PalmBecahPost.com
District deadlocked on pumping into lake
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 12, 2007
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_news/epaper/2007/07/12/s3b_BACKPUMP_0712.html
For decades, water managers fighting drought have relied on one controversial remedy again and again: pumping polluted farm runoff into Lake Okeechobee, despite protests and lawsuits from environmentalists.
But Wednesday, they balked.
Instead, the board of the South Florida Water Management District staged one of its most intense debates in years before reaching a near-stalemate on whether to pump again.
Board members agreed to discuss the issue at an emergency meeting this month and to seek advice from state environmental regulators. But a proposal to immediately seek the state's permission fell one vote short of passing, with three new board members appointed by Gov. Charlie Crist casting the crucial "no's."
One longtime lake activist called it a mixed victory at best.
"All I see at this point is a stay of execution," said Okeechobee County fisherman Wayne Nelson.
But board member Malcolm "Bubba" Wade, a senior vice president of United States Sugar Corp., said growers are the ones with their heads on the chopping block if the lake remains at drought-stricken levels through mid-2008.
District staff members have calculated only a small chance that the lake will get enough rain to end the shortage by the time the dry season starts in November. The state Department of Agriculture has warned that direct and indirect losses could top $1 billion this year alone.
"What this decision boils down to is bureaucracy: 'Let's all sit around and study while it's getting too late to do something,''" said Wade, who had to recuse himself from voting on the issue.
But new board members Shannon Estenoz and Melissa Meeker said they're not convinced that the gains in water supply would outweigh the environmental damage.
"I'm not sure the gain is worth the pain," said Estenoz, an Everglades activist from Plantation.
Meeker, an environmental consultant from Stuart, expressed amazement that the district has no policy on how to decide when the pumping is justified.
Meanwhile, new board Chairman Eric Buermann confessed: "My emotions are torn. I like the environment, but I like to eat. And I like to help the economy."
Buermann joined Estenoz and Meeker in voting against seeking immediate permission to pump, causing a 3-3 tie that blocked the effort.
West Palm Beach attorney Patrick Rooney joined Miami lawyer Nicolas Gutierrez and Islamorada fishing guide Mike Collins in voting yes. But Rooney, a Crist appointee, said the issue had him torn as well.
In a second vote, all six ordered their staff to seek advice from the state Department of Environmental Protection on what steps the district would have to take if it OK'd the pumping. The board also told the staff to analyze the costs and benefits.
Two board members, Lee County outdoorsman Charles Dauray and Orlando billboard company President Harkley Thornton, were absent.
The practice, known as backpumping, has been controversial since the late 1960s and early 1970s, when it was water managers' prime strategy for expanding South Florida's water supply.
Growers call backpumping essential to stave off economic disaster, and they say the water from the Glades farms is much cleaner than the ranch and dairy runoff that sloshes into the lake from the north. But opponents say the pumping offers little drought relief while unnecessarily fouling an already grossly polluted lake, which supplies drinking water to more than 40,000 people.
Last month, a federal judge in Miami ruled that the district must get federal permits for its pumps that feed runoff into the lake. But Wade said the ruling doesn't block the district from pumping first.