Amendment 1’s passage opens floodgate of questions on water
BY JAMES L. ROSICA
Tribune/Scripps Capital Bureau
Published: November 30, 2014 | Updated: November 30, 2014 at 11:08 AM
TALLAHASSEE — State lawmakers and other elected officials are calling water policy a priority for next year, but where they’ll go with it remains up in the air.
One reason is the big unknown: how a constitutional amendment voters just passed that mandates spending for land and water conservation will work.
Beyond this, any attempt at a comprehensive policy will have to address myriad concerns and some powerful interests, including pollution from cities’ stormwater runoff and farmers’ fertilizer.
What’s more, the discussion will come against a backdrop that might seem counterintuitive to champions of water conservation: New data from the U.S. Geological Survey suggests the country’s water use overall is tapering off, with numbers at their lowest levels in 40 years.
Florida still managed to use 6.2 billion gallons of fresh water from underground and surface sources such as aquifers and rivers, according to the data. That was in 2010, the most recent year for which the information is available.
The biggest commercial users, at least in Southwest Florida, are still agricultural concerns, which means newly re-elected Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam will have a major role in any water policy discussion. Agribusinesses accounted for more than 60 percent of underground
water use in 2013, records show.
Another wild card will be who gets appointed to serve as head of the state’s Department of Environmental Protection. Gov. Rick Scott on Wednesday announced Secretary Herschel Vinyard’s retirement; a successor has not been named. During his four-year tenure, Vinyard has been well regarded by business concerns, less so by environmental groups.
These groups have their eye squarely on the biggest water users in any discussion of water policy.
David Guest, Florida managing attorney for Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental law firm, recalls one “massive” cattle operation that several years ago requested a permit to draw up to 14 million gallons of water a day.
“That’s enough for a small town,” Guest said. “It gives you a sense of scale for these agricultural withdrawals.”
The dizzying array of problems and stakeholders may be why leaders haven’t had an appetite before to tackle the issue substantively.
“A clean abundant water source for the future is important,” said Steve Crisafulli, R-Merritt Island, a seventh-generation member of a Florida citrus-growing family who was sworn in this month as speaker of the Florida House. “We need to focus on that.”
Crisafulli spoke with reporters after organizational ceremonies in Tallahassee for the upcoming legislative session.
“There’s no question,” he said, “that water is my No. 1 issue, because of my personal history and understanding of it.”
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Driving the discussion will be Amendment 1, which now requires money to be earmarked for protecting the environment.
It needed a minimum of 60 percent to pass on Nov. 4, but the amendment received a resounding mandate — more than 4.2 million “yes” votes, or nearly 75 percent.
That was more votes than any cause or candidate in Florida got this year.
The measure requires the state to set aside 33 percent of the money it raises through a real estate documentary stamp tax to protect Florida’s environmentally sensitive areas for the next 20 years.
Until the Legislature, charged with writing a state budget every year, figures out the details of the funding mechanism and what projects get paid for first, lawmakers and others aren’t talking in detail about water policy.
Legislators begin meeting in committees after the new year, with the 60-day legislative session scheduled to begin March 3.
Critics of the amendment complained that being forced to appropriate the money would limit lawmakers’ ability to fund other needs, since “doc stamp” money provides billions toward the overall state budget as part of its general revenue fund.
Proponents have estimated the new constitutional provision will generate almost $1 billion for protection and conservation efforts.
Senate President Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando, mentioned “water and natural resources policy” in his speech after being formally elected to leadership. He also couched it in terms of implementing Amendment 1.
“The challenge with Amendment 1 is not spending more money on the environment,” he said. It’s “the impact Amendment 1 will have on other areas also funded by doc stamp revenue, specifically transportation, affordable housing and economic development.”
“In this new reality, ... there is going to be some pain,” he said.
In an interview with reporters afterward, Gardiner clarified that he wants “open dialogue, public hearings on what exactly Amendment 1 will mean.”
“That 33 percent is coming from somewhere. And we want people to understand that,” he said. “Everybody is going to come in with a water policy. Our job is to go through them and make sure we do what’s right for the people of Florida.”
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With South Florida’s Everglades, the Treasure Coast’s Indian River Lagoon estuary, and 900 springs concentrated from Tampa north, water pollution in particular has been a problem for years.
The state Department of Environmental Protection has designated hundreds of water bodies as “impaired,” meaning they don’t meet pollutant limits.
Florida’s booming population also is requiring more water to be drawn from the Floridan Aquifer, causing sinkholes and saltwater intrusion into the vast freshwater chamber.
This year, environmental groups held 16 rallies across the state, including one in Tampa, to pressure state lawmakers into cleaning up Florida’s degraded waterways.
Guest, the attorney for Earthjustice, notes the water degradation caused by algae blooms across the state.
Fertilizer and animal manure from farms and ranches run into waterways, where they act as food for algae, culminating in the slimy, smelly blooms.
In 2013, federal and state environmental authorities brokered a deal on rules to reduce water pollution in Florida, though Guest and other environmentalists slammed the compromise as too lenient.
Guest also lamented the practice of holding cattle waste in “manure lagoons,” where the dirty water can leach into groundwater and rivers.
Florida used to spend $300 million a year of doc stamp money on conservation under Preservation 2000, a 10-year program launched by then-Gov. Bob Martinez, of Tampa, in 1990, and through Florida Forever, an act signed in 1999 by former Gov. Jeb Bush — both Republicans.
But during the tight years of the 2006-09 recession, budget writers diverted that money to other needy programs. What was left of it, anyway. By 2008-09, total doc stamp revenue sank from $4 billion a year to $1 billion, where it stayed for three years because of the pop of the housing bubble.
Putnam, who also comes from a family-run citrus growing business, already has filed his budget request for next year, highlighting “the need for funding to support water restoration and conservation projects,” according to a written announcement. Putnam’s office, however, has not released a detailed water policy proposal.
“We must work to restore the health and conserve our supply of water,– and we must do so with a policy and budget that is flexible, comprehensive and long-term,” Putnam said.
Under his tenure, he added, “more than 10 million acres of agricultural lands in Florida have already adopted water-saving techniques and new technologies to protect and conserve Florida’s water supply,” saving 1 billion gallons of water last year.
And Gov. Scott touted a $1 billion environmental plan for Florida during his re-election campaign in August. That was a few months after he OK’d $30 million for springs restoration.
At the same time, he told reporters, “I understand the one side of committing dollars to this, and I understand the other side, but I want to make sure we have money for schools, for poverty programs, for health care and all those things.”
jrosica@tampatrib.com
(850) 765-0807 Twitter: @jlrosicaTBO
http://tbo.com/news/politics/renewin...ions-20141130/
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