Florida received a one-month reprieve before the enactment of new regulations for some bodies of water, but state regulators are still looking for flexibility from the federal Environmental Protection Agency in developing new regulations that will govern different bodies of water.
Rules governing lakes, streams, and springs were scheduled to take effect Oct. 15, but the EPA pushed back the implementation date to Nov. 15.
Meanwhile, Florida Department of Environmental Protection officials met Wednesday to discuss ways to develop criteria to create numeric nutrient standards in Floridas canals, estuaries and coastal waters. Those standards are scheduled to be implemented in August 2012.
We want to figure out what nutrient levels will ensure we will have a healthy and well-balanced community, said Daryll Joyner, bureau chief of Bureau of Assessment and Restoration Support for the DEP.
High levels of excess nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, can be harmful to water systems, and can drastically alter the characteristics of the surrounding ecosystem.
The new regulations are being developed because of a 2008 lawsuit filed by environmental groups against the federal government for not enforcing the Clean Water Act. In 2009, the government signed a settlement agreeing to enforce stricter water standards.
Florida currently relies on a narrative standard to regulate nutrient levels. The Florida Administrative Code states: in no case shall nutrient concentrations of body of water be altered so as to cause an imbalance in natural populations of flora or fauna. Now, the EPA is calling for a specific numerical standard for nutrient levels.
But DEP officials worry the EPAs new standards wont take into account the diversity of Floridas water systems and the variation of their nutrient levels according to natural phenomena, as opposed to the human impacts on the environment the new regulations are designed to combat.
I think the ecology has to guide the standards or else youre headed for a mistake, said David Tomasko, a senior scientist for the environmental consulting firm PBS&J and a member of the Marine Numeric Nutrient Criteria Technical Advisory Committee (MTAC) set up to advise the DEP on how to comply with the EPA.
The DEP and the EPA are split on the best way to measure nutrient content in different bodies of water, much less on what the limit should be. The DEP wants to be able to measure some water systems as a load -- an annual measure of the amount of a nutrient that flows through a given body of water.
But some at Wednesdays meeting were fatalistic about the EPAs approach , convinced federal regulators will insist on a concentration measure -- the amount of a nutrient in a given sample -- for all water systems.
Im afraid the EPA is going to require concentration criteria for everything, said John Davis, president of Environmental Services & Permitting, Inc.
Farmers and businesses were recently joined in their opposition to the new regulations by both of Floridas U.S. senators -- Democrat Bill Nelson and Republican George LeMieux -- in a rare moment of bipartisanship.
Reach Gray Rohrer at grohrer@sunshinestatenews.com or at (85) 727-0859.
