Would you like to give some Florida bureaucrats even more control over health and economic matters in your life?  Would you like to have even less power in your own back yard and community?  Would you like to give away your power to big corporations that have inordinate influence over your elected officials?  No?  Neither would I, but that’s what the Crist administration is about to do to us. 

If you are thinking that this has to do with health care or banking “reform”, . . . well, not exactly.  It has to do with water quality in your community and maybe even in your back yard.  Florida is moving forward at tsunamic speed, to give bureaucrats with the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) the ability to downgrade many waters in Florida and to take away the few rights that you now have to protect those waters.  Who is giving them this unprecedented ability to seize your rights?  They are empowering themselves and they feel no compunction to inform you about it in advance.  Imagine that!!!

DEP shared their scheme with the taxpayers of Florida on Christmas Eve, ho-ho-ho and we all have until January 21st to read approximately 45 pages of legalese and submit comments.  There was one public meeting held on the January 7th, at which the public had an opportunity to discuss the matter and ask questions.  Oh, you say that you didn’t know about the meeting?  Well, don’t you read the Florida Administrative Weekly on a regular basis so you can know when you are about to be robbed by your government? 

All cynicism aside, DEP plans to finalize major changes to Florida’s water quality standards in March.  The exact plan is changing all the while, but as it stands today, they want to create a new category of waters in Florida that are not swimmable and barely fishable, if at all.  These would be things like lakes, canals, and sloughs that were artificially created or natural water bodies, like lakes and streams that were altered before 1975.  These waters today would be part of the long (and growing) list of Florida waters that are overly polluted and in need of a clean-up plan.  Many of them receive and discharge pollution that causes toxic algal blooms, fish kills, polluted groundwater, and other serious problems that are rampant in Florida.  Today, they are not legally eligible for further new pollution.  Today, the goal for most of these waters would be to locate the pollution sources that are fouling these waters and try to correct the problems, near or at the source and primarily (in most cases) at the expense of the polluters.  DEP wants to change that.

DEP’s new category of unswimmable/barely fishable waters would be allowed to remain overly polluted forever.  How polluted?  You won’t know until DEP decides.  Today these waters have numeric pollution limits that you can look up on the internet.  That will change and the new pollution limits will be decided by DEP.  There will effectively be nothing that you or I can do to stop them or reverse their actions. 

DEP says that this will save money.  For whom?  The people who live downstream of these permanently polluted waters?  Not likely!  For the people who may live right on the permanently polluted waters?  Possibly.  However, does someone living on a polluted canal or lake save money when their property values are lowered because it’s harder to sell polluted-water-front property?  Do you save money when you are constantly getting sick from breathing air-borne toxins that are drifting into your yard and home from a nearby algae bloom?

If you would like to know more and think that the taxpayers of Florida deserve to have a public meeting on this issue, near your community, then you need to write, email or call the governor and your legislators TODAY!  Tell them that you want to know more about this and have a meaningful opportunity to participate in the decisions that DEP is making about your water, health and money.  The rule that is being weakened is Chapter 62-302.400 F.A.C. (designated uses).  You can learn more about this issue on the following website:  http://www.facebook.com/l/c6a2c;www.cleanwaternetwork-fl.org

Governor Charlie Crist   
Via E-mail  Charle.Crist@myflorida.com
Phone  850-488-7146    
Fax: 850-487-0801
Address: Office of the Governor
The Capitol   
400 South Monroe Street   
Tallahassee, FL 32399