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  1   
  2               U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
  3   
                             PUBLIC HEARING
  4   
  5   
           Proposed Water Quality Standards for the State of
  6   
                   Florida's Lakes and Flowing Waters
  7   
                   Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OW-2009-0596
  8   
  9                       Holiday Inn Airport
                          1301 Belvedere Road
 10                     West Palm Beach, Florida
 11   
 12        Panel:
 13        Ephraim King
           Jim Keeting
 14        Denise Keehner
           Dana Thomas
 15   
 16   
           Thursday, February 18, 2010
 17        6:00 p.m. - 8:45 p.m.
 18   
 19   
 20   
 21   
 22   
 23   
 24   
 25   
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  1                  THEREUPON, the following proceedings
  2              were held:
  3                  MR. KING:  Good evening.  I want to
  4             congratulate everybody.  I am so excited to see
  5             you all sitting up in the front of the room.
  6             Earlier today the room filled up from the back.
  7             Tonight everybody is up front so you sort of
  8             feel like you're closer to the folks that
  9             you're listening to.
 10                  My name is Ephraim King, I am Director of
 11             the Office of Science and Technology with the
 12             Environmental Protection Agency.  I work out of
 13             Washington, D.C.
 14                  To my right is Dana Thomas, who is our
 15             science expert - senior science expert on this
 16             project.
 17                  And to Dana's right is Denise Keehner.
 18             They have switched seats on me.  And Denise is
 19             the Director of the Office of Wetlands, Oceans
 20             and Watersheds, again, in D.C.
 21                  And then finally, to Denise's right is Jim
 22             Keating, who is our senior policy and
 23             programmatic expert.
 24                  I think what I really need to do is just
 25             convey to you our deep appreciation for your
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  1             willingness to come out this evening and to
  2             talk some more about this.  We are hugely
  3             sympathetic to the notion that you all could be
  4             somewhere else, probably more comfortable, and
  5             doing something that you might enjoy more.  But
  6             for us anyway it's a gift to have you here and
  7             share your opinions both pro and con.  That's
  8             not the issue.  The issue is getting feedback
  9             from this group and from individuals here in
 10             terms of what you think of the proposal and
 11             what your thoughts are in terms of next steps.
 12                  So speaking of the proposal, EPA has
 13             proposed a set of numeric nutrient water
 14             quality standards for the State of Florida and
 15             the comment period on that closes on
 16             March 29th.
 17                  And this hearing is EPA's opportunity to
 18             meet with the folks that are going to be
 19             affected by that proposal and hear from
 20             Floridians and try to get -- and benefit from
 21             as much information that you can share with us
 22             in terms of your views, your perspectives and
 23             any information you think you might want to
 24             share.
 25                  In terms of information to share with us,
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  1             we are open to everything you have to say.  We
  2             would certainly appreciate in addition if you
  3             can give us any information that's scientific
  4             or technical.  If there is information that you
  5             feel we haven't considered or data that you
  6             think we need to consider, just telling us
  7             where that might be or where we might find it
  8             might be helpful to us.
  9                  If you believe that the data that we have
 10             had and we have used, in your view we haven't
 11             used properly or appropriately, having that
 12             perspective is also very useful to us.  And so
 13             to the extent you have any thoughts on that, we
 14             very much appreciate it.
 15                  By way of background, let me just mention
 16             that nutrient pollution, which really is high
 17             levels of phosphorus and nitrogen pollution, is
 18             a very significant national environmental and
 19             public health problem.  It is a problem that
 20             EPA is working with a range of states on across
 21             the country.
 22                  We are working with states in the
 23             Chesapeake Bay watershed; that's seven states.
 24             We're working with states in the Mississippi
 25             basin.  We're working with states up in Lake
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  1             Champlain.  We're working with a wide range of
  2             states.
  3                  We are following up on a 1998 policy from
  4             the Office of Water, which basically encouraged
  5             and really urged states to move more toward
  6             numeric nutrient criteria, and the reason for
  7             that is when you have numeric nutrient
  8             criteria, you then have quantifiable goals, it
  9             creates baselines and allows people to begin to
 10             evaluate where are you, what do you know about
 11             the situation, and then you can have the
 12             conversation about what do you want to do about
 13             it.  And in some areas you may decide there
 14             isn't much you can do about it, and in other
 15             areas you may decide there really are some
 16             possibilities.  And all of that becomes open
 17             and available if there is a common
 18             understanding about what the numeric target
 19             looks like.  So that's really the reason for
 20             the proposal that we are going to talk to you
 21             about today.
 22                  In terms of Florida, nutrient pollution,
 23             nitrogen and phosphorus pollution is indeed a
 24             widespread and a growing challenge to the
 25             state.  The state, let me just emphasize,
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  1             really has been a model in terms of
  2             establishing a very comprehensive set of
  3             regulations and tools that they can use to
  4             address nutrient pollution, and the state has
  5             certainly been a model in terms of its
  6             investment of over $20 million in the past 10
  7             years, collecting formidable amount of data on
  8             nutrient, we will talk about a little later.
  9             But we have received from the state and worked
 10             closely with them on over 800,000 nutrient
 11             related measurements and data points and that
 12             is what the proposal is based on.
 13                  In terms of why should Floridians care
 14             about nutrient pollution, nitrogen, phosphorus
 15             pollution, I think the first thought that comes
 16             to EPA's mind, at least, is public health
 17             protection.  When you think about nitrogen and
 18             phosphorus pollution it's useful to think of it
 19             in terms of nitrate, high levels of nitrate and
 20             ground water and in private wells has a direct
 21             and very well-established level of elevated
 22             risk for young babies and the ability of
 23             babies - to get a little technical - to carry
 24             oxygen with red blood cells.  And if they have
 25             too much exposure to high levels of nitrate,
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  1             that can be really quite a significant to their
  2             health impact.
  3                  Another public health concern that
  4             certainly we have and I know a lot of
  5             Floridians share is that algae is, by
  6             definition, for anybody who is technical in the
  7             room, which is not me, by the way, is organic
  8             carbon.  And what happens when drinking water
  9             systems pull in algae and have to treat it,
 10             they also use disinfectants to deal with the
 11             micros.  And what happens is with those
 12             disinfectants they use to deal with the micros
 13             also interact with that organic carbon.  When
 14             that happens, it forms disinfectant
 15             by-products.  And those disinfection
 16             by-products are linked to increased levels of
 17             bladder cancer, increased levels of
 18             reproductive health issues and increased
 19             incidents of liver and kidney concerns.
 20                  And finally, something that I think most
 21             people are familiar with just from reading the
 22             newspaper, harmful algal blooms that have
 23             occurred in a number of parts of the states,
 24             and actually many states.  So to be clear,
 25             livestock can be killed, they die from exposure
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  1             to Cyanobacteria and blue algae.  Pets die,
  2             cannot survive extended exposure.  Certainly
  3             kids or adults who are exposed to harmful algal
  4             blooms get severe rashes, dizziness and can
  5             also impact the central nervous system.
  6                  So from a public health point of view,
  7             there really are significant reasons to take a
  8             hard look at nutrient pollution and really
  9             consider very carefully what can be done to
 10             reduce the levels of nitrogen and phosphorus
 11             loadings in ambient water.
 12                  Another reason that I think probably from
 13             what we heard from other folks in the last
 14             three days is the ecological resources that the
 15             aquatic ecosystem represents in the State of
 16             Washington State - in the State of Florida,
 17             forgive me.
 18                  Florida has a unique and irreplaceable
 19             aquatic ecosystem.  You don't find it anywhere
 20             else in the United States.  It has vertebrates
 21             and it has plant species that you don't find
 22             anywhere else in the world.  It has spring
 23             systems that are beyond unique.  And these are
 24             all sort of part of what makes Florida both a
 25             very beautiful state and they are also aspects
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  1             of Florida's condition and aspects of its
  2             quality of life that are threatened by growing
  3             nutrient pollution.  And we will talk a little
  4             bit about that in a second.
  5                  Finally, I think there really is a broad
  6             consensus among almost all the speakers we have
  7             heard over the last several days that clean and
  8             safe water by everybody's estimation is simply
  9             central to the State of Florida, central to its
 10             economic prosperity, central to its ability to
 11             support a growing population, central to its
 12             ability to support tourism, fishing and
 13             swimming and boating.  A whole range of things
 14             that I think you all are probably much more
 15             familiar than I am.  So for all those reasons,
 16             that is why we are here in Florida today.  That
 17             is why we want to get your feedback on a
 18             proposal that we've put out to establish
 19             numeric nutrient standards, which are designed
 20             to deal with each of those three areas that I
 21             just talked about.
 22                  The only other thing I think I would say
 23             to you, I don't have to say, we have lots of
 24             room tonight.  In our previous meetings we have
 25             been a little bit short on room and I have had
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  1             to apologize to people because our real hope is
  2             to give everybody a chance to talk.  I think
  3             everybody here will have a chance to talk
  4             tonight.  We are looking forward to that.
  5                  So I think with that, what I will do is
  6             turn it over to Denise, who will tell you sort
  7             of the process that we use to walk through
  8             these informal hearings, which is what we have
  9             got right now, and then we will turn it over to
 10             Jim Keating, who will review with the group,
 11             provide you a brief overview of the proposed
 12             numeric water quality standards and some of the
 13             individual technical aspects of those
 14             standards.
 15                  Denise?
 16                  MS. KEEHNER:  I would like to take the
 17             opportunity to welcome you to this hearing this
 18             evening.  It's been a really great three days
 19             listening to the people of Florida express
 20             their desire for clean and safe water, their
 21             concerns about how we get there and the
 22             commitment that many of you have made to work
 23             in a collaborative manner with EPA and with
 24             FDEP to realize what's necessary in order to
 25             protect and restore Florida's waters, lakes and
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  1             flowing waters from nutrient pollution.
  2                  What I thought I would do -- Many of you
  3             may be very familiar with the Florida
  4             rulemaking process, how do Florida regulations,
  5             state regulations become law.  You may not be
  6             as familiar with the federal making process, so
  7             what I thought I would do is just spend a few
  8             minutes letting you know what that process is
  9             all about and then talk a little bit about how
 10             we are going to run this hearing this evening.
 11                  The proposed rule that EPA published in
 12             January is part of a process that EPA and the
 13             federal government terms an informal or notice
 14             and comment rulemaking process.  Most federal
 15             regulations, including almost all of the
 16             regulations that EPA issues, are established
 17             through this notice and comment process.  The
 18             notice and comment label, that terminology
 19             comes from the fact that under the Federal
 20             Administrative Procedures Act such rulemaking
 21             requires three things.
 22                  The first thing is the notice - the
 23             publication of a notice of proposed rulemaking,
 24             and for these regulations we proposed that
 25             notice on January 26th of 2010.  We proposed
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  1             the numeric nutrient water quality criteria for
  2             lakes and flowing waters in the State of
  3             Florida.
  4                  The second part of that process is an
  5             opportunity for public participation in the
  6             rulemaking by submission of written comments to
  7             EPA that become part of the administrative
  8             record or the docket for the rulemaking
  9             proceeding.  Typically, a proposed rule will
 10             provide a designated time frame for public
 11             comment for the submission of written comments.
 12             In this case the public comment period for the
 13             submission of written comments is a 60 day
 14             comment period.  That comment period goes until
 15             March 29th of 2010.  So you have from now until
 16             March 29th to submit written comments to EPA in
 17             addition to whatever comments, remarks and
 18             testimony that you might provide today.
 19                  The third part of the federal rulemaking
 20             process is essentially taking all of the
 21             comments, all of the data, all of the analysis
 22             that might be submitted to EPA during the
 23             comment period, EPA does looking at all those
 24             comments, doing all that additional work and
 25             then we publish a final regulation and a
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  1             statement of basis and purpose.  And that is
  2             typically called a preamble to the final
  3             regulation.  And in that preamble EPA will
  4             essentially go through what the major comments
  5             were and how the regulation changed as a result
  6             of the public comment period.
  7                  All the written comments that are
  8             submitted to EPA during this proposed
  9             rulemaking process go into what's called an
 10             administrative record and a docket that is
 11             accessible to anyone who is interested in
 12             seeing what anyone has said about what EPA has
 13             proposed, any information, data that's
 14             submitted during the comment period is all part
 15             of that docket and is publicly accessible.
 16                  EPA will be responding in writing to all
 17             significant comments.  There are two places
 18             that you would see EPA respond to comments that
 19             are made during the comment period.  One place
 20             is in the preamble itself.  Sometimes we will,
 21             in the preamble, talk about a particular issue
 22             and go into some depth about what the comments
 23             were that came in and then how we made our
 24             decision about where we ended up.
 25                  Other times the response to comment is
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  1             actually in a separate document where we will
  2             go through significant comments and provide a
  3             written response to all significant comments.
  4                  I mentioned just a moment ago that in the
  5             final regulation, that's where you will see
  6             both where we ended up in terms of our
  7             decisions, also an explanation of how we got
  8             there and then what the difference was between
  9             what we proposed and what the final regulation
 10             says.
 11                  As Ephraim mentioned, we are here today
 12             and we have been in Florida this week to
 13             provide an opportunity for the public in
 14             Florida, Floridians, to express their views
 15             directly to EPA, directly to the people who are
 16             responsible and managing the process of
 17             developing this regulation.  This is your
 18             opportunity to tell us what you think.
 19                  Mr. King is the Director of the Office of
 20             Science and Technology and he is lead manager
 21             for this particular rulemaking process.  So
 22             when you provide your remarks tonight, you are
 23             talking to the person who has managerial
 24             responsibility for moving this process forward
 25             and bringing it to closure.
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  1                  This particular rulemaking is on a Consent
  2             Decree deadline.  We are required to finalize
  3             this regulation by October 15th of 2010.
  4                  We will be preparing a transcript of
  5             today's hearing and that transcript is also
  6             going to be made available as part of the
  7             administrative record, part of the docket for
  8             rulemaking.  All of the comments that are
  9             presented today will be considered by EPA and
 10             we will respond, as I mentioned, in writing to
 11             all significant comments that are delivered
 12             verbally today.
 13                  When you signed in a few minutes ago, just
 14             a little while ago and you noted that you
 15             wanted to speak, you should have gotten a
 16             number.  After Jim Keating provides his
 17             overview of the proposed rule I am going to be
 18             calling you up in numerical order to the podium
 19             in the center of the room.  When I call your
 20             number, please come directly to the podium.
 21             You will be given five minutes to deliver your
 22             remarks, and the next person with the next
 23             number will come up and deliver their remarks.
 24             We shouldn't be running out of time.  I think
 25             we have plenty of time this evening.
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  1                  This team collectively last night I think
  2             we were in Orlando - we were there until 10:45
  3             at night taking comments and listening to
  4             folks' views on EPA's proposal, and we will be
  5             here until we are done tonight.
  6                  So without further adieu, I am going to
  7             turn the floor over to Jim Keating, who will
  8             provide an overview of EPA's proposed rule to
  9             establish numeric nutrient criteria for
 10             phosphorus and nitrogen and Florida's lakes and
 11             flowing waters.
 12                  MR. KEATING:  Thank you.  And thank you
 13             all for coming tonight.  We are very eager to
 14             hear from you and so I will make my remarks
 15             brief.
 16                  Can everyone hear me in the back of the
 17             room, as well?
 18                  What I want to do is briefly touch on
 19             three topics.  One is, what is nitrogen and
 20             phosphorus pollution?  And two, what do we mean
 21             by water quality standards?  And three, how do
 22             we put those two things together as they
 23             pertain to Florida's lakes and flowing waters
 24             with respect to EPA's proposal?
 25                  Phosphorus and nitrogen are essential
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  1             elements for life.  They are.  And we commonly
  2             refer to them as nutrients for that reason.
  3             And in excess amounts, however, they can cause
  4             real problems.
  5                  One of the problems that we are most
  6             concerned about is the growth of unwanted and
  7             nuisance algae.  Not all algae is bad.  In
  8             fact, algae are quite necessary.  But they are,
  9             in excess amounts, and in certain types of
 10             species that aren't supposed to be present,
 11             they can cause real problems in our waters.
 12                  Two species I would like to talk about in
 13             particular that are a problem in Florida
 14             waters, one is the algae Lyngbya.  This is an
 15             algae that can smother an actual eel grass and
 16             it present in a lot of surface waters in
 17             Florida.  This grass is important to habitat
 18             and it's also a food source for many aquatic
 19             organisms, including manatees.  But they also
 20             can produce toxins that can be harmful for
 21             humans and for animals.
 22                  The algae Microcystis is another one that
 23             we are quite concerned about.  Cyanobacteria,
 24             blue green variety.  That produces a toxin that
 25             can cause liver damage.  It can also poison
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  1             livestock and wildlife.
  2                  What we find is when there is algae in
  3             excess amounts, it can cause discoloration of
  4             the water.  It can really wreak havoc with the
  5             natural ecology of freshwater systems, and upon
  6             their death and decay it can deplete the water
  7             column that's necessary to dissolve oxygen
  8             that's needed for fish and shellfish survival.
  9                  There are also human health concerns with
 10             excess nitrogen and phosphorus in the resulting
 11             algal blooms that occur.  And I think Ephraim
 12             touched on a little bit of that with the
 13             disinfectant by-product issues and the drinking
 14             water intake.
 15                  Ephraim also briefly described the issue
 16             that we have with nitrates in ground water and
 17             some of the health concerns that are associated
 18             with that.
 19                  There are a lot of freshwaters in the
 20             State of Florida.  Over 7,000 lakes, 50,000
 21             miles of rivers, 4,000 square miles of
 22             estuaries and over 700 freshwater springs.  And
 23             there are a substantial portion of the waters
 24             that have already been identified as impaired
 25             because of nitrogen and phosphorus pollution.
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  1             There may be more waters that are impaired and
  2             they have not been fully assessed.
  3                  There are also a substantial number of
  4             Florida waters that are in clean and healthy
  5             conditions and are really quite beautiful and
  6             quite beneficial to the people of the state,
  7             and one of our biggest interests is to make
  8             sure that they stay that way.
  9                  What I want to do is show you some images
 10             of what can happen to surface water when it is
 11             subject to these harmful levels of algae and
 12             the wrong kind of algae.  I am not trying to
 13             say that this is representative of all the
 14             waters in the state.  I am really offering this
 15             as an illustration of what it looks like when
 16             things get bad.
 17                  This is a lake in Bradenton, Lake Manatee.
 18             You can see the algal bloom in this picture
 19             that's along the fringe of that lake.  Here's a
 20             close-up of that on the right along with a
 21             device that scientists typically use to measure
 22             the water clarity.  In this case there wouldn't
 23             be any water clarity in the vicinity of that
 24             bloom.
 25                  This is an old picture.  This is Lake
00020
  1             Apopka in Central Florida.  This is from 1995
  2             prior to a fair amount of effort that's gone on
  3             to try to restore it.  But it's a good image of
  4             what an algal bloom can look like in a large
  5             fairly sizable lake.
  6                  This is a bit smaller of a water body,
  7             Merritts Mill Pond.  It's a water that's used
  8             for kayaking, fishing.  It's in the panhandle.
  9             It's about an hour west of Tallahassee.  But
 10             you can see the image there of the algal bloom,
 11             it's clearly present.
 12                  This is a close-up of a Microcystis bloom.
 13             This is another lake that's in the panhandle
 14             near Tallahassee and Lake Munson.  We see that
 15             algal blooms not only affect lakes, but they
 16             affect rivers and flowing waters.
 17                  That is a picture of the Caloosahatchee
 18             River that flows now out of Lake Okeechobee and
 19             flows west out to the coast.  This particular
 20             picture is taken near Olga, Florida where there
 21             is a drinking water intake.  And you can see,
 22             this is a Microcystis bloom and it has the
 23             characteristic green color of that particular
 24             species of algae.
 25                  This is also the Caloosahatchee River,
00021
  1             right near the Franklin Lock.  A different type
  2             of algae bloom is shown here.  And you can see
  3             the difference between the physical separation
  4             of the waters provided by this lock between
  5             where they have an algal bloom and where they
  6             don't.
  7                  Further to the north, near Jacksonville,
  8             this is a picture of the St. Johns River, which
  9             has been subject to a lot of dissolved oxygen
 10             and a lot of algal bloom problems throughout
 11             the years.  And you can see the bloom that's
 12             going up and down the channel.
 13                  This is another picture of the St. Johns
 14             River that shows the algal bloom as it's
 15             affecting some of the nearby homes.
 16                  What happens with these algal blooms is it
 17             puts a lot of things we really care about with
 18             our waters at risk.  It puts at risk the
 19             ecology.  It puts at risk recreation.  It puts
 20             at risk human health.  It puts at risk tourism
 21             dollars.  And it puts at risk waterfront
 22             property values.
 23                  This is a tributary to the St. Johns where
 24             the algal bloom has really gone bank to bank as
 25             it travels down the channel.
00022
  1                  A little bit closer to where we are here
  2             in West Palm Beach, this is about 45 minutes
  3             north, I believe, an aerial picture of the
  4             St. Lucie River and algal bloom that's
  5             affecting that water body.
  6                  One of the really unique resources in
  7             Florida are their freshwater springs.  This is
  8             a spring that's about an hour and a half west
  9             of Orlando, about an hour north of Tampa called
 10             the Weeki Wachee Spring.  What I am showing
 11             here is just a couple of images.  The one on
 12             your left is an image from the 1950s.  And you
 13             see the native eel grasses that are present
 14             there and a real very, very clear water.
 15                  To the right is an image that's taken from
 16             this decade.  And it shows a Lyngbya dominated
 17             system in much less clarity.  It really has
 18             changed the overall character of that
 19             particular spring in these locations.
 20                  We also see phosphorus and nitrogen
 21             pollution in Florida canals, and there are
 22             miles and miles and miles of canals throughout
 23             Central Florida, they have a variety of
 24             landscapes, and they flow into some pretty
 25             important downstream waters.  This particular
00023
  1             canal flows into Biscayne Bay.
  2                  There are protections for nitrogen and
  3             phosphorus pollution in Florida water quality
  4             standards.  They currently have a narrative
  5             statement.  It says something to the effect of
  6             nutrients shall not be present in amounts that
  7             would cause an imbalance in the natural
  8             populations in Florida.  That's an excellent
  9             statement.  And Florida has actually made very
 10             good use of that water quality standard and
 11             they have been able to do a lot of good work
 12             with it.  The issue is that the work has to be
 13             done on a case by case basis and it's often
 14             somewhat reactionary.  When there is a problem,
 15             they use that narrative statement to come in
 16             and try to figure out what levels need to be to
 17             restore it.  It would be a lot quicker process,
 18             a lot more efficient, a lot more ultimately
 19             effective to have numeric nutrient criteria in
 20             place so that we can efficiently, effectively
 21             restore the water, and, perhaps more
 22             importantly, put the necessary controls in
 23             place in advance of a water body going into a
 24             bad condition so that the waters that are safe
 25             and healthy today remain so.
00024
  1                  Nutrients in excess amounts come from a
  2             variety of sources.  They come from urban
  3             landscapes.  They come from cattle and crop
  4             fields.  They come from air emissions, from
  5             cars and power plants.  They come from faulty
  6             septic tanks.  They come from sewage treatment
  7             works, and some discharges from industries.
  8                  We haven't had it amply demonstrated
  9             through numerous remarks that people have made
 10             over the last few days, but better treatment
 11             and better management practices really do and
 12             have been demonstrated to remove nutrients from
 13             the waters and stop their flow into those
 14             systems.
 15                  A note on water quality standards, and
 16             that's the subject of the EPA's proposal.
 17             Water quality standards essentially are
 18             comprised of two components.
 19                  The first is the designated uses.  The
 20             designated uses are what we want from our
 21             waters.  It's a clear, concise statement of the
 22             management objective.
 23                  The second component is protective water
 24             quality criteria.  That's the specific amounts
 25             and levels of pollutants that can be in those
00025
  1             waters and still maintain the designated use.
  2                  For freshwater, Florida has overwhelming
  3             designated their uses in keeping with the goals
  4             of the Clean Water Act for a couple of
  5             different classes.
  6                  Class I is disposable water supply.  Class
  7             III is recreation and propagation and
  8             maintenance of healthy, well-balanced
  9             populations of fish and wildlife.
 10                  Those two designated uses share goals for
 11             human health, for recreation and for aquatic
 12             life.  So we see these are Florida's goals and
 13             this is what we are trying to protect.
 14                  We have been recommending the numeric
 15             nutrient criteria since 1998.  And more
 16             recently, in consultation with the Florida
 17             Department of Environmental Protection, we have
 18             determined that numeric nutrient criteria were
 19             necessary for flowing waters and for lakes and
 20             for estuaries and coastal waters within the
 21             State of Florida to meet the goals of the Clean
 22             Water Act.  And that was done in January 2009.
 23                  FDEP has done a lot of work and they
 24             proposed their own nutrient criteria in the
 25             summer of 2009, held a number of public
00026
  1             workshops.  We attended those workshops, they
  2             were quite beneficial for us as we learned from
  3             our colleges.
  4                  We did enter into a legal agreement in
  5             August of 2009 with environmental
  6             non-government organizations to ensure the
  7             nutrient criteria be put in place for Florida
  8             waters.
  9                  Two rules.  One is for lakes of flowing
 10             waters that we are talking about today, and
 11             that's in 2010.  Next year, in 2011, we will be
 12             doing a rule for estuaries and coastal waters.
 13                  Part of our proposal, we relied on an
 14             extensive database that Florida has available
 15             to them with respect to nitrogen and phosphorus
 16             pollution.  We also used the technical analyses
 17             that the FDEP conducted, as well as some of our
 18             own.
 19                  As far as the databases, there are
 20             thousands of sites that have been sampled.
 21             Tens of thousands of samples.  And with all the
 22             observations in those samples, hundreds of
 23             thousands to work with.
 24                  For lakes, we need an open water - an open
 25             contiguous body of water.  We have classified
00027
  1             Florida lakes in three groups based on natural
  2             color and also alkalinity.  When we were able
  3             to derive criteria from looking at field
  4             correlations between chlorophyll A and total
  5             phosphorus and total nitrogen.  Chlorophyll A
  6             is light pigment, that it is part of the cells
  7             of algae and plants and it's a good measure of
  8             the primary productivity of the systems.
  9                  We also have a feature in our proposed
 10             rule that allows the phosphorus and nitrogen
 11             criteria to be adjusted for waters where they
 12             are demonstrated that they are the meeting
 13             target for low levels.
 14                  This table here shows our proposed values.
 15             And you can see from the chlorophyll A levels
 16             that are up here that certain lakes, the
 17             colored lakes and the clear alkaline lakes,
 18             they receive higher amounts of nutrients and
 19             they would have expectations for greater levels
 20             of plant productivity.
 21                  The clear acidic lakes, they would receive
 22             less nutrients as far as their natural
 23             expectations and levels of productivity would
 24             be lower.
 25                  The middle values show the criteria that
00028
  1             would be associated through those correlations
  2             of field data for total phosphorus and total
  3             nitrogen.
  4                  The columns on the right show how those
  5             levels could be adjusted upwards where that
  6             target is met for an individual lake.
  7                  Streams are free-flowing waters that are
  8             in defined channels.  We classified streams
  9             into different regions of the state based on
 10             underlying geology and natural features, as
 11             well as watershed boundaries.
 12                  We were able to develop criteria for
 13             rivers and streams using a tool that the
 14             Florida Department of Environmental Protection
 15             developed called a Stream Condition Index.
 16             This allows identification of streams with
 17             healthy biology.  We looked at total nitrogen
 18             and total phosphorus levels in those streams
 19             that had demonstrated that they are healthy,
 20             and indicating that they are meeting their
 21             designated uses.
 22                  The instream protection criteria that are
 23             associated with those streams are shown on the
 24             chart here for the various regions of the
 25             state.  There are -- You can see that there are
00029
  1             a couple of regions of the state in the Bone
  2             Valley near Tampa Bay, Sarasota area and up in
  3             the North Central where there is phosphorus
  4             rich soil.  And there's different expectations
  5             then for total phosphorus in those regions than
  6             in other parts of the state.
  7                  Our federal relations require that we are
  8             establishing water quality standards, we have
  9             to assure the maintenance and protection of
 10             downstream water quality standards.  And we
 11             know that rivers flow and they carry the
 12             nutrients that are in them with them down to
 13             the downstream waters and into downstream lakes
 14             and downstream estuaries.  We have a couple of
 15             features of our proposed rule that address
 16             this.
 17                  For lakes, we use an equation that can
 18             relate the concentration of the lakes and the
 19             concentration of the streams in watershed and
 20             adjust the stream criteria accordingly, if
 21             necessary.
 22                  For estuaries, we have used a United
 23             States geological survey model called the
 24             SPARROW model.  And this model is a watershed
 25             scale model that allows us to use calibrated
00030
  1             data to examine the loadings coming in from
  2             landscaped sources and to transport to the
  3             watershed.  Using this tool we can identify
  4             protective loads for those downstream
  5             estuaries.  We can also translate these
  6             protective loads into concentration values
  7             upstream in the rivers and streams in that
  8             watershed.
  9                  Those concentrations are called downstream
 10             protection values.  These downstream protection
 11             values are often lower than the corresponding
 12             instream protection values, and that's because
 13             the total nitrogen, which is where - the
 14             parameters we made these calculations for, the
 15             effects of that often manifests itself more
 16             strongly in the estuary waters than they would
 17             in the upstream waters.
 18                  We indicated that with these downstream
 19             protection values we could go final with those
 20             as proposed in October of 2010 or we could wait
 21             and hold off until we do our estuary and
 22             coastal rule and go final with them in 2011.
 23                  For springs, we have a wealth of
 24             laboratory studies and field studies that
 25             indicate that certain levels of nitrate and
00031
  1             nitrite are necessary to be maintained so that
  2             we don't have nuisance algae, like the Lyngbya
  3             that I showed.  And we have a specific criteria
  4             that is the same as what the FDEP was proposing
  5             back in the summer.
  6                  South Florida canals, these are systems
  7             that are man made and are largely there for
  8             flood control and for irrigation.  These carry
  9             the same designated use of aquatic life, human
 10             health and recreation as do rivers and streams
 11             when they are classified as Class III waters,
 12             and many of them are.
 13                  We went through a similar process for
 14             identifying the protective criteria that we
 15             went through for rivers and streams,
 16             identifying canals that are not in impaired
 17             condition where we can infer that the
 18             designated uses are being met.
 19                  With that analysis we propose criteria for
 20             chlorophyll A, for total phosphorus and for
 21             total nitrogen.
 22                  A couple other features of our proposed
 23             rule that I would like to quickly bring your
 24             attention to.  We have an allowance for site
 25             specific criteria.  These are adjustments to
00032
  1             the values that I showed that can be put in
  2             place upon demonstration that they are
  3             protected in the designated use.  This is a
  4             feature of the federal rule, not of the state
  5             rule.
  6                  We also have an allowance for what we call
  7             restoration standards.  This would allow the
  8             state to work with communities to develop
  9             interim designated uses in criteria that would
 10             allow them to achieve the full designated use
 11             in gradual time increments.  This may be useful
 12             where conditions are such that it's going to
 13             take a long time to ultimately achieve the
 14             goals.
 15                  We did do an economic analysis of our
 16             proposed rule, and with that, we look at doing
 17             biological state-of-the-art treatment for
 18             wastewater treatment plants, for best
 19             management practices for nonpoint sources and
 20             replacement of faulty septic systems.
 21                  We did not look at stormwater management
 22             as part of our process.  We certainly heard a
 23             lot about that from folks.
 24                  The total estimates are around
 25             $140 million per year.  That would be
00033
  1             translated into a total of about $1.5 billion
  2             according to our analysis with those
  3             assumptions that we made.
  4                  We are expecting public comment and we are
  5             hoping we get that in addition to the input
  6             that we are getting form these public hearings.
  7             Our deadline is March 29th, 2010.  And I
  8             encourage everyone here who has attended to
  9             submit written comments to us and we are
 10             obliged to respond to those.
 11                  So with that, there are some quick review
 12             bullets points that are in the handouts that I
 13             will leave with you, but what I would like to
 14             do is turn things over so we can get started
 15             with the public comment.  Thanks very much.
 16                  MS. KEEHNER:  Thank you.
 17                  At around five minutes after 6:00 I
 18             understood that we have about 25 people who
 19             have signed up to provide remarks this evening.
 20             At five minutes per person we are probably
 21             talking about something a little over two
 22             hours.  I am just letting you know so you can
 23             sort of see -- 53?  No.  Let me clarify.  There
 24             are about 25 people -- What we do is with the
 25             pre-registered people, they are numbered one
00034
  1             through 50, and then 51 through 54 people who
  2             registered tonight to speak.  So there are
  3             something on the order of 25 or so people and
  4             about two hours worth of testimony or remarks
  5             that will be delivered.
  6                  When I call you up to the podium and I
  7             call your number, please state your name and
  8             your affiliation.  Each speaker will have five
  9             minutes.  And we do assist you.  You can see on
 10             the screen that we provide a timer and that
 11             will give you a sense of where you are in your
 12             remarks and how close you are to the end of the
 13             five minute period.  And what we will do then
 14             is call the next number up and we will go
 15             through everyone who signed up to provide
 16             remarks tonight.
 17                  So without further adieu, I am going to
 18             ask that speaker number one come to the podium.
 19                  MR. BROWN:  Good evening.  My name is
 20             Randy Brown.  I am the Chairman of the
 21             Southeast Florida Utility Council.  We have a
 22             membership of about 35 utilities serving six
 23             billion people in South Florida.
 24                  Utilities are our prime guardians of the
 25             environment.  If we don't protect our source
00035
  1             water, we don't have drinking water for our
  2             citizens.  If we don't clean up the water, we
  3             pollute the environment in which we live in.
  4             So we take it as a very serious charge that we
  5             assist in protecting the environment.
  6                  We believe that it's very important that
  7             nonpoint sources be regulated and watched as
  8             point source pollution.  Many utilities have
  9             presented technology issues and cost impacts as
 10             has been presented that the best available
 11             biological treatment is unable to treat to the
 12             EPA's proposed standards, and that a
 13             homeowner's wastewater bill will at least
 14             double.
 15                  The Water Reuse Research Association
 16             Foundation is conducting a study now of impacts
 17             from impaired water bodies on - in Florida
 18             concerning advanced wastewater treatment and
 19             reuse treatment, and those areas do not align
 20             up with the impaired water bodies in the State
 21             of Florida.  So there seems to be a lack of
 22             coordination between the two.
 23                  I would also want to state that the canals
 24             were never meant to be treated as streams, and
 25             the databases are even separate.  So I think
00036
  1             that you are placing a burden on the trafficway
  2             that should not be treated as environmental
  3             pristine waters.
  4                  Some of the potential direct impacts
  5             proposed by the numeric nutrient criteria will
  6             have on the utilities and our customers, and
  7             realizing that the amount of traditional water
  8             sources available for growth in South Florida
  9             are inadequate, and in order to protect the
 10             regional water supply and prevent future
 11             depletions of the supply in 2006 the South
 12             Florida Water Management District enacted the
 13             Regional Availability Rule, which places limits
 14             or caps the amount of water that can be
 15             withdrawn from the Biscayne aquifer to supply
 16             the needs of residents of South Florida.
 17                  They would have to come up with
 18             alternative water supplies, including the use
 19             of reclaimed water, with the subsequent
 20             adoption of Senate Bill 1302, also known as the
 21             Ocean Outfall Bill that was signed into law.
 22             This law placed requirements on five utilities
 23             in South Florida who serve over 6 million
 24             residents and comprise 40 percent of the total
 25             affluent in Florida that realize -- that
00037
  1             utilize ocean outfall through the means of
  2             treated affluent disposal.  This one
  3             requirement imposed by the legislation is to
  4             the use of 60 percent of that water is
  5             reclaimed water.  The level of treatment will
  6             significantly increase the carbon footprint of
  7             what's now being used.  We may have cleaner
  8             water, but we will have fewer icebergs.
  9                  In effect, environmentally sound way to
 10             meet both the South Florida Water Management
 11             District's and statutory requirements, many of
 12             the utilities have gone on ambitious efforts to
 13             utilize this water on large golf courses,
 14             industry, and to provide a way to make use and
 15             utilize this, and also use it in stormwater
 16             ponds with stormwater.
 17                  The cost associated with the wastewater
 18             treatment plant upgrades necessary to meet the
 19             proposed criteria will prohibit this practice;
 20             therefore, the proposed numeric nutrient
 21             criteria standards, an exorbitant cost to meet
 22             those standards, with dubious environmental
 23             impact have the potential to curtail the
 24             beneficial use of reclaimed water and
 25             significantly crippling the water supply needs
00038
  1             of Floridians.
  2                  Thank you.
  3                  MS. KEEHNER:  Thank you, Mr. Brown.
  4                  Speaker number two.
  5                  MR. WALDRON:  Good evening.
  6                  MS. KEEHNER:  Good evening.
  7                  MR. WALDRON:  My name is Mike Waldron.  I
  8             am a sixth generation Floridian.  I am a board
  9             member with the Highland County Farm Bureau
 10             over in Sebring and spokesman for Highland
 11             Greenhouses Delray Plants.
 12                  Let me start by giving a short background
 13             of Highland Greenhouses Delray Plants.  Delray
 14             Plants is a $60 million a year company with
 15             over 500 employees.  It's located in the
 16             southernmost part of Highland County and it's
 17             been there for the past 12 years.  The founder
 18             of the company, Mr. Jake Koornneef, started
 19             Delray Plants in the Delray Beach area back in
 20             1968, and still has two nursery locations there
 21             today.
 22                  In the late '80s the family decided to
 23             purchase close to 300 acres in the Venus area
 24             and move the majority of shadehouse and
 25             greenhouse operations to that new location.
00039
  1                  Obviously the owners of Delray Plants have
  2             plenty of requirements to follow from the
  3             various agencies that were in place at the time
  4             that construction began.  The family that owns
  5             Delray Plants Company is Dutch.  And the Dutch,
  6             as you may know, are known for being good
  7             businessmen and sometimes doing things to the
  8             extreme.
  9                  With that being said, that was the case
 10             and it still is today.  Edward Koorrneef made
 11             certain that measures above and beyond what
 12             were called for were in place during
 13             construction.  Slope and swales were
 14             constructed in which all water runoff water
 15             flows and then into a series of ditches which
 16             are maintained and mowed regularly.
 17                  From here, the water flows into recovery
 18             ponds and every water management rule is
 19             followed to the letter.  No water leaves the
 20             farm unless it's in the event of a major
 21             rainfall event, like that which a hurricane
 22             produces.
 23                  Delray Plants Highland Greenhouses
 24             operates in Palm Beach, Highland and Hardee
 25             Counties and totals a little over 225 acres of
00040
  1             production space.  Let me impress upon you this
  2             is merely 10 million square feet of plant
  3             production.
  4                  So with that, many BMP measures are used
  5             and are in place at all three locations.  And
  6             the measures are not without their costs.  In
  7             our business, passing along increases doesn't
  8             happen most of the time.  And when we do pass
  9             along an increase, it doesn't happen overnight.
 10                  With that being said, the last three years
 11             have been incredibly tough in the plant
 12             business.  Increased fuel prices have caused
 13             freight to skyrocket, and it's obviously passed
 14             along with everything we purchase from freight
 15             to fertilizer to soil.
 16                  We all share the same goal and desire to
 17             protect the waters of Florida.  At this time
 18             extra cash is not readily available for
 19             implementing pollution control technology, if
 20             it is even available at this time to meet the
 21             proposed standards.
 22                  Delray Plants believes in sound science
 23             practices and it shows by being successful in
 24             the plant business for more than 40 years.  We
 25             expect the same from our government agencies.
00041
  1                  Now I have not read all 196 pages of
  2             double-spaced text, footnotes and 27 data
  3             tables, nor do I intend to.
  4                  And Delray Plants disagrees with taxing
  5             any family or business more than their fair
  6             share to pay for pollution control.
  7                  We agree that the EPA should collaborate
  8             with the Florida Department of Environmental
  9             Protection in developing attainable numeric
 10             nutrient standards as urged by Congressman Adam
 11             Putnam.  And to quote Congressman Putnam, "To
 12             date the only collaboration I have seen is
 13             between EPA and a few litigants."
 14                  And I close with this, any and everyone
 15             that lives here in Florida or visits Florida
 16             adds to nutrient enrichment; septic tanks,
 17             walking the dog, raising and feeding animals,
 18             fertilizing lawns and gardens or managing a
 19             large farm operation.  Our challenge is to make
 20             sure that any measures are fair and equitable
 21             to all the people of Florida.  More work needs
 22             to take place between these two agencies for a
 23             lasting solution.
 24                  Thank you so much for your time.
 25                  MS. KEEHNER:  Thank you, Mr. Waldron.
00042
  1                  MR. KING:  Mr. Waldron, may I ask you one
  2             question?  I am curious, by any chance, if you
  3             had a sense of what it is about your operation
  4             that would be affected by the proposed
  5             regulations?  That may not be your department,
  6             but I just -- if you have a sense of that?
  7                  MR. WALDRON:  You would be right in saying
  8             that I don't have a sense of that at the time,
  9             but I just guess presumably that we would have
 10             to put some measures in to catch water leaving
 11             our farm, making sure that it's okay before it
 12             enters into an area like Fisheating Creek.
 13                  MR. KING:  If -- and for everybody else,
 14             as well, if your group decides to submit
 15             written comments, it would be helpful to us to
 16             understand which piece of the proposal, how you
 17             see it applying to your operations and the
 18             nature and degree of the impact.  Just helps us
 19             to understand better so when we go from
 20             proposal to final we can be better informed.
 21             And we would appreciate that if you would.
 22                  MR. WALDRON:  Thanks for your comment.
 23             Appreciate it.
 24                  MS. KEEHNER:  Speaker number three?
 25                  MR. LASSITER:  Good evening.  My name is
00043
  1             Ken Lassiter.  I live at 6131 Hook lane in
  2             Boynton Beach.
  3                  It is my honor to serve as the President
  4             of the Coalition of Boynton West Residential
  5             Associations, otherwise known as COBRA.
  6                  COBRA is not-for-profit civic organization
  7             serving the people in unincorporated Palm Beach
  8             County west of the city of Boynton Beach.  The
  9             Coalition has 88 residential communities, as
 10             members representing about 100,000 people.  Our
 11             members live in homeowners and condo
 12             associations.  They all the have ponds that
 13             serve as the primary storage for stormwater
 14             runoff.  Excess water flows into the system of
 15             canals managed by the Lake Worth Drainage
 16             District, which goes out to tide.
 17                  Many communities use these ponds as a
 18             source for irrigation of lawns, shrubs and
 19             trees.  Other communities use reclaimed water
 20             for their irrigation.  Some eve use a
 21             combination by putting reclaimed water to keep
 22             their lakes full.
 23                  The people in COBRA support clean water
 24             for our lakes, ponds and flowing rivers.  We
 25             agree that improvements need to and should be
00044
  1             made.  But we question if it's feasible and
  2             affordable to reach the severe limits proposed
  3             for nitrogen and phosphorus beginning October
  4             of this year.  We are told by engineers that
  5             these limits would require sums of moneys far
  6             larger than the State of Florida and our
  7             citizens can afford in present the economy.
  8             Many of our homeowners associations are in dire
  9             financial situation because of all the
 10             foreclosures and the people not paying their
 11             association dues.
 12                  We are told that these limits would
 13             require building large storage facilities to
 14             treat stormwater runoff before it can be
 15             bleached into our canals at the tide.  Our
 16             communities do not have space for building
 17             these stormwater large water storage facilities
 18             because the houses, communities abut up next to
 19             each other.  So the only way you could build a
 20             storage facility is to have eminent domain and
 21             to condemn a lot of homes to build places for
 22             water.
 23                  A big part of COBRA area is in the
 24             agricultural reserve, land where development
 25             rights were purchased by a county bond issue.
00045
  1             The bonds were approved by the votive of these
  2             lands to stay in agricultural production
  3             forever without pressure from developers.
  4                  COBRA considers itself one of the
  5             guardians of the ag reserve.  We realize how
  6             important it is to our economy and how
  7             important the winter vegetables we supply to
  8             the nation are to the nutrition of Americans.
  9             We also believe that locally produced
 10             vegetables, as we enjoy, are the most
 11             nutritious and the best tasting.  Proposed
 12             limits will eliminate all financial incentive
 13             for farmers to continue producing in a part of
 14             Florida where killing frosts are virtually
 15             unknown.  The situation would severely damage
 16             the most important sector of the Palm Beach
 17             County economy agriculture.
 18                  We ask the EPA to delay limitations of
 19             these proposed limits while you make more
 20             studies to determine the best compromise
 21             between lower limits on nitrogen and phosphorus
 22             and cost-effective control methods.
 23                  Come and look at the area.  Look at our
 24             communities.  Give us your best advice how we
 25             can reduce polluted stormwater runoff without
00046
  1             increasing our water and sewage costs an
  2             estimated 400 to 600 percent.
  3                  Finally, I ask water engineer if the rain
  4             that falls from our skies would meet the
  5             proposed limits.  His reply was, sometimes not.
  6             How can the EPA seriously propose pollution
  7             limits that cannot be met by rainfall?  We
  8             believe these proposed limits are too extreme.
  9                  Thank you for the opportunity to speak.
 10                  MS. KEEHNER:  Thank you, Mr. Lassiter.
 11                  Speaker number four.
 12                  MR. MARTIN:  Good evening, EPA.  How are
 13             you doing?
 14                  MS. KEEHNER:  Good.
 15                  MR. MARTIN:  I am Patrick Martin,
 16             professional engineer.  I am the Director of
 17             Engineering for Lake Worth Drainage District.
 18                  Speaker number three actually kind of gave
 19             me a very good segway.  The district was
 20             originally created in south beach Palm Beach
 21             County.  It was originally created in 1913.
 22             Its purpose then was to reclaim the land,
 23             making agriculture and human settlement
 24             possible.
 25                  Today Lake Worth Drainage District has
00047
  1             close to a million residents in southeast Palm
  2             Beach County.  LWDD through its permanent
  3             program checks all projects for current water
  4             quality standards.  And while they may be
  5             narrative presumptive, they are checked and are
  6             checked frequently.
  7                  Now EPA is proposing numeric standards
  8             that are physically and economically
  9             impossible; moreover, not necessary.  The
 10             numeric standards proposed by the EPA do not
 11             represent the unique character of Florida.
 12             From subtropical in the south to temperate in
 13             the north, nutrients and the ability of the
 14             various water bodies to assimilate them vary
 15             greatly.  These standards must be site
 16             specific.  I heard that earlier today.  I am
 17             glad to hear that.  If not, pristine water
 18             bodies will be classified as impaired, and
 19             valuable resources will be spent needlessly.
 20                  As was stated by the Florida Department of
 21             Environment that the estimated statewide
 22             clean-up will reach conservatively $60 billion.
 23             This is equivalent to the State of Florida's
 24             entire yearly budget, creating a future federal
 25             unfunded mandate and requiring huge tax
00048
  1             increases.
  2                  Lake Worth Drainage District operates --
  3             and please take this one, listen to this
  4             paragraph.  Lake Worth Drainage District,
  5             within its four basins, is defined by the South
  6             Florida Water Management District using storage
  7             treatment area technology that they currently
  8             employ.  We predict that 21,000 acres of land
  9             would be required to meet the proposed
 10             phosphorus standards.  This is equivalent to 23
 11             I-95 corridors side by side from the south
 12             county line of Boca Raton, all the way to
 13             Okeechobee Boulevard in West Palm Beach, a one
 14             mile stretch, and would have to be located in
 15             the I-95 corridor.  And the reason for that, it
 16             would have to be clean before it enters the
 17             Intracoastal waterway.
 18                  Further, these STAs -- I'm sorry.  This
 19             would require the taking of economic proportion
 20             that includes residential, commercial and
 21             industrial properties.
 22                  Florida Class III recreational waters are
 23             defined as fishable, swimmable.  In some cases,
 24             as with nutrients, this is a bit of a quandary.
 25             Fishable waters are typically higher in
00049
  1             nutrient loading, while swimmable waters are
  2             low in nutrients.  We certainly don't want
  3             earaches, do we?
  4                  In this case -- In the case of Lake Worth
  5             Drainage District the Florida Fish and Wildlife
  6             Conservation Commission performed a study of
  7             Lake Worth Drainage canal system.  They found
  8             it to be an excellent fishery.  Excellent.
  9             Grade A.  The drainage canals were never
 10             designed to be swimmable.
 11                  The value of the district's canals for
 12             total phosphorus varies greatly from the
 13             proposed 42 micrograms per liter standard to
 14             below that standard to well above that
 15             standard.
 16                  In conclusion, Lake Worth Drainage
 17             District urges you, urges the EPA to work with
 18             the department to make decisions based on
 19             watershed approach, look at the total maximum
 20             daily load program strongly and establish fair
 21             values that are science-based and site
 22             specific.
 23                  And with that, I thank you very much for
 24             hearing me.
 25                  MS. KEEHNER:  Thank you, Mr. Martin.
00050
  1                  Speaker number five.
  2                  MR. KOCH:  My name is John B. Koch,
  3             spelled K-o-c-h.  I am a retired professor of
  4             economics.  I live in Greenacres, Florida.  And
  5             since retiring I have become active in the
  6             Sierra Club.  However, I am here today to
  7             encourage you to implement the numeric
  8             standards for nitrogen and phosphorus.
  9                  Allowing a farm or a business to engage in
 10             activities that pollute water that flows away
 11             to someone else's neighborhood, flows towards
 12             the coast where they have to spend more money
 13             to clean it up to make it drinkable or do
 14             whatever they -- or make it suitable for their
 15             use is like putting a tax on the downstream
 16             people to benefit the upstream people.
 17                  Further, water pollution affects a number
 18             of downstream industries, such as recreation,
 19             tourism, fishing and so forth and so on, that
 20             are very important here in Palm Beach County.
 21             And there again, allowing a lot of polluted
 22             water to come down into our rivers and streams
 23             and estuaries makes these attractions less
 24             attractive to their customers and people don't
 25             come to Florida and the coastal businesses lose
00051
  1             money.  So pollution is kind of a transfer
  2             payment or a way that people upstream can dump
  3             part of the cost of their operations on the
  4             people downstream.
  5                  Further, one of the major barriers to
  6             Everglades restoration, which is being financed
  7             mostly with our state tax money, is dealing
  8             with all of the pollution and the water in the
  9             Everglades eco -- in the -- in the -- I -- the
 10             river that flows down into Lake Okeechobee and
 11             in Lake Okeechobee it flows out the other end
 12             of the Lake Okeechobee.  Much of this is
 13             generated by agriculture, and it seems to me
 14             that the only fair thing to do is to make them
 15             clean up their mess.
 16                  So putting some numerical regulations on
 17             these pollutants is not only environmentally a
 18             good idea, it's also good economics.
 19                  Thank you.
 20                  MS. KEEHNER:  Thank you, Mr. Koch.
 21                  Speaker number six.
 22                  MR. SIMMS:  Good evening.  My name is
 23             David Simms.  I am from Lake Worth.  I am a
 24             member of the Sierra Club.
 25                  And I would like to urge the EPA to go
00052
  1             forward with implementing your standards of
  2             nitrogen and phosphorus limits.  I think we are
  3             all stewards of the land and the environment,
  4             citizens, government and businesses.  And
  5             businesses are profiting from the land, they
  6             should take a responsibility to repair some of
  7             their damage.
  8                  Now they have said that it is expensive.
  9             But there are practices that could be used that
 10             could reduce that expense.  There's also ways
 11             of distributing that expense around -- around
 12             to other parties.
 13                  Now they mention the cost.  Well, the
 14             speaker before me mentioned the cost of not
 15             implementing the standards to people
 16             downstream.  Well, there's another cost that we
 17             should consider, and that's the cost of health
 18             care for the people that get cancer and babies
 19             that have breathing problems due to the
 20             nitrates that the person mentioned earlier.  If
 21             we don't implement these standards and the
 22             water quality remains poor and we have these
 23             algae blooms, that's going to cause an increase
 24             in health care cost for citizens whose health
 25             is affected.  Now yes, there's a big cost, but
00053
  1             clean water is a priority, and I believe it's
  2             worth the cost.
  3                  I think it's -- Another thing I would like
  4             to say is that there is a lot of pressure.
  5             There's a lot of political pressure to stop the
  6             EPA from implementing these standards.  And I
  7             think we would be much better off if we would
  8             weather and endure those pressures and go ahead
  9             and implement these changes and these reforms,
 10             and it would be a tragedy if we let these
 11             pressures derail, derail these suggested
 12             reforms which are based on science.
 13                  Now I would like to make one more point
 14             and that was about something I read in the news
 15             about the hearing like this in Orlando
 16             yesterday.  There was a report in the newspaper
 17             and on the internet that there was a larger
 18             crowd and there was a lot of hostility towards
 19             these reforms.  And some of them were coming
 20             from people who were against federal government
 21             action.  They were against -- they didn't think
 22             that the EPA - the federal government
 23             belonged - had the right to come down to
 24             Florida to implement standards that we would --
 25             that we would abide by.
00054
  1                  And my response to that is that they do --
  2             you do have a legitimate reason to come down
  3             here because the water quality was so poor and
  4             our state agency was not doing anything about
  5             it.  And the reason they weren't doing anything
  6             about it was because of political pressure
  7             against it.
  8                  You are also justified in coming down
  9             here -- I would like to say this to the
 10             anti-government activists:  The EPA is also
 11             justified in coming down here because the
 12             process in which you came down here was based
 13             upon scientific analysis, it was based on the
 14             judicial process where both sides - where all
 15             parties could air -- have their views heard,
 16             both pro and con.
 17                  So in closing, I would say please, for
 18             everybody in Florida, implement the numerical
 19             standards.
 20                  MS. KEEHNER:  Thank you, Mr. Simms.
 21                  Speaker number seven.
 22                  MR. RYAN:  Good evening.  My name is John
 23             Ryan.  I am a member of the Board of
 24             Supervisors of the Loxahatchee Groves Water
 25             Control District.
00055
  1                  I have read substantial background
  2             information, including the federal register,
  3             and I am aware of data that's being sent to EPA
  4             by scientific and economic experts that
  5             challenge your science and your economic data.
  6             I don't pretend to be one of those experts, but
  7             I do represent water control district and
  8             landowners who could have to pay bills
  9             associated with EPA's proposed numeric nutrient
 10             criteria.
 11                  Regarding EPA's proposed criteria, I have
 12             a general comment and a few specific comments.
 13                  The general comment is that I hope that
 14             your public hearings in Florida give EPA a
 15             similar concern that Admiral Yamamoto had after
 16             he thought about the consequences of attacking
 17             Pearl Harbor in 1941.  The quote was, "I fear
 18             all we have done is to awake a sleeping giant
 19             and fill him with a terrible resolve."  Florida
 20             simply can't afford what you are proposing.
 21                  Specific comments.  My main concern is for
 22             our water control district, the 29 miles of
 23             canals that serve an 8,000 acre ag res
 24             community with respect to primarily flood
 25             control, but also irrigation, water table
00056
  1             maintenance and wild flower protection.  Our
  2             canals are not used for boating recreation, nor
  3             are they stream-like water sources for fish and
  4             animal wildlife.
  5                  Most important, we only discharge water
  6             into the South Florida Water Management
  7             District canals during a heavy rain or flooding
  8             event.  Most of the time we keep the rain
  9             drainage in the canals for ground filtration
 10             and we only use EPA approved methods for
 11             vegetation control in the canals.
 12                  I believe EPA is exceeding the intent and
 13             purpose of the Clean Water Act in certain
 14             respects.  I understand that your basic
 15             jurisdiction to approve numeric nutrient
 16             criteria is a section of the Clean Water Act
 17             that deals with the lakes and flowing water,
 18             estuaries and coastal water.  Trying to force
 19             essential flood control canals into a
 20             definition of streams and flowing waters is a
 21             stretch.  That is just wrong.
 22                  Also, the Consent Decree, that seems to be
 23             your source of immediate activity, does not
 24             appear to include canals per paragraph four of
 25             the Consent Decree unless you force a
00057
  1             re-definition of Florida's Category III waters,
  2             which I don't believe you are empowered to do.
  3                  Our flood control canals only discharge
  4             excess water during a heavy rainfall or flood
  5             event.  Then the water goes into South Florida
  6             Water Management District's stormwater
  7             treatment areas for special vegetation
  8             filtration and absorption of phosphorus and
  9             nitrogen.
 10                  Our water control district is simply not
 11             set up to own the land for a huge retention
 12             pond or maintain water treatment facilities in
 13             addition to the South Florida Water Management
 14             District's stormwater treatment areas.  Doing
 15             so would just be redundant.  We already pay a
 16             tax for the South Florida Water Management
 17             District.
 18                  Other problems that I see with EPA's
 19             actions are EPA is not giving adequate
 20             recognition to Florida's numeric nutrient
 21             criteria approach, which gives site specific
 22             and with nutrient limits that are
 23             science-based, not arbitrary.
 24                  Your Consent Decree also seems a little
 25             too convenient as a reason to act arbitrarily
00058
  1             with safe and unrealistically expensive
  2             criteria for total nitrogen, phosphorus and
  3             chlorophyll A that you are proposing.  I would
  4             object as part of that Consent Decree to EPA
  5             paying plaintiffs' attorneys fees if the
  6             plaintiffs were encouraged in any way to file
  7             that lawsuit just for that purpose.
  8                  Thank you.
  9                  MR. KING:  Thank you.
 10                  MS. KEEHNER:  Thank you, Mr. Ryan.
 11                  Speaker number eight?
 12                  MRS. RYAN:  I am Elise Ryan.  I am a
 13             resident of the Town of Loxahatchee Groves
 14             where west of here we have 3,000 people on
 15             about 8,000 acres.  We're spread out.  We have
 16             a septic and well.  We don't have city water.
 17                  As far as I know, we don't have any blue
 18             babies.  I am not aware of any bladder cancer
 19             or any liver damage.  And the wells in our area
 20             are testing safe.
 21                  The water -- people have been running
 22             tests in our canals and I am told that our
 23             nitrogen and phosphorus are at acceptable
 24             levels, although our chlorophyll is not.  My --
 25             We have never had an algae bloom in our canal.
00059
  1                  My concern is that the remedy that you all
  2             don't understand is the way our South Florida
  3             drainage systems work, and that you don't
  4             understand the costs that this would put on a
  5             small community such as ours.  We have eight
  6             canals that drain directly into the C-51 canal.
  7             If you say to us, you know, we have to treat
  8             our -- first of all, the cost of monitoring
  9             would be excessively burdensome for our small
 10             community.  The land in South Florida, to try
 11             to purchase land for a filter marsh in our
 12             area -- we are just north of Wellington and we
 13             can't afford to buy Wellington.
 14                  We also, you know, would have to re-route
 15             our entire drainage system, you know, to try to
 16             put in any sort of water basin in between us
 17             and the C-51 canal.  And from the C-51, it goes
 18             into South Florida Water Management stormwater
 19             treatment Area I, which we are already paying
 20             for.  So we are already paying taxes for a
 21             filter marsh, and now we are being told, well,
 22             you're included so you are going to have for
 23             pay for monitoring and also for some type of
 24             treatment or else I guess we could just flood.
 25             And given that the sea water for Florida is
00060
  1             flat and there's very little difference in
  2             elevation between the lowest point in our
  3             community and the highest, we don't have a lot
  4             of storage capacity for water.  We don't have
  5             any.  This is -- people's houses would go under
  6             if we didn't.
  7                  I am told that this would cost our
  8             community an increase of 400 percent in our
  9             taxes.  For me, as a homeowner, my cost would
 10             be -- and I do have 20 acres of land that we
 11             live on and we run a small nursery there, and
 12             our increase of taxes just to the drainage
 13             district would be about $9,000 a year just for
 14             us.  And that doesn't count what the state
 15             would cost.  And this is going to be multiplied
 16             across all of these small communities who have
 17             no place to put the water.
 18                  So really it has to be realistically
 19             implemented.  I mean, basically I feel that
 20             this is -- Oh, also, you know, I am told that
 21             the criteria that you've established are far
 22             too stringent and cannot be met.  You know, in
 23             some of our areas -- phosphorus is mined in our
 24             areas.  So, you know, we have areas that
 25             already have phosphorus in the water even
00061
  1             without any --
  2                  So basically I would just like to say that
  3             I don't believe the benefits outweigh the cost
  4             and that this needs a lot of thought before
  5             it's put into effect in our area.
  6                  MR. KING:  Thank you very much.
  7                  MS. KEEHNER:  Thank you, Ms. Ryan.
  8                  Speaker number nine?
  9                  MR. CLARK:  Yes, how do you do?  My name
 10             is Dan Clark.  I'm with the Cry of the Water
 11             Conservation Group south of here in Broward
 12             County.  We have seen the effects of the algae
 13             blooms and I want to commend EPA for stepping
 14             up to the plate.
 15                  I have been attending for years
 16             restoration task force meetings.  And although
 17             there's been a movement afoot to lessen the
 18             amount of nutrients that go in the swamp and
 19             stop the cattails from going in the swamp, I
 20             have seen firsthand those health harmful algae
 21             blooms, those Lyngbya blooms and such.
 22                  I do understand that this group is dealing
 23             with inland bodies of water, and there will be
 24             upcoming meetings for the coastal communities
 25             and we will be attending those, as well.  But
00062
  1             all the canals and basically all these bodies
  2             of water we are talking about in southeast
  3             Florida all flow to the coast.  They can no
  4             longer put dirty water in the Everglades,
  5             per se, so we've become the waste gate, off the
  6             west coast and out the east coast.  And when
  7             there's times of plenty, when there's lots of
  8             water - it's been drought conditions for
  9             awhile - but when they have lots of water they
 10             can put a billion gallons a day at a time.  And
 11             I see those effects.  I've swam on the reefs
 12             that have been there since close to hundreds of
 13             years to be wiped out in a single event from
 14             harmful algae blooms.
 15                  Also, the inland bodies, part of that
 16             ecosystem is the grass flats and some of the
 17             inland bodies, as well, so that does fall under
 18             your jurisdiction.
 19                  And we can't expect to clean up the reef
 20             with the water out there on the reef if we
 21             don't address the issue of what's flowing to
 22             the reefs.  And the reefs ultimately are our
 23             downstream and everything.  I mean, our water
 24             shoots up the Kissimmee Valley, some people
 25             referred to.
00063
  1                  I don't think we should put the burden
  2             just on the ag people.  I know a lot of ag
  3             people have turned out for these meetings.
  4                  I see a lot of problems with stormwater
  5             permits, lack of enforcement of stormwater
  6             permits for the coastal areas.  I have got
  7             issues that I will bring up with you in the
  8             next group when you do the coastal issues.  But
  9             there has certainly been a lack of the State of
 10             Florida that that authority has been delegated
 11             to them and they haven't been real good about
 12             implementing and enforcing the stormwater
 13             permits and rules.  So we definitely need -- I
 14             don't want to see just the ag guys come down
 15             on.  I -- really, the coastal communities need
 16             to get with the program, as well.  There are
 17             some BMPs out there, but nobody is enforcing
 18             them.  They're like, oh, those are just best
 19             management practices, we don't have to do that
 20             stuff.  So there are some solutions.
 21                  As far as the numerical standards, I am
 22             not sure -- people are here, some people stood
 23             up here and said well, we can't meet these
 24             standards.  They're saying it's prohibitive to
 25             the reuse.  And the senate bill they are
00064
  1             referring to where they have to go to 60
  2             percent reuse, I worked on that legislation, I
  3             was up in Tallahassee at those senate meetings
  4             and I guess they have to do reuse.  But we had
  5             this discussion with many of the people at
  6             state DEP, and although some of the utility
  7             people and some of the local commissioners will
  8             go around telling you that one is prohibitive
  9             of the other because we can't do reuse and
 10             still have a numerical standard, it can't be
 11             done.  It's simply not true.  Okay.  The reuse
 12             water was never meant to be, at least from my
 13             perspective, discharged directly to those
 14             canals; it's meant for irrigation.  Half the
 15             water we use here in South Florida goes for
 16             irrigation anyhow.  If it's done properly, a
 17             lot of those nutrients are taken up by the
 18             plants and the crops and that's how it's
 19             intended to work.  They do it all over the
 20             state.  I think they got about 80 percent reuse
 21             up there in places.  And that bill, by the way,
 22             went through unanimously here in Florida.  It
 23             was passed, there was no votes against it
 24             because people realize that they really need to
 25             change what they're doing.  So I don't believe
00065
  1             it's prohibitive.
  2                  We really want to see those BMPs in better
  3             enforcement.  And I am going next week to the
  4             U.S. Task Force meeting in Washington where I
  5             intend on singing the praises of the EPA.  And
  6             this thing has been a long time coming because
  7             I've been following the Everglades restoration
  8             and I kept saying well, that's great, you guys
  9             want to save a swap, you don't want cattails,
 10             but what about the rest of the coastal
 11             habitats?  In Broward County we created
 12             expenditures in one year, expenditures are over
 13             $2 billion.  Okay.  Some people just alluded to
 14             it earlier, this is part of our income and part
 15             of what makes Florida and South Florida unique.
 16             Those things are what make us unique and we
 17             can't sustain those things unless we address
 18             what's going on in the water, coming out of the
 19             canals.
 20                  You know, during the drought times it's
 21             not so bad.  But we get these big pulses of
 22             freshwater that they release 'cause it is all
 23             flood control, and we get the pulses, we see
 24             the algae first appear sometimes right near the
 25             locks where they let the water go, like even
00066
  1             into the Hillsboro canal.  I got a picture from
  2             some people out on the reef, they sent me a
  3             picture of this other filamentous algae, this
  4             green filamentous algae, not the Lyngbya algae
  5             calcareous it's called, bright green florescent
  6             stuff, and it was out on the reef.  And I said
  7             well, I recognize that stuff.  Sure enough, we
  8             took some samples and tested it, same stuff.
  9             These pulses really are affecting the coastal
 10             communities and we really need to address it.
 11             And I say we can't afford not to do this,
 12             because unlike the swamp which can be covered
 13             in a short period of time if you change what's
 14             going there, a lot of these costal habitats and
 15             ecosystems, some of these reefs took many, many
 16             years to grow, sometimes centuries, and they
 17             can be wiped out in a very short period of
 18             time.  So I don't want cattails in my swamp,
 19             but I don't want the Lyngbya on the reef
 20             either.
 21                  Thank you.
 22                  MS. KEEHNER:  Thank you, Mr. Clark.
 23                  Speaker number 10.
 24                  MRS. CLARK:  Hello.  Stephanie Clark.
 25                  Thank you for proposing standards to
00067
  1             protect our waters.  And we have spoke a lot
  2             about the things that we are concerned about.
  3             Right now we have an outstanding Florida waters
  4             application out with DEP to protect the area
  5             offshore between Hillsboro Inlet and Port
  6             Everglades.  And one of the reasons we had to
  7             do something like this is because there is no
  8             management planned for the reef and there's no
  9             set standards of what can be put into the water
 10             right now.  So we felt that, you know, as a
 11             local group we had to go ahead and put this
 12             application in.  And now hopefully the
 13             protection you are going to give us with
 14             standards will help us, whether or not we get
 15             the outstanding Florida water designation for
 16             this area of coral reefs.
 17                  Dan was talking about, you know, that we
 18             see the Lyngbya blooms on the reef and
 19             sometimes it's just devastating.  You know,
 20             they say oh, the algae really doesn't kill the
 21             coral.  Well, when you pull that algae off and
 22             the coral is dead, it's dead and it's not going
 23             to come back.
 24                  And we didn't understand.  We did an algae
 25             clean-up to call attention to these, you know,
00068
  1             poor water quality and Lyngbya blooms.  We were
  2             out there picking this Lyngbya off the reef and
  3             what effects this could have had on us, you
  4             know, when we're diving in it and we're, you
  5             know, pulling samples to send to scientists.
  6             How it could have, you know, and still can
  7             affect us.
  8                  We talked about BMP permits and how we
  9             really need these enforced, whether they're in
 10             the coastal areas or the inland areas.  A lot
 11             of outfalls from - whether they're from air
 12             conditioning, you know, cooling towers to
 13             streams and lakes, some of them aren't even
 14             permitted.  So I think we need more stringent
 15             permitting of them to get the enforcement of
 16             things that aren't, you know, captured under
 17             the process.
 18                  Again, I support the sewer outfall bill.
 19             And a lot of people are talking about oh, the
 20             fees are going to go up and our bill is already
 21             going up for water and sewer.  Well, some of
 22             the cities right now, the municipalities are
 23             putting extra fees on it because their budgets
 24             are in so much of a crunch.  They're already
 25             adding fees that have nothing do with the
00069
  1             infrastructure that they need to put on to meet
  2             the standards and the things that they need to
  3             do for -- to meet the AWT standards.
  4                  So all the sudden we're have having these
  5             fees increased and we haven't even done the
  6             work yet, because just to meet the budget
  7             shortfalls.  So, you know, we have to watch
  8             what they're actually spending this money on.
  9                  A new development right next to our
 10             condominium wants to -- it's just a piece of
 11             land and they want to build homes.  But they
 12             don't want to do -- what do I have here.  They
 13             don't want to get the permits and meet the BMPs
 14             for on-site store water retention.  They
 15             haven't even built any houses yet, but they
 16             don't want to do it.  And they say we don't
 17             need to follow those BMPs 'cause those are just
 18             suggestions.  Nobody is making us do that.  So
 19             standards for stormwater treatment will give
 20             us, you know, a way to enforce these BMPs and
 21             not just make it a suggestion.  It should be
 22             more mandatory.
 23                  And I am kind of all over the place, but I
 24             will be submitting written comments which will
 25             be a little bit more focused and hope to put
00070
  1             pictures in there so you can see some of the
  2             things we are talking about, like discharges
  3             and about a lot of land-based sources of
  4             erosion, which are just street ends with all
  5             that, you know, whatever is on the streets
  6             running to the ocean, running to our canals.
  7             And that's about it.
  8                  I want to thank you guys for being here so
  9             much.
 10                  MS. KEEHNER:  Thank you, Ms. Clark.
 11                  MR. KING:  Thank you.
 12                  MS. KEEHNER:  Speaker number 11.
 13                  MS. LARSON:  I have great curiosity about
 14             you guys because I know that up in the
 15             Washington area they threw away your library a
 16             couple years ago, just put everything in a
 17             vault somewhere.  And then when they talk about
 18             the database of water testing, I'm wondering
 19             where you are getting it from as far as
 20             Florida DEP.  Because if you go to a site
 21             called p-e-e-r, peer, they threw out five years
 22             of testing.  So where are you getting your
 23             numbers from?  There is a whistle blower battle
 24             right now with this gentleman named White and
 25             five years of criteria were just gone.
00071
  1                  So what numbers are they giving you, Jim?
  2             I am very, very curious.  I am very good -- I
  3             want to know numbers.  And I am a big pain in
  4             the ass about it.  I am a professional at it.
  5             Been doing it for years.
  6                  MR. KEATING:  All of our data are up on
  7             the dockets.
  8                  MS. LARSON:  Well, no, I -- That's another
  9             thing.  You have negated 50 percent of the
 10             population because we don't have computers.
 11             There's no way to go through 1,500 documents.
 12             I was at DEP yesterday.  My poor friend got the
 13             run-around of a lifetime to try to get just
 14             some basic answers.  Basic answers come down to
 15             the level of a human being, not the science
 16             level.  My dad was a scientist so I got some of
 17             it, but if you're a normal person, they are
 18             being negated and that's just horrible.  I am
 19             ashamed of what I witnessed yesterday.  Because
 20             we were just trying to get some basic answers
 21             on this particular item.
 22                  The Regional Availability Act, I am glad
 23             somebody brought that up, because that's a
 24             gallon of dirty water for a gallon of clean.
 25             That's all it is.  We take gallon of dirty --
00072
  1             you know, clean water out of the earth and we
  2             put in a gallon of dirty.  It's called deep
  3             well injection.  It must have been made up by
  4             somebody who likes out of sight, out of mind
  5             crap.  'Cause I don't like crap and what I'm
  6             seeing here.
  7                  Because your numeric standards for the
  8             Peninsula, the Bone Valley, the Panhandle and
  9             the North County, one is at 43, the panhandle,
 10             a little tiny spot up there.  But then you look
 11             at that big area in the middle where Orlando is
 12             and Reedy Creek Water Management District and
 13             some of the dirtiest water is coming down the
 14             Kissimmee and going into Lake Okeechobee and
 15             turning it into -- you know, it's a toilet.
 16             That's what it is.
 17                  So why do I have to clean up somebody up
 18             north and come down here?  That's bull crap.
 19             It is just crap.  I'll say it.  Nobody wants to
 20             be -- everybody is so nice.  I'm not.  I'm so
 21             sick of this crap because we are spending
 22             billions of dollars.
 23                  So if we are going to set a numeric
 24             standard of 42, it better be the whole damn
 25             state, from the top to the bottom.  It doesn't
00073
  1             make any sense.
  2                  And then when I heard -- One of you, I
  3             think it was you who said well, we will let
  4             them do it gradually.  We will do a pyramid and
  5             we'll let them do it a little bit at a time.
  6             What, 'cause they have more money?  They have
  7             more cattle?
  8                  You know, we have a bad situation.  Here
  9             in our little town we have a place called
 10             Wellington.  They have 10,000 horses.  There
 11             are 40 pounds of poop a day per horse.  They
 12             call it equine residue.  I call it horseshit.
 13             That's what it is.  Don't be offended, but I am
 14             tired.  I have been going to meetings for six
 15             years and I've lost my mind because our water
 16             is being destroyed.  Our kids are not going to
 17             have clean drinking water.
 18                  I hear the utilities crying.  They're the
 19             guys doing this reuse water.  I think that's
 20             going to come back and get us later on.  You
 21             know, we're using 60 percent irrigation and 60
 22             percent of it is freshwater.  That's -- We're
 23             using it to irrigate a golf course.  That
 24             shouldn't be happening.  You do need FTAs, you
 25             do need water storage.  I'm glad that you're
00074
  1             out there, but I want the numeric -- we need to
  2             have a fair and balanced look at this because
  3             that's not happening.
  4                  I think that, you know -- Jeb, years
  5             ago -- FDEP used to have - every single thing
  6             used to be online.  Every permit they were ever
  7             going to do.  They stopped that in July of
  8             2006.  So a layperson cannot get the Florida 
  9             Administrative Weekly.  I never saw your ad.  I
 10             was at the water resources task force.  Someone
 11             was kind enough to give me the website so I
 12             could sign up the women that came here today
 13             with me.  'Cause nobody -- You're negated if
 14             you -- If you are not a computer technical
 15             person, you are not going to get the answers.
 16                  So my request from one of you this
 17             evening, I want you to mail the documents to my
 18             friend because she's the next speaker.  And she
 19             deserves that.  She deserves a good, fair way
 20             of looking at this.  Because regional
 21             availability, that was ridiculous.
 22                  When they did the peer thing, the thing
 23             that I'm telling you to go to, the site about
 24             Mr. White, those tests at that time said
 25             98 percent of the water bodies in Florida were
00075
  1             impaired.  So please take that into
  2             consideration.  I am up here begging you.  I'm
  3             a little off the cuff.  I'm not the normal
  4             broad.  I'm not going to thank you.  I'm not
  5             going to say what a great day it is.  It's just
  6             not my way 'cause I'm a very tired person.  I
  7             have been doing this for six years.  And I go
  8             to the South Florida Water Management District,
  9             I have seen the corruption.  We come from a
 10             corrupt county.  And corruption -- One of the
 11             biggest things we ever did was bribe our county
 12             commissioners who are now in federal prison.
 13             So please take that into consideration.  And if
 14             you're going to set me at 42, you better do it
 15             to everybody else.
 16                  MS. KEEHNER:  Excuse me, could you state
 17             your name?
 18                  MS. LARSON:  It's Alex Larson.
 19                  MS. KEEHNER:  Thank you.
 20                  Speaker number 12, please.
 21                  MS. WHITE:  I'm going to get my stuff
 22             today.  She kept me in pain for half an hour
 23             yesterday while she was looking through a
 24             computer trying to decide which pieces of
 25             information I was going to get at DEP.  That's
00076
  1             what I got.  And she was so condescending,
  2             well, you wouldn't understand those big words.
  3             Well, I have seven grandchildren.  My education
  4             was far better than hers.  Just basic
  5             education.  And I do understand a lot more than
  6             she gave me a lot of credit for.
  7                  So there she is and I don't even want to
  8             know her name because I don't want to be
  9             thinking about her.  This is true.  We were
 10             there yesterday, wasted an hour trying to get
 11             just basic stuff.  I live on almost an acre and
 12             a half.  I live in The Acreage.
 13                  MS. KEEHNER:  Would you state your name,
 14             please?
 15                  MS. WHITE:  I am Sharon White, okay?
 16                  MS. KEEHNER:  Thank you.
 17                  MS. WHITE:  You are welcome.  I forgot.
 18                  Anyway, what I was trying to say here was
 19             that I think a lot of this problem could be
 20             averted because there are a lot of organic ways
 21             of doing things out there no one is talking
 22             about.  Why are we putting all this poison in
 23             the ground when it isn't necessary?  I have
 24             paperwork at home on my desk from a man who has
 25             a company who sells natural ways of fertilizing
00077
  1             and doing things.  I don't understand this.
  2                  The comprehensive Everglades restoration,
  3             and I know you are well aware of all of that.
  4             Why in the world is the state buying up big
  5             sugar when that land is so poisoned and so
  6             tainted?  Why do they think the taxpayer is
  7             going to buy that and pay for it and clean it
  8             up?  I don't want to clean it up.  Let big
  9             sugar clean up their own mess.  Yes, we need
 10             our drinking water, but I don't want to pay for
 11             their messes on my back.
 12                  On top of that, I think you all know where
 13             Lion Country Safari is, out west on Southern
 14             Boulevard, if you're not sure.  FPL built a
 15             3,800 megawatt plant there.  They are about to
 16             put up unit three.  I have been in the thick of
 17             that since the first hearing started a few
 18             years ago.  And it really calls me that here we
 19             are worrying about clean water when they are
 20             destroying what we have right there.  3,800
 21             megawatts.  11 stacks are coming, one is going.
 22             And the filth coming from that now is putting
 23             into my home dirt that was never there before,
 24             and it's only one stack.  So you can imagine
 25             what the deep well injection is going to be
00078
  1             into our aquifer, which they say is not going
  2             to move.  Water migrates, I don't care what the
  3             liar says.  The lie is the lie.  FPL lied in
  4             Tallahassee.  I went there to all those
  5             hearings and the board, I wanted to throw up.
  6             Jeb Bush did his last dirty little act.  He was
  7             sitting there just gitty with the signature,
  8             putting that filthy piece of mess into my
  9             neighborhood.  I am less than five miles from
 10             it.  And I want to tell you, that that was the
 11             dirtiest deal I ever saw here.  And we now we
 12             have got the governor like a shoe in
 13             perpetuating all of this.  And so to make
 14             himself look better, he's going to buy big
 15             sugar.  Well, I hope they throw out the whole
 16             mess.  I don't want to see big sugar get a dime
 17             of my money.  And let them clean up their mess.
 18                  And the other thing is here is why would
 19             our numbers be so much lower here than up
 20             north?  I just -- That's not right.  It
 21             absolutely is not right.
 22                  And I know I am not probably the most
 23             eloquent speaker, but I will always say the
 24             truth.  And I appreciate you very much for
 25             coming.
00079
  1                  MR. KING:  Thank you.
  2                  MS. KEEHNER:  Thank you, Ms. White.
  3                  Speaker number 13?
  4                  MS. CURRY:  Hi, my name is Patricia Curry.
  5                  I really don't know much about your
  6             standards.  I listened to both sides of the
  7             argument.  I do know that our waters are very
  8             polluted.  I also know that there is a
  9             difference between a canal.  Even canals are
 10             different.  There are canals, major canals that
 11             are feeder canals.  There are -- Where I live
 12             in The Acreage there is a canal on 60th Street
 13             called the M Canal and that runs water right to
 14             the City of West Palm Beach.  And I have seen
 15             those algae blooms that you are talking about
 16             because that water is coming from Lake
 17             Okeechobee.  And the water in Lake Okeechobee
 18             is coming from North Florida.
 19                  So when I hear that you are setting
 20             different standards for different parts of the
 21             state, I see polluted water running to the
 22             south where we are and the cost is going to be
 23             impacted on us.  Somehow or another I think you
 24             have to take that into consideration.  I do
 25             think we need the same standards.  I think that
00080
  1             when you do your canal - designations for
  2             canals you have to consider the types of
  3             canals, what the canals are doing.  Where this
  4             woman spoke about Loxahatchee Groves, we are
  5             the next community north of them.  A lot of our
  6             canals are used just for drainage from
  7             properties.  The water is going when it finally
  8             is released -- our water goes to retention
  9             areas where it is cleaned up and then what is
 10             left is needed to be released, is released to
 11             South Florida Water Management who does have
 12             their own clean-up.
 13                  So I pay over $500 a year just to Indian
 14             Trail, then I pay taxes to South Florida Water
 15             Management District.  So when you enact these
 16             standards you have to take that into
 17             consideration.  Maybe it might be better to
 18             allow the various regional water districts
 19             handle as far as filtration, but I think the
 20             farmers or those that are polluting really
 21             needs to be the ones that are cleaning up the
 22             mess which is mostly being generated by them.
 23                  Thank you.
 24                  MS. KEEHNER:  Thank you, Ms. Curry.
 25                  Speaker number 14?
00081
  1                  MR. WEDGEWORTH:  It's going to be
  2             difficult for me to follow those three to four
  3             acts.
  4                  My name is George Wedgeworth.  I am
  5             President of the CEO of Sugarcane Growers
  6             Cooperative of Florida.  Our company was formed
  7             in 1960 and we produced our first crop in 1962.
  8             We are headquartered in Belle Glade on the
  9             south shore of the Lake Okeechobee.  We're
 10             composed of 46 sugarcane grower owners.  We
 11             harvest and produce about 2.75 million tons of
 12             sugarcane annually and nearly about 300,000
 13             tons of sugar.  We produce food, our raw cane
 14             from about 60,000 acres of land in Palm Beach
 15             County.  Water management and farming go hand
 16             in hand.  We, therefore, have very big stake in
 17             your proposed endeavor.
 18                  First, we respectfully ask EPA to consider
 19             extending the time period for technical
 20             comments.  We have a team of consultants who
 21             have been diligently digging into the science
 22             and modeling data used to come up with na
 23             proposed nutrient criteria.
 24                  We further are trying to understand how
 25             the reference site approach, coupled with the
00082
  1             protection of downstream waters overlay impacts
  2             the validity of what's necessary to protect the
  3             ecology and health of our canals.
  4                  The primary canal, Everglades agricultural
  5             area, are all man made and were created almost
  6             a century ago.  As part of the original
  7             Everglades Drainage District, their purpose was
  8             for drainage, primarily flood protection, but
  9             also provided irrigation to the adjacent
 10             farmlands and transportation originally to
 11             coastal products that we grew.  We believe that
 12             the numeric criteria being proposed South
 13             Florida are unnecessary, stringently, to
 14             support the existing historic biology of the
 15             water bodies.  The reference sites used to
 16             develop the criteria do not reflect the canal
 17             system, and, therefore, should not be applied
 18             as one side fits all approach.  Technically
 19             unattainable, and amounts to the nothing more
 20             than the behind closed doors settlement to
 21             litigation approach.
 22                  The EEA farmers, along with the South
 23             Florida Water Management District, have
 24             invested a billion dollars in implementing
 25             on farm agricultural best management practices
00083
  1             and stormwater treatment areas to assure water
  2             quality goals are met in the Everglades
  3             agricultural area.  EPA proposed criteria would
  4             precluded the ability to flow water into these
  5             systems, thus wasting a billion dollars of
  6             taxpayer money and potentially starving the
  7             Everglades for water it says it needs.
  8                  The long laundry list of concerns over the
  9             proposed numeric criteria are too long to list
 10             today.  We will be submitting a form letter and
 11             technical documents further enumerating our
 12             concerns.
 13                  We ask EPA to extend the amount -- to
 14             extend the comment period.  Let Florida develop
 15             a science-based solution to water quality
 16             concerns.
 17                  Thank you.
 18                  MR. KING:  Thank you.
 19                  MS. KEEHNER:  Thank you.
 20                  Speaker number 15.
 21                  MS. LARSON:  Good evening.  My name is
 22             Sarah Larson and I am a student at Florida Gulf
 23             Coast University in Fort Myers.
 24                  I am here tonight to show my support for
 25             numeric nutrient standards.  There is a
00084
  1             tremendous economic value to clean water.  And
  2             numeric nutrient standards are absolutely
  3             necessary to achieve clean water.
  4                  I am, however, concerned about the
  5             specific levels of nitrogen and phosphorus
  6             listed in the EPA's proposed standards.  I
  7             would like to ask the EPA to better collaborate
  8             with the Florida Department of Environmental
  9             Protection to develop numeric nutrient
 10             standards that are based on strong science.
 11                  As a student at Florida Gulf Coast
 12             University, I spend a lot of time doing
 13             research on the Caloosahatchee River, which you
 14             showed pictures of tonight, and have seen the
 15             algal blooms in the river.  As a Floridian, it
 16             is important to me to have numeric nutrient
 17             standards that ensure appropriate regionality
 18             and attainable nutrient levels.
 19                  Regardless of the outcome of the hearings
 20             tonight and the proposed nutrient standards, I
 21             thank the EPA for taking this necessary first
 22             step.  As the last speaker said, he represented
 23             a big stake, I along with the other 11,000
 24             students at Florida Gulf Coast University
 25             represent an even bigger stake as the next
00085
  1             generation, and we want and demand clean water
  2             in Florida.
  3                  Thank you.
  4                  MR. KING:  Thank you.
  5                  MS. KEEHNER:  Thank you, Ms. Larson.
  6                  Speaker number 16.
  7                  MR. JARRIEL:  Ron Jarriel, councilman for
  8             the new town of Loxahatchee Groves.
  9                  I have heard comments -- good comments
 10             from both sides.  I want to compliment the
 11             audience for staying under control, and I want
 12             to thank you all for having us here tonight.
 13                  But I guess my major problem is the timing
 14             of this.  I know -- I think Jim mentioned that
 15             you have talked about this since 1998.  I think
 16             our country, our whole country, not just the
 17             State of Florida, is in an economical situation
 18             that I personally don't think we are going to
 19             pull out of it.  They said two years we would
 20             get back on our feet, head in the right
 21             direction.  I personally don't see it.  I am
 22             working on 59 years old.  I grew up in the Town
 23             of Loxahatchee.  49 years out there.  We have
 24             still got one of the best fishing holes.  We
 25             have got fish, we have got turtles, we have got
00086
  1             birds.  And we do have our waters.
  2                  We have got a professor that lives in
  3             Loxahatchee and he likes to test the waters
  4             every once in awhile when he's in doubt, and so
  5             far we have come up with some pretty good
  6             calculations.
  7                  I guess my biggest point is economically,
  8             if we are talking about the estimated cost of
  9             $50 billion as far as the State of Florida,
 10             that, you know, I just think it's bad timing.
 11             I think it's going to hurt us more than help
 12             us.  I have seen the pictures that you showed
 13             with some of these lakes and stuff.  I think
 14             that's uncalled for, unnecessary, but I haven't
 15             observed it myself.  I travel from the east
 16             coast to the west coast, got property over in
 17             the panhandle, and some of the prettiest lakes
 18             I have seen is over in that area.  And the
 19             rivers.  And their situation over there is
 20             totally different from ours.  They don't have
 21             the drainage system like we do with the canals
 22             and stuff.
 23                  The comments made where we have specific
 24             sites and cases based on specific sites, I can
 25             see stuff like that because you have got
00087
  1             situations in one area that's not going to
  2             happen in another.
  3                  If the internet is true, it says that
  4             Florida is probably -- is basically a national
  5             leader in protecting its waters from nutrients.
  6             So I think we have been doing a decent job;
  7             maybe not the best that we can maybe, but what
  8             can we afford?  And that's just it.
  9             Economically I think it's bad timing and I
 10             think we are doing a pretty decent job compared
 11             to any other state in the United States.
 12                  And thank you for your time.
 13                  MR. KING:  Thank you, sir.
 14                  MS. KEEHNER:  Thank you, Councilman
 15             Jarriel.
 16                  Speaker number 17.
 17                  MR. DEL REAL:  Good evening.  My name is
 18             Pablo del Real and I am representing Aurora's
 19             Voice.  I live at 521 South Ridge Road,
 20             Delray Beach.
 21                  Aurora's Voice is a non-profit,
 22             non-partisan organization.  We work on behalf
 23             of the average American citizen.  Our mission
 24             is to require U.S. representatives to pole
 25             their constituents on bills that are up for a
00088
  1             vote and publish the results on the internet.
  2             That would allow us to compare the will of the
  3             people on house bills to representative votes
  4             and to see how well our representatives are
  5             representing us.
  6                  Currently we are working on a prototype of
  7             this.  We call it the Peephole for Preference
  8             Poling.  There's no prototype available yet,
  9             but we are working on it and expect to publish
 10             it at peephole dot o-r-g.  That's P like Paul.
 11             So we are here in that capacity on behalf of
 12             average American citizens, specifically on
 13             behalf of average Floridians.
 14                  We do have some questions about the
 15             standards that you are proposing and I will
 16             save those for the end.
 17                  Just a couple of comments in response to
 18             some of the other speakers.  First, the canals,
 19             we are happy that the canals have been included
 20             in your standards.  Water is water is water.
 21                  Somebody mentioned that those were man
 22             made.  I think the more appropriate term would
 23             be man formed.  The water didn't get pumped in
 24             there from out of the area.  Those canals were
 25             designed to channel existing water.  So that
00089
  1             water was not man made, it was man channeled by
  2             the Army Corp of Engineers.  So we do respect
  3             that designation of canals being included in
  4             your standards.
  5                  Somebody else talked about rain water not
  6             meeting the standards.  That seemed a little
  7             bit of an inappropriate comment only because
  8             rain water quality is something that we can't
  9             control directly, but we can control it
 10             indirectly by improving the quality of the
 11             ground water, be it canals, streams, lakes or
 12             rivers.
 13                  One other comment that nobody has touched
 14             on really.  We are speaking about water quality
 15             and that includes human health quality.  Maybe
 16             somebody did mention health quality - health
 17             care quality.  But if the water quality in
 18             Florida is poor and we are comprised primarily
 19             of water, then human health is being
 20             compromised.  If the lakes and streams and
 21             rivers and canals have too much nitrogen and
 22             too much phosphorus, then our bodies have too
 23             much nitrogen and too much phosphorus because
 24             we are a reflection of the water system that we
 25             live in.
00090
  1                  One more comment before I have a couple
  2             questions.  The reason that we are all here
  3             tonight is the Clean Water Act.  This, I
  4             believe, is in response to that Clean Water Act
  5             that was passed in 1972.  So again, with regard
  6             to something that we can do, I mentioned
  7             peephole.org as an opportunity to weigh in on
  8             these issues as they come up in federal
  9             legislation, because that's why we are here
 10             tonight and we all have something to say and we
 11             need a platform to be able to say that and
 12             weigh in on these issues before they start
 13             coming home like they are now.
 14                  Two questions.  With the budget that's
 15             available for this project on the side of the
 16             EPA is there money available for education?
 17             Somebody did mention the lack of information
 18             available to the general public.
 19                  If somebody is not plugged into one or two
 20             types of networks you are not going to know
 21             about this issue.  Is money available for
 22             education on this?
 23                  MR. KING:  The way we are going to try to
 24             do this is we will take your question and
 25             respond to yours and everybody else's after we
00091
  1             move through.
  2                  MR. DEL REAL:  Okay.  Thank you.
  3                  And the other question is regarding heavy
  4             metals and other pollutants.  Why are those not
  5             part of the standards; mercury, benzine,
  6             xylene, all sorts of hydrocarbons?  Why are the
  7             standards not addressing other pollutants and
  8             just addressing phosphorus and nitrogen?
  9                  Thank you.
 10                  MR. KING:  Thank you.
 11                  MS. KEEHNER:  Thank you.
 12                  Speaker number 18.
 13                  MR. ROCKETT:  Good evening.  My name is
 14             Jim Rockett, I am a resident from Loxahatchee
 15             Groves.
 16                  What I would like to do tonight is to call
 17             on this agency to require an independent
 18             assessment of the cost associated with these
 19             proposed standards.  You are finding estimated
 20             costs in the millions where other estimates are
 21             being purported to be in the billions.  Clearly
 22             there's something better that we can come up
 23             with.
 24                  I would like to also remind you that your
 25             responsibility includes looking out for the
00092
  1             economic good, as well as environmental good
  2             for those affected by standards imposed by the
  3             agency.  It should be a clear and proven
  4             benefit to all Floridians for any costs that
  5             would burden our residents.
  6                  One other observation, I hear these
  7             proposed standards are based on science.  I
  8             would just hope that the science used now in
  9             going forward is better than that used to prove
 10             global warming.
 11                  My take on what has been done today is
 12             this agency needs to go back to the drawing
 13             board and do a better job with your analysis.
 14             Any change in nutrient standards must be proven
 15             as beneficial to the State of Florida and not
 16             the arbitrarily based on conjecture or
 17             extrapolation.
 18                  Thank you.
 19                  MS. KEEHNER:  Thank you, Mr. Rockett.
 20                  Speaker number 19.
 21                  MR. BACHMAN:  How are you?  My name is
 22             Todd Bachman.  I live in Boca Raton, Florida.
 23             I come -- it's kinds of odd, for some of these
 24             people I am kind of going to be the demon in
 25             Florida.
00093
  1                  I am a young businessman.  My family owns
  2             a tractor business.  So we understand the ag
  3             side well, we understand the construction side
  4             well.
  5                  And it's very odd as you hear oh, these
  6             farmers are doing this, these farmers are doing
  7             this.  No, these farmers are sitting in rooms,
  8             they have kids, they have families, they care
  9             about the water as much as anybody.  These
 10             people are doing the right thing.  And to say
 11             that we over fertilize.  No, fertilizing costs
 12             are what's driving these guys out of business.
 13             These guys are good businessmen.  Earlier they
 14             talked about Highland Greenhouses.  Jake is
 15             probably one of the smartest business guys you
 16             have ever seen.  I mean, this guy, he knows
 17             every way and angle to cut and he's just - he's
 18             a true steward of the earth.
 19                  And, frankly, it's insulting to hear some
 20             of these people talk about these guys.  They
 21             employ hundreds, thousands of people.  So how
 22             dare you insult these people.
 23                  MR. KING:  We need to focus.
 24                  MR. BACHMAN:  No, that's okay.  But I'm
 25             saying, understand -- that brings me to my
00094
  1             point, is that we all believe in the water.  We
  2             all believe that it needs to be clean.  We
  3             understand it needs to be healthy.  Let's sit
  4             down to a table.  I think we just learned a
  5             clear lesson in Congress.  Let's not try to run
  6             something through.  The farmers, the builders,
  7             the tractor guys like myself, let's sit down,
  8             let's figure this out.  Let's have the Sierra
  9             Club put everybody at a table.  There's going
 10             to be arguments over science.  We don't need to
 11             rush.  We have had three hearings for something
 12             that could truly, truly change our state.  Slow
 13             down.  Please hear what we have to say and set
 14             up a table.  Let's break bread together.  I
 15             mean that a in a figurative way.  But let's
 16             discuss the issues that are at hand.  Let's not
 17             demonize one side.
 18                  I think your guys' intentions are well.  I
 19             believe what you want to do is well.  I am not
 20             going to come up here and criticize you and say
 21             how dare you come down from D.C. and do this.
 22             It's not my intention.  But there's clearly
 23             common ground that can be met here.  And I
 24             think that in our processes these days we're
 25             too polar.  We have got to come to the middle.
00095
  1             And I come to you in saying that also as a
  2             young businessman that has a long future.  I am
  3             30 years old.  I pray to God that the way
  4             Congress and the way these meetings -- and even
  5             the one in Orlando last night, the way that
  6             went with just the ruckus, even though I kind
  7             of agree with what some of them had to say, the
  8             dialogue doesn't need to be that way.  We ought
  9             to be adults.  We don't need to scream.  We
 10             don't need to yell.  We don't need to rush to
 11             judgment.
 12                  I mean, I think there are - there are
 13             questions about some of the science that is
 14             used here.  I think that for anyone to say that
 15             there is consensus on the science being used
 16             here, it would be untrue to say that.  There is
 17             not consensus.  So let's come together.  Let's
 18             share the costs.  Ask all of us to share the
 19             costs in the getting the solution we can all
 20             work for.
 21                  But today, the way this is, I fear that
 22             the economic restraints would be difficult.  I
 23             can tell you that from what's coming from the
 24             nursery growers, what's coming from the
 25             farmers, what the economy has done to them and
00096
  1             then what it has done to our sales, and then
  2             what it does to my manufacturers, this is a
  3             real trickle-down effect.
  4                  So I would ask before we were to do
  5             something as outrageous - I mean outrageous in
  6             the fact of how mind-blowing and how changing
  7             this would be to this area and to this state
  8             and to our economy - that we just sit down and
  9             just kind of cool our jets and really, let's
 10             all work together for a solution versus, you
 11             know, it seems that everybody is kind of at
 12             each other and this and that.  But the truth
 13             is, we all care about the water, we all have
 14             children, we all have common beliefs and we
 15             need to slow down and do the right thing here.
 16                  MR. KING:  Thank you.
 17                  MS. KEEHNER:  Thank you, Mr. Bachman.
 18                  Speaker number 20.
 19                  MR. HOWARD:  Good evening.  My name is Bud
 20             Howard.  I am with the Loxahatchee River
 21             District.
 22                  First, thanks for your efforts to protect
 23             the environment health, the waters in the State
 24             of Florida.  We certainly embrace your efforts
 25             and thanks for your patience to hear from each
00097
  1             of us tonight.
  2                  Like the others, there's several specific
  3             items we would like you to consider during
  4             refinement and the implementation of the
  5             standards.
  6                  As the name of our organization implies,
  7             our primary mission is the protection and
  8             preservation of Loxahatchee River.  It's one of
  9             two federally designated wild and scenic rivers
 10             in the state.
 11                  We are working to protect the river in two
 12             ways.  First, we performed extensive water
 13             quality and biological monitoring throughout
 14             the watershed, and we have done so for over 30
 15             years.  These data helped us in collaboration
 16             with our partners, including the South Florida
 17             Water Management, DEP, in a solid understanding
 18             about the health of our river and develop plans
 19             for restoration.
 20                  Second, we serve as the regional
 21             wastewater utility with an award-winning reuse
 22             program.  We have significantly reduced the
 23             number of septic systems in the watershed and
 24             our reuse program helps to preserve valuable
 25             water resources.
00098
  1                  With regard to water quality, our data
  2             suggests one limit per nitrogen and one per
  3             phosphorus may be overly simplistic given what
  4             we see throughout our watershed, even within
  5             the freshwater region.
  6                  Therefore, when establishing your criteria
  7             we hope that you will consider this variation
  8             in nitrogen and phosphorus throughout the
  9             watershed and select numbers that are
 10             appropriate.
 11                  On the wastewater side, we have had a
 12             highly effective wastewater reuse program in
 13             place since 1984.  One of the biggest, greatest
 14             threats to the Loxahatchee River is the lack of
 15             sufficient flow to the river during the dry
 16             season.  Because of these limited water
 17             resources, we are proud that every gallon of
 18             water used from our reuse program is a gallon
 19             saved from the natural system.  In support of
 20             this, we implore you to exclude reuse water
 21             from the nutrient criteria so that we might
 22             maintain the alternative water supply and help
 23             to preserve our precious water resources in
 24             Florida.
 25                  We specifically request that the reuse
00099
  1             storage lakes at our treatment plants be
  2             excluded from meeting the nutrient criteria.
  3             Our 80 acres of reuse storage lakes provide us
  4             an opportunity to store water during periods of
  5             excess water availability for use during
  6             periods of drought, rather than sending that
  7             water down the deep well.
  8                  We could not reuse the 80 to 90 percent of
  9             the water - wastewater we receive each year,
 10             which translates to upwards of two billion
 11             gallons a year, without this excess storage
 12             capacity.  We also simply can't treat our
 13             wastewater flowing into our reuse storage lakes
 14             to the proposed standards without significant -
 15             and I stress significant - increases in capital
 16             costs, operating costs, energy use, and,
 17             therefore, greenhouse gasinations.
 18                  Related to our treatment plant storage
 19             lakes, we require our customers, primarily golf
 20             courses, to have on-site storage lakes to
 21             further buffer the water demands.
 22                  Again, if these lakes were subject to the
 23             nutrient criteria we would lose the storage
 24             capacity and significantly curtail the ability
 25             to sufficiently use the water throughout our
00100
  1             service area.
  2                  Finally, two of our customers store reuse
  3             water in a combined stormwater and reuse
  4             storage lakes.  If these lakes were designed --
  5             or these lakes are designed to, and our data
  6             shows, provide a very effective treatment.
  7             Therefore, we ask that you consider these
  8             scenarios an option, such as possible
  9             downstream mixing zone.
 10                  Clearly reuse is good for Florida and
 11             reduces pressure on our natural water systems.
 12             Our customers reuse limited nutrients in our
 13             water, and, therefore, reduce the use of
 14             fertilizers.  This, in turn, reduces the need
 15             to mine supplemental nutrient.
 16                  Thank you for considering these issues.
 17             We hope that you will work with us to protect
 18             our valuable resources.
 19                  MS. KEEHNER:  Thank you, Mr. Howard.
 20                  Is there a speaker 21?
 21                  Speaker 22?
 22                  Then I will start at 50s.  Speaker 51?
 23             51?
 24                  52?
 25                  53?
00101
  1                  MR. POULSON:  Hi, my name is Dr. Tom
  2             Poulson.  I am a retired ecologist from the
  3             University of Chicago.  Part of my extensive
  4             expertise is biological integrity of all
  5             surface water, freshwater and saltwater.  I am
  6             senior scientist for the Arthur Marshall
  7             Foundation, but speak to night as the Science
  8             Director for the Friends of Loxahatchee Natural
  9             Wildlife Refuge.
 10                  I support the need for EPA's proposed
 11             numeric criteria from nitrogen, phosphorus.
 12             And I agree with everybody that we have to look
 13             at this as a regional basis.  By looking at
 14             your maps, you already have done that.
 15                  So total maximum daily loads which are
 16             used, have not been working.  We know that in
 17             spite of the fact that a lot of farmers in the
 18             EEA are doing a great job.  It is not enough to
 19             do the trick, and they are rightly annoyed that
 20             people in the upper basin do not have to do
 21             similar things.
 22                  Let's see.  So the narrative things that
 23             Florida has I think are complimentary, not
 24             different, than numeric ones because, you know,
 25             we are talking biological integrity, I use
00102
  1             pyramid or imbalance, are slippery, but at
  2             least they tell you something that you have to
  3             do when you consider a regional basis.
  4                  Florida has had ample time to do this
  5             work.  And if it weren't for the suits and the
  6             EPA coming forth I don't believe we would even
  7             be here tonight.
  8                  Department of Environmental Protection
  9             says things like these criteria are not
 10             scientifically valid, they are too simplistic.
 11             One size does not fit all.  Chlorophyll A in
 12             the water column doesn't work everywhere.  They
 13             are right.  In the Everglades, periphyton is
 14             the issue.  The EPA does have different areas.
 15             They read about areas where there is high
 16             phosphorus.  They say that some of the things
 17             are more stringent than necessary.  As far as
 18             what's flowing into Lake Okeechobee, they
 19             aren't.  Lake Okeechobee's concentrations are
 20             going up.  They continue to go up.  The load is
 21             going up.  Legacy phosphorus is going up.  And
 22             of course that affects the downstream areas in
 23             the Everglades protection area.
 24                  They say we need to validate and have more
 25             studies.  We have studied this damn thing to
00103
  1             death.  We have more data, as I understand it,
  2             than almost any other place in the country.  So
  3             let's get on with it and use what people are
  4             pushing more and more, which is called
  5             incremental adaptive management.  We try
  6             things.  If it doesn't work, they make these
  7             hypotheses, you do things over experiments and
  8             changes.
  9                  The regulations are not sufficient.  Let's
 10             see.  With population growth, clearly things
 11             are not going to get better.  The ag industry
 12             people say these things are too confusing and
 13             too costly.  But I would, in my last couple of
 14             minutes, will say that it will not be too
 15             costly if we do full cost analysis that
 16             includes all the benefits, all the risks.
 17                  You know, people have mentioned health.
 18             They have mentioned recreation.  They have
 19             mentioned the reefs and the estuaries.
 20             Trashing the estuaries.  In Florida, the
 21             environment is the economy, folks.  And if we
 22             don't keep it up, we are going to lose that
 23             way.  An ounce of prevention is worth a pound
 24             of cure.  We know this from the Chesapeake Bay.
 25             We know this when New York City decided to
00104
  1             protect their watershed and not build costly
  2             treatment plants.  The ratios vary from 80 to
  3             100 to 1 in terms of what it takes to prevent
  4             things rather than doing it.
  5                  Everybody has got to share in this.  Cost
  6             avoidance.  From people that walk their dogs,
  7             what you do on your lawns, air escaping.  What
  8             Howard said about reuse -- I'm in Jupiter, I
  9             know about that.  They say too costly.  Our
 10             water is better and costs less than West Palm
 11             Beach.  Thank you.
 12                  Finally, I would like to argue for
 13             ecosystems services valuation that no one so
 14             far has talked about tonight.
 15                  MS. KEEHNER:  Thank you, Dr. Poulson.
 16                  MR. KING:  Thank you.
 17                  MS. KEEHNER:  Speaker 54.
 18                  Speaker 55.
 19                  MS. DEJONG:  My name is Suki deJong.  I am
 20             with the Palm Beach County Environmental
 21             Coalition.
 22                  You know, Florida has been handed over to
 23             the developers and big sugar and agriculture
 24             for too long.  There is no more time.  We are
 25             out of time and we are running out of
00105
  1             resources, especially water.  There should be
  2             no more extensions.  Like the former speaker
  3             just said, we have been studied to death.
  4             Literally.
  5                  I thank you Federal EPA for coming down
  6             here and doing what our state agencies,
  7             especially Florida DEP, are unwilling to do,
  8             clean up Florida's inland waters.  This state
  9             needs federal oversight.  And again, thank you
 10             for caring about Florida.
 11                  MR. KING:  Thank you.
 12                  MS. KEEHNER:  Thank you.
 13                  Speaker 56.
 14                  MR. CASSEL:  Good evening.  My name is Ken
 15             Cassel, I am District Manager for multiple
 16             community development and improvement districts
 17             and water control districts within Dade,
 18             Broward and Palm Beach Counties.  The company I
 19             work for also manages approximately 80
 20             development districts throughout the state.
 21                  The primary responsibility of these
 22             development districts is for construction and
 23             operation of infrastructure.  Most of that
 24             infrastructure relates to stormwater
 25             management, storm drainage.  The systems that I
00106
  1             manage do not discharge anywhere except during
  2             a rain event.  During a rain event we may be
  3             discharging from two of my pump stations
  4             upwards of 400,000 gallons a minute.  That's a
  5             lot of water.  I don't have any ability to
  6             regulate what I receive because I am within
  7             communities, within municipalities, within
  8             counties.  I cannot regulate how much
  9             fertilizer is purchased, the content of the
 10             fertilizer that is purchased in the stores or
 11             have any enforcement responsibilities; but yet
 12             I, as a district, am responsible under your new
 13             regulations to treat the water that I receive
 14             before I get rid of it.  And I have no control
 15             over what I receive.  That's up to the
 16             individual cities and the counties.
 17                  The logistics of getting this treatment in
 18             a rain event situation is staggering.  How
 19             would you treat upwards of 400,000 gallons a
 20             minute to the levels that you have?  I am not
 21             sure how you would do that on a cost, I haven't
 22             even started looking into the engineering
 23             issues.
 24                  I am a native Floridian.  My grandparents
 25             came down here in 1923.  People say it's been
00107
  1             given over to the developers.  I say the
  2             invention of air conditioning is what created
  3             the problem in Florida.  Prior to that nobody
  4             came down here except in the wintertime.  After
  5             air conditioning, everybody moved down.  You
  6             could do what they say in some places in
  7             South Carolina, if your family wasn't here
  8             prior to this date, move back.  Move back.
  9             That would solve a lot of our issues.  We
 10             wouldn't have the people, we wouldn't have a
 11             lot of need for the drainage.
 12                  That's not practical.  People are here.
 13             People want to be here.  We have to look at
 14             water.  I agree that water in qualities has
 15             improved in areas, but yes, there are certain
 16             needs for qualifications of parameters.
 17             However, I fully believe that it needs to be
 18             site specific.  Canals that are made for flood
 19             control and drainage need to be looked at very
 20             differently than streams and lakes 'cause they
 21             are not utilized for the same purposes.
 22                  Thank you for your attention.
 23                  MR. KING:  Thank you.
 24                  MS. KEEHNER:  Thank you, Mr. Cassel.
 25                  Speaker 57.
00108
  1                  DR. GRAY:  Good evening.  You guys had a
  2             long day.
  3                  I am Dr. Paul Gray.  I work for Audubon of
  4             Florida.  And my primary responsibility is
  5             working on Lake Okeechobee.  I'm an ecologist
  6             by training.
  7                  As my colleague, Charles Lee, told you up
  8             in Orlando, Audobon supports your efforts.  We
  9             think this is a good move.  It's about time.
 10             DEP actually has collected a lot of really
 11             great information on water quality, but we feel
 12             like they have been in sort of a paralysis mode
 13             and this is one of those things that we could
 14             study forever and never have the right answer.
 15             So we realize that you guys are kind of out on
 16             a limb, a lot of these standards are going to
 17             have to be adjusted over time.  We understand
 18             that.  We're looking forward to helping you
 19             find, you know, the best numbers for whatever
 20             situation.
 21                  And also -- well, part of it is this
 22             narrative standard.  You put in the maximum
 23             amount of pollution that doesn't cause an
 24             imbalance.  And it's kind of, just at face
 25             value, a reckless way to do things.  You don't
00109
  1             give your kids the car keys and say drive as
  2             fast as you can without getting in a wreck.
  3             You tell them be careful when you're driving,
  4             don't drive as fast as you can.  And so Florida
  5             has kind of had this standard that it's ended
  6             up with a lot of impaired lakes for not just
  7             that one reason, but it's just not worked very
  8             well.  So let's get some concrete numbers.
  9                  I do work on Lake Okeechobee.  It's a
 10             remarkable resource.  In spite of all its
 11             problems, it's really a great place.  But the
 12             problem we have learned is no matter what we do
 13             right now, we are not going to be able to fix
 14             Lake Okeechobee any time soon.  It's going to
 15             take a long time.  You guys have TMDL with the
 16             state of 140 metric tons a year.  In 2000 we
 17             were told we needed to meet that by 2015.  And
 18             there's no detectable improvement so far, 10
 19             years into this 15 year effort.  It's just
 20             going to take a really long time.  So we
 21             understand that once you guys set the
 22             standards, we are going to have to have some
 23             sort of phased approach to meeting them, and
 24             it's got to be fair.  We don't want to put
 25             everybody out of business.  I eat food, too.
00110
  1             So we want to work with the farmers.
  2                  And there's a lot of things that we can do
  3             that aren't going to cost all this money.  You
  4             know, when you put a pound of phosphorus in the
  5             public waters and try to clean it with STAs or
  6             something, it's 50 to several hundred dollars a
  7             pound to get that one pound of phosphorus out.
  8                  The urban turf rule is allowing -- one of
  9             the recommendations from IFAS is about 10
 10             pounds per acre.  And you think about someone
 11             putting out 10 pounds per acre every year;
 12             that's a $500 liability to the taxpayers around
 13             them to clean that up.  So I was going to say
 14             an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of
 15             cure, but one of my colleagues already said
 16             that, so I can't say that.  But it's really
 17             true.  So we can avoid a lot of costs that
 18             we're incurring right now.
 19                  One of the other things about Okeechobee
 20             is we have this legacy phosphorus problem.
 21             We've been fertilizing for 50 to 100 years in
 22             that watershed.  And in a nutshell, basically,
 23             they tried to ask me how much phosphorus did we
 24             already put out that we got to deal with.  You
 25             know, it's too late, we just have to deal with
00111
  1             it.  The answer is, it's enough phosphorus to
  2             meet the annual inflow TMDL 105 tons for the
  3             next 1,800 years.  That's how much is out
  4             there.  Now that's 190,000 metric tons.  That's
  5             not all going to flow into the lake.  A lot of
  6             it is bound to the watershed.  It's not going
  7             to come in.  It will -- What it probably will
  8             do is come in at 5 to 600 tons a year for the
  9             next few decades, like it's doing.
 10                  But one of the aggravating things about
 11             that is the SWIM Plan, the Surface Water Group
 12             and Management Act was started in 1989 to clean
 13             up Lake Okeechobee.  That's the Lake Okeechobee
 14             part of it.  And since 1989 this legacy problem
 15             is twice as bad as it was in 1989.  In the 20
 16             years we have been cleaning up Lake Okeechobee
 17             we have made the watershed twice as phosphorus
 18             load.  Some of it is kind of understandable.  A
 19             lot of it is fertilizer for crops and raw
 20             eating.  Some of it is sludge dumping for our
 21             cities.  We're just taking our human solid
 22             waste out and dumping it in the watershed.
 23             Then we had a whole lot of problems with
 24             dairies and we spent a whole lot of money
 25             trying to improve their waste stream
00112
  1             management.  But what do we do with the waste
  2             stream management out of our cities?  You know,
  3             'cause cities are capable, too.  We have a
  4             bunch of people in them and they have a big
  5             waste stream.  We've been dumping them.
  6                  So some of the things are little hanging
  7             fruit we can just stop doing, kind of the
  8             obviously dumb things.  There are other things
  9             with farmers and other things that are going to
 10             take more time and more effort.  We understand
 11             that.  That's the phased approach.
 12                  But we really commend you guys for moving
 13             forward.  We look forward to helping you make
 14             this work over a very long period of time.
 15                  MR. KING:  Thank you.
 16                  MS. KEEHNER:  Thank you, Dr. Gray.
 17                  Speaker 58.
 18                  MR. MARTIN:  Good evening.  My name is
 19             Paul Martin.  I am also a doctor, but I am the
 20             type of doctor who actually sees patients
 21             rather than being a scientist.  I live in Coral
 22             Gables and I had a busy day today, but I drove
 23             up here tonight because I feel so strongly
 24             about this issue.
 25                  I welcome the approach of the EPA to
00113
  1             control water quality in Florida.  Water
  2             quality is the right of every Floridian.  And
  3             clearly Florida and its agencies have failed to
  4             protect the health and welfare of its citizens
  5             by not enforcing adequate clean water rules.
  6                  Now I am very sympathetic to some of the
  7             individuals who have spoken already who are
  8             homeowners, small business owners, who are very
  9             concerned with being saddled with enormous
 10             costs.  I think the people who should bear the
 11             brunt of the costs are the major polluters, the
 12             industrial farms, the sugarcane industry and
 13             everybody else who has had a free ride in
 14             Florida at the expense of the environment and
 15             most of the other citizens in the state.
 16                  So again, I heartedly endorse the
 17             application of these rules to Florida.
 18                  Thank you very much.
 19                  MR. KING:  Thank you.
 20                  MS. KEEHNER:  Thank you, Doctor.
 21                  Speaker 59?
 22                  MR. MAHONEY:  Good evening.  My name is
 23             Steve Mahoney, I represent the Sierra Club,
 24             Miami group, with 3,000 members.  And I drove
 25             up here to this meeting because it's the
00114
  1             closest we have, of course, to our area.
  2                  We are all aware, I think, that excessive
  3             nitrogen and phosphorus have led to
  4             eutrophication and harmful algal blooms and
  5             dead zones in some areas.  We saw in the
  6             handout that you gave out earlier that we can
  7             see from canals, for example, that feed into
  8             Biscayne Bay, which is close to where I live
  9             and where, of course, surrounded by Miami.  A
 10             lot of that nitrogen and phosphorus trickles
 11             down into there.  It all ends up going into the
 12             canals.  You can argue that canals are
 13             different from rivers and so on, but they all
 14             end up going into -- it's all part of the
 15             surface waters really which are all
 16             interconnected in the end and they all end up
 17             in the ocean, in the marine ecosystem, whether
 18             it's in-shore or off-shore, in the end.
 19                  The consequences of these kinds of things,
 20             well, can be greatly detrimental to our
 21             tourism-based economy with things like beach
 22             closings, for example, due to problems of
 23             fowling of the beaches and so forth.  Also,
 24             they will harm general quality of life when you
 25             have too many, as we saw again in the slides,
00115
  1             excessive nutrients leading to the algal blooms
  2             and causing problems with the canals in many
  3             places.  These can also cause impact to human
  4             health, as our previous speaker mentioned
  5             earlier.
  6                  One of the things we need to consider are
  7             these -- this, the -- it was 12 years since the
  8             1998 issuance of the EPA national strategy for
  9             the development of regional and nutrient
 10             criteria, and nine years passed since the 2001
 11             national action plan for the development and
 12             establishment of numeric nutrient criteria.
 13             The FDEP has had its chance to protect its own
 14             waters, but has failed to act in time to avoid
 15             the current nutrient, pollution problem.
 16             Therefore, we applaud the fact that the EPA is
 17             going to establish these nutrient criteria.
 18                  The claim that -- I have heard claims that
 19             some people have said that we will top huge
 20             costs that may be at high as $50 billion to
 21             upgrade Florida's sewage treatment plants.
 22             This really is not something that is realistic
 23             at all.  For example, cost of all sewer
 24             treatment upgrades in the entire U.S. between
 25             1988 and 2007 was, according to a source I
00116
  1             have, $58 billion there.  That's the entire
  2             U.S. upgrades.  So I think the $50 billion
  3             claim comes from treatment based on reverse
  4             osmosis, which is not needed for in many
  5             places.  It may be needed in some situations,
  6             but that's only in extreme circumstances there.
  7             Reverse osmosis, as we know, is expensive, but
  8             it's not likely to be needed in most cases.
  9                  The numeric criteria really are essential
 10             because I think without them the treatment
 11             plants - water treatment plants are now allowed
 12             to dump affluents that has not been treated as
 13             well as it could be.  The costs could be spread
 14             out, new standards I am sure would be phased in
 15             as permits come up for renewals, so they won't
 16             hit everybody at one time.  And for consumers,
 17             it's likely to cost perhaps a few dollars extra
 18             per person per month phased in over a period of
 19             time, over a number of years.  A small cost
 20             with enormous benefit.
 21                  Thank you for your time.
 22                  MR. KING:  Thank you.
 23                  MS. KEEHNER:  Thank you, Mr. Mahoney.
 24                  Speaker 60.
 25                  MR. SCHWARTZ:  Good evening and thank you
00117
  1             for the opportunity to speak.  My name is
  2             Matthew Schwartz.  I am here representing the
  3             Sierra Club of the Everglades Issue Chair for
  4             the Broward group of the Sierra Club.  I'm also
  5             representing the national club.  I am a member
  6             of the Wildlands Committee, and also a chair of
  7             a subcommittee on national parks and
  8             wilderness.
  9                  When you look at the map of South Florida,
 10             you will notice just how much of South Florida
 11             is public lands, specifically national park
 12             service land.  Everglades National Park, Big
 13             Cypress National Reserve, Biscayne National
 14             Park.  So we have a big stake in the national
 15             parks and the health of those national parks.
 16                  Before coming up here I did look at the
 17             Orlando Sentinel article that popped into my
 18             inbox.  It seemed like a lot of people were
 19             questioning your ability or your jurisdiction
 20             over this issue.
 21                  So that in mind, even though it doesn't
 22             sounds like people are doing that here, I am
 23             going to go ahead and read your mission
 24             statement into the record.
 25                  Mission statement of the EPA.  And this is
00118
  1             summarized.  The mission of the EPA is to
  2             protect human health and to safeguard the
  3             national environment, air, water and land upon
  4             which life depends.  It stresses that
  5             environmental protection is an integral
  6             consideration in U.S. policies concerning
  7             natural resources, human health, economic
  8             growth, energy, transportation, agriculture,
  9             industry, and international trade.
 10                  So you have a far-reaching mandate to
 11             protect environmental quality of the United
 12             States with all these things in mind.
 13                  It also says that the national efforts to
 14             reduce environmental risks are based upon the
 15             best available scientific information.  From
 16             everything I have seen, I think you have
 17             carried that out.  You have tried very hard to
 18             get the best science to bear on this.  You have
 19             done the sampling, tens of thousands of
 20             samples.  Consultations with Florida DEP,
 21             that's already been done.  Somebody was talking
 22             about breaking bread.  It sounds like you have
 23             broken a lot of bread along the way to get to
 24             this point, and as well as independent review.
 25                  I want to point out one thing about -- I
00119
  1             guess my time is going to go fairly quickly,
  2             but people are saying it's us against them;
  3             Sierra Club versus farmers, whatever.  I wish
  4             people could hear when I have been going to the
  5             Collier County Commission time after time
  6             arguing with them about the transition of their
  7             agricultural lands to residential, because it
  8             seems like the folks in Southwest Florida are
  9             much more interested in turning their crops
 10             into a different kind of crop as they have done
 11             in Ave Maria, as they are planning to do in the
 12             town of Big Cypress with all kinds of
 13             implications.
 14                  Sierra Club supports agriculture in those
 15             areas.  We just filed suit today to establish
 16             critical habitat for the Florida panther, with
 17             five other organizations in tow.  We understand
 18             that Florida panthers use the mosaic, farmland,
 19             open land - not so much residential, brings in
 20             the cars and everything else.
 21                  We support -- We support farmland.  I have
 22             quoted time and time again to that commission,
 23             the American Farmlands Trust.  The cost of
 24             community services throughout the country.
 25             Every single time they show what happens when
00120
  1             you transition residential land or agricultural
  2             land to residential, it costs those counties
  3             money.  Yes, it's true, residential land brings
  4             in more taxes.  You have to pay for traffic
  5             court, you have to pay for schools, libraries,
  6             et cetera.  All the costs add up.  Farmlands,
  7             it may not produce as much taxes, but it has
  8             virtually no expenses compared to residential.
  9             So it's a big profit for the counties.  We
 10             support the continuation of farmland.
 11                  I will go quickly.  Science -- There was
 12             one study I was going to quote.  Gregory Noe,
 13             U.S. Geological Survey; Daniel Child, the
 14             Department of Biology, FIU.  This is one of
 15             many studies:  Phosphorus Budgets in
 16             Everglades, Wetland Ecosystem, the effects of
 17             hydrology and nutrient enrichment.  The
 18             conclusion is phosphorus enrichment caused a
 19             large increase in the importance of macrophage,
 20             especially in the Everglades wetlands.  It
 21             represents large shores of internal
 22             eutrophication to surface waters and phosphorus
 23             enriched waters of the Everglades.  We are very
 24             concerned about that.  We're talking about the
 25             economy.  We're very concerned about the
00121
  1             estuaries; the St. Lucie, the Biscayne Bay,
  2             Florida Bay, gigantic fisheries in there.  We
  3             know.  I have been coming down here since the
  4             '70s.  I have seen the changes in those bodies
  5             of water.  Eutrophication, for those who don't
  6             understand the word, American Heritage
  7             dictionary, having waters rich in minerals and
  8             organic nutrients that promote a proliferation
  9             of plant life, especially algae, which reduces
 10             and dissolves oxygen content and often causes
 11             the extinction of other organisms.
 12                  This is very important to the Sierra Club,
 13             to our national parks, to the quality of life,
 14             the things that bring residents and tourists to
 15             South Florida.
 16                  15 seconds left.  Two things.  I would
 17             recommend everybody read Across the Everglades
 18             by Hugh Willoughby, a canoe trip across the
 19             Everglades written in 1898, and hear his
 20             description of what the waters of the
 21             Everglades was like pre everything.
 22                  And I would also advise people to go out
 23             to Big Cypress National Preserve and look at
 24             the waters in the preserve, rainfall driven, no
 25             agriculture, considered best Florida waters by
00122
  1             the State of Florida, crystal clear, and it's
  2             still there.
  3                  And I thank the EPA, by the way, for their
  4             concise and incredibly well-written comments to
  5             the National Park Service on future management
  6             of their preserve.
  7                  Thank you.
  8                  MR. KING:  Thank you.
  9                  MS. KEEHNER:  Thank you, Mr. Schwartz.
 10                  Speaker 61.
 11                  MS. SALMON:  Hi, my name is Vanessa
 12             Michele Salmon.  I teach - I'm a teacher at FAU
 13             and I work with environmental endocrinology and
 14             I founded the environmental coalition there.
 15             I'm actually here representing my students who
 16             I teach now, I'm the environmental science
 17             teacher at Summit Private School.  It's a
 18             Montessori school.  My students are from very
 19             young to about 14 years of age.
 20                  We put together a few things.  Most
 21             couldn't be here.  Actually, I would have liked
 22             to bring them, honestly, but, you know, it
 23             didn't seem appropriate.
 24                  But we would like to see the standard
 25             cover more than just the nitrogen and
00123
  1             phosphorus.  What we've studied is that
  2             downstream from a lot of these farms and from
  3             all different types of runoff you see a lot of
  4             intersex animals, changes in reproductive
  5             behavior.  We would like to see reproductive
  6             behavior as an end point, not own only end
  7             points such as cancer or death, but actually
  8             reproductive behavior, fish that don't defend
  9             their eggs, things that aren't inclined to
 10             reproduce.  That's the types of things that you
 11             see where there is runoff and mixtures.
 12                  Obviously, we look at chemicals.  But
 13             looking at things individually doesn't tell the
 14             whole story.  There is a lot of things that
 15             either interact with each or additives.
 16                  In particular, I look at endocrinology, so
 17             I am looking at the hormone disruptors, which
 18             mainly have non monotonic dose curves.  And
 19             when you're looking at the clean water
 20             standards and things that were put together in
 21             the '70s, you're looking at a toxicology system
 22             that is mainly based on monotonic temperatures.
 23                  So people are saying well, there's not
 24             enough evidence of this, there's not enough
 25             evidence of that, but you are not testing the
00124
  1             chemicals within the realm that they need to be
  2             tested.  You can't look at something on a range
  3             like this when we know that the dose curves are
  4             such that even very low doses of things, like
  5             BPA or DDT at certain times of exposure, are so
  6             critical.
  7                  And students find that extremely easy to
  8             understand.  It seems like the older I talk to
  9             people, the more difficult sometimes it is to
 10             look at because they're used to a certain type
 11             of thinking about toxicology where the dose
 12             makes the poison or whether the dilution is the
 13             solution to pollution.
 14                  So those are the three things; looking in
 15             at mixtures, non monotonic dose curves and
 16             behavioral end points of those things.
 17                  On a personal level, I moved about two
 18             years ago to the beach thinking that I was
 19             doing this really sort of healthy, wonderful
 20             thing, which it's beautiful there.  But I am
 21             just south of the Hillsboro Inlet in Pompano,
 22             right at about 16th Street.  And what I have
 23             learned about two years ago is the reason why
 24             the water there is brown and bubbly and not
 25             beautiful - like I grew up in Boca where the
00125
  1             water is actually - even near the sewage
  2             outfall pipe it's not bad.  You get 13 million
  3             gallons a day at the sewage outfall pipe at
  4             Palmetto Park Road.  Where I live it's
  5             67 million gallons a day of sewage that's
  6             coming out right there.  And we've got tourists
  7             on both sides staying at resorts, they're out
  8             there swimming, the waters are as brown as can
  9             be.  People that live here won't go near it.
 10                  After a rain event, I -- we can sit on my
 11             porch, 'cause I look, and you see the black
 12             coming out with the inlet.  'Cause the inlet is
 13             right there.  I see the water coming out of the
 14             inlet.  So you've got this that's out here,
 15             it's about a mile out.  It's not supposed to
 16             affect things, but any diver or anyone who has
 17             been out there who knows the water, knows it
 18             does affect our beach there.  What's coming out
 19             of the inlet is literally -- after a hurricane
 20             or a rain event, it's black like oil.  We can
 21             watch it.  My son and I walked down and watched
 22             it come in and out and cover the ocean.  And
 23             there's people swimming out there.  We were
 24             saying you need to get out of that water.  We
 25             wouldn't go back in it for a month.  We go
00126
  1             south of that area.
  2                  I think that people don't seem to
  3             understand that.  They might see a different
  4             area.  But there should be -- or I would like
  5             to see some way in which a citizen can say hey,
  6             look, there's this situation that's going on
  7             outside my window.  And I know there is
  8             something going on there.  And my kid, seven
  9             years old, says mommy, why isn't someone taking
 10             care of this?
 11                  So we called the City of Pompano, we
 12             called Broward and we talked to them and they
 13             said well, one of the main things that's coming
 14             out is from - because there's been so much
 15             development.  I lived here when I was younger,
 16             we didn't see so much.  In the last 25 years
 17             there's been a lot of development where what's
 18             coming out of that inlet, the Hillsboro Inlet,
 19             is all the way, way out west.  So much is
 20             draining out now.
 21                  There doesn't seem to be anybody who
 22             really wants to talk about it or think about
 23             it.  The homeowners don't want to talk about
 24             it, they're all trying to sell their units.
 25             They don't want to hear it.  I'm not going to
00127
  1             talk to a real estate agent about it.  The
  2             newspaper does a piece, you know, once in
  3             awhile on the actual pipes and sewage that's
  4             being treated, but at no time have I seen
  5             actual testing being done.  Saying -- Why can't
  6             I call someone and say I see there's a problem
  7             outside my window?  They actually, after the
  8             hurricane, when all that stuff came out, they
  9             suspended the water testing for two weeks
 10             because of the hurricane.  When the water was
 11             black as could be, the water testing was
 12             suspended.  And try to explain that to a room
 13             full of children; it's impossible.
 14                  So all the different people who are
 15             worried about spending all kinds of money, but
 16             the bottom line, I live on the beach, I can't
 17             go swimming in the ocean with my child.  And
 18             it's for the same reasons people in the
 19             Loxahatchee River, people who are out west,
 20             it's the same stuff that's coming out.  Don't
 21             know exactly what it all is.
 22                  But I appreciate the EPA is taking an
 23             interest in the waters of Florida.  What we
 24             have here is different than other states.  When
 25             I talk to people, politically they're so
00128
  1             worried about it and about the control, about
  2             all of that, but really I don't think that it
  3             should matter at that level.  We are not going
  4             to survive as what Florida is known as if
  5             people look out the window of their hotel room
  6             and they see water that's black like that.
  7             Florida will cease to be what it is.  Where
  8             else are we going to make any money?  We need
  9             those people to come down.
 10                  Thanks.
 11                  MR. KING:  Thank you.
 12                  MS. KEEHNER:  Thank you very much,
 13             Ms. Salmon.
 14                  Speaker 62.
 15                  MS. MELZER:  Good evening.  Thanks for
 16             being here.  My name is Donna Melzer, I'm down
 17             from Martin County.  I live in Palm City.  I am
 18             an attorney.  I am a former county
 19             commissioner.  But tonight I am here as a
 20             volunteer on behalf of Martin County
 21             Conservation Alliance.  We have about 14 member
 22             organizations, and together with our member
 23             organizations we represent several thousand
 24             residents of Martin County.
 25                  Martin County has repeatedly borne the
00129
  1             impact of Florida's failure to adequately
  2             comply with the Clean Water Act.  The Alliance
  3             supports your proposed water quality standards.
  4             While we do appreciate the cost of businesses,
  5             Martin County residents has unified in pushing
  6             for clean water.  Martin County has experienced
  7             the economic impact from dirty water discharges
  8             from Lake Okeechobee.  We have had serious
  9             issues to the health of our river, the health
 10             of our residents, the dirty ponds into the
 11             ocean, the dead fish.
 12                  I don't know if you have ever had the
 13             pleasure of having one of our residents come up
 14             to you with a lesioned fish picture.  We have a
 15             number of those.
 16                  Martin County has passed referendum to
 17             raise millions of dollars for cleaner water.
 18             We support the Clean Water Act and the proposed
 19             numeric standards because we do need the
 20             cleaner water for our economy.
 21                  Maggie Hurchalla, who has received many
 22             awards for her environmental work, including
 23             for SURP, has urged us to speak up for these
 24             proposed EPA standards.  She's a great leader
 25             in Martin County still.  About 10 years ago she
00130
  1             said that science was fast out distancing our
  2             ability to ignore it.  And yet we still seem to
  3             be able to ignore it.
  4                  We are grateful for you all coming tonight
  5             and we ask you to please stand by your science.
  6             And again, we support the standards.  We hope
  7             you will move forward.  And as we have begged,
  8             pleaded and borrowed and badgered people about
  9             working for SURP, it seems like such a waste
 10             if, while we are working for SURP, we don't
 11             move forward on these clean standards that
 12             you're proposing.
 13                  We thank you for coming.
 14                  MR. KING:  Thank you.
 15                  MS. KEEHNER:  Thank you, Ms. Melzer.
 16                  Speaker 63.
 17                  MR. GIRARD:  Thank you, everyone.  I come
 18             with a solution with all these problems with
 19             the water, with the algae.  I don't have a
 20             prepared speech.  So what I'm trying to say
 21             is --
 22                  MS. KEEHNER:  State your name, please.
 23                  MR. GIRARD:  Jean Girard.  I represent
 24             Hesake Environments.  Hesake is actually an
 25             Indian word for living.
00131
  1                  Back in 2000 I found a product that was
  2             called effective microorganisms and it was
  3             by -- discovered or fell upon by Dr. Higa in
  4             Japan.  The farm that my parents had in
  5             Australia started using it.  And he got rid of
  6             all the fertilizers, phosphates and nutrients
  7             and started using effective microorganisms to
  8             breakdown compost in six weeks where he could
  9             turn it into the ground again and it was good.
 10                  Since 2005 I have been -- I formed a
 11             company.  I have been trying to get people to
 12             notice it, but it's like I am hitting a wall.
 13             I want to get to the source of where the
 14             phosphates are coming from.  This is mainly in
 15             the Kissimmee area because of the cattle and
 16             such things.  The nitrates are in the farming
 17             also.
 18                  What happens with effective microorganisms
 19             is it quells the phosphates.  I tried to get a
 20             biologist that is working on the Everglades to
 21             look at it and he's steadfastly said you can't
 22             do that with phosphate.  I am saying just try.
 23             Just do the experiments.  This product is
 24             approved by the EPA.  So that we do need to get
 25             more data on this.
00132
  1                  Concerning the wastes on the wastewater
  2             that goes flowing out, this product reduces the
  3             sludge about 50 percent so that, you know,
  4             there's a reduction already that doesn't cost
  5             money.  This product is a lot cheaper than
  6             others.
  7                  You can use it for farming where it's
  8             equivalent, if not better than fertilizer.  You
  9             can use it with fertilizer if you want to
 10             transition.  You can use it with your
 11             pesticides if you want to transition.  We do
 12             have a way of composting different plants to
 13             create environments where the pests don't want
 14             to come, don't want to come.  There's a lot of
 15             points that effective microorganisms -- it's
 16             very useful.  All it is, is completely safe for
 17             humans.  It's yeast lactate facilica and
 18             phototrophic bacteria.  And that combination
 19             works in synergy to quell the phosphates, to
 20             quell the nitrates, to create nodules in the
 21             plants that is absorbing the nitrates and ends
 22             up making the plant more productive than with
 23             fertilizer.
 24                  On sugarcane you get a five percent
 25             reduction compared to fertilizers.  And it's a
00133
  1             lot cheaper and it's safe.
  2                  So that's what I have been trying to do
  3             all this five years, trying to get noticed.
  4             And I appreciate you having this meeting so
  5             that I can talk about it because it is a lot
  6             cheaper and we are not talking billions of
  7             dollars, we just need to change our concepts.
  8             That's all I need.
  9                  MR. KING:  Thank you.
 10                  MS. KEEHNER:  Thank you.
 11                  Speaker 64.
 12                  65.
 13                  We could be done.  Is there anyone else
 14             who was interested in making remarks tonight?
 15                  MR. RYAN:  Could I make one follow-up?
 16                  MS. KEEHNER:  We have one person.
 17                  MR. RYAN:  Okay.
 18                  MR. MAHR:  Here is my number, 54.  My name
 19             is Dennis Mahr.  I don't represent anyone.
 20                  I was listening tonight and it seems to me
 21             that everyone wants to clean up the water, me
 22             included.  That's how I make my living and I am
 23             all for it.  However, everyone seems to look at
 24             someone else to do it.
 25                  One gentleman mentioned that air
00134
  1             conditioning is probably the root of all evil
  2             in Florida, and he may be actually right.  I
  3             kind of have a feeling that we may have too
  4             many people that the land won't support.  But
  5             that's going to be a problem solved pretty
  6             quickly because if we don't get a handle on
  7             this, we won't be able to live here.
  8                  And second of all, if we do start
  9             implementing all of this at once, nobody will
 10             be able to afford to live here.  So that's why
 11             I am kind of thinking that I do believe we need
 12             to clean up the water, I don't know what the
 13             standard should be, but I do believe that if we
 14             do this all at once we are going to wind up
 15             with a big monetarial problem.
 16                  So please consider it.  I know you have
 17             been studying it for a long time.  I don't know
 18             why it's all of the sudden an emergency, but we
 19             do need to do something.
 20                  Thank you.
 21                  MS. KEEHNER:  Thank you.
 22                  I think we had -- I think you wanted to
 23             make one last comment?
 24                  MR. RYAN:  Just real quick.
 25                  For perspective, in our water control --
00135
  1                  MS. KEEHNER:  State your name again.
  2                  MR. RYAN:  Excuse me.  John Ryan,
  3             supervisor of Loxahatchee Water Control
  4             District.
  5                  A few months ago we had what we referred
  6             to as a microburst rain event.  We had 7.9
  7             inches over about half our district in a three
  8             hour period.  I think that calculates out to
  9             about 744 million gallons of water.  Now some
 10             of it goes into the land, which is sandy.  Some
 11             of it goes into canals, which will hold a
 12             little bit of water.  But that is an example of
 13             the uncontrolled scale of what happens with our
 14             flood control canals.  And I think that's not
 15             just our situation, but others.
 16                  So that's just for perspective.
 17                  MS. KEEHNER:  Thank you.
 18                  DR. POULSON:  Could I make a follow-up
 19             also?
 20                  Dr. Tom Poulson again.  I forgot to make a
 21             couple of things I think are important for the
 22             farmers, and that is economically they would
 23             like to keep as much of that fertilizer on land
 24             as possible and use less.  There are more
 25             efficient ways of using it with trickled
00136
  1             irrigation and lots of things.  There are 25
  2             possible parts of BMP, even EEA people will
  3             agree, much more than the Kissimmee basin need
  4             to use 10 of those 25 things.  It would
  5             economically be to their advantage to keep that
  6             fertilizer on the land.
  7                  MS. KEEHNER:  Thank you.
  8                  One more and then we will close for the
  9             evening.
 10                  MR. GIRARD:  I just forgot to mention that
 11             I have been trying to get the -- in the Florida
 12             Keys, building this sewer system, and
 13             converting people from the septic systems to
 14             the sewers.  And in the wastewater management
 15             system they don't care about which
 16             microorganisms they are using, and I am coming
 17             in and saying try this.  Because what happens
 18             then is effective microorganisms encourages
 19             beneficial microorganisms.
 20                  One of the things where in South -- at the
 21             south part of Florida where there is that dead
 22             water, I believe it is because all the oxygen
 23             is being taken out because of the different
 24             bacteria.  If we were to -- they are going to
 25             be pumping that waste into the aquifers.  And
00137
  1             what I am trying to get them to understand is
  2             if they treat it from the beginning of where
  3             the sewer is coming in, it has that time to
  4             mature and to reduce the amount of time that
  5             they have to hold it so that it can take more
  6             capacity.  And because it's beneficial
  7             microorganisms, this product is used in
  8             fisheries where the hormones and the
  9             antibiotics do not need to be used.  And the
 10             fish grow bigger.
 11                  So it's a matter of getting the word out
 12             and offering a solution, and that's what I am
 13             trying to offer here.
 14                  MR. KING:  You should feel free to submit
 15             written comments --
 16                  MR. GIRARD:  I will be.
 17                  MR. KING:  -- which might be helpful.
 18                  MR. GIRARD:  I will be.
 19                  MR. KING:  Thank you.
 20                  MS. SALMON:  I just forgot one thing.  My
 21             name is Vanessa Salmon.
 22                  One other thing we talked about was, there
 23             was recently a study that showed that the level
 24             of bacteria and such in sand was going to be
 25             greater than that in water.  And when we were
00138
  1             looking at the different testing things we
  2             wanted to point out that it might make a lot of
  3             sense to test the sand that is south of inlets,
  4             such as the area where I live.
  5                  MR. KING:  Thank you.
  6                  MS. KEEHNER:  Thank you.
  7                  Well, I would like to thank everybody for
  8             a very interesting and engaging evening with a
  9             lot of really good comments.  And I would like
 10             to extend my thanks for the respectfulness of
 11             everyone extended to the speakers tonight.
 12                  Thank you and good night.
 13                  (Thereupon, the hearing was concluded
 14             at 8:45 o'clock p.m.)
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00139
  1                      C E R T I F I C A T E
  2   
  3        STATE OF FLORIDA
  4        COUNTY OF PALM BEACH
  5   
  6              I, DARLENE L. GRANDINETTI, Court Reporter
  7        and Notary Public in and for the State of Florida
  8        at large, certify that I was authorized to and did
  9        stenographically report the foregoing proceedings
 10        and that the transcript is a true and complete
 11        record of my stenographic notes.
 12              WITNESS my hand and official seal this
 13        4th day of March, 2010.
 14   
 15   
 16                          _____________________________
                             DARLENE L. GRANDINETTI
 17                          Court Reporter
                             Notary Public, State of Florida
 18                          My Commission No. CC869140
                             Expires: August 16, 2011
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