FDEP wants to water down water pollution rules

DEP stands for "Don't expect protection," as my late friend David Thundershield Queen put it best.

St, Augustine Record Guest Column: The Florida cancer lottery
Posted: June 11, 2016 - 3:29pm

By Gail Kraker
St. Augustine Beach
I am concerned that extremely few Floridians know about the proposed changes by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to significantly lower standards for numerous very toxic and even carcinogenic chemicals in Florida waterways.

Florida DEP is in the process of revising limits for toxic chemicals released into our rivers, lakes, streams and coastal waters.

It’s updating criteria for 43 dangerous chemical compounds and setting limits for the first time for another 39. If its proposal goes through, the majority of Florida’s pollution standards will be significantly weaker than what the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recommends.

Many of the chemicals that the DEP is proposing to either increase or now allow have been linked to cancer: Alzheimer’s, birth defects, development issues, behavior issues, disorders of the nervous system and reproduction.

Doctors and scientists, including Dr. Raymond Bellamy, an Orthopedic Surgeon and former board member of the Florida Environmental Regulation Commission, Dr. Ron Saff, a Tallahassee Allergist and Immunologist and Dr. Lonnie Draper, the Florida Chapter President for Physicians for Social Responsibility are predicting that Florida’s cancer rates will skyrocket.

DEP flatly denies this, saying that the concentration of pollutants in our waters wouldn’t pose a significant risk to the average Floridian’s health.

Note that in January the Florida chapter of PEER (Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility) released a report on hazardous waste enforcement at DEP. It concluded “The current administration ... has opted for an approach that morphs the DEP into nothing more than another section of each corporation, thus making enforcement all but impossible. It is now abundantly clear that any protection afforded to the environment will come in spite of the FDEP, not because of it.”

The EPA and all 49 other states use a deterministic method to calculate limits on pollution. DEP alone is pushing for a probabilistic approach dubbed “the Monte Carlo method” that would have the effect of increasing human exposure to toxicity. Linda Young, executive director of the Florida Clean Water Network, likens it to a cancer lottery with lousy odds.

These standards concern surface water, but most of Florida sits on limestone, and limestone is porous. What’s in our surface waters ends up in our groundwater and vice-versa.

The proposed limits don’t address several dozen toxic compounds on the EPA’s list of recommended criteria, which would remain unregulated. These include dioxin, a byproduct of pulp and paper mills that has contaminated such places as the Fenholloway River in Taylor County.

DEP’s insisting that benzene isn’t carcinogenic is small comfort, especially since Benzene has been linked to leukemia.

Allowable levels of arsenic would remain as they are — over 1,000 times higher than what EPA recommends.

In addition to the damage they’d do to public health, the proposed limits would almost certainly have ramifications for Florida’s main industries, tourism and agriculture.

Many of the Florida state legislators being contacted by concerned citizens aren’t even aware of the proposed DEP changes.

St. Augustine residents, if you care about the water you and your loved ones drink, bathe and swim in and the seafood you eat, I recommend you contact your state legislators.