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State Wants Water Quality Rules Eased for Some Lakes, Rivers

Posted on: Tuesday, 2 May 2006, 00:00 CDT

By Mike Salinero, Tampa Tribune, Fla.

May 1--TAMPA -- Florida is asking the federal government for permission to lower the bar on water quality standards, a move that holds the potential to change aquatic life in the Hillsborough River.

Officials with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection say it's unrealistic to try to hit targets that aren't attainable in some waters, even in their natural conditions. State officials argue that taxpayer money would be better spent trying to meet achievable goals, leaving more money for streams and lakes where the targets can be met.

"If natural resources can be fully protected at a cost of $500,000, do you think it would be responsible of us to spend $1 billion?" said Jerry Brooks, deputy director of water resource management for the DEP.

Conservation groups, however, say the rule change would allow the state or any private group to lower a water quality standard based on vague scientific methodology. Currently, states must follow scientific methods developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

"Now DEP is saying if you have some different methodology that proves how much pollution a water body can take, that's OK," said Linda Young, Southeast director of the Clean Water Network.

The proposed changes could affect the lower Hillsborough River, where Tampa Bay Water, the regional water utility, wants a lower dissolved oxygen standard. Fish and other aquatic life must have ample concentrations of oxygen in the water to thrive.

Tampa Bay Water wants to take additional water from above the Hillsborough River dam, then replace it below the dam with treated sewer water. The treated wastewater is full of nutrients, which robs oxygen from the water.

Young said Tampa Bay Water's request for an alternative oxygen standard will be hard to get under current rules because of the rigid criteria such a change must meet. That would change, however, if the state gets permission to adjust standards for specific water bodies.

Water quality standards are targets that a river, lake or bay must meet to be considered safe for swimming and fishing. The parameters, in addition to oxygen, include bacteria, chlorides, water color and clarity, salts and other minerals.

Waters that don't meet the standards are labeled "impaired" and are supposed to be cleaned up according to federal guidelines. Cleaning a river can cost nearby polluters millions of dollars in treatment systems or pollution control equipment.

Jennifer Murphy, an attorney with the Mid-Atlantic Environmental Law Center, said weakening water quality standards in impaired waters violates the federal Clean Water Act.

"It weakens the water quality standards and won't allow water bodies to meet their designated uses," Murphy said.

Murphy said the EPA can grant a variance to a water quality standard, but the petitioner must show that the river or lake can't meet a designated use, such as fishing or swimming, because of a biological or chemical condition that can't be reversed.

"The difference with the DEP provision ... [is] it doesn't require a showing that the water can't meet its designated use," Murphy said. "It's just giving them a freebie to get out of meeting their water quality standards."

It's not unusual for states to ask for variances to water quality standards, said Andrew Bartlett, chief of groundwater for the EPA's Southeast district. The agency has granted several variances in recent years, he said. The EPA should make a decision on Florida's request in the next few weeks.

The DEP has been trying for several years to get a lower oxygen standard for the 310-mile St. Johns River in east Florida. The St. Johns is a dumping ground for 33 sewage treatment plants and a Georgia-Pacific pulp mill. Urban and agricultural runoff contributes more pollution, triggering massive blue-green algae blooms that choke off oxygen in the summer.

Brooks, the DEP water chief, concedes the St. Johns is polluted, but he contends the river could never reach the statewide oxygen standard of 5 milligrams per liter because of natural conditions. The river is slow-moving and not able to flush pollutants well.

Brooks said state scientists, using methods approved by the EPA, have collected aquatic organisms from the river and shown they can tolerate lower oxygen levels than the state standard.

"That allows you to establish what the dissolved oxygen needs are," Brooks said.

Environmental groups have stopped the DEP's attempts to lower the oxygen bar for the St. Johns. In 2003, the agency wrote a pollution-reduction plan for the St. Johns that the EPA approved. But environmental groups sued the federal agency, saying the plan would allow oxygen levels in the river to decline below amounts that fish need to survive.

The EPA reversed course because of the lawsuit and wrote a tougher pollution-reduction plan.

"Dissolved oxygen and nutrients are the 10,000-pound gorilla that is killing our water quality," said Young, of the Clean Water Network. "Nutrients are in phosphate, in paper mills, in agriculture, in municipal runoff. There are a million polluters out there that have to deal with nutrients."

Young said there are few Florida rivers that can't meet the existing oxygen standard. She said oxygen levels in the St. Johns are routinely at 7 to 9 milligrams per liter. In the summer, oxygen levels drop below 5 milligrams per liter because increased sunlight and stormwater combine to trigger algae blooms.

Young said if the EPA approves the state rule changes, environmental groups will sue the federal agency again.

"I predict EPA is going to have a little heartburn approving this," she said. "The whole idea of the Clean Water Act is to get waters clean, not by changing the definition of what is polluted."

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Source: Tampa Tribune

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