Numeric Nutrient Criteria – A Necessary First Step in Cleanup of Florida Waters

EPA is holding hearings this week on the draft of a proposed rule. Hearings will be held at:

February 16, 2010 at the FSU Conference Center

555 West Pensacola Street, Tallahassee, FL 32306-1640

10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.

7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.

February 17, 2010 at the Crowne Plaza Orlando Universal

7800 Universal Boulevard, Orlando, FL 32819

1:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.

7:30 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.

February 18, 2010 at the Holiday Inn Palm Beach Airport

1301 Belvedere Road, West Palm Beach, FL 33405

12:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.

6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.

Audubon will advocate numeric nutrient standards at the upcoming hearings. A good turnout of supporters will be needed to counteract the strong opposition by business and development oriented advocacy groups.

Florida Audubon has considerable experience in numeric nutrient standards due to our extensive participation in Everglades legislation, beginning in 1994 with Audubon’s advocacy of a 10 part per billion default phosphorus standard. State rulemaking backed by Audubon resulted in the final 10 part per billion standard established for the Everglades in 2003.

The current statewide narrative standard reading “In no case shall nutrient concentrations of a body of water be altered so as to cause an imbalance in natural populations of aquatic flora and fauna…” has been a failure without numerical thresholds attached to it. There is no easy enforcement of its subjective terms.

Adoption of statewide numeric nutrient standards must be followed by specific actions to achieve such standards. As we have seen in the Everglades, adopting a standard alone does not produce results; specific changes in the way water is processed, land is used, crops are grown, and urban developments are designed will all be necessary to produce any results. After a billion dollars of investment in stormwater treatment areas, and implementation best management practices, compliance with the Everglades 10 ppb phosphorus standard still has not been consistently achieved.

The proposed EPA standards are highly complex.  It is not clear that the same level of science backing up the Everglades 10 part per billion standard supports the numbers proposed.  The Statewide standards EPA is proposing generally allow much higher nutrient levels than in the Everglades. Phosphorus standards for lakes will range from 10 ppb to allowable limits as much as 157 ppb. Nitrogen limits for lakes are thousands of parts per billion (measured in parts per million).

Nutrient limits in river systems are established by region, with phosphorus numbers ranging from a 43 ppb limit in the panhandle to 739 ppb in the Peace River area, while nitrogen limits range from 824 ppb in the panhandle to 1,798 ppb in the Peace River.

There will be a long debate over numeric standards. Business, developer and industry groups strongly opposing the standards are overstating the difficulty of meeting them and inflating the costs involved. At the same time, the level of protection offered to ecosystems needs to be carefully tested to assure that the numbers proposed are protective enough.

While supporting statewide nutrient standards, Audubon will continue to vigorously pursue nutrient control efforts that are most immediate and urgent; meeting the 10 ppb standard already set for the Everglades, and reducing the most widespread and unnecessary source of surface and groundwater contamination from nutrients -- landspreading of millions of tons of sewage sludge.