FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 11, 2020
Contacts:
**PRESS RELEASE**
POLLUTERS’ WATERWAYS ACT ON WAY TO GOVERNOR’S
DESK
Same
old story – same expected outcome
TALLAHASSEE—As of
today, the misnamed “Clean
Waterways Act” has passed in both chambers of the state legislature and is on
its way to the Governor’s desk.
For more than a month
the Florida Springs Council, Florida Waterkeepers, and Sierra Club have been
asking Senator Mayfield to “fix” SB 712, but rather than improve the bill and
make it more protective of water quality, it was further weakened with the full approval and
enthusiastic support of FDEP Secretary Noah Valenstein.
Ryan Smart, Florida
Springs Council Executive Director, responded with: “Today the
Florida Legislature once again sided with Florida's major polluters and
landowners, against the interests of the public and our environment. Last year,
we saw Democratic and Republican lawmakers overwhelmingly support
legislation forcing environmentally and economically damaging toll
roads on rural areas throughout Florida for the benefit of billionaire
landowners. This year, those same Legislators unanimously voted for SB 712, a
"water quality bill" written and approved by lobbyists for Florida's
major polluters. SB 712 does nothing to protect Florida's springs, delays
reaching water quality goals for decades, gives a free pass to many of
Florida's largest polluters, and prohibits local governments from trying
to do better. Make no mistake, a yes
vote on SB 712 is a vote for more pollution, not clean water."
Lisa Rinaman, St. Johns
Riverkeeper, stated: “The land
disposal of sewage sludge is fouling Florida waterways and fueling toxic blue
green algae. SB 712 weakens efforts to protect our waters by providing polluter
loopholes that allow the dangerous dumping of concentrated human waste to
further degrade our springs, our rivers, and our waters. This bill does nothing to address the fact
that biosolids generated in South Florida are transported north where they are
polluting the headwaters of the St. Johns River.
Dave Cullen, Sierra
Club lobbyist said: “This is
more bait and switch from the Legislature.
They can’t bring themselves to regulate agriculture’s manure and
fertilizer, the major source of pollution to many basins, so they shift the
entire conversation to septic tanks and wastewater treatment
plants. After all, that way they get to wag their fingers at their
current favorite scapegoat – local governments.
It also allows them to put the cost of infrastructure onto taxpayers and
ratepayers and at the same time completely avoid stopping the worst source of nonpoint pollution at the source.”
Jen Lomberk, Matanzas Riverkeeper, added: “This bill just doubles down on the broken system that got us into this
water quality crisis in the first place. Unless our elected officials are
willing to stand up to polluters, we can expect to watch our waterways continue
to decline.”
Cris Costello, Sierra Club
Organizing Manager said: “The last so-called
‘comprehensive’ water bill was passed in 2016, and the environmental community
– 52 organizations and coalitions from across the state – asked then Governor
Rick Scott to veto it, because then, like today, the bill was only as strong as
the state's biggest polluters would allow. Did the 2016 bill, also
praised by legislators in both chambers, get the job done? No. We are in worse shape now than we were before
that bill passed. This bill will be the same because it ignores the worst
sources of pollution feeding harmful algae blooms, preempts local regulation,
and deliberately remains dependent on a broken Basin Management Action Plan
system.”
On February 3, the Florida Springs Council,
Florida Waterkeepers, and Sierra Club sent a letter to Senator Mayfield and
other legislators asking for 18 amendments to SB 712 that would address the
most serious flaws of the bill. On
February 12, in response to public comments made by Chief Science Officer
Thomas K. Frazer regarding the bill, the same groups sent a twelve-page letter
to Frazer that included a full and documented explanation of the bill’s many
failures. Responses, both formal and
informal, from Senator Mayfield, DEP Secretary Noah Valenstein, and the Chief
Science Officer failed to refute any of our arguments and continued to ignore
the glaring inadequacies of this legislation.
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