Opinion: EPA’s Long Arm

In late August, EPA announced a settlement of a lawsuit with environmental groups that would impose arbitrary numeric limits on runoff from farm, urban, and animal sources. As luck would have it, Florida is the first state to have EPA impose such a standard on it.

Costs And Complications

These new standards will no doubt add costs and regulatory complications for Florida growers. At a time when Florida faces 11% unemployment and other economic woes, is it wise to throw another regulatory hurdle agriculture’s way? EPA’s answer would be it is about protecting our environment and natural resources. Who could argue with that?

There’s just one problem with EPA’s answer, in that the Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has invested a huge amount of time and effort over the past several years to develop science-based numeric nutrient criteria. In fact, Florida is a leader among the states in this area, so to say DEP was a bit flummoxed by the federal government’s action to impose a number — science-be-damned — would be an understatement.

In a statement, DEP Secretary Michael Sole noted: “Over the last 10 years, Florida has invested thousands of staff hours in development of numeric nutrient criteria, and throughout the last year we have moved aggressively to analyze the massive amount of nutrient and biological data available for Florida waters. Alone, Florida accounts for 30% of the national water quality dataset, far surpassing any other state in the nation. Our efforts have focused on appropriately addressing the complexity of Florida’s ecosystems and coinciding with the intent, schedule, and guidance provided from EPA.

“Florida has made a tremendous investment to collect and analyze the data necessary to define how nutrient enrichment affects the biological health of our surface waters. To ensure there is no duplication of work, we will continue to work with EPA in the same manner they have worked with us as they develop the criteria. We look forward to EPA presenting its criteria to both DEP and the stakeholders of Florida.”

State Takes A Stand

Florida’s Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson has filed a lawsuit, along with other ag groups, against the EPA, noting the that federal government should not override the work already done by the state. We’ll report the outcome of the suit in future issues. You can bet the folks in Washington are enjoying their power, and it’s trickling down here to us in the states. That should give all of us pause. When our 2009 Citrus Achievement Award Winner suggests that government regulation is a bigger problem than citrus greening and canker, it suggests to me that voters need to wake up and vote for “change” when the next elections roll back around.