Florida Agriculture Commissioner Pushes For Water Policy
October 16, 2015 When entering office, Florida Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam said one of the defining issues of his tenure in office would be water policy. His passion for the topic came through during a recent speech at the Florida Agriculture Financial Management Conference in Orlando.
During his talk, he stressed water is what makes Florida special and attractive to those who want to move here. In addition, he said now is the time to act to preserve water supply and quality before crisis occurs. When that happens, he said it would be too late to have meaningful control over water management actions.
He added that crisis looms in places like Central Florida where there could be a 250 million gallon water shortfall by 2030. Statewide, the shortfall will be 1 billion gallons per day by 2030. Meanwhile, water conflicts are occurring all over the state.
Bigger Than The Everglades
For too long, Putnam said Florida’s water policy discussion has revolved around just Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades.
“My view is for the past 20 years water policy in this state has been Everglades policy,” he said. “There hasn’t been much more to it other than what has been going on south of the Lake [Okeechobee]. For farmers north of the Lake, if you want to understand intensive agriculture in a heavily regulated environment, just look to your friends who operate south of the Lake, because they operate in a completely different world than the rest of you. And, you don’t want to go there.”
Despite the heavy regulation, Putnam said growers in the Everglades Agricultural Area have far exceeded the water quality goals while remaining productive. Last year, growers in the area reduced phosphorus loads by 79%. The law requires a 25% reduction.
Putnam said a comprehensive policy should be more than just the Everglades and would include more than just agriculture providing long-term strategies for counties and cities and their utilities. And, it would be a flexible plan that recognizes differences across the state and the feast or famine nature of water supply in Florida. The plan also would include a springs component. Putnam noted, if not for the Everglades, Florida would be most famous for its springs.
“The plan for Wekiva Springs, which is now a complete suburb of Orlando, is different than a plan to restore the springs in Jackson County, which are entirely surrounded by agriculture,” Putnam said. “So, you can’t have a single springs initiative, but you have to have a strategy from ranking them and identifying how to restore each of them on both flow and quality.
“My proposal was for those where agriculture was the dominant land use in the spring shed, the Department of Agriculture ought to be responsible for fixing it. In those areas where urban development, utilities, and septic systems are the biggest concern for a particular spring shed, the Department of Environmental Protection should take responsibility. Culturally, you would get better buy-in from the stakeholders and the agencies and have a strategy that works.”
The comprehensive and flexible water plan that Putnam and lawmakers put forth this year failed to move forward because of the breakdown in legislative session.
“We are bringing the bill back and both the House and Senate have indicated they continue to be in support of it,” Putnam said. “We are not going to mess with it because we had a good product last legislative session. I am very hopeful we will get the bill passed. It is important to me we have this policy, so it is a blueprint for how we spend the money.”
Leader In Easements
Florida residents overwhelmingly passed Amendment 1, which has dedicated hundreds of millions of dollars derived from documentary stamp revenue toward environmental restoration. Putnam argued some of those dollars should be dedicated toward keeping farms in production while reaping environmental benefits.
“Florida ought to lead in conservation easements,” he said. “The state has led for 20 years in acquiring land, but the state does not lead in managing land. We have Brazilian pepper farms and old world climbing fern farms. We do not manage our [purchased] land well, and certainly don’t manage it as well as private property owners.
“Conservation easements allow us to keep the land on the tax rolls, keep it in the economy generating economic activity, and avoid the perpetual management costs associated with it. There are reasons to buy land outright, but the vast majority of the time we can accomplish our environmental objectives with conservation easements.”
Building Infrastructure
Putnam also noted in some instances dollars may be best spent on building infrastructure aimed at improving water supply and quality even though it is controversial in some quarters.
“This was a big debate during the last legislative session and it will be again,” he said. “It is a debate worth having and winning, because in many cases, infrastructure is going to be the best thing for the environment.
“Let me give you an example. The best thing we can do for the Florida Keys’ water quality is to get those tens of thousands of homes and trailers that are down there whose septic systems consist of a 55 gallon drum that someone’s grandfather buried in the 1950s connected to central [septic] system and get it [waste] out of the Keys.”
The 2016 legislative session is set to begin on Jan. 12. The water bill will be introduced again during the session.
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