Florida's long-running fight about water-quality standards for rivers, lakes and springs could be headed toward a federal appeals court in Atlanta.
Groups on both sides of the fight have given formal notice they could appeal a federal judge's ruling about what are known as "numeric-nutrient criteria" -- an issue that has drawn widespread attention from state policymakers, local governments, business lobbies and environmentalists.
The South Florida Water Management District also filed such a notice Wednesday, though an attorney said the move was largely procedural. The district wants to make sure it is in a legal position to address issues that might be raised by other groups or agencies.
The notices stem from a February ruling by U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle in a voluminous case about the Environmental Protection Agency's effort to require new water-quality standards in Florida. In filing the notices, groups do not have to explain their objections to Hinkle's ruling, but they would have to file detailed briefs later with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Albert Ettinger, an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Gulf Restoration Network, which filed a notice April 16, said the environmental groups are concerned about issues such as whether the EPA's proposed standards would adequately protect water quality in springs.
Also, Ettinger said the groups are concerned about whether criteria are strong enough to protect recreational users of lakes. He said the EPA focused more heavily on whether aquatic life could recover from exposure to phosphorus and nitrogen.
"The government never considered, in our view, recreation users,'' he said.
While environmental groups have contended the proposed standards are not stringent enough, state leaders, business lobbies and local governments have long raised questions about whether the numeric-nutrient criteria are needed and whether they will drive up costs for taxpayers and industries.
A coalition that includes the Florida League of Cities, the Florida Stormwater Association, the city of Panama City, the Emerald Coast Utilities Authority, South Walton Utility Co., and Destin Water Users, also filed a notice of appeal April 18.
Kurt Spitzer, executive director of the Florida Stormwater Association, said part of filing the notice was procedural. But he said the broader goal is to have water-quality standards developed by the state Department of Environmental Protection -- a key issue in the dispute about EPA's proposal.
"The fundamental thing we want to see accomplished eventually is the adoption of the Florida version of the numeric-nutrient criteria,'' Spitzer said.
Hinkle's 86-page ruling in February sided with the EPA's basic determination that numeric-nutrient criteria are needed for Florida water bodies to comply with the federal Clean Water Act.
Such criteria are more stringent than the state's longtime standards, which are known as "narrative" criteria. The goal is to reduce nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus that can cause problems such as algal blooms.
"The narrative criterion has proved insufficient to control Florida's widespread nutrient pollution,'' Hinkle wrote in the ruling. "The (EPA) administrator recognized at least as early as 1998 that the narrative criterion is insufficient and that numeric criteria should be adopted."
Hinkle's ruling approved EPA's proposed standards for lakes and springs, but he found problems with the standards for rivers and streams. He required EPA to publish a proposal by May 21 for streams and rivers in much of the state.
The issues in the federal lawsuit are tangled in a state administrative-law case that centers on the Department of Environmental Protection's effort to move forward with numeric-nutrient criteria that will be acceptable to the EPA and will survive legal challenges.
Environmental groups challenged the department's plan in December, and an administrative law judge held a hearing in February and March. In a filing this month, the department said its plan incorporates the parts of the EPA standards that Hinkle approved.
