1 1 U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY 2 PUBLIC HEARING 3 PROPOSED WATER QUALITY STANDARDS FOR THE STATE OF 4 FLORIDA'S LAKES AND FLOWING WATERS DOCKET ID NO. EPA-HQ-OW-2009-0596 5 6 FEBRUARY 17, 2010 AFTERNOON SESSION (Volume 1 of 2) 7 ORLANDO, FLORIDA 8 9 EPHRAIM KING, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, U.S. EPA OFFICE OF WATER 10 JIM KEATING, ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION SPECIALISTS 11 STANDARDS AND HEALTH PROTECTION DIVISION, U.S. EPA OFFICE OF WATER 12 DENISE KEEHNER, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF WETLANDS, OCEANS, AND 13 WATERSHEDS, U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY, OFFICE OF WATER 14 15 DANA THOMAS, Ph.D., U.S. ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION AGENCY, OFFICE OF WATER 16 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 17 DATE: FEBRUARY 17, 2010 18 TIME: COMMENCED AT 1:00 P.M. 19 CONCLUDED AT 6:29 P.M. 20 PLACE: CROWNE PLAZA HOTEL 7899 UNIVERSAL BOULEVARD 21 ORLANDO, FLORIDA 22 STENOGRAPHICALLY REPORTED BY: PAULA ROSS, Registered Professional 23 Reporter, Florida Professional Reporter and Notary Public 24 25 2 1 MR. KING: My name is Ephraim King. I am 2 Director of the Office of Science and 3 Technology and EPA's Office of Water in 4 Washington D.C. 5 To my right is Dana Thomas, who is the 6 senior science expert on this particular 7 rulemaking. To Dana's right, or to your left, 8 is Denise Keehner, who is Director of the 9 Office of Wetlands, Oceans and Watersheds in 10 Washington D.C. 11 And to Denise's right, to your left, is 12 Jim Keating, who is a senior technical expert 13 and programmatic expert. 14 I can't begin to tell you how appreciative 15 we are you have come here today and how much we 16 look forward to hearing your comments and 17 thoughts and suggestions and any concerns or 18 issues that you may have. 19 The purpose of today's hearing is to get 20 your feedback on a recent proposal that EPA has 21 published, to establish numeric nutrient water 22 quality criteria for the inland waters of the 23 State of Florida. That would be lakes, streams 24 and rivers, springs and canals. 25 And one of the things that I think it's 3 1 important to talk about when we talk about this 2 proposal is to recognize that it is part of a 3 larger national set of issues that EPA is 4 addressing and facing, which is widespread 5 nutrient pollution across many parts of this 6 country. 7 EPA is working with a wide range of states 8 in many different contexts to advance measures 9 and advance numeric nutrient standards to deal 10 with nutrient pollution. And nutrient 11 pollution, probably the simplest way to think 12 of it, is nitrogen and phosphorus pollution. 13 Nitrogen and phosphorus make up the nutrient 14 pollution. And that is the set of chemicals 15 and pollutants that we're trying to address 16 today. 17 In terms of today's hearing, folks 18 sometimes ask us to explain in a little more 19 detail the nature of the problem in the state 20 that we're in and where we're located. In this 21 case, I think it's fair to say that Florida has 22 a widespread and a growing nutrient challenge. 23 Over a thousand miles of streams and rivers in 24 this state are currently listed as impaired. 25 Over 350,000 acres of lakes are currently 4 1 listed as impaired. That's approximately a 2 quarter of the lakes in the state. Over 900 3 square miles of the estuaries, a simply 4 incredible resource for this state, are listed 5 as impaired, and that's about a quarter of the 6 estuarine square miles. 7 In dealing with and thinking about how 8 best to move forward to address this challenge, 9 one of the things that EPA wants to be sure to 10 do is to emphasize two things. First of all, 11 that the proposal that we're going to discuss 12 today is based primarily on Florida data and 13 Florida science. I want to be really clear 14 about that. 15 We have worked closely with the Department 16 of Environmental Protection. Their technical 17 experts, their scientists have worked very 18 closely with ours. We've met with them a 19 number of times. 20 And one way to think about this is this 21 rule is based on an evaluation of over 800,000 22 nutrient-related measurements. And Jim 23 Keating, when he provides you an overview, will 24 help to explain where that information comes 25 from. 5 1 Another thing we want to emphasize in 2 talking to Floridians is that the Florida 3 Department of Environmental Protection is in 4 fact in the forefront of state agencies and 5 Florida is in the forefront of states that are 6 being proactive in dealing with nutrient 7 pollution. The State of Florida probably has 8 among the most comprehensive set of regulations 9 and rules, both local and state level, to deal 10 with nutrient pollution. 11 The opportunity that these rules we're 12 going to talk about today, the opportunity that 13 they address, is that the current set of 14 regulations that the state has are applied on a 15 case-by-case, site-by-site basis, which can be 16 expensive and it can be time-consuming. 17 And what numeric nutrient water quality 18 standards do is to allow the state to move more 19 quickly, more effectively, more proactively to 20 meet the broader range of impairment that I've 21 just outlined for you a few seconds ago. 22 Let me just indicate again our regret that 23 we can't have chairs for everybody here. We 24 understand this hearing is a long one, and, for 25 the folks in the back of the room, I will 6 1 admire all the folks that are still standing by 2 the time we get to 6:30. 3 And, for those of you who don't hang in 4 there for quite that long, we just want to 5 remind you we're going to have an evening 6 session as well and we're going to bend every 7 effort to create the opportunity here for 8 everybody here who wants to speak. 9 Before hearing your comments, we'd like to 10 do a couple of things. I'd like to turn to 11 Denise Keehner and let her explain how the 12 process operates and how we'd like to proceed 13 today. 14 And then Denise, in turn, will turn to Jim 15 Keating, who will provide an overview of the 16 regulation, what it's based on, what it's 17 trying to address, so that when folks speak and 18 offer comments we can be confident we're all 19 talking about the same proposal and basically 20 addressing the same set of issues. 21 So, with that, Denise, let me turn it over 22 to you. 23 MS. KEEHNER: Thank you, Ephraim. 24 I'd like to also welcome everyone to this 25 hearing. Public participation in the federal 7 1 rulemaking process is a very important part of 2 that rulemaking process. Hearing what you 3 think about what EPA has proposed, what your 4 comments are, the information and data that you 5 might bring to EPA to help EPA move forward is 6 critical to ensuring technically sound and 7 defensible regulations as we move forward. 8 This proposed rule that we published in 9 January is part of a process that is called an 10 informal or notice of comment rulemaking 11 process. Most federal regulations, including 12 almost all of the regulations issued by the 13 Environmental Protection Agency are established 14 through this notice and comment rulemaking 15 process. 16 The term notice and comment comes from the 17 fact that under the Federal Administrative 18 Procedures Act such rulemakings require three 19 things. The first is the publication of a 20 notice of proposed rulemaking. 21 The second is an opportunity for public 22 participation in the rulemaking by the 23 submission of written comments during a 24 prescribed comment period. For this particular 25 proposed rule that we published in January, the 8 1 comment period is a 60-day comment period and 2 that comment period expires on March 29th of 3 2010. 4 The third piece of the federal rulemaking 5 process is the publication of final rule and 6 all the accompanying record and statements of 7 basis and purpose. That is typically in the 8 preamble to the final rule. 9 And then typically within about 30 days, 10 no less than 30 days, after the publication of 11 the final rule, those final federal regulations 12 become effective. 13 In this particular case, we are under a 14 consent decree to publish the final regulations 15 by October 15th of 2010 to establish numeric 16 nutrient criteria for lakes and flowing waters 17 in the state of Florida. 18 All of the written comments that are 19 submitted to EPA will be part of the public 20 docket and will be accessible to anyone who 21 wants to view them. 22 After the close of the comment period, EPA 23 considers all the public comments, all the 24 data, all the information, all the analyses 25 that are submitted during the comment period in 9 1 the formulation of decisions as to what the 2 final regulation is going to say. 3 We will be responding to all significant 4 comments in writing. There will be a 5 response-to-comments document that is part of 6 the rulemaking process. When we publish the 7 final rule, in the preamble to the final rule 8 we will talk about what changes occurred 9 between the proposal and the final rule and 10 what those are based on and the extent to which 11 public comments were associated with the 12 changes that were made. 13 We're holding this hearing today, and 14 these hearings, actually, this week in Florida, 15 so that we have an opportunity to hear from 16 you. So that the public in Florida has the 17 opportunity to speak directly to the people in 18 the Environmental Protection Agency that are 19 developing these regulations. This is your 20 opportunity to tell us what you think. 21 Ephraim King is the head of the Office of 22 Science and Technology at EPA in D C. It's his 23 group that is actually the rulemaking group. 24 So when you're speaking today to Ephraim King, 25 you are speaking to the manager at EPA that has 10 1 the leadership responsibilities for actually 2 promulgating and moving forward on these 3 regulations. 4 We have a very large number of speakers 5 here today and I want to take a moment to let 6 everyone know sort of how we're going to be 7 managing this process. So far we have 62 8 speakers that have registered. Fifty of those 9 were preregistered and between 1:30 and 6:30 10 today there's time for about 60 speakers if we 11 don't take any break. 12 So the reason I'm raising this is, the 13 folks who registered today as walk-ins and 14 indicated that they were interested in 15 speaking, it numbers about 12 people from 16 Numbers 101 to 113. We hope to get to you 17 before 6:30, but there's some possibility that 18 it might be in the evening session. If you can 19 stay for the evening session, we will make sure 20 that you're at the top of the cue for the 21 evening session, so that you can have the 22 opportunity to deliver your remarks. 23 I'm going to propose that we have a break 24 at about 3:30 for 15 minutes. We don't have 25 much more time than that, in order to hear 11 1 everyone who has expressed an interest in 2 speaking to us today and offering remarks. 3 I also have had a request from Pam 4 Gillespie from Congressman Posey's office. She 5 received Number 53, and she has to be back to 6 the office by 2:30 or so this afternoon, and 7 I'd like to ask the collective group if you 8 have any issues with us if we could accommodate 9 her interests in being able to be moved up in 10 the cue to speak on behalf of Congressman 11 Posey. 12 Are there any objections to that? 13 Okay. Very good. That will give us the 14 opportunity to have her move up in the cue. 15 We will be preparing a transcript of 16 today's hearing. We have a court reporter who 17 is taking down all the information that occurs 18 in the course of the hearing. All the comments 19 that are presented today will be considered by 20 EPA and we will be, as I indicated earlier, 21 responding in writing to the significant 22 comments as part of the record for this 23 rulemaking. 24 When you signed in today and noted that 25 you had wanted to speak, we did give you a 12 1 number. After Jim Keating goes through the 2 overview of EPA's proposed rule, what I'm going 3 to do is to call you up in numerical order, 4 with the exception of Pam Gillespie, who we 5 will call up earlier. 6 If you want to speak and you did not get a 7 number, please go to the registration desk and 8 receive a number. 9 You will be speaking at the podium that's 10 in the center aisle here. A court reporter, as 11 I indicated, will be recording the comments. 12 Please when I call your number, come to the 13 podium and state your name and your affiliation 14 for purposes of the record, and if you would 15 help, so we can move smoothly through this 16 process, the two numbers immediately following 17 the number of the speaker at the podium, if you 18 could move to the chairs immediately behind the 19 podium, that would make the process move very 20 smoothly. We don't want to be using up a lot 21 of time in people coming out of aisles because 22 we're under a pretty tight time frame here. 23 We have allocated five minutes to each 24 speaker. We will have a timer that is running 25 and at about the one-minute point you will sort 13 1 of get a flash -- flashing light that tells you 2 that you're about to approach the last minute 3 or so of the time that's been allocated for 4 your remarks. 5 I want to emphasize that the rulemaking 6 record is open for 60 days. Written comments 7 should be submitted to the record in addition 8 to what you might be presenting here today 9 orally. 10 Once again, if we run out of time in this 11 session that ends at 6:30 today before you've 12 had a chance to speak, we will make sure that 13 in the 7:30-to-as-long-as-it-takes-tonight 14 session we will make sure that you are first in 15 the cue for the evening session. 16 Jim. 17 MR. KEATING: Can everyone hear me? 18 AUDIENCE: No. 19 MR. KEATING: Is this any better? 20 AUDIENCE: Yes. 21 MR. KEATING: That's the magic spot. 22 Thank you very much for your help with that. 23 There are three seats, four seats, 24 actually, that are right here in the center 25 part of the right-hand side. So if there are 14 1 folks that really do have a need to sit, I hate 2 to make anybody less comfortable than they need 3 to be. I wanted to point that out because we 4 want to be as accommodating as we possibly can 5 in this space. 6 I also want to point out I will be brief 7 in my remarks. And there really is no 8 substitute for looking at the firsthand primary 9 materials. So I encourage those who are 10 interested in this rule to go online and make 11 yourselves familiar with the full preamble to 12 the proposed rule as well as the various 13 equitable support documentation that we've 14 posted there. 15 And as far as my remarks today goes, when 16 you registered you got some handouts, so this 17 is something that you can keep. The slides 18 will be right here in front of you, so you 19 don't necessarily need to pull it out, but I 20 wanted to make sure everyone is aware that they 21 can have a copy of that. 22 What I want to do is talk about three 23 things that are relevant to our proposal and 24 discussion today. And it's taken from the 25 title of the presentation. First I want to 15 1 talk a little bit about what nitrogen and 2 phosphorous pollution is and then I want to 3 talk about what water quality standards are and 4 then lastly I want to talk about how they apply 5 to Florida's lakes and flowing waters. 6 Phosphorous and nitrogen pollution, 7 commonly called nutrient pollution, is a 8 serious environmental issue within the state of 9 Florida and it can cause many detrimental 10 impacts. 11 One of the things that we're most 12 concerned with with nitrogen and phosphorous in 13 excess amounts, these nutrients can cause 14 growth of unwanted and nuisance algae. Algae 15 is a good thing to have in waters. It's a 16 natural part of the aquatic ecosystem, but in 17 excess amounts causes real problems. 18 A couple of examples of some forms of 19 algae that have been real problems identified 20 in the state of Florida, one is the algae 21 Lyngbya. It smothers the natural eelgrass 22 that's present. Eelgrass provides many 23 benefits including as a food source for 24 endangered manatees. The algae Lyngbya also 25 produces toxins and that can be harmful to 16 1 humans and animals, pets. 2 Another algae that is a concern to us is 3 Microcystis. This is one that produces a toxin 4 that can cause severe liver damage in humans 5 and other detrimental effects. It can poison 6 livestock, it can poison wildlife. 7 Algae in excess amounts has a profound 8 effect on several waters. It can not just 9 discolor the water, as we'll see in some images 10 that I'd like to share with you, but it can 11 really destroy the natural order of the stream 12 ecosystem, drown out natural species that are 13 supposed to be there and that serve as an 14 important basis for the food chain for other 15 aquatic animals. 16 We also can see situations where excess 17 algae will not be consumed by other fish or 18 other organisms that would naturally consume 19 the plant life, but they die and decay and in 20 the process they deplete the oxygen levels that 21 fish and shellfish need to survive. 22 We also have a human health concern with 23 algae. One of the principal ones is with 24 drinking water intakes. When you have excess 25 levels of algae present near these drinking 17 1 water intakes and they get into the system, 2 through the normal disinfection by-process it 3 forms disinfection byproducts. These 4 byproducts of the disinfection process when 5 there's algae present have been linked to 6 bladder cancer and other serious forms of 7 illness. 8 We also have a concern with a particular 9 form of nitrogen called nitrate and the 10 presence in Florida groundwater is a particular 11 concern in wells and the drinking water wells. 12 There's a lot of connection between surface 13 water and groundwater within the state of 14 Florida. One of the bad parts of excess 15 nitrates in very high levels in groundwater is 16 it can cause an illness called blue baby 17 syndrome, which can lead to coma and death in 18 infants. 19 We have seen violations every year of the 20 maximum contaminant level, called the MCL, for 21 nitrates in the state of Florida. 22 Florida has a lot of waters, a tremendous 23 amount of, you know, coastline that everyone is 24 familiar with, but a tremendous amount of fresh 25 waters. Over 7,000 lakes, 50,000 miles of 18 1 rivers and streams, 4,000 square miles of 2 estuaries and over 700 freshwater springs, 3 which are very important resources in the state 4 of Florida. As Ephraim was saying in his 5 remarks, a substantial number of these waters 6 are impaired from nitrogen and phosphorous 7 pollution, but there are also a lot of other 8 waters that are in a clean, healthy condition 9 and we really want to make sure they stay that 10 way. 11 Here's what nitrogen and phosphorous 12 pollution can look like when it's present in 13 levels that cause these unwanted and nuisance 14 algae. This is Lake Manatee. It's near 15 Bradenton, Florida. 16 And the device you see on your right is 17 called a Secchi Disk. It's what scientists use 18 to measure the transparency or clarity of 19 water. 20 You can see in the vicinity of that algal 21 bloom in that lake there is no clarity at all. 22 This is a relatively old photo, but it's Lake 23 Apopka. That's here in Orlando, our location 24 here in Central Florida. This has been the 25 subject of a lot of nutrient pollution 19 1 throughout the years. It's been addressed and 2 it is being cleaned up, but this is an image on 3 a larger scale of what this pollution can look 4 like. 5 More recent photos. This is a location 6 called Merritts Mill Pond. Its about an hour 7 west of Tallahassee in the Panhandle of 8 Florida, in Marianna, Florida. And this is to 9 show you what sort of a smaller lake looks like 10 when it's subject to algal bloom. 11 This is a lake also in the Panhandle of 12 Florida, Lake Munson in Leon County. This is a 13 close-up of Microcystis and what that looks 14 like. 15 We see nitrogen and phosphorous pollution 16 not only in Florida lakes but also in Florida 17 rivers and streams. This is a picture from the 18 Caloosahatchee River, that runs from Lake 19 Okeechobee out to the West Coast. And what we 20 see here is a Microcystis bloom. It is 21 actually in the vicinity of Olga, Florida, 22 where there is drinking water intake. 23 This is another picture of the 24 Caloosahatchee River. This is from 2008. A 25 different type of algal bloom, but one where 20 1 you can start to see the difference between the 2 water when it's subject to the bloom and when 3 it is not subject to the bloom. And there's a 4 lock that separates, physically separates, the 5 water, so you can see the distinction. 6 This is further to the north, near 7 Jacksonville Florida. This is the St. Johns 8 River, another resource in Florida that has 9 been subject to oxygen deprivation as well as 10 algal blooms. 11 Here's another picture of an algal bloom 12 present in the St. Johns River. We can see 13 visually from this image and from the other 14 environmental effects that we can measure that 15 there are a lot of things we care about with 16 water that are at risk with nitrogen and 17 phosphorous pollution. 18 We put recreation at risk. We put ecology 19 at risk. We put human health at risk. We put 20 tourism business at risk. We put the value of 21 the waterfront property at risk. 22 This is a photo of also a tributary of the 23 St. Johns, and you can see in the close-up the 24 algal blooms as it goes through some of the 25 coastal homes. 21 1 This is a picture of the St. Lucie River, 2 about 45 minutes north of West Palm Beach. You 3 can see the algal bloom along that stretch of 4 river as well. 5 In springs -- there are over 700 6 freshwater springs in Florida. This is a 7 picture of the Weeki Wachee Spring, which is 8 about an hour and a half west of here, towards 9 the West Coast. This is a very notable, famous 10 water in the state of Florida. 11 What you see on your left is an image of 12 what it looked like in the 1950s. You can see 13 it's dominated by the natural eelgrass and has 14 a tremendous clarity to it. The picture on the 15 right is how that spring looks today, where -- 16 or in this decade, at least, where portions of 17 it have been covered by Lyngbya algae. 18 We also see algal problems in canals in 19 South Florida, where we don't have kind of the 20 natural forces of rivers. We have a lot of 21 series and networks of canals. And they drain, 22 those landscapes, into the coastal waters. 23 This is one that drains into Biscayne Bay. 24 So there is -- protection is provided in 25 Florida's water quality standards for nitrogen 22 1 and phosphorous pollution. It's in a narrative 2 form. It basically says that you shouldn't 3 have nutrients in amounts that cause imbalance 4 in the natural populations of flora and fauna, 5 which is a great statement. 6 The problem is when you have only a 7 narrative statement, putting in the limits that 8 you need to control and make waters healthy and 9 safe can be a long and slow process. And with 10 the many waters we have in the state of Florida 11 and the many that are at risk, it's a process 12 that is too time-consuming to be efficient. 13 And moreover it's a process that is a bit 14 reactionary. Typically you see conditions 15 getting bad, then they're identified as being 16 bad, then restoration efforts are put in place. 17 What we really hope to do is put in 18 numeric nutrient criteria that cover all the 19 waters from the beginning. That way we ensure 20 that we prevent conditions from getting to the 21 point where those images show, you know, 22 extreme detrimental effects and we can maintain 23 healthy, safe waters in their healthy and safe 24 condition. 25 Nutrients come from a variety of sources. 23 1 They come from urban landscapes. They come 2 from crop and cattle fields. They come from 3 air emissions, from cars and power plants. 4 They come from faulty septic tanks in the 5 ground. They come from sewage treatment works 6 and some industries. 7 But we know that better treatment and 8 management practices can remove these nutrients 9 from the system and stop them from flowing into 10 the Florida waters. 11 I'd like to talk a little bit about water 12 quality standards, which is the subject of our 13 proposal. Water quality standards are 14 comprised of two principal components. The 15 first is designated uses. Designated uses is 16 what we want out of our water. It's a 17 statement of things like recreation, aquatic 18 life protection. It's the goals and the 19 management objectives we have for our water. 20 The second component of water quality 21 standards is protective criteria. These are 22 the amounts and levels of pollutants that can 23 be present and still maintain those designated 24 uses. 25 Florida has established designated uses 24 1 that are meeting the goals of the Clean Water 2 Act for the overwhelming majority of the fresh 3 waters. These are the goals that they set, 4 whether you're meeting them or not. 5 The designated uses in Florida establishes 6 a Class I, potable water supplies, or Class 7 III, recreation, propagation and maintenance of 8 a healthy, well-balanced population of fish and 9 wildlife. What these designated uses Florida 10 has established share is protection for aquatic 11 life, for recreation and for human health. And 12 these are the designated uses that the numeric 13 criteria that EPA is proposing that we're 14 intending to pass. 15 Now, EPA has been recommending numeric 16 nutrient criteria since 1998. And, more 17 recently, in January of 2009, after consulting 18 with the Florida Department of Environmental 19 Protection, we made a determination that it is 20 necessary to meet the provisions of the Clean 21 Water Act to have numeric nutrient criteria in 22 place before. 23 FDEP has worked on numeric nutrient 24 criteria themselves and proposed draft criteria 25 and held a series of public workshops in the 25 1 Summer of 2009. EPA attended those workshops 2 and we've learned a lot from our colleagues in 3 the state of Florida. 4 We did enter into a legal agreement with 5 environmental nongovernmental organizations in 6 August of 2009. And this legal agreement 7 mandates that the Agency propose numeric 8 criteria for lakes and flowing waters by 9 January 2009, which we've done, and to comply 10 with those criteria by October 2010. 11 We also have a follow-up rulemaking for 12 the estuaries and coastal waters proposed by 13 January 2011 to be final by October 2011. 14 In doing the proposal for the lakes and 15 flowing waters, we relied very heavily on the 16 extensive database of information collected by 17 the Florida Department of Environmental 18 Protection and numerous other parties in the 19 state of Florida. We've used the analyses that 20 FDEP conducted. We've conducted some of our 21 own analyses. 22 As far as the database goes, Floridians 23 have sampled thousands of sites throughout the 24 state and collected tens of thousands of 25 samples and when you add the number of 26 1 observations with those samples, you get 2 hundreds of thousands of records that we had 3 available to us to support this proposal. 4 Lakes. We define a lake as an open, 5 contiguous body of water. And we classified 6 Florida lakes into three groups based on 7 natural color and natural alkalinity. 8 We developed criteria by looking at field 9 correlations of levels of Chlorophyll a with 10 total phosphorous and total nitrogen. 11 Chlorophyll a is the light pigment that is 12 found in the cells of algae and plants and is a 13 good indicator of the level of production of 14 those types of organisms. 15 We also have a provision in our proposal 16 for the total phosphorous and total nitrogen 17 criteria to be adjusted should there be 18 sufficient data to demonstrate that Chlorophyll 19 a criterion is being met in those lakes. 20 You see right there is a table of our 21 proposed criteria. You'll see that for 22 naturally colored lakes and clear alkaline 23 lakes there's an expectation that there would 24 be greater levels of nutrients coming into 25 those systems and the corresponding level of 27 1 productivity is indicated by Chlorophyll a 2 would be expected to be higher, in that 20 3 range, whereas clear, acidic lakes do not 4 receive a lot of input of nutrients and their 5 expected level of productivity would be lower. 6 You can see the corresponding levels of 7 total phosphorous and total nitrogen. They're 8 in the middle columns. And then the columns on 9 the right show the range those criterion could 10 be adjusted to, again, if there's sufficient 11 information from the particular lake that the 12 Chlorophyll a criteria are met. 13 For rivers and streams, we're talking 14 about water that flows in a defined channel. 15 We were able to classify streams into various 16 categories in various regions around the state 17 based on the underlying geology, other natural 18 features and watershed boundaries. 19 We derived criteria for rivers and streams 20 by examining where we had evidence of healthy 21 biological conditions as measured by the FDEP 22 Stream Condition Index. This is a measure of 23 where you have healthy biology. 24 We also have approaches for addressing 25 downstream protection in our rivers and streams 28 1 criteria we are proposing. 2 These are the numbers for instream 3 protection that we have for rivers and streams. 4 You can see we divided up the state into 5 different geographic areas, the Panhandle, the 6 Peninsula. 7 There are two regions in particular I want 8 to draw your attention to. One is the Bone 9 Valley, around the Tampa Bay-Sarasota area. 10 The other is the North Central in the Suwanee 11 drainage. These are areas that have high 12 phosphatic levels in their soils. So there's 13 natural phosphorous that is present there and 14 that's reflected in the values that we came up 15 with, in contrast to the other phosphorous 16 values in other parts of the state. 17 In terms of downstream protection, we have 18 an obligation under our federal regulations to 19 ensure that the water quality standards provide 20 for the attainment and maintenance of the water 21 quality standards in downstream waters. And 22 what we know is that in rivers and streams they 23 flow. And the smaller streams up in the 24 headwater will flow down to the larger streams 25 in the plane and then they flow directly into 29 1 the estuary. And they carry with them a 2 substantial portion of those nutrients. And so 3 we need to be assured that the levels that 4 we're setting in the upstream water is 5 protection for the downstream water quality. 6 What we've done in our proposal is, for 7 lakes we have an equation that relates the 8 concentration in lakes to the concentration in 9 streams and we can adjust the criteria 10 accordingly. 11 For estuaries, we use an empirical 12 watershed model called the SPARROW model. It 13 was developed by the United States Geological 14 Survey. And that allows us to look at the 15 loading rates coming into the watershed and to 16 track the transport and fate of the nutrients 17 of the total nitrogen as it moves through the 18 watershed. And, again, we can adjust the 19 criteria as necessary. 20 One of the things that we can do with the 21 SPARROW model is not only estimate protective 22 flows that are necessary at the mouth of those 23 estuaries, but take those protective flows and 24 translate them into concentrations in rivers 25 and streams throughout the watershed. One 30 1 feature of this is what we call the calculation 2 of downstream protection values. These are the 3 concentration levels of total nitrogen in the 4 streams. They tend to be a little bit lower 5 than the corresponding values for the total 6 nitrogen for instream protection. 7 In terms of going final with these 8 downstream protection values, we have a couple 9 of choices that we afforded ourselves in our 10 proposal. We can go forward with the values 11 that we propose in October of 2010 or we could 12 wait until we do the estuarine and coastal 13 criteria to apply them with the downstream 14 protection values in October 2011. 15 Springs. Springs are waters that kind of 16 bubble up from the surface of the earth. And 17 we have a wealth of laboratory and field 18 studies that show levels of nitrate and nitrite 19 that are corresponding to the presence of 20 nuisance algae. And we were able to use a lot 21 of the work that was synthesized by the FDEP to 22 come up with a proposed criterion for nitrates 23 and nitrites. 24 South Florida canals. These are manmade 25 trenches that are largely built for flood 31 1 control and irrigation. They carry the same 2 designated uses as rivers and streams that we 3 were talking about. They carry Class III uses. 4 So we had to ensure that those uses would be 5 protected. 6 We took a similar approach as we took to 7 rivers and streams, identifying those canals 8 that were free from impairment, where we can 9 infer that the designated uses are being met, 10 and we were able to establish protective values 11 for them. We have Chlorophyll a criteria, 12 total phosphorous criteria and total nitrogen 13 criteria for these canals in South Florida. 14 There are a couple other features of EPA's 15 proposal I'd like to make sure I bring your 16 attention to. The first is a provision for 17 site-specific alternative criteria. These are 18 values that would be different than the ones 19 that we propose that generally apply and they 20 would be supported by demonstration that the 21 designated uses are met with those alternative 22 criteria. The FDEP can submit those to the EPA 23 and the regional administrator can act on those 24 and process them. 25 We also have a proposal for something we 32 1 call restoration standards. This is 2 acknowledging that in many cases restoration 3 will take a long time to achieve and it allows 4 the state, working with their communities, to 5 establish interim designated uses and interim 6 criteria levels, so that we can achieve 7 feasible progress in gradual steps. 8 We did do an economic analysis to look at 9 the potential costs that would be imposed by 10 these numeric criteria. We divided and 11 identified the criteria. The first one costed 12 out the criteria that FDEP proposed in the 13 Summer of 2009 and then we added in incremental 14 cost of the additional criteria that we were 15 proposing, largely for the canals. 16 What we estimated was annual costs of 17 approximately 140 million dollars per year. 18 That would translate to an approximate total 19 cost of 1.5 billion. That largely covers 20 upgraded sewage treatment, implementation of 21 BMPs, best management practices, that is, for 22 nonpoint sources and the replacement of faulty 23 septic systems. 24 We have established procedures and we hope 25 we have communicated with you in writing for 33 1 submitting comments to the EPA. We encourage 2 everyone to submit written comments by 3 March 29, 2010, so we can fully consider them 4 before we go final with our rule. 5 So, as a quick review, water quality 6 standards include designated uses and criteria 7 to protect those uses. 8 Florida has established designated uses to 9 protect fish and wildlife, recreation and human 10 health. They've gathered an enormous amount of 11 data and an enormous amount of science that 12 we've availed ourselves of. 13 We did enter into this legal agreement 14 that has fixed days for proposing and 15 promulgating criteria. 16 We did in January propose criteria for 17 lakes, rivers, streams, springs and South 18 Florida canals using sound scientific 19 approaches. 20 We also addressed the need for downstream 21 protection, with an equation for lakes and the 22 USGS SPARROW model for estuaries. 23 We further propose these adjustments for 24 site-specific criteria and for meeting criteria 25 in gradual steps of time. 34 1 In the proposal we have laid out our 2 technical approaches and we've also put in some 3 alternatives and we've asked some specific 4 questions. And these are the ones that are 5 very important to us to address and to answer 6 as we go final with the rule. 7 We're obligated to provide responses to 8 all of your comments. 9 So, with that, the balance of the time is 10 yours. Thank you for your patience in 11 listening to me and we're very eager to hear 12 what you have to say. 13 MS. KEEHNER: Thank you, Jim. 14 I'd like to invite Ms. Gillespie and 15 speakers one and two to approach the podium. 16 Speakers one and two can take the chairs 17 immediately behind the podium and Ms. Gillespie 18 can deliver her remarks. Please state your 19 name and affiliation. 20 MS. GILLESPIE: I'm Pam Gillespie with 21 Congressman Bill Posey. And thank you very 22 much for letting me speak and go now. 23 Congressman Posey has this to put into the 24 public comment: I would like to take just a 25 couple of minutes to express my concerns about 35 1 the proposed regulations and how they would 2 adversely impact our local businesses, our 3 state's critical agricultural community and the 4 state and local government budgets. 5 There is strong opposition to the proposed 6 EPA regulations based on sound reasons. 7 Concerns over the regulations have been 8 expressed to me by small business owners, 9 agricultural producers and elected officials. 10 I would urge the EPA to listen to the 11 concerns that are expressed today, to take 12 these concerns into consideration and to adjust 13 your approach to accommodate these concerns in 14 this particularly trying economic time. 15 The State of Florida has been a national 16 leader in making our waters cleaner. Florida 17 has in place today some of the most robust 18 standard to support water quality improvement. 19 Unfortunately, the proposed regulations fail to 20 recognize this and instead impose a blanket 21 approach to water quality that fails to 22 recognize the variability of Florida's water 23 resources and the positive steps Florida has 24 already taken. 25 Furthermore, rather than this being a 36 1 science-driven approach, it has been a 2 time-line driven approach that lacks the 3 transparency that our local governments and 4 businesses deserve. 5 If allowed to be implemented, these 6 regulations will cause serious economic harm to 7 our state while having uncertain economic 8 benefit. If that is, the proposal is even more 9 economically attainable. 10 The EPA should set aside the proposed 11 regulations and begin to work again closely 12 with the State of Florida to utilize the 13 state's existing efforts to enhance water 14 quality rather than disrupt Florida's ongoing 15 efforts and divert limited resources to 16 initiatives that may not be the most effective. 17 Agricultural faces higher costs and 18 increasing pressures due to overseas 19 competition. The proposed regulations would 20 further compromise Florida's competitiveness, 21 result in further job loss, raise the cost of 22 agricultural production and impede our recovery 23 from recession. 24 Additionally, in this era of heightened 25 awareness of the threats of terrorism and the 37 1 need to secure our nation's food supply, it is 2 critically important that we retain our 3 domestic agricultural production. 4 Regulations that lead to the loss of 5 domestic production could result in greater 6 reliance on foreign producers, thus potentially 7 compromising the safety of our nation's food 8 supply. Many businesses are struggling to keep 9 their doors open, and costly regulations would 10 raise the cost of doing business in Florida and 11 the United states, hampering our ability to 12 remain competitive and create jobs here in 13 Florida. With an unemployment rate of nearly 14 12 percent, we cannot afford to see the cost of 15 doing business in Florida increased any 16 further. 17 Finally, state and local budgets are 18 stretched thin. Not only would the loss of 19 additional agriculture production and small 20 businesses limit our state's ability to create 21 more jobs, but the loss would also make it more 22 difficult for the state and local governments 23 to balance their budgets. 24 The cost of complying with these proposed 25 rules do come with a cost. There would be a 38 1 budget tradeoff for local governments. Costs 2 and regulations should not be imposed in a 3 vacuum because they do impact every sector of 4 our economy. 5 Thank you for this opportunity and thank 6 you for listening to the concerns of Florida 7 residents. 8 (Applause.) 9 MS. KEEHNER: Thank you, Ms. Gillespie. 10 Speaker number one, would you approach the 11 podium and speaker number three could move to 12 the chair and that would be great. 13 MR. WIYGUL: My name is Rusty Wiygul. I 14 am the director of Grower Affairs for Florida 15 Citrus Mutual. We represent over 8,000 16 growers. We're the largest trade association 17 in the world. 18 But today I'm going to put on another hat 19 and that's as a fourth-generation Floridian 20 farmer. My family has been involved in 21 agricultural for, like I said, four generations 22 in the Lake County and Marion County area. 23 You know, it's tough being a farmer right 24 now. We have a very thin margin of profit. 25 When you're at the top of the producing chain, 39 1 like we are, we take what we get. We're 2 price-takers, we're not price-makers. We have 3 to take what the processors give us, what the 4 cattle buyers give us. You know, we have 5 worked hard to be stewards of our land. We 6 know that if we are not stewards of our land, 7 it's all we have to pass on to our children. A 8 lot of people have big 401Ks and so forth. All 9 we have is our land to fall back on. And if we 10 don't take care of it, we don't have it. 11 So you're asking us to do something that 12 we've already been doing. For instance, in the 13 citrus business you know that we have gone 14 from, in our -- just in our water, we've gone 15 to microjet irrigation, from 16 500-gallon-a-minute walking guns to 17 15-gallons-an hour emitters. We've got some of 18 the best BMP practices that we follow with 19 citrus as well as cattle, and you're asking us 20 to do something we think is just totally 21 unattainable and stay in business. It's a thin 22 line. It's a very thin line. 23 If we're forced to comply with this 24 criteria as it currently stands, ag will bear a 25 substantial cost, as I just said. We don't 40 1 know exactly what we'll have to do. You 2 haven't told us yet what we'll have to do to 3 comply. So we're sitting here wondering are we 4 going to have to build ponds, what are we going 5 to do? And that's a scary thing. 6 I'm worried that very heavily-handed and 7 expensive regulations will push myself as well 8 as a lot of my fellow growers and farmers out 9 of business. And, like you just heard, we're 10 fighting Brazil, which is the largest orange 11 producer in the world. We're second. We 12 provide the most grapefruit, but, still, it's a 13 struggle, it's a real struggle. In the citrus 14 business we're fighting canker and greening and 15 Apopka root weevil, and it goes on and on. And 16 Lord knows what's going to come in next week 17 and hit us again. We're competitive. You 18 know, we try to be competitive. But with the 19 rules and regulations we have, we can't be 20 competitive with Brazil and Mexico because they 21 don't have the standards that people impose on 22 us. So we're really hindered right now just 23 on -- you're regulating us out of business, is 24 what I'm trying to tell you. 25 And I want to emphasize in closing here 41 1 that we are good stewards of our land. We -- 2 as I said before, we have to be. The land 3 supports ourselves and supports our families. 4 If we treat that land badly, we don't have a 5 business anymore. 6 The majority of citrus grown in Florida, 7 like I said, is already under best management 8 practices. Food production is too important to 9 our future to outsource it. We just can't do 10 that. We can't do that. And any new 11 regulations just put further burden on us. We 12 have no way of passing our costs along, like I 13 said. So the more you do to impose regulations 14 on not just citrus, but on ag in general -- 15 and, you know, God forbid we have to sell out 16 and then it does go into development property, 17 you know, and they don't want to do a 18 conservation easement, or whatever. So that 19 land is going to go to development and there 20 goes your recharge, there goes your habitat. 21 All the stuff that ag is blamed for, there's a 22 whole lot that we do that really helps this 23 environment. 24 Like I said, your habitat, your recharge 25 areas, all that's there. And you can see what 42 1 has happened to a lot of our areas after the 2 freezes. The Clearwater area, for instance, 3 look at that. It's just houses now and those 4 types of things. 5 So I urge you to keep the small businesses 6 like citrus and cattle farms in mind when you 7 make these rulemaking processes. As numeric 8 criteria moves forward in this economy, it 9 would be wise for EPA to consider the 10 far-reaching consequences of their actions on a 11 major industry in the state of Florida. 12 Thank you. 13 (Applause.) 14 MS. KEEHNER: Thank you, Mr. Wiygul. 15 And if speaker number four could move up 16 to the chair. 17 MR. STEWART: Good afternoon. My name is 18 Jeff Stewart. I'm environmental superintendent 19 for the Mosaic Company. I also serve as 20 industry co-chair of the Nitrogen Management 21 Consortium of the Tampa Estuary Program and I'm 22 here today on that behalf. 23 I encourage the EPA to work closely with 24 the Tampa Estuary Program to develop criteria 25 that is protective of the environment and 43 1 consistent with the progress of the Estuary 2 Program and the Nitrogen Consortium that was 3 made to reduce nitrogen loads in Tampa Bay. I 4 am concerned that the interim loading targets 5 for Tampa Bay may not be consistent with the 6 federally-approved TMDL for a total nitrogen 7 for Tampa Bay. Downstream protective values 8 should apply at the estuary boundary and not 9 throughout the upstream network. 10 For the past 15 years the public and 11 private parties of the Tampa Estuary Program 12 and the Nitrogen Consortium have validated and 13 adopted total nitrogen loads that are adequate 14 to meet EPA regulatory needs for nutrient 15 criteria. 16 In 1996 the Tampa Estuary Program adopted 17 nutrient management targets to restore and 18 protect seagrass beds and restore environmental 19 conditions in Tampa Bay. This led to 20 resource-based management targets for total 21 nitrogen. 22 Current management actions have maintained 23 total nitrogen loads at levels that apply full 24 aquatic life protection in Tampa Bay. These 25 loads have been shown to support healthy 44 1 seagrass beds and encourage seagrass expansion. 2 I am requesting that the EPA use Tampa 3 Bay's resource-based nutrient loading targets 4 and approved TMDL as protective downstream 5 loads for Tampa Bay. The recently-submitted 6 Tampa Bay Reasonable Assurance document and 7 associated TMDLs are both appropriate, 8 defensible and protective downstream loads for 9 Tampa Bay. Nitrogen targets used in Tampa Bay 10 Management Consortium are consistent with EPA's 11 guidelines. 12 EPA's proposed criteria do not take into 13 account existing conditions of downstream water 14 bodies for Tampa Bay. The downstream 15 protective value is less than one half of the 16 federally-recognized TMDL. 17 Based on extensive and collaborative 18 science-based work by the Estuary Program, we 19 are confident that the TMDL total nitrogen 20 loads for Tampa Bay are defensible and 21 protective of Tampa Bay's designated uses and 22 living resources and therefore are suitable as 23 reasonable appropriate nutrient criteria. Our 24 request is that EPA accept and recognize the 25 Consortium's total nitrogen loads as interim 45 1 nutrient loading targets for fresh waters in 2 the Tampa Bay watershed. Existing loads are 3 appropriate and scientifically defensible. The 4 Tampa Bay Estuary's work constitutes 5 site-specific analysis for that estuary and 6 should be used in the rule development. 7 Thank you. 8 (Applause.) 9 MS. KEEHNER: Thank you, Mr. Stewart. 10 Speaker number three. And speaker number 11 five can move to the chair. 12 MR. PROVENZANO: Good afternoon and thank 13 you for you time today. 14 My name is Santino Provenzano, 15 Environmental Superintendent with the Mosaic 16 Company. I'm here today to present some 17 comments from the company. 18 First of all, I wanted to establish a 19 standing that we have a significant interest in 20 this rule. As Florida's largest phosphate 21 mining and fertilizer producer, we are a proud 22 co-sponsor and participant in the Tampa Bay 23 Estuary Nitrogen Management Consortium, which 24 has a chief target of water quality 25 improvements in Tampa Bay through collaborative 46 1 voluntary reductions. 2 Mosaic has already committed tens of 3 millions of dollars to numerous improvements 4 to control and reduce discharges in Florida's 5 waterways. And we respect industry and 6 government standards related to water 7 discharges and strive to not only meet but 8 exceed those standards. 9 Mosaic has conducted a thorough review of 10 the proposed rule. In our view, the proposed 11 rule is overly stringent, too rigid and out of 12 touch with actual conditions in Florida waters. 13 For example, under the proposed rule 14 80 percent of pristine streams identified by 15 DEP and 96 percent of all Florida streams would 16 be characterized as impaired. Under the 17 proposed rule, biologically-healthy lakes with 18 productive fish populations would now be 19 characterized as impaired. The proposed rule 20 uses a reference stream approach that 21 essentially acknowledges there is no 22 demonstratable cause-and-effect relationship 23 between any certain level of nutrients and any 24 specific biological impact to the receiving 25 stream. 47 1 And, finally, the proposed rule uses 2 inappropriate models to arrive at downstream 3 protective values that have a 30-percent margin 4 of error. 5 Mosaic is currently in the process of 6 preparing detailed comments for submittal to 7 EPA on the proposed rule. Our objective in 8 submitting these comments includes stating our 9 commitment to a constructive dialogue with EPA, 10 as well as other stakeholders, to assist EPA 11 and FDEP to achieve true environmental 12 protection based on sound science and 13 site-specific conditions and to create a rule 14 that balances the burden of compliance with the 15 true needs of the receiving waters, to provide 16 EPA with concrete and scientifically 17 well-grounded solutions to the challenges 18 inherent in setting nutrient criteria and 19 making sure that we are utilizing a process 20 that stresses good science over an artificial 21 time line. 22 Among the comments EPA can anticipate from 23 Mosaic are: One, what are the proper instream 24 and downstream protective value criteria that 25 should be set and on what technical or 48 1 scientific grounds. What flaws we perceive in 2 EPA's methodologies and how Mosaic believes 3 they can and should be corrected. Specific 4 suggestions to ensure that the different forms 5 of flexibility provided in the current 6 rulemaking which actually work, that they can 7 be implemented, and that the communities, 8 businesses, industries and agricultural sectors 9 of the Florida economy can comply with 10 appropriate protective numeric criteria. 11 Finally, we want to make sure that we 12 build upon the good use -- excuse me -- that we 13 build upon and make good use of all that has 14 been learned and accomplished in the TMDL 15 Estuary Programs across the state. 16 In closing, Mosaic believes that numeric 17 criteria should be set at levels protective of 18 the environment that do not inflict major 19 economic injuries to Florida's residents, 20 communities and businesses through a 21 one-size-fits-all approach. 22 Mosaic plans to submit these detailed 23 written comments suggesting how this can be 24 accomplished and how the proposed rule can be 25 improved. 49 1 Thank you for your time today. 2 (Applause.) 3 MS. KEEHNER: Thank you, Mr. Provenzano. 4 Speaker number four. And if speaker 5 number six could move to the chairs. 6 MR. BACHMANN: Roger Bachmann. I am 7 representing the Florida Lake Watch program at 8 the University of Florida. I spent my entire 9 professional career in the study of lakes, and 10 I'm here to talk about science. Lake Watch was 11 initiated by Professor Dan Canfield and Mark 12 Hoyer in 1986. 13 In addition to monitoring lakes, the major 14 focus of the program has been research to study 15 trends on the distribution of nutrients in 16 Florida lakes and research to examine the 17 relationships between plant nutrients and the 18 biological communities of Florida lakes. The 19 results of this research has been published in 20 95 papers in lake management journals. 21 I can be brief today because we will be 22 submitting a detailed scientific report to the 23 EPA on what determines the nutrient 24 concentrations in Florida lakes, the relative 25 importance of natural factors, like geology, 50 1 soils, hydrology versus human activities around 2 Florida lakes and the relationships between 3 nutrient concentrations and biological 4 communities in Florida lakes. 5 Some of the major findings will be that 6 the complex geological history of Florida left 7 a patchwork pattern of deposits of high and 8 low-phosphorous soils across the state that 9 resulted in natural differences of nutrient 10 concentrations in Florida lakes from one region 11 to another. 12 In 1997 the U.S. EPA recognized these 13 patterns and established 47 lake ecoregions in 14 Florida as a basis to manage lakes based on the 15 their natural characteristics. When we use our 16 database to look at the factors that account 17 for differences in total phosphorous 18 concentrations among Florida lakes, the data 19 show that about 48 percent of the variance is 20 due to lake ecoregion. Water, color and 21 alkalinity account for only an additional 3 22 percent of the variance. 23 There is no correlation between human 24 activities around lakes as measured by the 25 Landscape Development Intensity Index and total 51 1 phosphorous concentrations. This is the index 2 used by Florida DEP to measure human impacts. 3 There is no statistical difference between the 4 total phosphorous concentrations in the 34 of 5 the reference lakes and all of the rest of the 6 lakes in Florida, which have a large variety of 7 human activities around their lake shores. 8 The take-home message is that most of 9 Florida lakes with high nutrient concentrations 10 are that way due to natural factors rather 11 human activities. I repeat that. Most of the 12 Florida lakes with high nutrient concentrations 13 are that way due to natural factors rather than 14 human activities. A large fraction of the 15 Florida lakes that are considered impaired with 16 the nutrients are that way due to natural 17 geological factors and not human pollution. 18 Under the proposed rules a large number of 19 Florida lakes will be found in violation of the 20 nutrient standards not because of human-caused 21 pollution but because of natural factors. As a 22 result, a lot of taxpayers' money will be 23 diverted to lakes that are not impaired by 24 human activities rather than to those that 25 truly have unhealthy nutrient additions. At 52 1 the same time, the standards will be too lax at 2 many lakes with naturally low nutrient 3 concentrations. 4 In fairness to you folks at the EPA, we 5 recognize that you had a very short period of 6 time in order to put this all together, so you 7 are unable to do the kind of literature 8 searching for known published information on 9 Florida lakes that the scientists would 10 ordinarily do before drawing conclusions. We 11 hope that the the EPA will use the best 12 available science in formulating their final 13 rules. 14 We will be proposing an alternative 15 approach to reflect the natural diversity of 16 Florida lakes, will be focused on the real 17 problem lakes and at the same time protect the 18 lakes that currently have nutrient 19 concentrations below the proposed standards. 20 Thank you for this opportunity to speak. 21 (Applause.) 22 MS. KEEHNER: Thank you, Dr. Bachmann. 23 Speaker number five. 24 MR. WRIGHT: My name is Joe Wright and I'm 25 not a technical guy. I'm just a dairy farmer. 53 1 I operate my wife's family dairy. We're third 2 generation. I've been in the same location in 3 Hardee County, Florida since 1964. 4 In 1990 we voluntarily approached the 5 State of Florida environmental regulators. I 6 want to repeat. Voluntarily approached the 7 regulators. We wanted a permit and got a 8 wastewater permit and then later an NDSS 9 permit. Since 1990 we spent two million 10 dollars of our own money on environmental 11 infrastructure. In that same 20 years we spent 12 over one million dollars operating that 13 environmental infrastructure. 14 In 1998 we were awarded the Florida 15 Commissioner of Agricultural's Environmental Ag 16 Leadership Award. We have so much wildlife 17 that lives on and visits our farm, you'd have 18 to give me a half hour to talk, about it. 19 We remain proactive. This past fall 20 looking at some of our national policy, some of 21 it I believe misguided, like using corn for 22 ethanol instead of feeding people and cows. 23 We converted our dairy form from a 24 combining facility to a rotational grazing 25 facility. We absolutely are state-of-the-art. 54 1 You cannot get more environmentally friendly 2 than our dairy farm is. 3 But I am very, very worried about this 4 rule. First of all, it seems like it's an 5 indictment of the Florida DEP. And I want to 6 tell you something. I have dealt with them and 7 their predecessors for 20 years. They have not 8 always been easy to deal with, but they've 9 always been fair. And, frankly, we've learned 10 together over the last 20 years. And I think 11 that's worth something. 12 (Applause.) 13 And my real concern -- I mean, there's a 14 lot of people in this room that claim they're 15 environmentalist, that claim they're 16 conservationists. I put my three million 17 dollars where my money is. And I don't want to 18 be collateral damage from changing the rules. 19 I'm somewhat encouraged by Mr. Keating, I 20 guess it is, saying there will be some kind of 21 option for site-specific criteria. I hope 22 someone or myself is given that opportunity and 23 it doesn't cost me another three million, 24 because I won't spend it. Okay? 25 But one parting comment. I am somewhat 55 1 concerned that this is more a battle of 2 ideology than it is either science or 3 economics. 4 And I know it's another -- it's not -- 5 it's not what's at issue today, but it is your 6 agency. I want to get back to this corn 7 ethanol thing. We recently had two or three of 8 the largest corn crops ever. We used 9 one-third -- we've taken it away from feeding 10 people, away from feeding animals -- and, by 11 the way, it's cost me a lot of money. Corn 12 used to be two-and-a-quarter a bushel. It now 13 goes for three-fifty and it hit a high of 14 seven-sixty. 15 I've grown corn. I know the water 16 requirements, I know the nitrogen requirements. 17 And how the Environmental Protection Agency can 18 think that that's part of saving the 19 environment to use it for corn ethanol for fuel 20 is beyond me. 21 So I'm going to do this very leary. Y'all 22 don't have much credibility with me. So I do 23 hope that it's not just an ideological battle. 24 I do hope you really partner with the Florida 25 DEP because, frankly, they know what they're 56 1 doing. I've lived in Florida for 47 years. 2 I've lived in four different regions of 3 Florida. Each one of those regions has a 4 different weather pattern, each one of those 5 regions has a different soil type and each one 6 of those regions has different water resources. 7 So be smart about this. Don't be ideological. 8 Thank you. 9 (Applause.) 10 MS. KEEHNER: Thank you, Mr. Wright. 11 Speaker number six. And if speaker number 12 seven and eight could sit in the seats behind 13 the podium, we would appreciate it. 14 MR. FORWARD: My name is Don Forward. I'm 15 a Titusville Patriot from Titusville, Florida. 16 We are a constitutional conservative group that 17 believe in the Constitution. 18 We are -- we have or I have a strong 19 hate-love relationship with the EPA. Over the 20 years, all my life, I've worked in 21 construction. The EPA has made lots of jobs 22 for us, good-paying jobs, but a lot of those 23 jobs were repeat jobs, also having to go back 24 and do something over again, always having to 25 upgrade and do this or do that. But the worst 57 1 thing was that there's so many of these jobs 2 that never got on the boards because of EPA 3 costs, that we couldn't do. I didn't have a 4 chance to get a better living than I have. 5 We in Titusville have been working since 6 1992 to upgrade our stormwater facilities and 7 everything else. And we've mitigated flooding, 8 improved water quality and have managed the 9 city's stormwater infrastructure and resources. 10 To that end, the utility has developed and 11 implemented several basin master plans and 12 continues to implement several improvements to 13 mitigate flooding and enhanced water quality. 14 Notwithstanding our excellent progress, 15 the EPA criteria in the City of Titusville are 16 potentially significant. The new standards 17 would have to be met prior to any stormwater 18 discharge or surrounding water bodies that 19 require dredge and fill permit, site 20 environmental resources permit or St. Johns 21 River Water Management District permit. 22 All of these things would have to be done 23 so that we do not violate the standards. The 24 higher level of treatment and the stricter best 25 management practices. The cost to the city 58 1 will be proportionate to the degree with which 2 the areas are incorporated and each of the 3 five-year renewal periods. Next week the city 4 council has asked us to come and participate in 5 the budget hearings for the next year. Last 6 year we had to raise taxes. We can't this 7 year. We just can't do it. What are we going 8 to tell our people when we bring this up to 9 them? What is our city council going to do? I 10 don't know. I don't have any more money. I'm 11 retired. 12 But I've worked in construction. I've 13 never done this EPA stuff. I don't know what 14 you're really talking about. All I know is I 15 can't pay for it. 16 In closing, yesterday Mr. Henry Kelly made 17 a presentation to you about the Fort Walton 18 Beach facilities. They spent sixty million 19 dollars on one of the latest, greatest 20 wastewater treatment facilities. That facility 21 can't come up to the standards. They just made 22 it. 23 We have an environmental engineer in 24 Brevard County that says that the real easy 25 study that's just made -- that four to 8 59 1 percent -- four to eight times the discharge 2 can be made -- I'm looking at this wrong. Four 3 to eight times the discharge rate they can't 4 make here in Florida. Excuse me on that one. 5 But listen. In parting, we, the people, 6 have been taxed enough already. We do not need 7 any new cost for this environmental stuff. The 8 EPA is always giving us stuff. The government 9 is always handing out things to us. It's time 10 we hand you something back. We, the people, 11 give you the Constitution. 12 (Applause.) 13 MS. KEEHNER: Thank you, Mr. Forward. 14 Would speaker number seven please approach 15 the podium. And speaker number nine, sit in 16 these seats behind the podium. 17 MS. LEVY: Kelli Levy with Pinellas County 18 Department of Environmental Management. First 19 of all, we do agree and support restoration 20 objectives for Florida's water resources. But 21 we are very concerned with the technical 22 deficiencies in this current proposal for 23 numeric nutrient criteria for Florida's lakes 24 and flowing waters and specifically with the 25 downstream protective values for receding 60 1 waters. Pinellas County has been active in 2 water resources management since the 1970s, 3 when we began our stormwater master planning 4 process. 5 From 2000 to 2014 we have spent and 6 encumbered forty million dollars for water 7 quality improvement projects, nutrient source 8 tracking studies and comprehensive watershed 9 planning efforts. This money does not include 10 the millions of dollars that we expend annually 11 to implement the conditions of our National 12 Pollutant Discharge Elimination System 13 regulating our stormwater discharges, which 14 includes an extensive surface water quality 15 monitoring program. 16 Furthermore, the county just recently 17 improved the most stringent urban fertilizer 18 use in the entire state of Florida. 19 A critical concern is this proposal is 20 that it uses the USGS SPARROW model for 21 developing criteria for Florida's estuaries. 22 At a February 4th, 2010 meeting in St. 23 Petersburg, USGS staff stated that EPA's use of 24 the SPARROW model for this effort was 25 inappropriate and frankly bad science. 61 1 For Tampa Bay, the proposal does not take 2 into account that the estuary is meeting its 3 approved water quality targets. Tampa Bay is 4 meeting its designated use. 5 Based on the estimates from SPARROW, the 6 estuary requires significant reductions beyond 7 what has been demonstrated by decades of 8 research, science, data, not a model. 9 Cross Bayou, within the Tampa Bay Estuary 10 System, has an extensive oyster reef that the 11 Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation 12 Commission has described as nearly pristine, 13 yet the water quality within this area does not 14 come close to meeting these standards. 15 Clearwater Harbor in St. Joseph's Sound, a 16 28,000-acre estuarine system on the county's 17 Gulf Coast, supports over 17,000 acres of 18 seagrass and extensive attached algae 19 communities. The water clarity in this area is 20 similar to tap water, yet this estuary may be 21 subject to more stringent reductions. 22 These are examples of three diverse 23 ecosystems within one county in the state of 24 Florida and demonstrates the problem with the 25 proposed criteria. The criteria do not link 62 1 the pollutant of concern to a biological 2 response. The ecological variability between 3 Tampa Bay, Cross Bayou and St. Joseph's Sound 4 would lead local organizations to allocate 5 their funding towards the site-specific 6 alternative criteria process to correct the 7 limitations and technical deficiencies of the 8 proposed criteria. 9 We would, therefore, be utilizing our very 10 limited economic resources to correct these 11 deficiencies instead of spending those funds in 12 the groundwater quality improvement efforts. 13 We need a technically sound basis for 14 numeric nutrient criteria in Florida that takes 15 into account the diversity of our water 16 resources, criteria that are based on 17 demonstrated sound scientific relationships 18 between water quality and biological response. 19 We are asking EPA to continue working with 20 the state and local agencies to ensure that 21 numeric nutrient criteria proposed for Florida 22 will improve water quality, reflect our aquatic 23 diversity and result in effective and efficient 24 expenditure of public funds. 25 (Applause.) 63 1 MS. KEEHNER: Thank you, Ms. Levy. 2 Speaker eight. And speaker ten, please 3 come to the chair. 4 MR. MORRISSEY: Joseph Morrissey, Pinellas 5 County Utilities. I speak in opposition to the 6 proposed numeric nutrient criteria. I 7 represent Pinellas County Utilities. We 8 operate two wastewater treatment facilities 9 permitted to advance wastewater treatment. 10 That's five parts per million biological 11 oxygen, five parts per million TSS, three parts 12 per million total nitrogen and one part per 13 million in total phosphorus. Those limits are 14 at the very edge of biological mechanical 15 treatments. 16 The proposed rules will move us beyond 17 those images into more complicated treatments, 18 which we can't yet discern. And the cost 19 estimates for these, I know they vary widely 20 from EPA estimates to studies utilities have 21 done. But even at the most modest cost 22 estimate, it's $10 per family, $120 per year 23 per family, which is a considerable amount of 24 money. 25 And our utility has been successful in 64 1 getting rates to support treatment. The people 2 of Florida have always put money for 3 environmental protection. I'm sure you've 4 already heard some of the prior speakers and 5 some of the past speakers how they are willing 6 to spend money that's well-developed and well 7 thought out. 8 But this proposal suffers from great 9 confusion and great anxiety and great 10 scientific disagreement. I have before me a 11 document that the Florida Department of 12 Environmental Protection prepared and released 13 on February 15th. And where the EPA says we've 14 used Florida data and Florida science to 15 develop these rules, what the State of Florida 16 says is that the EPA screen criteria for 17 protection of downstream studies are not 18 scientifically valid. The proposed criteria 19 are based on inappropriate application of the 20 USGS SPARROW model. EPA's application of 21 reference approach for stream criteria is not 22 appropriate. EPA's nutrient criteria for 23 springs is not adequately protected. EPA's 24 Chlorophyll criteria for clear, acidic lakes is 25 not limited to biological response. EPA's 65 1 method to establish stream criteria for 2 protection of downstream lakes is too 3 simplistic. EPA's Chlorophyll criteria for 4 South Florida canals is not appropriate. And 5 EPA's estimate of economic cost is inadequate. 6 Now, I cannot gauge the truth of those 7 statements and I'm sure your agency will review 8 those. But one of the jobs that I must do is 9 go back to my elected commissioners and to the 10 citizens of Pinellas County and ask them to 11 support spending money to implement this rule. 12 And until there is a scientific consensus and a 13 regulatory consensus, it will be very 14 impossible to get support. And that's needed 15 support. We're in a deep recession now. We're 16 not going to be out of it for a couple of 17 years. And if we want our citizens to spend 18 money, there's got to be one voice for the 19 environmental community and that one voice does 20 not currently exist. 21 Now, for suggestions as to what we should 22 do, I realize you signed the consent order and 23 you're under your time periods. But I think 24 that it would be best if this rule could be 25 returned to the Florida Department of 66 1 Environmental Protection. 2 (Applause.) 3 They have a credibility with the citizens 4 of Florida. They have an ability to develop 5 that rule and they have an ability to make 6 people make unpleasant choices and spend some 7 money that is just going to be difficult for 8 the Environmental Protection Agency to do. 9 Thank you very much for your time. 10 (Applause.) 11 MS. KEEHNER: Thank you, Mr. Morrissey. 12 Speaker number nine. And speaker number 13 11 can make their way to the open chair. 14 MR. GLICKSBERG: Good afternoon. My name 15 is David Glicksberg and I am here today 16 representing the Hillsborough County Public 17 Works Department with regard to stormwater. 18 The following comments are provided to 19 express our concern with the downstream 20 protective value being put forth by EPA in 21 their proposed rule on water quality standards 22 for Florida's lakes and flowing waters. 23 We are a member of the Tampa Bay Nitrogen 24 Management Consortium and have worked with that 25 group for several years to develop specific 67 1 science-based total nitrogen loads for Tampa 2 Bay as well as total nitrogen load allocations 3 for the entire Tampa Bay watershed. The 4 Florida Department of Environmental Protection 5 and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 6 both worked diligently with the Nitrogen 7 Management Consortium in the process of 8 developing these loads to meet the EPA's own 9 federally-recognized total maximum daily load 10 for nitrogen in Tampa Bay. 11 Implementation of the proposed downstream 12 protective values would be inconsistent with 13 this federally-recognized TMDL. EPA's proposed 14 approach for determining downstream protective 15 loads does not take into account the existing 16 condition of the downstream water. Through the 17 work of the Nitrogen Management Consortium, 18 current management actions have effected 19 significant water quality improvements in Tampa 20 Bay and have maintained total nitrogen and 21 total phosphorous loads at levels that provide 22 full aquatic life protection in the bay and 23 allow it to meet its designated use. 24 Further nutrient reductions are not needed 25 and effort to achieve them would direct scarce 68 1 resources away from higher priority load 2 reductions needed for truly impaired waters. 3 The use of the SPARROW model for 4 determining downstream protective loads is 5 inappropriate for the State of Florida. 6 Modelers with the U.S. Geological Survey and 7 EPA's own science advisory committee have 8 expressed concerns over its use for determining 9 impairments in Florida, where we have large 10 groundwater influence. It was designed for 11 large regional watersheds such as the 12 Mississippi River Basin and should not be used 13 for determining nutrient loads to develop 14 numeric nutrient criteria within Florida. 15 EPA should incorporate the consideration 16 of eliminating nutrient for a water body in the 17 proposed rule. Failure to do so can result in 18 entities being required to construct, operate 19 and maintain expensive treatment facilities to 20 reduce ambient concentrations of the 21 nonlimiting nutrient in order to comply with 22 the proposed numeric nutrient criteria without 23 producing any measurable benefit. Again, this 24 would be a terrible waste of our very limited 25 physical resources. 69 1 For these reasons we urge the EPA to 2 utilize existing total nitrogen and total 3 phosphorous loads to Tampa Bay and the 4 downstream protective loads for the Tampa Bay 5 region in the final rule for water quality 6 standards for Florida lakes and flowing waters. 7 Or, as an alternative, we request that the EPA 8 delay the determination of downstream 9 protective loads for Tampa Bay until such time 10 that the estuarine numeric nutrient criteria 11 are finalized. 12 Thank you for the opportunity to provide 13 our comments to you today and for your earnest 14 consideration of our concerns with the proposed 15 rule. 16 (Applause.) 17 MS. KEEHNER: Thank you, Mr. Glicksberg. 18 Speaker number 10. And if speaker number 19 12 could move to the open chair. 20 MR. BERRY: Good afternoon. I am Andy 21 Berry with Hillsborough County Water Resource 22 Services. My comments are basically the same 23 as what you just heard from Hillsborough 24 County, so I will not repeat them verbatim at 25 this time, and I have provided you with a copy 70 1 of them. 2 I would like to emphasize, however, that 3 the Tampa Bay Nitrogen Management Consortium 4 has worked long and hard to develop nitrogen 5 allocations for the entire Tampa Bay watershed. 6 These load allocations have been developed with 7 the objective of meeting the 8 federally-recognized total maximum daily load 9 that you, EPA, have imposed on Tampa Bay. 10 These nutrient loads have resulted in 11 significant water quality improvements in Tampa 12 Bay. We urge EPA to utilize existing total 13 nitrogen and total phosphorous loads to Tampa 14 Bay as the downstream protective loads of the 15 Tampa Bay region. Requiring further reductions 16 is not necessary, as evidenced by the work of 17 the Consortium and water quality improvements 18 in Tampa Bay. 19 For domestic wastewater facilities such as 20 ours, that are already operating at advanced 21 wastewater treatment levels, the proposed 22 criteria may not even be achievable. As an 23 alternative, as you just heard, we request EPA 24 delay the determination of downstream 25 protective loads for Tampa Bay until such time 71 1 as the estuarine and something criteria are 2 finalized. 3 Thank you. 4 MS. KEEHNER: Thank you, Mr. Berry. 5 Speaker number 11. And if speakers 12 and 6 13 could make their way to the chairs. 7 MS. GRACE: Good afternoon. I'm Lynn 8 Grace and I'm a member of the Space Coast 9 Patriots, American citizen, third-generation 10 Floridian. And I welcome the EPA here, all of 11 you, indeed, as tourists to our state, but, 12 frankly, I wish you'd all go home. I don't 13 mean to be rude to you individually. I respect 14 your great knowledge. I'm sure it's far beyond 15 mine. 16 However, I do believe in our state 17 government. I do believe that they have done a 18 wonderful job, the Department of Environmental 19 Protection, in protecting us and really I'm 20 beginning to think that we need protection from 21 our Federal Government because what's happening 22 here is blatantly unconstitutional. 23 (Applause.) 24 I know that my compatriot, Mr. Forward, 25 passed to you the copies of our Constitution 72 1 and I believe each of you probably do respect 2 it. But have you read it lately and have you 3 looked at the Tenth Amendment? Which basically 4 addresses the fact that you don't really have 5 any business in our Florida waters. You really 6 don't. 7 And I know you probably have some 8 knowledge that we could use in the State of 9 Florida and we probably could move a little 10 faster. But I'll tell you this. I hope that 11 today, I hope and pray that today that this 12 will really move forth our sovereignty in the 13 State of Florida so that we can take back our 14 state and get rid of this governmental 15 intrusion and I also hope that we can return 16 to -- eventually to a constitutional 17 government. 18 And if this means that people in the State 19 of Florida need to sue at the Supreme Court 20 level for our sovereignty involving the EPA 21 takeover of our Florida waters, well, I hope 22 that the people will do that. 23 (Applause.) 24 That's all I have to say. Thank you for 25 coming. 73 1 MS. KEEHNER: Thank you, Ms. Grace. 2 MS. GRACE: And I hope you enjoy your time 3 here, but please go home. 4 MS. KEEHNER: Speaker Number 12. And 5 speaker number 14 can come up to the open 6 chair. 7 MS. GREENING: Hello. I'm Holly Greening. 8 I'm the Executive Director of the Tampa Bay 9 Estuary Program, one of the 28 of EPA's 10 national estuary programs in the country. 11 In the early 1990s the Estuary Program 12 developed the nutrient management strategy to 13 support seagrass recovery in Tampa Bay. 14 In 1996 the Estuary Program formed a 15 public and private partnership to help 16 implement that management strategy. 17 The Tampa Bay Nitrogen Management 18 Consortium now consists of more than 40 local 19 governments, industries and electric utilities 20 working cooperatively to implement this 21 nutrient management strategy. 22 I'm speaking as a convenor of the 23 Consortium today specifically on downstream 24 protective loads for Tampa Bay. 25 First of all, I thank you for including 74 1 the concept of appropriate downstream 2 protective values in the draft rules. These 3 values are important for the continued recovery 4 and maintenance of the designated uses and 5 aquatic life in Tampa Bay and other estuaries. 6 Second, and more importantly, I thank you 7 for recognizing that certain estuaries, 8 site-specific analysis, should be used instead 9 of EPA's general approach for establishing 10 downstream protective values in the final 11 freshwater rule. 12 Multiple lines of empirical data show that 13 existing loads to Tampa Bay, defined as the 14 average annual loads from 2003 to 2007, support 15 designated uses and aquatic life support and 16 should be used instead of the general approach 17 to the final rule. I've given you a handout 18 here that shows some of that empirical 19 information. 20 The map on slide two shows four open-water 21 segments of Tampa Bay, for your reference. 22 As shown in slide three, existing total 23 nitrogen loads are less than half of what they 24 were in the 1970s to Tampa Bay. This sharp 25 reduction was due to wastewater treatment plant 75 1 reductions following their implementation of 2 AWT standards in 1980, followed by stormwater 3 treatment regulations and the voluntary actions 4 of the Consortium members. 5 Slideshow four shows that maintenance of 6 loads at existing levels has resulted in 7 meeting Chlorophyll a targets for seagrass 8 expansion over 80 percent of the time since 9 1992, with the exception of El Nino heavy rains 10 in 1994 and 1995 and again in 1998. At this 11 time our loads were exceeded and our 12 Chlorophyll showed that we were exceeding that. 13 Maintaining existing loads have resulted 14 in maintenance and expansion of healthy 15 seagrass beds in Tampa Bay, as seen in slide 16 five. We've seen an increase of almost 4,000 17 acres since 1992. We did see a loss of 18 seagrass in the El Nino years, again in 19 response to higher loads and higher 20 concentrations of Chlorophyll, but a quick 21 recovery. 22 Rate of expansion over the last ten years 23 was over 500 acres per year in Tampa Bay. And 24 at this rate we will meet our goal of restoring 25 seagrass to 1950's levels by about 2025. 76 1 But maintaining adequate conditions for 2 seagrass growth is not the only goal of full 3 aquatic life support. 4 Slide six shows recent abundance for 5 striped mullet, an algae-feeding species. 6 Striped mullet abundance is relatively constant 7 over the monitoring period with increases, 8 again, in that El Nino year of 1998. 9 Existing loads also maintain bait fish 10 feeding bird species nesting in Tampa Bay, 11 including the brown pelicans. As for striped 12 mullet, increases in the nesting pairs of brown 13 pelicans were observed in the El Nino years of 14 high loads in Chlorophyll. So it appears that 15 those high loads were good for bait fish, good 16 for pelicans, not so good for seagrass. There 17 seems to be an imbalance in those kind of 18 things. 19 In summary, existing total nitrogen, total 20 phosphorous loads to Tampa Bay support full 21 aquatic life protection and designated uses by 22 providing a balance of both adequate water 23 quality and clarity for healthy and expanding 24 seagrass beds and adequate phytoplankton to 25 support the bay's fish and wildlife 77 1 populations. 2 Based on this empirical evidence, the 3 Consortium respectfully requests that EPA 4 acknowledge existing TN and TP loads in Tampa 5 Bay as appropriate and defensible downstream 6 protective loads in the final Florida Lakes and 7 Flowing Waters rule. 8 The Consortium will be submitting full 9 documentation to the public record and we 10 encourage you to contact us with any questions 11 or comments. And we thank you for considering 12 our request. 13 (Applause.) 14 MS. KEEHNER: Thank you, Ms. Greening. 15 Speaker number 13. And if speaker number 16 15 could move to the empty chair. 17 MR. GUEST: David Guest with EarthJustice. 18 We've been involved in nutrient pollution 19 problems around the state for quite a while, 20 twenty, twenty-five years. And the one thing I 21 haven't heard from anybody today is the 22 catastrophe that's taking place throughout our 23 waters in this state. There's toxic algae 24 blooms that you can see the pictures of 25 outside. I mean, were those taken from another 78 1 planet or were they taken in Florida the last 2 couple of years. 3 How would y'all like to be a landowner and 4 have the river in front of your house turn into 5 a stinking toxic algae outbreak that would kill 6 your dog if your dog drank out of it? 7 Who's talking about that? Nobody is 8 talking about that. And that's the problem. 9 We need to think about our economy. We 10 need to think about people's property rights. 11 And we need to think about jobs. The jobs on 12 the Florida southwest coast are being decimated 13 because of red tides caused by nutrient 14 pollution. 15 MS. KEEHNER: Excuse me. I think 16 Mr. Guest and folks who are from the 17 environmental and public interest group 18 community have been very respectful of 19 speakers. I would ask, please, let's be 20 respectful of Mr. Guest. 21 MR. GUEST: Thank you. 22 So -- well, I'll stop rambling except to 23 say there's a very serious problem. We need to 24 be straight about that. 25 Now, the one thing that I see in my 79 1 experience over these couple of decades is that 2 in all water pollution cases you've got three 3 arguments. One is that we'll go bankrupt if we 4 have to change anything at all. Two is it's 5 going to take 20 years to come up with a plan 6 that will do anything. And the third is will 7 the fish like it? And we're getting all three 8 here. 9 I heard a little while ago about the 10 Orlando Utilities folks saying that, you know, 11 this is a catastrophe. Well, you know, the 12 truth is there's a TMDL that's in place for the 13 discharge river that's actually more stringent 14 than what's proposed by EPA. I mean, so is 15 this a federal takeover? It's not going to 16 have any impact at all. 17 Lake Okeechobee down south, I mean, I 18 talked about that it's falling apart, it's 19 about to flip over and it's going to be 20 impossible to fix once it goes down. 21 There are practical solutions to these 22 things that don't bankrupt people. Smart 23 fertilizer ordinances, we've heard a little bit 24 about those. You know, when you make your lawn 25 green, you're making a river green, too. I 80 1 don't think it's fair to do that to people, to 2 put your fertilizer into somebody else's water. 3 And it doesn't take 20 years, this initiative 4 which required by EPA for the DEP to do it in 5 1998. 6 And across those 12 years is when the 7 worst of these toxic algal growths have taken 8 place, in the St. Johns River, the 9 Caloosahatchee. You've seen the pictures 10 outside. Not lake Apopka, that started before 11 that. Orange Lake, near here, that thing is 12 just covered with green slime. It's a 13 disaster. It used to be one of the most 14 beautiful places in the state. This thing is 15 killing the economy, and we can't pretend that 16 it's not. 17 And then turning, lastly, to the matter of 18 whether the fish like it. There's been an 19 argument, and we haven't heard it here, that 20 the pollution is really okay. No, there are no 21 starving oysters out there and there never will 22 be. We're never going to get to pristine 23 standards. And not that I think it's an 24 admirable goal, but that's not what this does. 25 We're not getting back to pristine. We're 81 1 getting down to acceptable pollution levels and 2 that's really what the compromise in the Clean 3 Water Act is. It's not pristine. It's 4 minimizing damages. I'm not frankly real happy 5 with that, but that's the law and we have to 6 abide by that. It's minimalization of damages. 7 So what I would propose to the EPA here is 8 not, you know, do anything more than 9 acknowledge that this is a really grave 10 problem, that it is really killing the economy. 11 It's the worst possible time for it to be 12 happening. These aren't going to take effect 13 for a while. A couple of years at the very 14 earliest before anything happens, before 15 anything on the street happens. And by that 16 time hopefully the recession is going to be 17 over. 18 And then we need to work together to try 19 to get the very best rule we can get. A lot of 20 good suggestions have been made today. We have 21 our own suggestions that we'll put in. We 22 obviously think that the rule needs some 23 tweaking, too. But, of course, it's a work in 24 progress and we admire and respect you folks 25 for taking all the energy and getting your 82 1 signs together and being open enough to say 2 here's our proposal, what do y'all think could 3 be improved about it. That's the best place a 4 government can be and we say thank you. 5 (Applause.) 6 MS. KEEHNER: Thank you, Mr. Guest. 7 Speaker Number 14. And if speaker number 8 16 could move to the open chair. 9 MS. COSTELLO: Hi. Cris Costello from the 10 Sierra Club. I'm the red tide campaign 11 coordinator. Being from the Sierra Club, you 12 probably already know that I support the 13 process, the Sierra Club supports the process, 14 and, contrary to what someone else said, we 15 hope you stay here, stay as long as you can, 16 stay until our waters run clear. 17 I'd like to talk today about one specific 18 experience that is mine and that is regarding 19 residential fertilizer management and 20 specifically the influence that the 21 agrichemical industry has had on both -- or all 22 three, University of Florida Institute for Food 23 and Agricultural Sciences, the FDEP and the 24 State Legislature. I have a lot of to say, so 25 I'm going to try to squeeze it in. 83 1 In 2005 a devastating red tide outbreak 2 and a Rhode Island-sized hypoxic zone woke up 3 Gulf Coast Florida. And at that point people 4 in the communities along the Gulf Coast that 5 were so devastated began to focus on what could 6 they do to prevent harmful algal blooms. 7 And the first focus became residential 8 fertilizer management. It was indeed 9 low-hanging fruit. It was something that every 10 person on the coast could take responsibility 11 in making happen. 12 Since 2005, three counties and enumerable 13 communities, I believe right now there are 35 14 incorporated communities along the Gulf Coast 15 that have very strong fertilizer ordinances 16 that include a ban on nitrogen and phosphorous 17 fertilizer application during the four rainy 18 months. 19 That was not without opposition, however 20 there were only two opposition forces. 21 Community support was overwhelming. The two 22 opposition forces were a couple of people in 23 IFAS and the agrichemical industry and their 24 supporters. IFAS -- an example of the 25 agrichemical influence on IFAS has been 84 1 publicized in the St. Petersburg Times. We've 2 been talking about it for a long time. 3 But the one example that I will leave with 4 you here today is that the influence is so 5 great that there are individuals, scientists, 6 researchers from the University of Florida that 7 are actually saying that putting down more 8 nitrogen, quick-release nitrogen, during the 9 rainy season will help -- will help improve 10 water quality. More nitrogen, more 11 quick-release, during the rainy season. 12 Improve? I mean, that's the point of 13 ridiculous that the influence has gotten. 14 FDEP is not -- the influence is there, but 15 not as great as IFAS. 16 I hold here in my hand a stack of what is 17 called a Guide to Environmentally Friendly 18 Landscaping. It's put out by FDEP and IFAS 19 periodically. This represents 16 years, since 20 1994. In each of these documents is contained 21 recommendations for strong residential 22 fertilizer management, much stronger than FDEP 23 and IFAS promote during these -- or I should 24 say IFAS promotes during these fertilizer 25 management campaigns in different communities. 85 1 What is really interesting is that in 2 2009, this past legislative session, after 3 three years of the industry trying to preempt 4 local control of fertilizer management in the 5 state, a model ordinance was passed in this 6 state legislature. That model ordinance is an 7 FDEP model ordinance and is weaker than the 8 recommendations that FDEP makes in its 16 years 9 of publications. An example of the influence 10 that the agrichemical industry has on FDEP. 11 We do not have faith in FDEP in all 12 instances and certainly not in this instance. 13 So I want to make it clear that not everyone 14 agrees with the previous speaker. 15 My last example is the influence on the 16 legislature. There's a perfect example in this 17 area. A state senator right now is working 18 with the agrichemical industry in order to 19 change the state statute passed last year 20 creating the model ordinance for fertilizer 21 management. They want to make it -- this 22 particular senator wants to sponsor a bill to 23 make it even more difficult, near impossible, 24 for a community to manage their own residential 25 fertilizer. That senator lives near a 86 1 community that just passed a fertilizer 2 ordinance that has a 25-foot buffer zone. The 3 model has a three-foot buffer zone. 4 Communities in that state senator's 5 district want relief from this nutrient 6 pollution. The agrichemical industry, its 7 influence is onerous, is oppressive, and we 8 thank you for being here and we are behind you 9 100 percent. Thank you very much. 10 MS. KEEHNER: Thank you, Ms. Costello. 11 Speaker number 15. And if speaker number 12 17 could move to the open chair. 13 MR. CHARLES: James Charles with the law 14 firm of Lewis, Longman & Walker. I have the 15 pleasure of being here today on behalf the 16 Florida Association of Special Districts. 17 I provided comments yesterday in 18 Tallahassee regarding the economic impacts and 19 the EPA's proposed methodologies, and I thank 20 you for that opportunity and I thank you for 21 the opportunity to provide additional comments 22 today. 23 My comments today are going to focus on 24 best management practices. Based on your Slide 25 18, it appears the intent is to encourage the 87 1 implementation of BMPs to reduce loading, in 2 addition to treatment. 3 With regard to BMPs, I think it's 4 important to note how water control and 5 improvement districts in Florida operate. As I 6 stated yesterday, they are limited-purpose 7 governments, meaning they have limited powers 8 related directly to flood control. The genesis 9 of their creation was to make Florida, 10 particularly South Florida, suitable for 11 habitation cultivation. 12 Some of our members date back as early as 13 1915 in providing flood control for people 14 within this jurisdiction for 90-plus years. 15 During that time numerous agricultural 16 operations, residential developments and 17 commercial developments have occurred around 18 these districts, discharging directly into 19 their canals. 20 Our members have a legislative power to 21 convey water, a legislative authority to convey 22 water, but they lack the power to prevent the 23 flow of water into their canals. Simply put, 24 they have to accept the residential, 25 agricultural and commercial runoff into their 88 1 canals. Unlike cities and counties, our 2 members lack the authority to impose BMPs on 3 those they serve. Consequently, BMPs for 4 waters entering our canals are not an option. 5 We ask EPA to acknowledge this limitation 6 and provide appropriate flexibility in the 7 proposed rule, possibly in setting the numeric 8 numbers themselves and/or in the SAC process. 9 In a related manner, you're aware of our 10 Florida Department of Environmental 11 Protection's moving forward with revising the 12 surface water classification system to 13 recognize unique characteristics of canals by 14 proposing a Class III limited classification, 15 which will be subject to EPA approval. 16 In order to demonstrate that removal of a 17 designated use within a canal is appropriate, 18 an applicant will have to demonstrate that the 19 use that is being sought to be removed cannot 20 be obtained by implementation of BMPs. 21 As I have stated, although we operate the 22 canals, we lack the general authority to 23 implement BMPs for the waters coming into our 24 canals. We respectfully ask EPA to provide DEP 25 with some guidance to recognize this limitation 89 1 in reviewing petitions to reclassify artificial 2 canals to proposed Class III classification, 3 whereby if an operator of a canal cannot impose 4 or implement BMPs, demonstration of BMPs will 5 not allow attainment of the designated use as 6 not appropriate or applicable. 7 Finally, with regards to the interim-type 8 treatment that seems to also be an intent of 9 the proposed rules, it's important to note that 10 a majority of our members are flood control 11 improvement districts that can be characterized 12 as urban water control districts. For example, 13 Lake Worth Management District, provided as an 14 example yesterday, with costs and assessments, 15 it's an urban district. It simply does not 16 have the land area to construct treatment 17 facilities or treatment areas. In order to do 18 so, that would mean they would have to take by 19 imminent domain residential homes, commercial 20 properties and agricultural operations in order 21 to have suitable land mass to create these 22 water treatment areas. That's going to be a 23 significant cost and loss to people's homes, 24 businesses and livelihood. 25 That estimate that I provided to you 90 1 yesterday for approximately 848 million dollars 2 to implement stormwater treatment practices was 3 based -- included those costs of imminent 4 domain and so forth. 5 I'm kind of concerned that the cost 6 estimate that's being provided by EPA doesn't 7 factor in those costs that will occur. And we 8 ask for you to take a second look at the 9 economic impact analysis. 10 Thank you for your time. 11 (Applause.) 12 MS. KEEHNER: Thank you, Mr. Charles. 13 Speaker Number 16. And if speaker number 14 18 could move to the open chair. 15 MR. SMITH: My name is Jerry Smith. I'm 16 coming to you today as a taxpayer, like a Joe 17 Plumber, without a job. For the last 43 years 18 I have paid taxes and I have supported people 19 like you, your salaries, your expenses, your 20 scientists' studies, the grants that are 21 issued. But I want to talk to you about the 22 problems we're facing as a taxpayer. 23 I never worked with the government. I'm 24 not an attorney defending the environmental 25 groups or the EPA. But we have a lot of things 91 1 coming at us down the road that is making us 2 very irate with the direction that the 3 government today is taking us. 4 We think it's definitely in the wrong 5 direction. And EPA is just one part of it. 6 We're being told that we may have to 7 accept cap in trade, common emissions problems 8 that are causing global warming or climate 9 change. We're being told that global warming 10 is here and we have to face the fact, but you 11 ought to read what Dr. Phil Jones just recently 12 stated within the last couple of days. He's 13 one of the scientists who said basically in the 14 past 15 years temperature change has occurred 15 or fluctuated. We're being faced with national 16 health care being forced upon us for the entire 17 country. 18 Any one of these, cap in trade, global 19 warming, national health care, can decimate the 20 economy. We're against being told and being 21 mandated that we have to take on these 22 different programs. 23 The South Atlantic Fisheries Management, 24 they just recently closed the whole East Coast 25 to catching red snapper and grouper. We have 92 1 people in this room, commercial fishermen, that 2 have been put out of business as a result of 3 that. 4 We've been told that we have to use the 5 light bulb that has mercury vapor in it versus 6 the standard light bulb. 7 We're being told we should drive a green 8 car to save the world. 9 In New York they're talking about 10 regulating salt intake for the kids to protect 11 their health. 12 In our own county over there, they're 13 doing tests on kids to determine body fat. I 14 don't think that's any of government's 15 business, period. 16 We've got a group down in Sebastian that 17 are for eliminating plastic bags, paper bags, 18 Styrofoam to protect the turtles, a bird might 19 get his head stuck in one of the six-pack 20 plastic things for carrying beer or the turtle 21 may take a bite of it. 22 Two weeks ago Mother Nature wiped out 23 hundreds of thousands of fish, turtles, 24 manatees, tarpon, tilapia, birds, you name it. 25 Mother Nature did more in three days than the 93 1 entire population of this state could kill if 2 they tried to kill all the animals. So Mother 3 Nature takes its course. And I realize we have 4 to regulate these poor imbeciles out here 5 because we're not intelligent enough to 6 understand the environment. We're all 7 environmentalists to a certain extent. 8 Over where I live, and this is just a 9 microcosm of what's happening to the Federal 10 Government, they have a 175-million-dollar 11 unfunded liabilities in their pension fund. 12 The Federal Government has a hundred six 13 trillion dollars in unfunded liabilities now. 14 Who's going to pay for it? Who's going to pay 15 for the pensions that aren't going to be there 16 in my little town? 17 The State of Florida is 3.2 billion 18 dollars in the red now. They just voted in to 19 go with the Sunrail system, which is going to 20 add another 1.25 billion dollars to the State. 21 Who's going to pay for all this? 22 By 2020, 80 percent of all federal 23 revenues are going to pay for social programs 24 in this country. Eighty percent of all federal 25 revenues are going to pay for the social -- and 94 1 that's by 2020. 2 My thoughts to you is that we don't have 3 any more money. The country is bankrupt. The 4 cities are bankrupt. The taxpayers are 5 bankrupt. I don't know where you think all the 6 money is going to come from. I know how you 7 think. Well, it's just there. We'll get it 8 from the taxpayers. But the end is coming. 9 And you better hope that in this year, of 10 November, that Independents, Democrats and 11 Republicans don't take over the House and the 12 Senate to change what you guys and this 13 Congress are doing to this country. We want to 14 get back to fiscal responsibility, smaller 15 government. And you need to start abiding by 16 the Constitution. 17 (Applause.) 18 MS. KEEHNER: Thank you, Mr. Smith. 19 Speaker number 17, please. And if speaker 20 number 19 could move to the open chair. 21 MR. KARLSON: My name is Dr. Dick Karlson. 22 I'm a retired orthodontist and I'm a rancher. 23 About 40 years ago I started to develop a ranch 24 at the headwaters of Fisheating Creek, which is 25 known as an intermittent creek. To those other 95 1 ranchers who know what that is, it's a creek 2 that dries up six months of the year and is a 3 floodplain in the summer, which basically 4 describes a lot of Florida, where there's a 5 golf course or whatever adjoining waterway. 6 I believe I have a 30-year proven solution 7 to the phosphorous uptake from the 8 South-Central Florida's wetlands, which would 9 be positive for the environment as well as 10 their beef industry. 11 If you look at the first photo, you will 12 see that in cooperation with the soil 13 conservation personnel at the Highlands County 14 Ag Center of the Florida Extension Service, we 15 designed a ranch that would be ideally suited 16 for the environment of the area, being 17 intrinsically on a creek with its wetlands as 18 well as a high ground. 19 On the high ground, in cooperation with 20 the ag center, we placed Argentine Bahia grass. 21 We cleaned some of the scrub. We left oak 22 trees and palmettos and everything we could for 23 the environment. It's actually an ecological 24 paradise, if you were to see this ranch. Take 25 a look at some of the pictures. 96 1 On the wetlands, I attended a seminar, a 2 grass seminar, if there is such a thing, in 3 Okeechobee one day, on a frigid February day 4 like today. And I noticed they were 5 demonstrating a grass called limpo grass or -- 6 it's called flora alta, actually. It's also 7 called hemarthria. As you can see in the 8 picture, these grasses grow as high as the hood 9 of a truck. They have high filtration 10 qualities. They're very high -- this grass is 11 very high in total ingestible nutrients. 12 And we planted this on all of the wetland 13 areas, and the cattle -- we raise quality 14 bulls, but our cows just thrived on this grass. 15 They preferred it probably four to one over the 16 Bahia grass. Being very high in total 17 ingestible nutrients, it only had to be 18 fertilized once a year, and we never fertilize 19 during the times of water flow. 20 Our soil tests were taken periodically, as 21 was required, and we went along with the best 22 management practices and actually received an 23 award for this. But it was found that our soil 24 was low in phosphorous, low in phosphorous. 25 The gentleman that came up to investigate 97 1 and set up a plan, which two years ago we also 2 cooperated with the Department of Natural 3 Resources and followed a plan of putting water 4 troughs in, and I did this, I was retired at 5 this time, put an underground pipeline to 6 1150-gallon water troughs and ran fresh water 7 from our own house a mile away for our cattle 8 to drink and put fencing across to stop the 9 cattle from going into the stream, of which we 10 eat the fish out of that stream, but we fenced 11 our cows out. And this way we feel like we did 12 everything possible to maintain the best 13 management practices. 14 When Ona Research did a study in the 15 Agronomy Journal, Volume 101 in 2009, did a 16 study on the nutritional uptake on these 17 grasses after a three-year evaluation period 18 for three warm-season grass species commonly 19 utilized in pastures in South-Central Florida, 20 all grasses showed a positive phosphate removal 21 response to nitrogen application. 22 I suggest that this has been successful, 23 this hemarthria grass has been very successful 24 with us for over 30 years, actually going on 34 25 years, and I think this planting of this type 98 1 of grass, this high-filtration grass, would 2 certainly be one of the most positive 3 environmental situations that could be 4 presented to the beef industry and to the 5 entire South-Central Florida area. This has 6 been proven for over 30 years. 7 I think that we all realize that the 8 countries of Argentina and Australia would 9 rejoice if they thought we were going to reduce 10 our beef exports. This is one of the few 11 positive -- our agricultural beef and other 12 exports of this nature, it's one of the few 13 positive things that we have left in our entire 14 global economic export armament. 15 MS. KEEHNER: Excuse me, Mr. Karlson. 16 Your time has expired. So if you could try to 17 wrap up in a minute or so. 18 MR. KARLSON: I was just finally going to 19 say we all appreciate, and you, Denise, might 20 appreciate that, lipstick, leather, detergents, 21 shaving cream, shoes, luggage, Vitamin B12, 22 insulin and iron supplements, besides just beef 23 being one of the highest sources of protein, is 24 an important heritage to us to maintain. 25 (Applause.) 99 1 MS. KEEHNER: Thank you, Dr. Karlson. 2 Speaker number 18. And speakers 19 and 20 3 could move to the open chairs. 4 MR. MERRIAM: My name is Chip Merriam and 5 I'm with the Orlando Utilities Commission. 6 First I want to thank you for taking the time 7 to come down and actually listen to these 8 presentations and taking your time and interest 9 to learn what's difficult for us. 10 I sat in your chair for 20 years, so I 11 clearly understand the process. But it's also 12 very difficult to get all the assessment 13 necessary. All the concerns you're hearing are 14 very deep and very personal to many people. 15 With that, a little bit about who I 16 represent. Orlando Utilities Commission has 17 been a part of this community for the past 85 18 years. We're the second largest municipal 19 utility in the state of Florida. We provide 20 electric and water service to over 313,000 21 residents, ratepayers, in this particular area. 22 We also have accounts in St. Cloud and 23 unincorporated portions of Orange County. 24 We're not only committed to providing the 25 most reliable electricity and water supply that 100 1 we can to our customers, but we also believe in 2 being part of this community and doing it by 3 example. We also have the benefit of our 4 ratepayers allowing us to construct the 5 greenest building in the city at this point in 6 time. It is the gold-certified as well as we 7 just achieved the Florida Water Star 8 Certification for our particular building. 9 We provide more than 80 million gallons a 10 day of drinking water to our ratepayers. But 11 one of the things that's really difficult for 12 us right now and part of what you're hearing 13 from my comments, as well as you heard from 14 others today, is that 40 percent of our 15 customers base annual income is less than 16 $35,000 a year. Those type of things are 17 difficult. 18 And the reason I use this, as you go 19 through and you develop these proposed rules 20 and move forward, we don't have dividend -- we 21 don't pay dividends to stock payers -- stock -- 22 we only have an opportunity to pass whatever 23 new and increased costs come to us, being from 24 the clean air side or from the clean water 25 side, directly to our ratepayers. 101 1 One of the things that we've been working 2 very closely with our regulators, especially on 3 the drinking water side, over the last many 4 years, is reusing wastewater as a replacement 5 for irrigation and other sources, basically to 6 back off some of the groundwater reliance we've 7 had in the past. 8 When I looked through the rule, I cannot 9 find out how this proposed rule will impact the 10 use of reuse water. I understand cause and 11 contribute. Clearly, as I said, I've been in 12 the state system a long time, I understand what 13 that is and how it impacts it. But there's no 14 relationship back. 15 Working with Florida wastewater users, we 16 understand that the implications of this rule 17 can be very costly, again, as you've heard from 18 Hillsborough County and others. As a community 19 that recycles all of its wastewater, this lack 20 of clarity is very important to us as to 21 actually how this is going to be answered. I 22 personally worked a couple of decades with the 23 State Department of Environmental Protection 24 and the Water Management Districts, all of whom 25 were committed to finding the right balance of 102 1 regulations to protect our valuable natural 2 resources. 3 I've been part of developing maximum daily 4 loads and it is a cumbersome process. It's a 5 very valuable process, but you have to have the 6 right science to actually set the parameters. 7 And, as some previous speakers have said, the 8 ones who have to pay for this to understand 9 what those parameters truly mean is extremely 10 important. 11 We respectfully request you consider the 12 following comments as you proceed with your 13 current rulemaking. One is consider if what 14 you're proposing to fix throughout the state is 15 truly broken. Let the State of Florida work 16 with the municipalities and the taxpayers, 17 frankly, to help decide what is best for the 18 residents in the State of Florida. Ask if this 19 proposed rulemaking will achieve the desired 20 goals and what does victory look like. At the 21 end of the day will the bar continue to move or 22 will we know what the end of the process looks 23 like. 24 How did the boundaries that you all used 25 or how do they relate to the DEP boundaries? 103 1 Because I could not find a relationship between 2 those two. 3 What will be the impact of this rule on 4 the reuse of wastewater in the State of 5 Florida. 6 How will withdrawal of surface water 7 impact or be impacted by this new rule, because 8 it could shift some of your concentration. 9 And one of the things, is the benefit to 10 this proposed rule equal to or better than the 11 average impacts on ratepayers and the citizens 12 of Florida. 13 In my position, having done a lot of 14 science and stuff in the state, especially with 15 the agricultural community and many others, 16 it's always been a blessing that at the end of 17 the day when you work with them closely they 18 probably have an answer that will get you 19 there, in many cases without the need to 20 implement a rule and in many cases it's only 21 for the right reasons. 22 So, with that, I thank you very much for 23 your time and for coming to Florida. 24 (Applause.) 25 MS. KEEHNER: Thank you, Mr. Merriam. 104 1 Speaker number 19. 2 MR. ALEXANDER: I'm John Alexander. I 3 live in Frostproof, Florida. I'm a native 4 Floridian and having spent 48 years working in 5 the field of agricultural in Florida. I'm 6 presently serving as the chairman of the board 7 of a public company, Alico, Incorporated. The 8 headquarters of Alico lies in La Belle, 9 Florida, about a hundred twenty miles south of 10 here. 11 Alico is the owner and operator of about 12 136,000 acres of land in five counties in 13 Central and South Florida. The counties are 14 Collier, Glades, Hendry, Lee and Polk County. 15 We're a diversified land management company. 16 We grow food and agricultural commodities, 17 including cattle, citrus, sugar cane, sweet 18 corn, green beans, sod and turf grass, cabbage 19 palms and oak trees, and even a few alligators. 20 We've been managing this land for over a 21 hundred years and are recognized as good 22 stewards of land and water. 23 Water is the single most important factor 24 that we manage in producing these crops. We at 25 Alico are vitally interested in the quality of 105 1 water we use, and even reuse, as well as the 2 cost of this water. 3 The EPA's proposed numeric nutrient water 4 quality criteria for Florida concerns me due to 5 the following: 6 Number one. The numeric criteria appear 7 to have been arbitrarily set without benefit of 8 science. 9 Number two. The numeric criteria appear 10 to be unattainable with current technology and 11 without very aggressive and very expensive 12 practices, which added costs I don't believe 13 agriculture can sustain. 14 And number three. It took until 2000, 15 2001 one for the EPA to publish technical 16 guidance to develop nutrient criteria. The 17 development plan entered into between the 18 Florida DEP and EPA in July of 2004 to 19 establish a numeric nutrient criteria for 20 Florida, revised in 2007 and mutually agreed 21 upon by the EPA was suddenly declared on 22 January 14th, 2009, and I quote, insufficient 23 to ensure protection of the state's water 24 bodies as required by the Clean Water Act, end 25 quote. 106 1 I'd like you to know that the Clean Water 2 Act became effective October the 18th, 1972, 3 almost 38 years ago. On the first point, the 4 numeric criteria appear to have been 5 arbitrarily set without benefit of science, all 6 from the following analysis. 7 Table 4 of your proposed numeric nutrient 8 criteria for Florida sets an arbitrary maximum 9 for phosphorous at 42 parts per billion, shown 10 as .042 milligrams per liter for all canals in 11 the Florida DEP South Florida region with the 12 exception of canals within the Everglades 13 Protection Area, where the total phosphorous 14 criterion is ten parts per billion. 15 Data gathered by the South Florida Water 16 Management District shows the total phosphorous 17 currently in Lake Okeechobee is 200 parts per 18 billion. Lake Okeechobee water, after being 19 used for irrigation on South Florida farms and 20 after being treated in permitted retention pond 21 contains phosphorous in an amount of 70 parts 22 per billion, a reduction of a hundred thirty 23 parts per billion. 24 Also, Lake Okeechobee water, after being 25 treated in stormwater treatment areas operated 107 1 by South Florida Water Management District, 2 exits into the Everglades at 30 parts per 3 billion, a reduction of 170 parts per billion. 4 However, it's noteworthy that even South 5 Florida rainfall exceeds the permitted amount 6 of ten parts per billion as the rainfall 7 contains 30 parts per billion. I rest my case 8 that it's set arbitrarily without benefit of 9 science. 10 On the second point, those of us who live 11 and work in agricultural in South Florida have 12 made tremendous progress in reducing nutrients, 13 both nitrogen and phosphorous, being discharged 14 on our properties over the past 15 years. We 15 have gone from being accused of being the 16 problem to becoming a major part of the 17 solution. We invite your inspection of our 18 properties and facilities, that in cooperation 19 with the Florida DEP and the South Florida 20 Water Management District, are making 21 significant strides in the reduction of 22 nutrients. 23 We have made progress. We are making 24 progress. We understand the problem and we are 25 committed to doing even more. But I suggest 108 1 that you let the Florida DEP continue its work 2 to establish numeric nutrient criteria based on 3 science and local knowledge in accordance with 4 the Clean Water Act without specific dictation 5 from Washington. 6 (Applause.) 7 The third thing relates to the agreements 8 already reached in 2004, 2007 to develop and 9 implement the numeric nutrient criteria for 10 Florida. Sufficient time has not been spent to 11 evaluate the information procedures already 12 developed. Only nine years have gone by. 13 I say where is EPA's word? Where is its 14 bond? Where is what we refer to as full faith 15 and credit of the United States? How lasting 16 will be the next agreement that we cut with 17 EPA? 18 What I'm asking for today is five things. 19 We want you to work with us to accomplish the 20 purposes and goals of the Clean Water Act of 21 1972. We want clean water. And we are 22 committed to achieve this in a responsible 23 manner. We want more hearing time than three 24 days. There are over 17 million Floridians. 25 They need to be heard. 109 1 Number four. We want numeric nutrient 2 criteria, but we want them based on science, 3 based on Florida water bodies, Florida soils 4 and Florida conditions, not arbitrarily set in 5 Washington. 6 Number five. There's a cost to 7 everything. Cost/benefit studies should be 8 made before arbitrarily setting numeric 9 nutrient criteria and implementing them. Help 10 us maintain and even create jobs rather than 11 destroying jobs. 12 Thank you. 13 (Applause.) 14 MS. KEEHNER: Thank you, Mr. Alexander. 15 Speaker number 20, please. And speaker 22 16 can make their way to the open seat. 17 DR. EMERY: Good afternoon. My name is 18 Scott Emery. I have a Ph.D. in ecology, more 19 than 25 years of expertise in the State of 20 Florida in water quality issues. I'm a 21 visiting research professor at University of 22 South Florida. I'm on the board of directors 23 of their Institute of Environmental Studies. 24 But I'm not here today representing USF. I'm 25 here today as a private citizen. No one has 110 1 paid me to come here, no one has paid me to 2 look at the rule or read the consent orders, 3 but I've done that. 4 And I want to be very quick about this 5 because you've heard some of this before, but I 6 want to go right to Section 5, Alternative 7 Regulatory Approaches and Implementations, of 8 your rule, and more specifically to Subsection 9 C, site-specific criteria. 10 I think from what Mr. Keating provided to 11 everybody in the introduction, you realize 12 there's a wealth of water quality data here in 13 Florida and the 34,000 datapoints for lakes and 14 the 12,000 datapoints -- I think that's only a 15 portion of what's available. 16 As Dr. Bachmann from the University of 17 Florida said earlier, we already have 47 18 ecoregions designated in the State of Florida. 19 So I think you could probably spend quite a bit 20 of time and effort on your site-specific 21 criteria section, to expand upon it, make it 22 easy, make it simple for the site specific 23 criteria from the folks like the Tampa Bay 24 Estuary Program, Holly Greening, the Nitrogen 25 Consortium. There's oodles of information out 111 1 there. And allow it to be a very simple, 2 straightforward process for DEP to come to you 3 rather than make it an onerous type of process. 4 I think if you can do that, then we would be 5 able to designate numeric criteria, which I 6 think a lot of us believe that we need for 7 specific areas, not this very, very generalized 8 broadbrush approach. 9 That brings me to my second point, very 10 briefly, is that from my review of the SPARROW 11 model, I think you can do better in terms of 12 developing models or, better yet, allowing 13 those of us who have that's expertise in the 14 State of Florida provide you with alternative 15 models for site-specific areas within Florida 16 that you can use in lieu of the SPARROW model. 17 I think you can do a lot better than what that 18 very general model provides. 19 Those are my two points. Thank you very 20 much. 21 (Applause.) 22 MS. KEEHNER: Thank you, Dr. Emery. 23 Speaker Number 21. And if speaker number 24 23 could make their way to the open. 25 MR. COUGHENOUR: Good afternoon. My name 112 1 is Frank Coughenour. I'm the utilities 2 operation manager for the city of Plant City. 3 Plant City is located in West Central Florida 4 and the city has been an active participant in 5 the Tampa Bay Nitrogen Management Consortium. 6 Plant City has a population of approximately 7 30,000 people and then our wastewater and water 8 utility serve five significant and industrial 9 customers. Our basins contribute to four major 10 streams. Our wastewater flows are about 5 11 million gallons a day. We reuse, beneficially 12 reuse, about two and a half million gallons a 13 day and currently the rest goes to surface 14 water discharge. We're actively seeking one 15 million gallons a day of new reuse in the next 16 couple of years. 17 Plant City has recently completed a 18 roughly fifty-three-million-dollar construction 19 project to improve their wastewater treatment 20 facility. We treat all our water to surface 21 water standards and public access reuse 22 standards, which for Florida that's 5531 in 23 high-level disinfection. 24 We're involved in at least two major 25 stormwater treatment projects with the 113 1 Hillsborough County and Southwest Florida Water 2 Management District. And I tell you all that 3 to say that Plant City is a very proactive and 4 responsible community and I think we're 5 representative of many communities in the state 6 that are doing the right thing and working hard 7 to do it. 8 We do have a number of concerns. We'll 9 give you written comments, but I'll touch on a 10 few right now. 11 Right now one of the main concerns is that 12 even with the 53 million dollars we've put into 13 this state-of-the-art treatment plant, we have 14 serious doubts that it would be and we're 15 rather certain it would not be able to meet the 16 standards at the point of discharge, if that's 17 how they're applied. It's also very unclear as 18 to how those standards would apply to our 19 reclaimed water system. 20 Regarding the pending downstream 21 protective standards, if the standards are 22 anymore strict than the instream standards 23 right now, it's very likely it would cripple 24 our whole facility and would require another 25 major upgrade. 114 1 We believe that there's more certainty 2 necessary regarding the acceptance of the TMDL 3 that's under review right now as the 4 alternative to that downstream standard. The 5 site-specific alternative criteria process we 6 think lends an unnecessary degree of 7 uncertainty and inefficiency in the overall 8 process. 9 Additionally, we doubt that the -- we 10 question the need for a total phosphorous limit 11 in an area that's widely accepted to be not 12 phosphorous limited. 13 I touched on deficiency and I want to 14 finish mainly with that thought. I spend most 15 of my day figuring out how to do what we need 16 to do as efficiently as possible. I see this 17 as being another overlapping regulation in an 18 area that is already showing pretty dramatic 19 improvement. 20 We're currently regulated by the DEP by 21 standards for surface water discharge. Soon, 22 when our new permit is issued, we'll be 23 regulated by the TMDL for Tampa Bay. Sometime 24 after that, in the next couple of years, we'll 25 undoubtedly be regulated by TMDLs for the 115 1 streams between our discharge and Tampa Bay. 2 And now we're looking at another numeric 3 criteria that is going to overlap the whole 4 system and is likely to make all of them moot, 5 and with possibly little or no real 6 environmental improvement. 7 With the current economic situation, we 8 stress that we all need to be as efficient as 9 possible everywhere. 10 I appreciate Mr. Keating's comment that 11 this proposed rule may be the most efficient 12 way for EPA to complete their obligations, but 13 I also suggest that it's not the most efficient 14 way for us to accomplish the improvements that 15 are necessary around the state. 16 The last two thoughts. Progress in the 17 Tampa Bay area, I believe, is just a good 18 example of DEP's programs and the national 19 estuary programs' work around the area, but 20 it's also, more importantly, I believe, 21 indicative of the prevailing mentality in the 22 municipal areas and the corporate mentality 23 around the state. 24 I believe the examples that have been 25 provided of water bodies that have become more 116 1 impaired or continue to be extremely impaired 2 are probably more the exception to the rule 3 rather than the rule around Florida. And it 4 seems like this is a much excessive overlapping 5 regulation to accomplish that rule. 6 Thank you. 7 (Applause.) 8 MS. KEEHNER: Thank you, Mr. Coughenour. 9 Speaker Number 22 and if speaker number 24 10 could make their way to the open seat. 11 MR. BROWN: Good afternoon. My name is 12 Rob Brown. I work for Manatee County Natural 13 Resources Department and currently serve as the 14 local government co-chairman of the Tampa Bay 15 Nitrogen Consortium. 16 Manatee County is in a unique situation as 17 the only county in the nation, that we know of, 18 that is a member of three national estuary 19 programs, Tampa Bay, Sarasota Bay and Charlotte 20 Harbor. Manatee County policy members and 21 technical staff are very involved in all three 22 programs. Therefore, I feel we're very 23 qualified to speak about watershed management 24 strategies, specifically those that involve 25 downstream effects to estuaries. 117 1 First I would like to thank U.S. EPA for 2 holding these public hearings to allow 3 stakeholders to comment on the proposed water 4 quality standards for the State of Florida's 5 lakes and flowing waters, although it's not 6 possible to address all of our concerns related 7 to this ruling in the time allotted. So we 8 will be providing written comments from the 9 County and the Consortium. They will be 10 forthcoming. 11 Appropriate numeric nutrient criteria are 12 essential for the protection of designated uses 13 for these critical water bodies and, as quoted 14 in your executive summary, quote, must be based 15 on sound scientific rationale. 16 We feel that in some portions of the 17 proposed rule, especially the development of 18 downstream protective values, this is not the 19 case. It is common knowledge in Florida that 20 not all similar water bodies, like estuaries, 21 lakes and streams, act the same and EPA's 22 general approach in developing nutrient 23 criteria is troublesome at best. 24 However, we are encouraged that EPA, 25 quote, is interested in feedback regarding 118 1 site-specific analysis for particular estuaries 2 that should be used instead of this general 3 approach for establishing final values. We 4 hope we can convince you today that this is the 5 case for the three aforementioned estuaries of 6 national concern. 7 The National Estuary Program was 8 established in 1987 by amendments to the Clean 9 Water Act to identify, restore, protect 10 nationally significant estuaries in the United 11 States. The focus of the program is not only 12 to improve water quality in the system but also 13 focuses on maintaining the integrity of the 14 whole system, that is, its chemical, physical 15 and biological properties, as well as its 16 economic, recreational and aesthetic values. 17 This is a common stakeholder development 18 and implementation of Comprehensive 19 Conservation Management Plans, or CCMPs. 20 Watershed managers involved with the 21 development and implementation of these CCMPs 22 recognize the importance of evaluating all 23 nutrient inputs to the system, including 24 atmospheric deposition, groundwater, point and 25 nonpoint source surface waters, springs, et 119 1 cetera. Therefore, downstream protection 2 evaluations are integral in the development of 3 these estuary management plans. 4 EPA's draft approach for determining 5 criteria for protection of downstream estuaries 6 does not take into account the existing 7 condition of the water body and presumes that 8 all estuaries in Florida are impaired and 9 require nutrient load reductions. 10 This initial assumption is flawed. For 11 example, Tampa Bay is currently maintaining 12 full aquatic life protection and uses, as 13 evidenced by the maintenance and expansion of 14 the seagrass beds, estuarine fauna and the 15 phytoplankton-based food web. 16 Through detailed studies and evaluations 17 conducted in Tampa Bay, further nutrient 18 reductions, specifically nitrogen, are not 19 needed. EPA needs to recognize and embrace the 20 expansive efforts conducted by the National 21 Estuary Programs in Florida and incorporate the 22 goals, targets and criteria established by 23 these programs as appropriate to meet the 24 numeric nutrient standards for these estuaries 25 and tributaries. 120 1 In closing, in addition to the estuaries 2 already mentioned, I'd like to address some 3 specific concerns we have regarding the 4 proposed standards. First, the use -- the 5 inappropriate use of the USGS SPARROW large 6 scale regional model. Local or site-specific 7 determination of downstream protective values 8 is not appropriate for a model that was 9 calibrated on a regional scale for source 10 hydrology and lacking data of all sources of 11 nitrogen input into the streams. 12 Also, it appears that the proposed 13 criteria would cause the number of impaired 14 water bodies to increase by over a hundred 15 percent. It's economically infeasible for 16 local governments to implement proposed 17 monitoring and treatment both from point 18 sources and stormwater required to comply with 19 forthcoming TMDLs. A true economic evaluation 20 of the proposed rule needs to be developed and 21 provided to the citizenry of the State of 22 Florida. 23 We support the recognition that 24 geographically Florida water streams and lakes 25 are exposed to natural variation in geology, 121 1 soil and hydraulic conditions that require at a 2 minimum regional criteria. 3 Manatee County is located within the 4 established Bone Valley region, which has 5 phosphorous-rich soils. EPA has stated that it 6 would expect from a general ecological 7 standpoint that associated uses under these 8 naturally-occurring nutrient-rich conditions 9 would be supported. Therefore, docking 10 standards would require reductions to streams, 11 lakes and other foreign water bodies in our 12 county would be truly unnecessary, 13 counterproductive and economically devastating. 14 Finally, it is the desire of the Tampa Bay 15 Nitrogen Management Consortium to have EPA 16 acknowledge and accept existing TN and TP 17 loads, total nitrogen and total phosphorous, as 18 presented to EPA and Florida DEP in a 1998 TMDL 19 and a recent reasonable assurance update to 20 Tampa Bay downstream protective loads. 21 Thank you for listening to us today. And 22 if I could just have one minute to comment on 23 your slide five that was presented on Lake 24 Manatee, I have to comment on that. 25 The acknowledgement was not of our staff, 122 1 who took the picture, and the basis of that 2 picture was a decade-old event. It was an 3 event that happened, and we do have events. 4 And that wind-blown algae bloom that you saw in 5 the picture was only 20-by-a-hundred-foot bloom 6 within an 1800-acre lake. 7 (Applause.) 8 So I am hoping that this ruling does not 9 regulate episodes. We have to look at the big 10 scale. 11 Thank you. 12 (Applause.) 13 MS. KEEHNER: Thank, Mr. Brown. 14 Speaker number 23. And speaker number 25 15 can make their way to the open chair. 16 MS. HECKNER: Good afternoon. Jennifer 17 Heckner on behalf of the Conservancy of 18 Southwest Florida and our more than 6,000 19 members in Collier, Lee, Charlotte, Glades and 20 Hendry Counties. 21 We're here today to express our strong 22 support for the EPA developing numeric nutrient 23 standards for Florida water bodies. In the 12 24 years since EPA notified the Florida Department 25 of Environmental Protection to set numeric 123 1 nutrient standards in Florida, countless 2 development projects have been permitted with 3 insufficient stormwater treatment. Nutrient 4 pollution which could have been prevented 5 through proper source control has now 6 accumulated to unsafe levels downstream. 7 Of the ten estuary watersheds in Southwest 8 Florida, all are not meeting their state water 9 quality standards presently, with 43 to a 10 hundred percent of their total acreage being 11 currently classified impaired. 12 Being one of the groups who nominated the 13 Caloosahatchee River as America's most 14 endangered river in 2006, based in part on the 15 toxins produced from a nutrient-induced 16 blue-green algae outbreak, our members can 17 speak to the risks of nutrient pollution as not 18 only being an environmental risk, but also a 19 human health risk as well. We, like others, 20 support science-based numeric criteria. And 21 the EPA has used hundreds of thousands of 22 Florida water quality samples that it obtained 23 from the FDEP in creating these proceed 24 criteria. 25 Many of the same criticisms that DEP is 124 1 raising about the models EPA is using have been 2 raised for the models that DEP has and is 3 currently using itself right now. 4 DEP raises concerns that some natural 5 pristine reference sites would not meet these 6 criteria. Well, FDEP's natural pristine 7 reference sites include waterways like the 8 canal along Interstate 75's Alligator Alley. 9 Overall the criteria proposed by EPA 10 closely parallel those proposed by DEP itself 11 in 2008 with little exception, as you can see 12 from the handout we provided the audience 13 members. 14 As the Department of Environmental 15 Protection, the DEP should be actively 16 providing support for this imperative step 17 towards restoring our water quality. In lieu 18 of them doing so, however, it is appropriate 19 for EPA to step in and ensure that the Clean 20 Water Act is properly implemented in the State 21 of Florida. 22 Our environment and our economy depends on 23 clean water. With water-based recreation and 24 tourism as well as waterfront property values 25 generating billions of dollars in revenue in 125 1 Florida each year, we simply cannot afford to 2 let this pollution continue unchecked. It is 3 often said that an ounce of prevention is worth 4 a pound of cure. So it is with nutrient 5 pollution as well. While under a dollar a 6 pound to purchase, removing nutrients such as 7 nitrogen after the fact typically ranges from 8 55 to a hundred dollars per pound. 9 Despite claims that these standards being 10 economically infeasible, keeping pollution out 11 of water through low-impact development design, 12 more stormwater retention and treatment and 13 more agricultural BMP implementation is cost 14 effective, especially when compared with the 15 enormous cost of intercepting and cleaning up 16 such pollusion after it enters our waterways. 17 The time is now. We urgently need 18 protective and effective numeric nutrient 19 standards that encompass the headwaters to the 20 estuaries. Simply put, we cannot effectively 21 control what we cannot effectively measure. 22 Just like speed limits are needed to give 23 guidance to the public on what is a safe 24 driving speed, so are these standards needed in 25 order to ensure that the public knows what are 126 1 the pollution limits needed for protecting our 2 waters and our health. 3 As such, we urge EPA to continue to 4 improve, finalize and adopt these criteria in a 5 timely manner. Our environment and a 6 sustainable economic recovery for Florida 7 depends on it. Thank very much. 8 (Applause.) 9 MS. KEEHNER: Thank you, Ms. Heckner. 10 Speaker number 24. 11 MS. PETERSON: I'm Ellen Peterson. I'm 12 here representing a Responsible Growth 13 Management Coalition, a small nonprofit set up 14 to protect the growth of Southwest Florida. 15 Florida has far too long been able to 16 avoid meaningful enforcement of the rights and 17 wishes of the majority of our citizens to enjoy 18 clean, drinkable, fishable and swimmable water. 19 Numeric nutrient standards are a reasonable 20 measurable way to achieve these goals while 21 allowing appropriate uses of this public 22 resource. 23 We've watched the degradation of our 24 waterways being implemented through 25 inappropriate manipulation of ineffective 127 1 regulation. I understand that it was in 1978 2 when we first were challenged to accomplish 3 this and, frankly, DEP just hasn't been able to 4 cut it. And that's why EPA has been asked to 5 come here to help and assist. They're in no 6 way a punishment agency. They have come to 7 help design and implement something that will 8 help us accomplish something that we should 9 have been accomplishing since '78. 10 And now, from my own experience here in 11 Southwest Florida, in 1978, I moved to the 12 banks of the Estero River. I've lived there 13 until this day. I've watched that river become 14 more and more degraded. We used to swim. I 15 caught a snook in that river. Mullet would 16 jump in our river. I don't see that anymore. 17 They're not there. The river is sort of a 18 murky, winding way to the Gulf, and it's just 19 really disgraceful that we can't use our 20 pristine waterway. It's even been declared an 21 outstanding Florida waterway. To what avail? 22 It didn't seem to help. 23 So I encourage you to stay with it and 24 help us do that. 25 (Applause.) 128 1 MS. KEEHNER: The last speaker before the 2 break is speaker number 25. 3 MR. SELPH: Well, I'm glad I made it. My 4 name is Jim Selph. I'm currently president of 5 the Citizens of Charlotte County Farm Bureau. 6 I'm a retired extension agent emeritus of the 7 University of Florida and a combat veteran of 8 Vietnam. 9 (Applause.) 10 I oppose this first because the State of 11 Florida is being singled out, absolutely. And, 12 secondly, I oppose this because I still believe 13 in the United States of America and the fact 14 that we are states united, that the Federal 15 Government is not the all-seeing, all-knowing 16 omnipotent government that should be in charge 17 of our lives. I think our own local and state 18 agencies have done the job correctly and are 19 doing it correctly. They're basing it on the 20 best science, not necessarily what I see coming 21 from y'all. 22 You know, when the Federal Government 23 takes care of things, just like they have taken 24 care of our deficit, we've got a 25 13-trillion-dollar deficit, and I really don't 129 1 think EPA needs to be here taking care of this 2 for us. 3 Thirdly, I opposes this because I really 4 believe as a citizen that you gave in to a 5 small group that does not necessarily stand for 6 what the citizens of this state want. 7 Fourthly, I oppose this, that the state 8 agencies are using the best available science, 9 something I do not believe EPA is doing. 10 Lastly, I oppose this because I think it's 11 what we call severe economic harm to the 12 economy in Florida. I think right now the 13 Federal Government is hard on our economy 14 enough. We don't need you to do this, to 15 destroy it during this recession. 16 Where would this country be if we import 17 all of our food? We are the only thing that's 18 producing anything, literally, in this state 19 right now. That's where our economy is at. 20 The economy is not always just in services and 21 other items. You have got to produce 22 something. And right now in this country ag is 23 producing it. Don't destroy us, please. 24 And I want to tell you, it hurts my 25 feelings that EPA comes down and wants to tell 130 1 us what to do, signs a legal agreement without 2 the people of the State of Florida agreeing to 3 that legal agreement. And I think you're wrong 4 in that. 5 I'm going to quote one last thing. Dr. 6 Finley Pate, the late Dr. Finley Pate, at the 7 University of Florida on a research station, he 8 used to make this statement. In 1950 we had a 9 million cows and about a million people. Today 10 we've got about 750,000 cows and about 11 18 million people. 12 Now, you guess where the pollution and the 13 problems have come from. It's not from the 14 basic that made Florida Florida. It's from 15 people who has moved here who are fertilizing 16 alongside the coast and everything else. 17 And, with that, I appreciate it. I, too, 18 believe in clean water. I like to fish. I 19 like to hunt. But I think y'all are going 20 about it the wrong way. I think you need to 21 let FDEP and our water management districts 22 handle this in the State of Florida. 23 And thank you. 24 (Applause.) 25 MS. KEEHNER: Thank you, Mr. Selph. We 131 1 can take one more before the break. We're 2 going to break at 3:30. So speaker number 26. 3 MR. STORY: I'm Number 27. 4 MS. KEEHNER: Is 26 in the room? I'm 5 sorry. So we'll have to get to 27 after the 6 break. 7 MR. JOHNS: Hi. My name is Flint Johns and 8 I work for Lykes Brothers, Incorporated, which 9 is a multifaceted agricultural operation here 10 in the State of Florida. It's been in business 11 nearly a hundred years. We have a wide range 12 of businesses, much like Alico. I won't go 13 into all of them. But, more importantly, I'm 14 here representing myself today as a 15 fifth-generation Floridian and a fellow 16 cattleman and producer, ag producer in this 17 state. 18 I want to talk mainly about two things 19 today. Economics and efficiency. I want to 20 make three points regarding those. The 21 inefficiencies of regulatory action, EPA's 22 economic analysis of the program and the 23 competitive disadvantage that Florida 24 agricultural will be positioned potentially. 25 Environmental Protection Agency's numeric 132 1 nutrient criteria is grossly inefficient, 2 flawed in its economic evaluation of the 3 program and places unnecessary burdens on the 4 residents, stakeholders and government of the 5 State of Florida. 6 Regarding the regulatory inefficiencies, 7 EPA referenced condition analysis is too broad 8 and requires the regulation of pristine water 9 bodies that have already been individually and 10 scientifically proven to be nonimpaired by the 11 Florida Department of Environmental Protection. 12 Under the EPA's proposed numeric nutrient 13 criteria, 80 percent of FDEP's reference or 14 pristine water bodies exceed EPA's numeric 15 nutrient criteria and would be deemed impaired 16 by the proposed criteria. These reference 17 sites have been determined to be pristine 18 through rigorous scientific evaluation 19 conducted by the FDEP through stressor response 20 analysis and based on the biology of the 21 individual water body. Though the stressor 22 response analysis for water bodies is somewhat 23 tedious and costly on the front end, it is by 24 far the most thorough and scientific and 25 efficient in the long run. This type of 133 1 analysis offers results that directly relate to 2 the designated use of the water body and lend 3 themselves to long-term sustainability of water 4 quality standards in Florida's waters. 5 By using a reference condition approach, 6 EPA will impose regulations on many water 7 bodies that will have no effect on the biology 8 of the water body. This action would be 9 grossly inefficient by wasting Florida's 10 increasingly scarce financial resources to 11 regulate water bodies that do not need to be 12 regulated. Furthermore, increasing regulation 13 in watersheds that are currently operating 14 under a basin management action plan and have 15 already established a numeric standard, such as 16 the TMDL, which EPA has already accepted, 17 compounds the economic inefficiency and 18 misallocation of Florida's financial resources. 19 EPA's economic analysis is also flawed in 20 my personal opinion. EPA's economic analysis 21 is based on FDEP's draft criteria to establish 22 baseline cost. However, FDEP draft criteria 23 has never been adopted, therefore EPA's 24 analysis is based on assumptions and not facts. 25 FDEP's draft criteria does not assume the 134 1 level of protection for the downstream waters 2 that EPA's numeric nutrient criteria will 3 require either. As the level of protection for 4 downstream water increases, the cost of 5 compliance increases exponentially. Thus, it 6 is inaccurate to use FDEP draft criteria as a 7 baseline for the economic analysis of the EPA's 8 proposed numeric nutrient criteria. 9 The last thing I want to touch on, and 10 probably the most important, is the competitive 11 disadvantage that could potentially be brought 12 to Florida agricultural producers as a result 13 of this regulation. Florida agricultural will 14 be at a competitive disadvantage relative to 15 other states and countries if it is subjected 16 to increased compliance costs as a result of 17 EPA's numeric nutrient criteria. If the cost 18 of compliance makes various agricultural 19 activities unprofitable, it is conceivable the 20 producer will either shift production into 21 another commodity that will bear the cost of 22 compliance, shift land use into use that will 23 bear the cost of compliance, development, or 24 relocate operations somewhere elsewhere where 25 the cost of compliance is less, in other words, 135 1 leave Florida. 2 A friend of mine and fellow cattleman in 3 South Florida once said producers have to be 4 economically sustainable in order to be 5 environmentally sustainable. I believe this 6 wholeheartedly. 7 In closing, FDEP is currently in the 8 process of developing a robust scientific-based 9 numeric standard for all impaired water bodies 10 that takes into account the biology and the 11 economics and is arguably more technically and 12 economically efficient than EPA's proposed 13 numeric criteria. However, it takes time to 14 develop such a dynamic criteria. 15 The ultimate goal of Florida agricultural 16 is long-term sustainability. That is what 17 Florida agriculture wants wholeheartedly, they 18 want to be here long-term. This includes both 19 long-term economic and environmental 20 sustainability. We want to be as environmental 21 sustainable as the next guy. 22 However, the proposed numeric nutrient 23 criteria jeopardizes the principal goal of 24 environmental sustainability by jeopardizing 25 the economic sustainability of Florida's 136 1 agricultural operations. 2 Thank you. 3 MS. KEEHNER: Thank you, Mr. Johns. 4 And now we will take a 15-minute break. 5 We'll be back at ten minutes of 4. Thank you. 6 (Recess.) 7 (Continued in Volume 2) 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25