That Sinking Feeling

A new water standard stemming from the 1972 Clean Water Act (CWA), and promising to increase operational expenses for businesses, could sink some Southwest Florida businesses barely afloat in a sea of economic turbulence.

The measure, in an “amended determination” to the CWA, limits nutrient levels in Florida’s inland waterways to 10 parts or micrograms of dissolved contaminants per 10 billion liters of water, or ppb. In layman’s terms, 1 ppb is like one drop of water in an Olympic- size swimming pool. It’s also a level of phosphorous seven times more stringent than drinking water, according to the South Florida Water Management District, a governmental agency that oversees water resources in the southern half of the state.

To get to that number, farmers and industrial business owners will have to spend millions on building or retrofitting filtration equipment and reconfiguring manufacturing processes, adding another cost of doing business in the southern part of the state.

With state general revenue falling by $5.42 billion since 2007, appropriations to the South Florida Water Management District have fallen by $224 million. “At an estimated cost of more than $1.5 billion over the next nine years, the projects and schedules put forward by the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] are, regrettably, not achievable within our existing revenue streams,” stated Carol Ann Wehle, the district’s executive director, in a letter about a hearing on the issue last September.

Translation: more taxes.