When I attended the AP preview press conference in Tallahassee, the need for the state legislature to pass a comprehensive water plan was pushed by Commissioner of Agriculture Adam Putnam. Why?
“A child born today, by the time they get their driver’s license, Florida will be at a 6 million gallon a day deficit of water, in some areas of the state greater than that,” he told Inweekly on a recent visit to Pensacola. “To maintain our rate of growth and our quality of life, we’re going to have to make some investments in water supply and alternative water supplies. We have to get out of the habit of using water just once, particularly lower in the peninsula.”
He said, “What I laid out in January is you want to have an overarching policy with regional approaches, because what Appalache needs is different than what Everglades needs, so you do need to have an emphasis on springs. You do need that Central Florida Water initiative emphasis. We need a Northern Everglades initiative, a Lake Okeechobee initiative to control those discharges, so I think, by and large the House bill offers some of that framework. The Senate bill is more narrowly tailored at the moment. I hope that they will move to a more comprehensive approach, knowing that they’re going to want to see even stronger language on the springs.”
The News Service of Florida published this article on the House bill that passed last week:
WATER FLOWS THROUGH THE HOUSE
Indicating how important the issue is to House Speaker Steve Crisafulli, a wide-ranging water policy measure was the first piece of legislation approved by his chamber during the 2015 session.
The House on Thursday passed a plan that would make changes to the management of the state’s natural springs and address drinking-water issues across Central Florida as well as the flow of pollution in and out of Lake Okeechobee.
The proposal (HB 7003), backed by the state’s agriculture industry and influential business groups, must still get through the Senate, whose members have their own ideas about changing the state’s water policies to meet the demands of a newly approved constitutional amendment about land and water conservation.
Environmentalists and a number of Democrats are pinning their hopes on the Senate damming up many of the House’s proposals.
“This is a foundational place for us to begin on this bill,” Crisafulli, a Merritt Island Republican whose family owns agricultural land, told reporters after the 109-6 vote. “We’re going to continue to communicate with our Senate partners on it. But at the end of the day, we’re very comfortable where we are starting.”
The House plan would impose what are known as “best management practices” for natural springs, the Everglades and Lake Okeechobee. Also, water-management districts would be directed to implement a water-management plan across Central Florida.
Environmentalists contend that “best management practices” are simply guidelines that fail to mandate needed improvements.
The Senate version, which closely mirrors a proposal senators considered last year, is heavily focused on protecting the state’s natural springs. It also would establish a method to prioritize various water projects and create a non-motorized trail network, which is backed by Senate President Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando.
In contrast to the Senate proposal, the House measure does not include springs-protection zones, which would regulate the impact of septic tanks and the flow of storm water and agricultural runoff into springs.
Speaking against the House bill, House Minority Leader Mark Pafford said he’d prefer legislation that directs money from the constitutional amendment, known as Amendment 1, to conserve land and water and questioned the speed in which the bill was rushed to the floor.
“There is very little conservation in (HB) 7003, there’s very little land discussion,” Pafford, D-West Palm Beach, said. “We’re talking comprehensive water fixes. Couldn’t they have taken more time?”