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
“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.
“Essentially, the end users of the water
permitted by the district, for the most part, have not implemented Best
Management Practices,”
“The users should be required to use BMPs,”
Rawl says those kind of
improvements could make a huge difference in
“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
Flood did say the permit renewal deadline was extended 18 months.