami-Dade at 17 percent. Miami-Dade’s updated numbers, which include figures through 2011, show a 21 percent reduction since 2000.

THIRSTY MONROE

Officially, Monroe ranked far and away as the thirstiest county per person at 198 gallons per day in 2010 but water managers said that number was heavily skewed by tourists in the Florida Keys, who use much of the water but aren’t included in the calculations.

Lower population projections also have eased the pressure to expand water systems. The last time the district produced its analysis, in 2006, when South Florida was in the midst of a super-heated housing boom, water managers calculated the four counties would be using nearly 2.3 billion gallons of water a day by 2025 for everything from home faucets to farming.

That estimate is now down by some 400 million gallons — for 2030, five years later.

“I don’t think the question is are we going to run out of water but are we going to run out of less expensive water,’’ said Elsner, of the water management district. “What this does is extend the traditional fresh water sources further down the road.’’

Miami-Dade now believes it can cover much of its future demand through 2030 with a plant in Hialeah already under construction and expected to be completed later this year that will tap the Floridan and a second plant in South Miami that is being designed to use less expensive technology.

“We’re a lot better off than we were in 2005,’’ Goldenberg said. “Our demands were above our allocations so we were really in a crisis.’’

South Florida has suffered through some dreary declines of late — home values, paychecks and the Miami Dolphins, for instance.

But in the case of the public thirst for one precious commodity — fresh water — the decline has actually turned into a major money-saving plus.

The 53 utilities serving Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe counties pumped about 83 million gallons a day of water less in 2010 than they did in 2000 — despite a population that grew by some 600,000 over the decade — according to a new draft analysis produced by the South Florida Water Management District.

Do the math and it adds up to South Floridians using about 20 percent less water each day for drinking, bathing and sprinkling yards per person than they did a decade ago. That’s about 30 billion gallons over the course of a year, enough unused water to fill 45,900 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

It’s an unexpected but entirely welcome drop-off in public demand in a region that only a decade ago was worried about taps running dry in relentlessly sprawling suburbs.

“It’s not a surprise that it went down,’’ said Mark Elsner, administrator of water supply development for the water management district. “It’s a surprise it went down so much.’’

Though water consumption per person has been declining for decades, water managers point to a combination of factors that are accelerating the trend. They include newer water-efficient toilets and other fixtures, tougher restrictions on lawn irrigation and stepped utility rates designed to make customers pay a premium for excessive water use.

Water managers and state and local environmental regulators have pushed conservation programs and also demanded that utilities expand use of “reclaimed” waste water — often by using it to irrigate parks and golf courses.

At Hillcrest Golf & Country Club in Hollywood, for instance, every drop from the sprinklers is recycled wastewater — cheaper and in totally unrestricted supply.

“We have a very good deal for water. We could use a million gallons or 10 gallons and we pay the same amount,’’ said Lewis Rissman, Hillcrest’s general manager. “The city of Hollywood doesn’t even know what to do with all their reclaimed water.’’

Clearly, South Florida’s economic downturn, housing market collapse and flattening population growth have contributed to the slaking thirst as well.

“There are a lot of things working together,’’ said Elsner, whose agency oversees the water supply for 16 counties stretching from south of Orlando to Key West. “What you’re seeing is a conservation ethic being developed. People are understanding the value of water.’’

What the decline in demand from public utilities does not mean is South Florida is in the clear when it comes to water shortages

South Florida depends on wildly varying annual rainfall to replenish its underground aquifers and Lake Okeechobee. Right now, for example, an unusually dry winter has left ground water levels lower than normal.

The district’s long-term planning analysis, revised every five years with new consumption and population figures, also covers only four counties in the region and doesn’t track similar trends for agriculture, which consumes an estimated 37 percent of the region’s water. It also doesn’t account for some critical future demands — such as the massive volumes of water needed to help restore the Everglades. The draft study predicts the four counties will still need to expand the public water supply by 18 percent by 2030.

But improved conservation has eased pressure on traditional public water supplies and utilities contemplating new, far more expensive water systems designed to reclaim wastewater and tap other new sources, from deep aquifers to sea water.

The drop-off has been significant enough that Miami-Dade’s Water and Sewer Department has been able to scale back projects considered essential only five years ago, saving the utility — and its customers — hundreds of millions of dollars.

In 2007, Miami-Dade, which had historically relied almost entirely on the cheap, clean Biscayne Aquifer, was forced to draw up a $1.6 billion expansion plan to serve a then-booming population. Under pressure from water managers, who warned that drawing more from the underground supply could hurt regional water supplies, the Everglades and Biscayne Bay, Miami-Dade designed projects to tap the deeper brackish Floridan aquifer or to treat waste water.

Bertha Goldenberg, assistant director of the water and sewer department, said the county has since been able to cancel or defer a handful of projects, including one that would have piped highly treated waste water back into the ground near Zoo Miami to increase ground water supplies.

“We basically saved $300 million by changing that,’’ she said.

Alan Garcia, director of Broward County’s water and wastewater services, said the decline has allowed the agency to push back a $46 million project to tap the Floridan until at least 2023 and explore other potentially cheaper options for the future, such as teaming up with other Broward and Palm Beach utilities in constructing a massive reservoir.

Garcia said county figures show per person usage falling sharply in some areas, down almost by half between 1990 and 2008 in one area that includes Lighthouse Point and parts of Pompano Beach.

“People have finally started to see they don’t need to water their lawns four or five days a week,’’ he said. “It’s expensive water and they don’t need to use it.’’

Miami-Dade’s Goldenberg also points to irrigation restrictions the district first imposed in 2006 during a severe drought as a major factor in the decline, with county usage dropping by 20 gallons a day per person over the following two years. In 2010, both Miami-Dade and Broward made twice-weekly lawn watering rules permanent.

Miami-Dade programs to offer rebates and exchanges for high-efficiency toilets and shower heads and to improve homeowner associations’ irrigation systems also combined to save nearly 8.5 million gallons a day last year, according a water department report completed in April.

The district analysis shows that, based on 2010 figures, Miami-Dade remained the largest consumer of the public water supply, slurping some 347 million gallons a day. Broward trailed with 217 million gallons a day, followed by Palm Beach County with 207 million gallons and Monroe with 16 million gallons.

But Palm Beach County’s agricultural industry, dominated by sprawling sugar farms, made it the thirstiest county overall. Farms, which draw from their own wells and pumps, pushed Palm Beach’s total daily demands to over 600 million gallons. Miami-Dade’s combined farm and public total runs just over 400 million gallons a day, according to the report.

Measuring by usage per person, Palm Beach recorded the greatest decline between 2000 and 2010, at 28 percent, followed by Broward at 19 percent and Miami-Dade at 17 percent. Miami-Dade’s updated numbers, which include figures through 2011, show a 21 percent reduction since 2000.

Officially, Monroe ranked far and away as the thirstiest county per person at 198 gallons per day in 2010 but water managers said that number was heavily skewed by tourists in the Florida Keys, who use much of the water but aren’t included in the calculations.

Lower population projections also have eased the pressure to expand water systems. The last time the district produced its analysis, in 2006, when South Florida was in the midst of a super-heated housing boom, water managers calculated the four counties would be using nearly 2.3 billion gallons of water a day by 2025 for everything from home faucets to farming.

That estimate is now down by some 400 million gallons – for 2030, five years later.

“I don’t think the question is are we going to run out of water but are we going to run out of less expensive water,’’ said Elsner, of the water management district. “What this does is extend the traditional fresh water sources further down the road.’’

Miami-Dade now believes it can cover much of its future demand through 2030 with a plant in Hialeah already under construction and expected to be completed later this year that will tap the Floridan and a second plant in South Miami that is being resigned to use less expensive technology.

“We’re a lot better off than we were in 2005,’’ said Goldenberg. “Our demands were above our allocations so we were really in a crisis.’’

The Colorado River Aqueduct, a lifeline to Southern California.

By ADAM NAGOURNEY and FELICITY BARRINGER

Published: April 23, 2012

SAN DIEGO — There are accusations of conspiracies, illegal secret meetings and double-dealing. Embarrassing documents and e-mails have been posted on an official Web site emblazoned with the words “Fact vs. Fiction.” Animosities have grown so deep that the players have resorted to exchanging lengthy, caustic letters, packed with charges of lying and distortion.

 And it is all about water.

Water is a perennial source of conflict and anxiety throughout the arid West, but it has a particular resonance here in the deserts of Southern California. This is a place where major thoroughfares are named after water engineers (Mulholland Drive in Los Angeles) and literary essays (“Holy Water” by Joan Didion, for instance) and films (“Chinatown”) have been devoted to its power and mystique.

Yet in the nearly 80 years since the Arizona National Guard was called out to defend state waters against dam-building Californians, there has been little to rival the feud now under way between San Diego’s water agency and the consortium of municipalities that provides water to 19 million customers in Southern California. This contentious and convoluted battle seems more akin to a tough political campaign than a fight between bureaucrats, albeit one with costly consequences.

At issue is San Diego’s longstanding contention that it has been bullied by a gang of its neighbors in the consortium, able by virtue of their number to force the county to pay exorbitant fees for water. The consortium two weeks ago imposed two back-to-back 5 percent annual water rate increases on San Diego — scaled down, after strong protests, from what were originally set to be back-to-back increases of 7.5 percent a year.

The battle is being fought in the courts — a judge in San Francisco is struggling to untangle a welter of conflicting claims from the two sides — but also on the Internet. San Diego officials have created a sleek Web site to carry their argument to the public, posting 500 pages of documents they obtained through public records requests to discredit the other side.

And they might have struck oil, as it were, unearthing documents and e-mails replete with references to the “anti-San Diego coalition” and “a Secret Society,” and no matter that the purported conspirators contend that they were just being jocular.

“There is a lot of frustration,” said Jerry Sanders, the mayor of San Diego, who has watched from the sidelines as the independent San Diego Water Authority waged its wars. “It’s been building over the years.”

Asked about the tactics, Mr. Sanders demurred. “Whether they are effective or not, I’ll leave that to other people to judge.”

If nothing else, the fight is an entertaining diversion from the kind of bland bureaucratic infighting that usually characterizes these kinds of disputes.

Dennis A. Cushman, the assistant general manager of the San Diego authority, said it posted the documents — and asked a judge to force the disclosure of a ream of other private e-mails and documents — so beleaguered water consumers “could see how the business of water in California is actually done.”

“We had suspicions about what was going on,” Mr. Cushman said. “We were shocked by the depth and scope and the level of sophistication of what was going on.”

“It’s not done in public,” he said. “It’s done out of public view. The meetings aren’t open. They are designed to expressly exclude the agency they are discriminating against.”

Jeffrey Kightlinger, the general manager of the regional water consortium, described the charges as “nonsense,” saying that the meetings that Mr. Cushman had deemed illegal did not fall under the state’s open meetings laws. He described the campaign against his organization — the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, also known by the acronym M.W.D. — as unlike anything he had seen.

“It sounds like a political campaign, and hiring political consultants to run it for them strikes me as a new level of activity I haven’t seen before in public service,” he said.

“It just seems to me to have a different tenor and tone than before,” he said. “The idea of bandying about secret-society issues, talking about ‘the truth about M.W.D.’ strikes me as unprofessional and does a disservice to the public.”

Kevin P. Hunt, the general manager of the water district of Orange County, said he was taken aback at the suggestion that some kind of plot was afoot. “It would be funny if it hadn’t created such a furor,” he said. “It was a bunch of guys and gals getting together to do their work. It’s all in the spin you put on it — calling it a ‘secret society’ and making it sound like a cabal. I didn’t even know what a cabal was.”

The case ultimately will be determined in a state court in San Francisco. At issue is how much the district should be charging San Diego to use the district’s pipes to transport water the county bought elsewhere. (San Diego officials have made a concerted effort to expand the sources of their water over the years — including a long-contested, substantial transfer of Colorado River water from inland farmers — so they are not as reliant on the district as they once were).

San Diego has four seats on the district’s 37-member board, and there is little incentive for other communities to entertain San Diego’s argument: When San Diego pays less, everyone else pays more.

Mr. Cushman said that the district had come to view San Diego as “its golden egg.”

Still, even supporters of San Diego’s actions suggest that all accusations may ultimately be little more than a sideshow.

“It just doesn’t feel right,” said Lani Lutar, the president of the San Diego County Taxpayers Association. “They are already pursuing the lawsuit. Those are ratepayer dollars being spent and all of the advertising. Is that necessary? The lawsuit is going to resolve the matter. The P.R. stunt has taken it too far.”

San Diego is the eighth-largest city in the country, and this part of California gets 10 inches of rain a year, on average. And this city is at the end of two long water transport systems.

“We’ve always had end-of-pipeline paranoia,” said Lester Snow, the executive director of the California Water Foundation and a former head of both the San Diego and state water agencies. “It is often just physical — the pipeline crosses earthquake faults and anything that happens bad anywhere can affect us.”

The long history has left San Diego with what seems to be a permanent sense of grievance. But Mr. Snow said that this represented a new level of animosity. “The current dispute has gone way beyond a rate-increase dispute,” he said.

 

A decade-long legal dispute over Florida's process of listing waterways that require cleanups has taken another yet another turn.

Chief U.S. District Judge M. Casey Rodgers in Tallahassee last week ordered the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to review Florida's revised "impaired waters" rule to determine whether it has caused some waterways to be dropped from the state's cleanup list.

Environmental groups, who say the state is attempting to drop waterways from its list rather than clean them up, are claiming victory in the latest ruling. An attorney for industry groups that backed the state rule at issue said it was scientifically valid as upheld by a state hearing officer.

Environmental groups in 2001 challenged the Florida Department of Environmental Protection rule that established the process for listing "impaired waters" as required by the federal Clean Water Act. 

The groups said DEP was seeking to avoid forcing industries to reduce pollution by removing waterways from the list. DEP said in a news release at the time that the goal was to identify and focus restoration efforts on waterways that are truly degraded.

The 11th Circuit U. S. Court of Appeals has stated that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency must determine whether water bodies will be removed from the cleanup list under the initial 2001 rule and subsequent revisions. Rodgers ruled last week that the EPA had not done so and gave the agency 120 days to take action.

A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency spokeswoman said the agency was reviewing the order. A DEP spokeswoman said the agency stands by its state rule, which she said was not questioned by the judge's ruling.

"In fact, the judge’s ruling upholds every technical aspect of those sections of the IWR (impaired waters rule) that EPA has reviewed and approved," spokeswoman Dee Ann Miller said. "It simply directs EPA to expand or further document its evaluation and analysis of those sections of the rule that EPA has not reviewed."

The judge's ruling is a huge boost for environmentalists who now want the federal EPA to give up its appeals, said Linda Young, director of the Clean Water Network of Florida. She said the EPA should review the list to determine what water bodies were being dropped because of the rule changes, not because they had been restored.

"Honestly I'm so happy about this ruling," Young said. "The Obama administration has been so disappointing in so many ways. I'm hoping and praying this will not be another disappointment."

Other environmental groups that are plaintiffs in the latest lawsuit filed in 2009 are the St. Johns Riverkeeper and the Conservancy of Southwest Florida. The court earlier denied requests by industry groups seeking to intervene on behalf of EPA.

DEP has reported that the number of miles of impaired waterways increased from about 1,000 miles in 2008 to about 1,900 miles in 2010, according to a federal EPA web site. Impaired acres of lakes increased from 350,000 acres in 2008 to 378,000 in 2010. 

The case is separate from the dispute over proposed federal water quality rules that has raged during the past two years and led to HB 7051, waiving adoption by the Legislature of proposed alternative state rules. 

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

 

The Everglades Foundation on Monday released a report showing that 76 percent of phosphorous pollution entering the Everglades comes from agricultural operations while that sector pays 24 percent of the cost.

The group says it hopes the findings help Gov. Rick Scott as he negotiates a new Everglades restoration plan with federal agencies. The information also could be used by the Legislature to shift the cost burden more to agricultural interests, Everglades Foundation officials said.

The Everglades ecosystem extends from south of Orlando south to Lake Okeechobee, Everglades National Park and Florida Bay. Excess nitrogen and phosphorus from a variety of sources has contributed to some areas of the national park having become choked with cattails.

Sixty-eight percent of Florida voters in 1996 approved a state constitutional amendment requiring that those who cause pollution in the Everglades to be "primarily responsible" for the cost of cleanup. The Everglades Foundation says its report, produced by RTI International, uses public data to help identify who is causing the pollution and who has been paying for the cleanup.

While 24 percent of the money for nutrient removal comes from agricultural sources, 39 percent comes from property taxes collected by the South Florida Water Management District, which operates 45,000 acres of stormwater treatment areas. State and federal governments pay 27 percent and wastewater customers pay 10 percent of the cost.

"I think it's hard to fathom how any honest person could suggest that the big sugar and agricultural interests are complying with the constitutional amendment by picking up only 24 percent of the cost right now," Everglades Foundation Executive Director Kirk Fordham said.

In response, U. S. Sugar Corp., Florida Crystals Corp. and the Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida issued a statement condemning the Everglades Foundation for producing studies "resulting in hocus pocus economic conclusions."

"The Everglades Foundation’s report is riddled with so many erroneous assumptions, then hedges the conclusions with an equal number of caveats and uncertainties, that it serves no purpose except to throw mud on productive restoration efforts," the statement said.

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection in response issued a statement that did not address the cost issues raised in the report. The statement said the report noted progress made on Everglades cleanup and agriculture's role in that effort.

Some sugar industry representatives have said the state should focus more attention on reducing phosphorus and nitrogen pollution in the northern Everglades north of Orlando. But Fordham noted that his group's report says that only about 13 percent of the phosphorus reaching the stormwater treatment areas is coming from Lake Okeechobee.

The Everglades Foundation decided in the fall of 2010 to do the study, so its release after the 2012 legislative session while the governor is negotiating with federal agencies is coincidental, Fordham said.

"I think it really is up to the Legislature to determine how to shift the cost," Fordham said. "If that doesn't take place, then I think taxpayers ought to take a look at whether or not there are other means to guarantee it is enforced."

He added, "Certainly if the question is, is the Everglades Foundation looking to file a lawsuit right now -- the answer is no."

Read key findings of the report at http://www.evergladesfoundation.org/pages/1708.  Download the 107-page Everglades Foundation report by clicking here.

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

 

 

Back in 1996, Florida voters approved a “polluter pays” amendment that environmentalists hoped would force the agricultural industry — particularly sugar growers — to bankroll the hefty expense of stemming the damaging flow of nutrients into the Everglades.

It hasn’t worked out quite that way.

According to a study released Monday by the Everglades Foundation, the agricultural industry produces three-quarters of Glades pollution but pays only a quarter of the costs of cleaning it up. The public, the study found, pays the rest of an annual $106 million treatment tab through property taxes, utility bills and state and federal taxes.

“I’m quite certain that most Floridians would find it rather outrageous that they are picking up the bill for giant agricultural operations,’’ said Kirk Fordham, chief executive officer of the foundation, a group that championed the 16-year-old amendment that the Legislature has never enacted.

Fordham said he hoped the study would persuade state and federal negotiators trying to resolve decades of lawsuits over Florida’s oft-delayed clean plans to shift the burden — and bills that could run hundreds of millions of dollars or more — to farmers, ranchers and nurseries responsible for the bulk of nutrient pollution that has poisoned vast swathes of the Glades, killing off and crowding out native plants.

South Florida’s sugar farmers immediately bashed the study, which the foundation commissioned for $185,000 from researchers at North Carolina-based RTI International.

In a joint statement, the U.S. Sugar Corp., Florida Crystals Corp. and Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida defended their efforts and their record of reducing phosphorus use, saying the study was based on “grossly flawed assumptions, resulting in hocus pocus economic conclusions.’’

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection issued a statement claiming “significant progress’’ in reducing nutrients but acknowledging “that there is more to be done.’’ The statement also sent an upbeat signal about settling long-running federal lawsuits over the slow pace of clean-up, adding that “because of the leadership of Gov. (Rick) Scott, Florida is on the verge of a momentous step forward in Everglades restoration.’’

The state, which first agreed to reduce the flow of phosphorus into the Everglades to settle a federal lawsuit in 1988, has been under mounting pressure from federal judges frustrated by the decades of delay. Florida has spent more than $1.3 billion to construct a 45,000-acre network of artificial marshes to scrub phosphorus flowing from farms into the Glades but it hasn’t been enough to meet the super-low standards required to protect the sensitive marsh.

Phosphorous, a common fertilizer ingredient that drains off farms and yards with every rain storm, can trigger fish-killing algae blooms in lakes and coastal waters. But its impact can be catastrophic even at minute concentrations in the Everglades, said foundation senior scientist Tom Van Lent. As concentrations rise, it can kill off an important algae at the base of the Everglades food chain and fuel the spread of cat tails, a plant that a scientist once dubbed “the grave markers of the Everglades.’’

The ruling was drawn narrowly around the issue of judicial review rather than the larger question of the E.P.A.’s jurisdiction over wetlands. Nonetheless, property-rights advocates hailed it as a victory for individual freedoms over governmental authority.

For years, the E.P.A. has invoked its authority under the Clean Water Act to issue so-called compliance orders declaring a site to be a wetland and requiring owners to stop construction or to restore the land. Property owners could not seek judicial review of these orders without taking other administrative steps like applying for permission from the Army Corps of Engineers to build on a wetland.

Wetlands have been accorded federal protection because of their role as natural incubators and as water-cleansing filters within larger ecosystems. The agency argued that compliance orders are crucial to its ability to step in and guard such areas from illegal development, and that immediate judicial review of these administrative actions would undermine the Clean Water Act.

But the couple bringing the case, Michael and Chantell Sackett, argued that they should be able to ask a court to rule immediately on an agency order that carries with it the threat of fines of $75,000 a day.

The Sacketts had sought a hearing with the E.P.A. but were denied one. They then sued for judicial review of the wetlands determination.

Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the court, said, “There is no reason to think that the Clean Water Act was uniquely designed to enable the strong-arming of regulated parties into ‘voluntary compliance’ without the opportunity for judicial review.”

The ruling in Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency, No. 10-1062, did not address the question of the E.P.A.’s jurisdiction, particularly over wetlands. This issue was addressed — but not clearly decided — in a 2006 case involving a Michigan developer, John Rapanos.

In a statement, the E.P.A. said, “E.P.A. will, of course, fully comply with the Supreme Court’s decision, which the agency is still reviewing, as we work to protect clean water for our families and future generations by using the tools provided by Congress to enforce the Clean Water Act.”

In a concurring opinion, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. called on Congress to end the ambiguity over the E.P.A.’s jurisdiction. “Real relief requires Congress to do what it should have done in the first place: provide a reasonably clear rule regarding the reach of the Clean Water Act,” he wrote.

The Sacketts were represented by the Pacific Legal Foundation, a libertarian group in California. Their case drew support from groups including the National Association of Home Builders, the National Federation of Independent Business, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

 

Bruce Ritchie, 03/15/2012 - 05:01 PM

 

Select Committee on Water Policy Chairwoman Trudi Williams, R-Fort Myers, guides the committee. She says she's considering a run for Senate. Photo Credit: Florida House of Representatives 3-11-11

A House committee chairwoman said Thursday that her committee's bill to extend the length of water-use permits seemed like a "no-brainer" and she was surprised it died without a vote in the Senate.

HB 7045 by the Select Committee on Water Policy would have extended permits for alternative water supply projects from at least 20 years to at least 30 years in state law. Supporters said the bill would have encouraged water utilities to protect scarce water supplies by making it easier and cheaper for them to borrow money for water projects.

The bill passed the House 116-0 on Feb. 15 and was never taken up in the Senate. The Senate companion, SB 1178, passed three committees but died awaiting action at its final stop, the Senate Budget Committee.

If the state approves the $47 million plan, it means the aquifer would be depleted a little more slowly. But it also means people in the tri-county area could be drinking treated wastewater every time they turn on the tap.

The concept of recharging the aquifer with treated sewage isn't new, but the city's project is different, said Rick Nevulis, a water reuse coordinator with the South Florida Water Management District. Pembroke Pines will inject the water directly into the ground. West Palm Beach, Sunrise, Tindall Hammock, Pahokee, Wellington and Homestead pump their purified sewage into wetlands, lakes or fields, where it percolates into the aquifer over a period of months or years.

Those six utilities now pump a combined 6.5 million gallons of purified sewage into the water supply each day. Pembroke Pines' plan would double that.

This is a long time coming, Nevulis said. The rest of the state already pumps much of its sewage back into its water supplies, and South Florida is behind.

Only about 71 million gallons of the approximately 640 million gallons of sewage the tri-county area produces each day gets reused in any way, and almost all of that goes toward irrigation.

The plan does have an "ick" factor, admitted City Manager Charles Dodge. But he guarantees the water will be pure and drinkable.

"The water will be very, very well treated," he said. "It's not as if you would know it went through this process."

Pembroke Pines' 7 million gallons a day may go into the ground in the city, but there's no way of telling where it will come out, said Harold Wanless, professor and chair of geological sciences at the University of Miami.

"Aquifers flow," Wanless said. "It's difficult to tell where any particular water will move to. We don't have the large conduits inside the aquifer well mapped."

The plan is necessary to regain the city's water use permit from the South Florida Water Management District. The aquifer — a 4,000 square mile system of underground limestone caves filled with water — is running low and the district has ordered that utilities come up with additional sources of water.