TCPalm.com

July 14, 2007

Guest columnist: Stop pumping pollution into Lake Okeechobee

http://www.tcpalm.com/tcp/opinion_columnists/article/0,,TCP_24463_5626997,00.html

by Manley Fuller, guest columnist

In a major decision June 15, a federal judge said Florida needs to step up to the plate and stop violating the Clean Water Act.

Specifically, the judge said, the polluted water that the state is pumping from agricultural drainage ditches into Lake Okeechobee, coupled with routine disinfection at public water plants, "create toxic disinfection byproducts that can sicken humans."

A judge has declared a public health threat. That should get everyone's attention, right? You would think so.

You would think that it's time for the state to get busy cleaning up the water, which is laced with farm chemicals and nutrients and other waste. The judge's order said the state should apply for federal Clean Water Act permits "forthwith."

But instead of facing up to the task, the South Florida Water Management District plans to use your tax dollars to appeal the order in court so it can keep violating the Clean Water Act, one of the nation's most popular and effective environmental laws. The water management district has been using public money for years to argue that pumping dirty agricultural water should be exempt from the Clean Water Act. Is this what the people want?

This pumping is one of the most shameful environmental practices in the state of Florida, and it has been going on for 30 years.

I can guarantee you that if the judge ruled that the water in affluent Palm Beach or Captiva Island was a public health threat, the state would get moving. But many of the farmworkers around Lake Okeechobee, who are drinking tainted water in towns like Belle Glade, Pahokee, and South Bay, don't have such influence and political power. Big Agriculture has the political power, and it is convenient for them to offload their dirty waste water into the public's waters. This must stop.

U.S. District Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga also ruled that the water triggers toxic algae blooms that can injure people and kill wildlife.

Talk about irony: At the same time that the district is using tax dollars to defend pumping polluted agricultural waste water into the lake, it asked the Legislature for more public money — $3.5 million to help build a new water treatment plant for Belle Glade, Pahokee, and South Bay.

The district's own budget request makes the problem plain: "Belle Glade, Pahokee and South Bay use Lake Okeechobee as a source of raw water for drinking water. Lake Okeechobee receives stormwater inflows from major agricultural areas ... and is heavily nutrient enriched as well as highly colored, having the potential for pesticide and herbicide contamination. Organic material in the water gives rise to trihalomethanes in the water upon treatment with chlorine."

The TMH compounds, the district notes, "are implicated by the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry as causing public health concerns for pregnant women in the Glades Region."

Is anyone in Tallahassee listening? The state and federal governments are spending millions of public dollars to clean up the Everglades and Lake Okeechobee, but this effort doesn't make sense unless the state stops pumping dirty water into the lake.

Even now, while the lake is dry, armies of dumptrucks are hauling 250 loads of muck a day from the lake bottom, muck that's polluted with agricultural waste. It will cost about $11.4 million to haul 30,000 loads. Does it make sense to turn around and pump more dirty water back in?

Gov. Charlie Crist can put a stop to this. He can tell the water management district and the Department of Environmental Protection to obey the judge's order and start complying with the Clean Water Act now. It's a new administration, with five new Crist-appointed members on the water management district board. Let them use this opportunity to make history and stop pumping pollution into Lake Okeechobee, once and for all.

Fuller is president of The Florida Wildlife Federation, a nonprofit citizens' conservation education organization.