Final conference summary
2010 May 14
Here’s the final summary from the Coming Together for Clean Water Conference. It contains an overview of each component of the event, as well as an outline of next steps. You’ll also find the other conference documents (which were posted previously) in the appendix.
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The strategy is a bunch of nice words without substance or measurable Goals.
1) What is the gap in trained staff at the federal and state level to make this happen ?
2) What is the data gap to make this happen ?
3) What are the unanswered research questions to make this happen ?
4) What is the smallest percent non-compliance you are willing to attain
to make this happen ?
5) What are the added costs per year in Federal, State and local Budgets to make
1-4 happen ?
6) What are the annual infrastructure construction, maintenance and operations costs to make this happen ?
7) What are the annual costs to make 1-6 happen for the next 10 years ??
Walt Lyon
We are pleased to see the EPA taking a stronger role in providing for clean water. In Florida numeric standards for pollutants must not be delayed. Some counties and municipalities on the west coast have recently passed ordinances to control residential fertilizer use, limiting nitrogen, a major source of pollution due to storm runoff. More should be done to encourage all communities to limit fertilizer.
We are frequently advised that much of our fish in the Gulf is contaminated by mercury due primarily to the burning of coal. More needs to be done to make the burning of coal cleaner, or very expensive, so that contaminants are kept from our waterways.
Phosphate mining must not be allowed in critical watersheds including the Peace River.
The EPA must take over the role of protecting our wetlands. The Army Corps has allowed 84,000 acres to disappear here in Florida between 1990 and 2003.
And we applaud your Clean Port program. More encouragement, legislation and penalties are needed to protect Florida’s waters from shipping discharges. Our nearby Port Manatee is focused on gaining business from the expansion of the Panama canal. Environmental policies are on the back burner.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment.
Yours truly,
Sandra Ripberger
Chair, Manatee Conservation Committee, Sierra
I must have missed something in the documents. No mention of hillslope erosion. Where do you think the sediment comes from? The sediment composing the banks of alluvial streams ultimately came from the hillslopes. To control erosion is to contol sediment, is to control much of pollutant transport adsorbed to sediment. Eclological health is great but why not address the source of the problems? I continue to marvel at the concern with sediment but virtually no interest in the cause and sources of the sediment.
I hope the policy will include the impacts of people, not just industry. Based on my 20+ years, I think there is dimishing returns from leaning on the same old cast of characters. When the EPA did the air study on schools (recently published some results), their monitoring metrics were industrial contaminants…and did not do the obvious of including contaminants from the community itself (combustions, homes, commerical products, etc)…I think that skews the assessment away from the biggest health impact contributors (us…people). It is time to regulate people, not just industry/municipalities.
IMO