Oil and Gas bill up in Senate committee tomorrow morning. Please call today!

SB 1158 Development of Oil and Gas Resources by Sen. Evers will be heard in Senate Environmental Protection and Conservation tomorrow, Tuesday, February 21, 2012 at 9:15 a.m.  This bill creates an alternate pathway to leasing state conservation lands by allowing state land management agencies to enter public-private partnerships with business entities to explore, develop, and produce oil and gas.  Please call today to urge Committee members to vote NO!  (contact information below)
 

The bill does not contemplate, or compensate for, any negative impacts from oil/gas activities - from the explosions used in seismic testing and the possible contamination of ground water, to the need for new roads, to the disposal of drilling fluid and production water, to the effects of a spill.

Currently, the only way these lands can be leased for oil/gas development is for the Governor and Cabinet sitting as the Board of Trustees of the Internal Improvement Trust Fund to put parcels up for bid, require a minimum return, provide public notice, and find that leasing the land is not contrary to the public interest.  SB 1158 skirts all of those requirements by starting the bill with the words “Notwithstanding the provisions in Chapter 253, Florida Statutes…”  

SB 1158 specifies conservation lands as its target by citing "land management plans" (non-conservation lands have “land use plans.” And it skirts the following provisions in Chapter 253:

• It deprives the state of the operation of the market by eliminating the bids
• It does not consider any possible downside of oil/gas exploration, development, or production or require any surety or property bond to pay for a disaster.
• It does not set a minimum price for royalties and does not require rent
• It does not guarantee the state use of seismic data
• It eliminates notice requirements
• It eliminates the need for municipalities to consent to oil/gas exploration, development, and production within three miles of their borders

SB 1158 eliminates any consideration of the public interest until the very end of the process when the Board of Trustees has to approve the public-private partnership.  It is not clear that the Board is even required to consider the public interest when approving a public-private partnership contract as they would when approving the leasing of land for oil/gas development.  Legally, there  is a difference between approving a lease for oil/gas development and approving a public-private partnership contract – even if the partnership contract effectively approves leasing land for developing oil/gas resources.

VICTORY against Big Fertilizer, Big Pest Control, Big Turf!

Under the Clean Water Act, local governments are responsible for their local water quality, but this year, for the 6^th consecutive year, lawmakers in Tallahassee proposed legislation to take away local control of water pollution - to preempt the nearly 50 strong urban fertilizer ordinances that have been adopted by local governments since 2007.

This year the bills, HB 421 and SB 604 (Limited Certification for Urban Landscape Commercial Fertilizer Application) were aimed at gutting local fertilizer ordinances by exempting commercial fertilizer applicators from all summer rainy season bans. The summer rainy season ban is the backbone of meaningful fertilizer management and ordinances without the ban are essentially meaningless. The effort to kill these bad fertilizer bills is a true grassroots success story!

This year the story starts in Tallahassee where Sierra Club volunteers and staff traveled to the Everglades Water Supply Summit in Tallahassee in mid-January and lobbied legislators urging them to vote against HB 421 before the Military and Community Affairs Committee heard the bill. We attended the committee meeting that week and spoke out against HB 421.

Simultaneously, volunteers on the ground throughout Florida began generating phone calls into Representatives’ offices. The grassroots pressure was so loud that the bill sponsor asked to “temporarily postpone” the vote – it was clear that we had the necessary “no votes” to kill the bill and the sponsor needed time to rally the votes he needed to pass the bill through committee.

Sierra Club activists voice their opposition loud & clear!

While we waited for the next committee vote on HB 421, Sierra Club, other clean water organizations and local elected officials organized four press conferences throughout Florida – in Clearwater, Sarasota, Ft. Myers and Stuart. The press conference sent a loud message to legislators in Tallahassee, as well as the media, that local governments, organizations, businesses and citizens wanted to keep their local urban fertilizer ordinances in place.

Lee County Commissioner Ray Judah at the Fort Myers Press Conference

Despite the building political pressure to kill the bad fertilizer bill, the sponsor worked the Tallahassee system and turned just enough legislators to yes votes the next week when HB 421 was addressed again in the Military and Community Affairs Committee.

A very similar process was followed in the Senate Environmental Preservation and Conservation Committee: We knew our grassroots approach was working so we got on the phones, urging citizens, business owners and even progressive landscapers to make calls into the committee members’ offices urging them to vote against SB 604. Again, when it became apparent we had the “no votes” to kill it, the bill was temporarily postponed.

Time to turn up the heat!

We knew it was now time to turn up the heat.

Both SB 604 and HB 421 were based on the claim that the pest control and fertilizer applicators could be trusted to self-regulate, but just days before the committee vote the Pinellas County Water Resources Department provided bombshell photographs of commercial landscapers applying fertilizer during a rainstorm- a violation of the industry’s own rules and local ordinances. Sierra Club coordinated a press conference, in Pinellas County, our 5^th press conference in two weeks, to highlight the photographs - proof that the industry cannot be trusted to self-regulate when it comes to fertilizer management.

Fertilizer being applied in a rainstorm- a violation of the industry's own rules and local ordinance.

We also took our story to the editorial boards in Tampa, Sarasota and Fort Myers urging the editors to speak out to protect local water quality. Both the Tampa Bay Tribune and Fort Myers News-Press responded by publishing editorials in opposition to SB 604 the morning before the vote.

When SB 604 came up for a vote the following week in the Environment Preservation and Conservation Committee, our local elected champions travelled once again to Tallahassee and the committee rejected the fertilizer preemption bill with 3 votes in favor and 4 against. The bill was officially dead in the Senate for the year!

For the sixth year in a row, Sierra Club helped secure a victory for our waterways in the face of great pressure from the biggest names in lawn care - Scotts Miracle-Gro and TruGreen - and the powerful Florida Turf industry.

Florida: Let's Grow Smarter and Healthier

Cities like San Francisco and Portland, Oregon often top the list as the “Greenest” cities in America for reasons including the number of available bicycle lanes, progressive recycling policies, and energy efficient buildings.  These “green” cities also boast respectable ridership statistics within their public transportation systems.  In Portland, Oregon a little over a quarter of daily commuters use public transportation - an impressive number for a city that size.  On the other hand lets consider Manhattan.  82% of Manhattan residents commute to work using public transportation per day! The reason for this is obvious and happened quite by accident.  The city is surrounded by water on three sides which caused development to concentrate inward and upward. Manhattan’s population density is more than 800 times that of the nation as a whole.  The average Manhattan resident doesn’t own a car (because they're so inefficient). They run most of their daily errands on foot, live in very small spaces (relatively speaking), and use very little energy thereby contributing to one of the smallest per-capita ecological footprints in the world. I’m sure that the founders and early developers of New York City were not considering “smart growth” in their early planning. However, as it turns out Manhattan embodies nearly every accepted smart growth principle: mixed land use, compact building design, livable/walkable neighborhoods, and development directed towards existing communities with a variety of transportation choices. Concentrating human activity concentrates pollution and also reduces the need to travel long distances.


Who knew Manhattan could be so “green?” 


It seems counter-intuitive that concentrating human activity is the answer to some of our most pressing environmental concern. However, it’s time we change our thinking regarding what it means to be “Green.”  Concentrating development and providing efficient transportation alternatives that reduce vehicle miles traveled also reduces the amount of fossil fuels we burn, the amount of smog and ozone we emit, and the number of doctor visits that result from respiratory illnesses triggered by these pollutants. Florida has surprisingly unhealthy air and 1 in 10 children suffer from asthma. It doesn’t have to be that way.


Granted, the average city in Florida is a far cry from Manhattan.  However, the consensus seems to be that Florida’s growth management and transportation policies are inadequate to support our growing population.  Urban sprawl is a serious issue in Florida and the argument could be made that it is a direct result of poor planning and regulatory frameworks. While Florida cities may never be as dense or have as many commuters that use alternatives to cars as Manhattan does, we can better serve a growing local demand for transportation choices and by so doing, grow in a way that creates far less sprawl.


The Florida Healthy Air campaign is poised to draw the connection between transportation, public health and our dependency on fossil fuels.  We need to build a community consensus that providing transportation alternatives and fostering livable communities is essential to ensuring that we will all have healthy air to breathe and a pristine environment to enjoy. It would be nearly impossible to imitate those policies adopted by NYC because of the innate uniqueness of that city- but we can argue that it is time for Florida to move past our archaic transportation policies that emphasize building more roads or widening existing ones. Those objectives do nothing but induce more traffic, exacerbate urban sprawl, and keep Floridians helplessly addicted to oil. Florida has an opportunity to make our communities distinct and livable by following a few examples provided to us by this accidental “Green City.”


 You may never ride the bus or train but you will nevertheless benefit because someone else did. When Floridians are given the same transportation choices that the majority of American’s enjoy, our air will get cleaner for everyone to breathe. Bottom line: Transit means Smarter, Healthier, Cleaner Communities. That is something we can all get behind. – Britten Cleveland, Sierra Club Conservation Organizer for the Florida Healthy Air Campaign

For more information on the Florida Healthy Air Campaign, contact:
Phil Compton, Regional Representative, phil.compton@sierraclub.org
Britten Cleveland, Conservation Organizer, britten.cleveland@sierraclub.org

Sierra Club Florida Alert – Oil/Gas and Septic Tank Bills on Agenda Tomorrow

HB 695 – Development of Oil and Gas Resources and HB 999 – Onsite Sewage Treatment and Disposal Systems will be heard in House Appropriations tomorrow.  Please call committee members and urge them to vote NO on these bills

CS/HB 695 - Development of Oil and Gas Resources by Rep. Ford allows any state land management agency to enter a public-private partnership contract to explore, develop, and produce oil or gas under state lands. It’s focus is short term financial gain. The bill provides that the state’s evaluation of business proposals be based on “contemporary industry practices” which do not have a public interest component.

The words "environment", "impact", "protection", or "mitigation" appear nowhere in the bill. And the trigger for pursuing public-private partnerships to explore for oil or gas is the "yield [of] greater, near-term revenue returns for the state, ...” There is no consideration of the potential impacts to state resources that will be associated with exploration and extraction, never mind a bad spill.

CS/HB 999 - Onsite Sewage Treatment and Disposal Systems, the Septic Tank evaluation and inspection bill preempts local governments from protecting their groundwater by requiring any local program to conform to the (weak) requirements and the significant limitations of the bill.  It specifically excludes inadequate separation of the drainfield from the wettest season water table from the definition of “system failure” and thereby prevents any requirement for repairing a problem with

Rep. Pafford asking hard-hitting questions about Numeric Nutrient Criteria bill sponsor

Check out the transcript of Representative Pafford asking questions of the numeric nutrient criteria ratification bill sponsor.

If you go to this link and pull up the archived session from 2/2/12 and go to minute mark 343:25, you can watch online.

More questions are below. It's pretty clear that the legislature has been bamboozled on the entire numeric nutrient criteria issue:

7051 Numeric Nutrient Criteria Questions:

(honest answers are in parentheses)

Question: One of the differences between the DEP and EPA rules is that the DEP's rule has numeric thresholds instead of numeric criteria. What actions are triggered under the DEP rule when a numeric threshold for nutrients is exceeded?

(The water body goes on a planning or study list)

Question: And while the water body is on the planning or study list is there any requirement to mitigate the impairment?

(No)

Question: Oh, so there are more steps… What is the next step for water bodies on the study list? Is there a requirement that water bodies on the study list be studied?

(No)

Question: Ever?

(No)

Question: So I an impaired water body could be on the study list for five years and no corrective action would be taken?

(Yes)

Question: 10 years?

(Yes)

Question: Well, what if the study is done; what actually has to be determined to trigger corrective action?

(The study would have to confirm biological condition failure of the waterbody and link that condition to the nutrient exceedance.)

Question: But isn't confirming biological condition failure essentially the same as the current narrative standard: “an imbalance of flora and fauna”? If not, what is the difference?

(There is no difference)

Question: So this whole rule gets us to exactly where we are already?

Let me try to understand this from another angle. One of the basic ideas of the EPA rule is to protect downstream waters by not allowing upstream nutrients to cause the downstream water body to exceed its limit. How can the DEP rule be protective of downstream waters if nothing triggers corrective action upstream?

(It can’t)

Question: South of Lake Okeechobee is there a proposal to reclassify the waters in the canals (most of the water in South Florida) as Class III limited because they exceed the numeric and threshold limits?

(Yes)

Question: And would Class III limited waters fall under the purview of this DEP rule?

(No)

Question: Then how will the downstream receiving water bodies – all of South Florida's estuarine systems – be protected?

(They won’t)

Help Save Florida's Waters from Nutrient Pollution! Stop SB 604!

SB 604 by Sen. Dean

Fertilizer Preemption Bill

In Environmental Preservation and Conservation

Monday, January 30

Senate Bill S 604 - Limited Certification for Urban Landscape Commercial Fertilizer Application by Sen.Dean, Charles S. "Charlie", Sr. will be heard in the Senate Environmental Preservation and Conservation committee next Monday at 3:30 in room 110 of the Senate Office Building here in the Capitol.

If there is any way you can make it to the Capitol to attend the meeting, PLEASE COME! Bring examples from your community demonstrating the cost of nutrient impaired waters to public health, the local economy, and quality of life.

We need to make sure every member of the committee knows how much this bill will cost local communities in terms of worsened water quality and in terms of higher taxes and fees. Yesterday, the House fertilizer bill, HB 421 passed in committee by a vote of 9-6 because we lost two of our declared NO votes (Reps. Hooper and Van Zant) and now the Senate bill will be heard in its second of three committees. A bill has to pass both the House and Senate in order to become law, so we have a good opportunity to stop it here.

SB 604 has not yet been amended to match HB 421, but we anticipate that it will. The expected amendment will exempt lawn care workers who have taken a 6 hour course from local fertilizer application bans during the rainy season. This is the most important part of local lawn fertilizer ordinances. Source control is both the most effective and least expensive way to protect water quality.

Fertilizer feeds more than grass. It also feeds algae that clogs Florida’s waters, hurts our water related industries (recreational and commercial fishing, tourism, and waterfront real estate), and presents a threat to public health. The Olga Water Treatment Plant that provides drinking water to 30,000 southwest Floridians had to be closed because of an algae bloom (anabaena) that produced nerve toxins.

The contact information for members of Senate Environmental Conservation and Protection follows. Please contact each one, but if one of them represents your County, be sure to contact them at the very least. I have grouped the emails for the committee if you want to send the same email to all of them for your convenience. But a visit this weekend to their district office would be better. A phone call to the Capitol during business hours Thursday, Friday, and between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Monday is also good. Best of all would be all of those personal contacts and your presence in the Committee room Monday afternoon.

The talking points below the contact info are limited to the bill as we expect it to be amended. If we wait for the amendment to be filed, we’d lose today and tomorrow to make contact. The rainy season ban is the heart and soul of our communities’ strong fertilizer ordinances and that’s what we need to protect. Thank you for helping save Florida’s waters from nutrient pollution!

Senate Environmental Preservation and Conservation 2012

dean.charles.web@flsenate.gov, detert.nancy.web@flsenate.gov, jones.dennis.web@flsenate.gov,latvala.jack.web@flsenate.gov, oelrich.steve.web@flsenate.gov, rich.nan.web@flsenate.gov,sobel.eleanor.web@flsenate.gov

Sen. Charles S. Dean, Chair (and sponsor of SB 604)

Delegations: Baker, Citrus, Columbia, Dixie, Hamilton, Jefferson, Lafayette, Leon,

Levy, Madison,Marion, Suwannee, Taylor

District Phone: (352) 860-5175

Local Phone: (850) 487-5017

dean.charles.web@flsenate.gov

Sen. Nancy Detert

Delegations: Charlotte, Manatee, Sarasota

District Phone: (941) 480-3547

Local Phone: (850) 487-5081

detert.nancy.web@flsenate.gov

Sen. Dennis Jones

Delegations: Pinellas

District Phone: (727) 549-6411

Local Phone: (850) 487-5065

jones.dennis.web@flsenate.gov

Sen. Jack Latvala

Delegations: Hillsborough, Pinellas

District Phone: (727) 556-6500

Local Phone: (850) 487-5075

latvala.jack.web@flsenate.gov

Sen. Steve Oelrich, V. Chair

Delegations: Alachua, Bradford, Columbia, Gilchrist, Levy, Marion, Putnam, Union

District Phone: (352) 375-3555

Local Phone: (850) 487-5020

oelrich.steve.web@flsenate.gov

Sen. Nan Rich

Delegations: Broward, Miami-Dade

District Phone: (954) 747-7933

Local Phone: (850) 487-5103

rich.nan.web@flsenate.gov

Sen. Eleanor Sobel

Delegations: Broward

District Phone: (954) 924-3693

Local Phone: (850) 487-5097

sobel.eleanor.web@flsenate.gov

Talking points

LOCAL CONTROL

The rainy season ban is not a partisan issue. In fact, it is Republican commissioners and council members along our coasts who have cast the winning votes for strong fertilizer management. Why? Because the ban protects local jobs and saves their communities millions of dollars.

COASTAL COMMUNITIES AT THE MERCY OF HARMFUL ALGAE

Local coastal community economies are defined by and are dependent on the quality of their water resources. Local governments must maintain the right to protect those water resources upon which the majority of the community’s jobs are based.

Every red tide or drift algae outbreak; every slime covered river, lake, and spring kills jobs. Tourists run from algae spoiled waterways and many never return. Small waterfront businesses are the hardest hit.

CHEAP VS. EXPENSIVE POLLUTION CONTROLS

Strong fertilizer ordinances are the cheapest and easiest way to protect our waterways from nutrient pollution. Source control is exponentially less expensive than removing nutrients from water bodies.

Nutrient removal requires hundreds of thousands, millions of tax dollars to be spent on stormwater and waste water infrastructure projects.

If local governments lose the rainy season ban they will absolutely have to turn to costly nutrient removal methods.

Cities and counties are responsible for the quality of the water bodies in their jurisdictions under the Clean Water Act – they are accountable.

As a result of this accountability, and the overall competition for funding and other resources for the various services local governments provide, there is a strong incentive to use the least expensive methods that gets the job done. That is why urban fertilizer management ordinances have become so popular in communities that are struggling to restore their impaired waters.

Cheap clean water or expensive clean water? Local governments need to retain the right to make that choice.

A strong fertilizer ordinance stops nutrient pollution at its source, saving local tax dollars and protecting the tourism, fishing and hunting industries in the region.

RAINY SEASON BANS – GOOD FOR LAWNS AND CONSUMERS TOO

Where these rainy season application bans have been in place, landscape contractors report a reduction in fertilizer use of hundreds of tons annually, while still delivering lush landscapes. The landscapers also report a reduced need for insecticides, fungicides and water – which saves their company and their customers money. And water quality is improved, too!

RAINY SEASON BANS – GOOD FOR FLORIDA FERTILIZER COMPANIES

Strong local ordinances have opened a door for Florida-based companies that have been ready to develop and provide ordinance-compliant products.

Scotts Miracle-Gro (as in Scotts Turfbuilder and Scotts Lawn Service), an Ohio company, on the other hand has been slow to provide summer-safe, No-Nitrogen/No-Phosphorous Florida-friendly products.

Before strong fertilizer ordinances, Scotts OWNED the shelf space at Home Depot.

But now many Florida companies, where the profits and jobs stay in Florida, are competing with Scotts. Florida companies like:

Sunniland Corporation in Sanford, Howard Fertilizer & Chemical Company in Orlando,

Custom Biologicals, Inc. in Deerfield Beach, Vigiron in Ruskin,

Florikan and Biological Tree Services in Sarasota, Growers Fertilizer Corporation in Lake Alfred,

Southern Ag in Palmetto, Green World Path in Brooksville, Smart World Organics in Hudson,

Mothers Organics in Seffner, and Peggy Green Inc. in St. Petersburg

No surprise that Scotts is the biggest opponent of local ordinances in the state. Scotts hates losing shelf space to its Florida competitors.

TRAINING/LIMITED CERTIFICATION

The fertilizer manufacturers and applicators that support preemption, claim that the “limited certification” training commercial applicators receive is sufficient to protect water bodies in all parts of the state; that one-size-fits-all.

However, the fertilizer portion of this training is only one-fifth of a 6-hour course, or about 72 minutes. And a passing grade is only 75%.

The truth is that it doesn’t matter whether you have 72 minutes of training or a Ph D in fertilizer; NO ONE, no matter how well “trained” they are, can keep fertilizer on a lawn that is subject to the kind of intense summer rains we experience here.

WHEN IT RAINS IT POURS

When it rains it pours during the Florida summer; if you live here it is obvious that the worst and most wasteful time to apply fertilizer is during the summer.

President Obama signs legislation authorizing Everglades Skyway

Sierra Club says “Let the water flow!”

Applauds Congress and President for Green-lighting the Everglades Skyway

     Debbie Matthews, Chair of the Sierra Club Miami Group 

(Friday, December 23, 2011) -- Today President Barack Obama signed Congressional authorization within the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2012 (Omnibus), H.R. 2055, to bridge 5.5 miles of Tamiami Trail (U.S. highway 41) to restore fresh water flow through America’s Everglades and into Florida Bay. The new bridges will join a one-mile bridge already under construction.

The Everglades Skyway, a term coined to describe the 6.5 miles of bridges along Tamiami Trail, is now supported by Congress, the President of the United States, and a strong coalition of Florida municipalities, civic and business organizations.

Besides restoring Everglades water flow, the project will create thousands of jobs, increase tourism and help to protect South Florida from the ravages of climate change. The cumulative 6.5-mile Skyway will also serve as a visible symbol of Everglades restoration.

Jonathan Ullman, South Florida/Everglades Senior Representative, Sierra Club:

The thousands of activists and allies who have brought us to this day must be commended. Additional thanks go Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Congressional Representatives Bill Young (R-Seminole) and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-Fort Lauderdale), and U.S. Senator Bill Nelson who supported this noble endeavor. (See Senator Nelson’s letter of support here.)

Our challenge however is not yet complete. Now that the project has Congressional authorization, it must also receive funding by Congress before construction can begin.

Nonethess, today is an historic day. After 83 years, Congress has moved to restore flow across the Tamiami Trail.

Today is the  kind of day that Ernest Coe, the Father of Everglades National Park and Marjory Stoneman Douglas, author of the River of Grass, would hold a toast!

For more information: visit www.buildtheskyway.com

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