Lawmakers OK $25 million for springs clean-up

By Aaron Deslatte,
Tallahassee Bureau Chief

TALLAHASSEE – About two-dozen Florida springs clean-up projects got a $25 million taxpayer infusion Wednesday when a budget-writing panel signed off on plans to clean up leaky septic tanks and polluted waters, feeding both springs and development.

Three of the projects also benefit an Apopka development, a sod farm, and golf courses in Citrus County.

The money was pushed by Gov. Rick Scott and included in the state budget the Florida Legislature passed in May. After that, the Department of Environmental Protection had to narrow down a list of 50 projects for the cash. The Legislature’s Joint Legislative Budget Committee signed off on the list Wednesday.

Florida’s springs are becoming a higher priority as the economy recovers and policymakers have more money to dole out.

Scott, a Republican in a tight re-election fight with Democrat Charlie Crist, has also pledged to push for $1 billion in environmental projects.

Incoming House Speaker Steve Crisfulli, R-Merritt Island, and Senate President Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando, have also said they plan to pursue new cleanup regulations for Florida’s endangered spring sheds next year.

But the biggest ground-shift may be Amendment 1 on the Nov. 4 ballot, which would require state budget-writers to dedicate roughly $1 billion a year to conservation and water clean-up projects. Environmental groups have said they were pushing the constitutional question on the ballot followng years of watching their issues take a back seat in the Legislature.

"Amendment 1's really going to drive a lot of the discussions on springs," Gardiner said. "If it passes, it's really going to give us a diagram."

Some 50 urban and agricultural projects with a total price tag of $106 million competed for the dollars budgeted for the fiscal year that began July 1. The 27 projects selected are using matching dollars from regional water management districts and local governments, bringing their total cost to $69 million.

Six of the projects receiving $3.5 million in state funds are littered around Central Florida’s watersheds, including money to provide reclaimed water to a Kelly Park Crossing development in Apopka which would otherwise tap Wekiva River ground waters, reducing nitrogen to the Wekiva by connecting 20 septic tanks to Apopka’s central waste-water system.

Another joint project between Apopka and Orange County would provide the city with another three million gallons a day of reclaimed water, which reduces the city’s thirst for surface waters feeding the Wekiva Springs.

Another will double the capacity of DeLand’s waste-water treatment plant, cutting the nitrogen flows into the Blue Spring watershed.

The biggest project is $12 million for Citrus County Sugarmill Woods water-treatment plant upgrades which will involve steering more reusable water to golf courses. Second on the list is a $10 million effort to connect 850 homes with septic tanks in Ocala to central sewage systems, expected to cut roughly 20,000 pound of nitrogen a year from leaking into the Silver Springs watershed.




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