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Rodman reservoir drawdown schedule 20203/15/2024 These rules would prevent people or companies from pulling so much water out of the aquifer that it would cause “harm” to those springs. One of the requirements written into this law directed the DEP to adopt new water permitting rules. Maybe they’ll even last until some future era where everyone has flying sports cars fueled by garbage. “Outstanding” means they’re so important that they need extra protection to ensure that they’ll be around for the enjoyment of your kids and grandkids and so on. It designated 30 of the state’s springs as “Outstanding Florida Springs.” In 2016, after a great deal of clamor by the springs-loving public, the Legislature passed a new law called the Florida Springs and Aquifer Protection Act. And their flow has been curtailed by all the people and businesses sucking water out of the aquifer to irrigate lawns and golf courses, dilute phosphate mining waste, and so forth. They have been harmed by the same nutrient pollution that’s been fueling algae blooms in the estuaries. But since at least the 1980s, conditions in Florida’s springs have been going downhill. Marjorie Stoneman Douglas dubbed them “bowls of liquid light,” which is a lovely and accurate description. It concerns water consumption permits that are being issued around springs throughout the state.įlorida’s springs have long been one of our state’s finest features. This involves more than just one patch of land in Polk County. Meanwhile, let’s celebrate: Yippee! Huzzah! Fire the confetti cannons! No idea who’s going to clean up the odiferous mess the BS Ranch will leave behind, but hey, that’s a problem for tomorrow, right? Isn’t that great? The DEP is now going to shut down a polluter that the agency should have shut down in 2014. It cited concerns with odors and groundwater contamination - two nuisances Lakeland residents have complained about for years,” the Lakeland Ledger reported. “The state agency found BS Ranch ‘did not provide reasonable assurances’ it can operate in compliance with state laws governing treatment and disposal of solid waste. Now they have expired, though, and the DEP is in effect telling the company to stop with the stinky stuff. These permits allowed the polluters to keep doing what they were already doing. Rick “Jobs Are All That Matter!” Scott - gave them new permits for “a pilot project,” something the agency had never done before. Instead, DEP officials - laboring under the dictates of then-Gov. When the DEP caught the BS Ranch violating its permit, the agency could have shut the operation down. What was really interesting was what DEP did about it - or rather, didn’t do. I wrote about the BS Ranch in January 2021 because the owners had gotten county and state permission to recycle benign waste, then brought in toxic sludge that drove their downwind neighbors bonkers. Let’s talk about the success first: Last week, the DEP rejected a request from the aptly named BS Ranch in Polk County to renew its permit to operate an organic waste facility. The agency screwed up, and not a little bit but a lot. Then, given a second opportunity to upend my presumptions, the DEP surprised me again - but in a bad way. Sort of.Īs with the plumber, I generally have low expectations for the agency that some people have dubbed “Don’t Expect Protection.” But the DEP did something good. Something along those lines happened last week with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection - not once, but twice. I couldn’t have been more surprised if my bank suddenly notified me it had been calculating my interest wrong and I was now a millionaire. He showed up right at 9 a.m., snaked out the clog in our sewer line in record time, then charged me less than I expected. I figured he would make me wait all day for him to show up, take forever to fix the problem, and then overcharge me.įolks, I was wrong. The other day I had reason to call a plumber.
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