DEP closing 53 state parks?

The Department of Environmental Protection has proposed closing 53 of its 160 state parks, among other cutbacks in services, should the agency be required to slash 15 percent of its budget this year.

DEP's proposal, which would save about $47 million, was presented at Wednesday's House Agriculture and Natural Resources Approproations Subcommittee (look at pages 37-40). The proposals have become a common exercise for agencies amid the state's recent lean years.

Closing state parks with the lowest attendance and no camping facilities would save a quick $6.5 million, DEP said, but that would also mean the end of recurring revenues from those spaces. Here's a list of the parks, which includes Tampa's Ybor City Museum State Park and Windley Key Fossil Reef Geological State Park in Islamorada.

Naturally, Audobon of Florida is not a fan. “These may be the least-visited state parks, but they are often a substantial contributor to Florida’s smallest and most rural communities,” wrote Julie Wraithmell, the group's wildlife conservation director, in a Friday news release. "Florida state parks also provide an outstanding, affordable recreational opportunity to Florida’s families—all the more important in the current economy.” 

Fortunately for Audobon, neither is Rep. Trudi Williams, the subcommittee's Republican chairwoman from Fort Myers. Here's the chairwoman's e-mail to Naked Politics:

“With a 4 billion dollar budget shortfall, times are tough in the state of Florida. While I applaud DEP for their willingness to explore all avenues as a means to decrease our spending, I think that it is far too premature to conclude that 53 state parks will be closed in an effort retain an estimated 6.5 million dollars. When you consider the income that these parks bring in to the state and the quality of life that they afford our citizens, I would hope that there are other means in which we can responsibly cut back.  It should be noted that this proposal was made by agency staff and before Secretary Vinyard was appointed, and therefore the priorities of Secretary Vinyard may not be reflec

Environmental groups talk DOT, DEP, DCA merger

Leaders of several planning and conservation groups stopped short of criticizing the massive overhauls of the Department of Transportation, Deparment of Environmental Protection and Department of Community Affairs as recommended by Gov. Rick Scott's transition advisers.

Speaking during a conference about the groups' new position papers, Sierra Club Florida lobbyist David Cullen said he would oppose the transition team's model if it meant development and transportation were given consistent priority over the environmental community. "As long as the agencies are discrete they are bound to pursue their legislative mandate to execute the laws within their purview," Cullen said. "But if they're combined, an element of prioritizing is almost inevitable."

The position papers released Monday were authored by representatives from 1,000 Friends of Florida, Audobon of Florida, the Florida Wildlife Federation, Sierra Club, The Nature Conservancy and Tropical Audobon Society. The groups ask Scott, Senate President Mike Haridopolos and House Speaker Dean Cannon to improve the state's land-planning system, save taxpayer money through cost-efficient development and consider the state's environmental allure as part of its economic recovery, among other recommendations.

Manley Fuller, Florida Wildlife Federation president, would not recommend all three agencies be combined, but he said a structure that required the agencies to coordinate with one another would be beneficial. Several other leaders agreed, pointing to recent highway proposals that go against the interest of environmental groups. "The coordination of those functions is critical," Fuller said.

Read more about the merger idea in this Times December story.

McCollum sues the feds over new water rules

Flanked by the incoming attorney general and incoming agriculture commission, Attorney General Bill McCollum announced Tuesday that the state is suing the federal government for imposing an "unfair" and "capricious" water quality rule.

The lawsuit, filed in federal district court in Pensacola, alleges that the rule by the federal Environmental Protection Agency is "not based on scientifically sound methodology" and were adopted "just to settle a lawsuit" by environmental groups and citizens.

Attorney General-elect Pam Bondi and the newly-elected Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam said they will continue to lawsuit because they view the newly announced rules a violation of Florida's rights.

The federal government announced in November new water pollution standards that set specific numeric caps on pollutant levels for Florida lakes and rivers. Earthjustice attorney David Guest, who filed the original lawsuit against the federal government for failing to enforce the federal Clean Water Act, said the challenged by the Republican attorney general on behalf of landowners and agricultural interests was expected.

Experts: Court ruling could complicate future land deals for Everglades

The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday upheld -- with one pointed and potentially critical exception -- state water managers' plans to bankroll a $536 million purchase of a big chunk of the U.S. Sugar Corp. empire with bonds.

The justices did reverse part of a Palm Beach County circuit court decision issued last year, cutting out $50 million the agriculture giant had demanded for granting the South Florida Water Managment District a three-year ``option'' to buy an even larger swath in the future. The ruling also prohibited water managers from using the bond money to buy other parcels.

The long-awaited decision came too late to have any direct or immediate effect on a sugar deal Gov. Charlie Crist and environmentalists championed as a key to Everglades restoration. The district's governing board, slammed by plummeting property tax revenues, dropped the bonding plan as too expensive and instead opted for a radically downsized cash buy: $197 million for 26,800 acres of citrus groves and cane fields between the Everglades and Lake Okeechobee.

``I view this as a victory after the fact,'' said Eric Buermann, a Miami attorney who chairs the district's governing board. But he acknowledged that the court's take on the land option could complicate any effort to acquire more land in the future. Read more:

-- Curtis Morgan

Florida Supreme Court upholds only part of purchase of sugar land for Eglades

The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday upheld part of the U.S. Sugar deal that allows the South Florida Water Management District to buy 73,000 acres of land from the sugar giant to improve water quality and restore the Everglades. But the court overturned a lower court ruling and prohibited the district from using the same payment method to buy an additional 107,000 acres over three years without additional review.

The most interesting read, however, is the fiesty opinion from Justice Fred Lewis who concurs with the result of the opinion but blasts his colleagues for the way they arrive at it. He accuses the court majority of perpetuating previous flawed rulings that allow local government -- and now the SFWMD -- to issue long-term debt without the constitutionally required voter approval. 

This "perpetuates and expands a distortion of our fundamental organic law, leads us beyond our prior precedent, and denies the voters of this State their constitutional right to determine whether their local governments should issue long-term debt that is ―payable from ad valorem taxation," Lewis writes.

BP to pay $20M to monitor, promote FL seafood

Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson today announced that BP will pay $20 million to the state over the next three years to help pay for more inspections of Gulf seafood to check for lingering effects of this summer's oil spill. Half of the money will also be spent on marketing to restore public confidence that the food is safe.

In a release, Bronson said the money "will go a long way toward assuring the safety of seafood harvested in Florida waters and in restoring consumer confidence in our seafood products." The agreement with BP says that the money could be extended another three years if fishing areas are closed because of oil spill contamiants.

Before the well was capped, Bronson asked for $59 million over 10 years. Today, he said is satisfied with the $20 million agreement.

Federal judges keeps hope alive for Crist's Everglades land deal

Forcing water managers to build a massive abandoned reservoir would cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars but still not do enough to clean up the Everglades, according to an advisor to a federal judge.

If U.S. District Judge Federico Moreno accepts the advisor's recommendation, and he has in the past, it would keep alive what remains of Gov. Charlie Crist's controversial sugar land buy.

The South Florida Water Management District acknowledges it can't afford both projects -- completing a $700 million, 16,700-acre reservoir in western Palm Beach County and buying 26,000 acres for $197 million from the U.S. Sugar Corp. to convert it to reservoirs and pollution cleaning marshes.

Moreno, who oversees the landmark 1992 settlement that forced the state to cut pollution runoff destroying the native landscape, ordered the state in March to revive the reservoir, saying he was tired of waiting for the promising but downsized and repeatedly delayed U.S. Sugar land buy. He assigned John Barkett, a special master he appointed to analyze the complex Everglades litigation, to hash out new construction deadlines and cleanup plans. More from the Herald's Curtis Morgan here.

The toxic town that Florida forgot

One afternoon in September 2003, Laura Ward peered out her window and witnessed a giant rig drilling on her land, the largest residence in town. ``You don't know, but the water is contaminated here,'' a worker whispered to her. ``We're putting in monitoring wells in your community because the water is contaminated.''

Forty-four months after discovery that the shuttered American Beryllium Company plant had leaked pollutants into Tallevast, the community was just now getting word.

Two weeks later, Ward and neighbor Wanda Washington bumped into representatives from Lockheed Martin, the Fortune 500 company that owned the plant. `` `Is there some place we can go talk?' '' the executive asked, Ward recalled.

Huddled at the Mount Tabor Missionary Baptist Church on the town's main road, the Lockheed executive told them: ``There's some TCE in the water. We don't think it's very far off site.''

That assurance proved false. Once discovered, the documented size of the plume kept expanding, becoming larger and more toxic than the company's consultants disclosed, Florida's Department of Environmental Protection said in a 2004 order requiring Lockheed Martin to clean up the mess. In one spot, the concentration of cancer-causing TCE was 10,000 times above state standards. Five of seven irrigation wells had levels exceeding state benchmarks. In some spots, the state found TCE where the company had not.

The mix of TCE and other solvents, the DEP concluded, invaded both the surface and underlying aquifers in Tallevast and spread like a finger north, northeast, east and southeast into the hamlet.

A decade after the leak's discovery, a definitive health study has yet to be completed in the small town between Sarasota and Bradenton. Read story by Herald's Ronnie Greene here.

Crist calls (again) for special session on oil

Although no consensus among legislative leaders has yet emerged, Gov. Charlie Crist is again calling for a special session to consider a constitutional ban on oil drilling in Florida waters. He said a session could occur "as early as July. I think that is feasible and simply the right thing to do."

Rep. Ron Saunders, the Key West Democrat who is set to be the next minority leader, was with the governor and said the hold-up is incoming House Speaker Dean Cannon, who had previously pushed for drilling off Florida's shores. "People don't want to have to flip flop on their previous vote," Saunders said.

Cannon and other House leaders have said a constitutional ban is not needed. Florida law already bans drilling in Florida waters. And with the backdrop of one of the largest environmental disasters in recent history, lawmakers aren't likely to change that law anytime soon.

UPDATE: July looks to be nearly the deadline to pass a proposed amendment. Department of State spokeswoman Jennifer Davis notes that the department must receive proposed changes to the constitution at least 90 days before the general election. That's Aug. 4.

-- Cristina Silva

100 tar balls on Pensacola beach; not yet linked to BP spill

From the Pensacola News Journal: Although about 100 suspected tar balls picked up on Pensacola Beach on Wednesday have not been linked to the oil spill, they have been sent to a lab for analysis.

A shoreline cleanup assessment team retrieved the material, and it likely will take a week to get the results.

The tar ball finds were part of an oil spill update county officials provided to Santa Rosa Island Authority board members Wednesday evening.

If any of these tar balls or the roughly 100 collected on Perdido Key over the weekend are associated with the BP spill, it's the first evidence the oil spill has reached Northwest Florida shores, said Keith Wilkins, Escambia County deputy bureau chief for neighborhood and community services.