Friday, May 25, 2007
By Charlie Whitehead
In October the South Florida Water Management District will
be asked to renew water use permits that allow irrigation with as much as
almost 103 billion gallons of water a month.
That water irrigates almost 670,000 acres of crops, more
than 100,000 of it sugar cane. Lee County Commissioner Ray Judah is not a big
fan of Big Sugar, but he’s not pushing the district to deny the permits.
What he does want, however, is for the district to require
surface water management improvements. The connection between crop irrigation
and stormwater run-off may seem tenuous, he says, but it’s there.
That connection is the brainchild of Greg Rawl, a local
hydrogeologist who’s done work on water quality for the county. He explains it
this way:
Without the irrigation, Rawl says, the agricultural uses
could not survive. Fertilizer is added to the irrigation water. The irrigation
puts nutrients onto the ground. Then it rains. Because the land uses predate
the implementation of most surface water management practices the rainwater
runs off into drainage ditches. Those ditches carry the nutrients off the land
and into the Caloosahatchee River.
“The whole area is grandfathered,” Rawl said. “There’s not
even a surface water management permit. It goes right into the Caloosahatchee on
this side of the lake.”
Rawl — and, by the way, the Southwest Florida Watershed
Council — says that the state statute under which the district grants the
permits requires that the use be reasonable and beneficial, that it be in the
public interest and that it not cause an adverse impact.
The nutrients carried into the river are clearly an adverse
impact, according to a Watershed Council letter sent to the district and to
county commissioners this week. The letter says it’s the district’s legal
responsibility to reduce pollution in the river.
“The district has the statutory responsibility to correct
this problem, but has repeatedly failed to do so,” said Watershed Council
chairman John Cassani.
Judah has asked his fellow commissioners to write to the district
asking them to demand Best Management Practices for surface water management as
a permit condition. Best Management Practices is a slate of improvements
designed to remove impurities from stormwater run-off before it reaches water
bodies.
“Essentially, the end users of the water permitted by the
district, for the most part, have not implemented Best Management Practices,”
Judah said. “If the permits are re-issued we say they should mandate BMPs.”
Judah has argued that BMPs should be mandatory everywhere.
The district has thus far encouraged, not mandated, their implementation.
“The users should be required to use BMPs,” Judah said.
“Absolutely they can require it and there are all sorts of reasons why they
should.”
Rawl says those kind of improvements could make a huge
difference in Caloosahatchee River water quality.
“There are huge pollutant loads coming in between the lake
and the Franklin Locks,” he said. “All those uses are grandfathered. This is
the only handle the district has.”
There are 470 different water use permits up for renewal in
October. The permits are given for a limited time - typically 20 years.
Cassani asks that commissioners pressure the district to
force the BMPs. Judah says they should, and the county should be ready for the
next step if they refuse.
“If they don’t, I’d submit the board has no other choice but
to take legal action,” he said.
Phil Flood, manager of the Fort Myers district office,
referred questions to the main office in West Palm Beach. Calls there were not
returned.
Flood did say the permit renewal deadline was extended 18 months.