Name: Florida’s environmental commission hasn’t met in 4 years | Commentary
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Florida’s environmental commission hasn’t met in 4 years | Commentary

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AdvertisementBy Orlando SentinelApr 09, 2021 at 1:35 pmLast week, the nation watched as Florida dumped more than 200 million gallons of wastewater into Tampa Bay to avoid a community-flooding disaster.With that environmental mess unfolding, it seemed like a good time to check and see what the state’s Environmental Regulation Commission had been doing.AdvertisementNothing, as it turns out.The board hadn’t met a single time in 2021.AdvertisementOr in 2020, 2019 and 2018 for that matter.In fact, you have to go back to February of 2017 to find the last time this commission met … this commission set up to “protect Floridians and the environment.”That’s actually the commission’s stated mission. Now, I’m gonna go out on a limb and say a group that hasn’t actually met in more than four years isn’t protecting much of anything.Wanna see one reason (out of many) why I don't trust this state to protect the environment?Check out the past year's worth of meeting agendas for Florida's Environmental Regulation Commission. — Scott Maxwell (@Scott_Maxwell)This, my friends, is Florida’s version of environmental protection: Just don’t do it. Until disaster strikes. Whether it’s toxic algae or a leaking wastewater.Then everyone runs around panicking and sticks Florida taxpayers with the bill.The latest disaster could cost you plenty. Legislators are already talking about spending up to $200 million.I’d argue it makes more sense to prevent pollution than pay to clean up messes afterwards.Imagine me walking onto your white carpet with a bottle of red wine and asking how you’d like to pay for the cleanup after I dump my merlot everywhere.AdvertisementYou might say: How about you just not dump it?Florida lawmakers say: Aw, we’ll just take some money from public education. Or maybe the affordable-housing fund.The impact of the Piney Point mess still isn’t clear. In an , the state said the wastewater being dumped into the bay “meets water quality standards for marine waters with the exception of pH, total phosphorus, total nitrogen and total ammonia nitrogen.”Um, that’s an awful lot of troubling words after the phrase “with the exception of.” (Everything I dump on your carpet will be fine … with the exception of all the many things that really, really aren’t.)The main problem with Piney Point — a former fertilizing facility where industrial byproducts were stored — is that the site’s former owner, the Mulberry Corp., abandoned it in 2001 when the company filed for bankruptcy.Now, if someone wanted to set up a dump of any kind, I think I’d ask for upfront money to clean and care for the mess should the company ever walk away — similar to the way a landlord asks for first and last month’s rent.AdvertisementBonnie Malloy, an attorney who left Florida’s increasingly anemic environmental-protection division to join the nonprofit environmental champions at Earthjustice, said: “If there had ever been proper financial assurance, this would be a very different story.”But that’s the kind of thing Florida politicians view as a burden on business. They’d rather burden you, the taxpayer.That’s how we end up with toxic algae, radioactive sinkholes and other things that sound like they came out of a Stephen King novel.King, by the way, is disgusted with Florida, too. The famed novelist said “Piney Point could be the environmental disaster Florida has been courting for a long, long time.”Piney Point could be the environmental disaster Florida has been courting for a long, long time.— Stephen King (@StephenKing)The only thing I’d challenge King on is his use of the word “the.” I’d say “one of many.”And there’s no more costly environmental mess than the Everglades, where politicians let Big Sugar and other agriculture interests muck things up. A cleanup price tag once estimated at $8 billion is now closer to $16 billion.AdvertisementFlorida’s environmental malfeasance certainly predates this governor. We saw it when Democrats ruled the state and Florida’s pave-and-sprawl approach to growth took root.Still, basic neglect of the environment turned into an outright assault under Rick Scott when the state shut down water-quality monitoring stations, slashed staff at the agencies that check for pollution and cut back on land-preservation programs.Under Scott, the state reduced the number of cases it opened to crack down on bad environmental actors by more than 80%. Malloy described the Scott’s theory as “industry accommodation.”And now we have DeSantis, who portrayed himself as a Teddy Roosevelt conservationist but has stocked the state’s water-management boards with developers and campaign donors; a pawn broker, Chick-fil-A franchise owner and even a garbage-company exec. Applications from clean-water champions have been rejected.WeeklyGet latest updates political news from Central Florida and across the state. &gt; Then there’s the MIA environmental commission. DeSantis’ office wouldn’t answer questions about why his commission had never met a single time in the two-and-a-half years he has been governor.“Where are they?” Malloy asked. “Why aren’t they doing anything? It’s another tool that’s not being utilized. And it shows how serious Florida is in its environmental policies.”AdvertisementI’ve said before that you can’t treat your state like a toilet bowl and then get surprised when it backs up.Last month, DeSantis made headlines again when the state’s , Tom Frazer, quietly left his position.DeSantis, though, reassured everyone that everything was fine, stressing that he had decided to appoint Dr. Frazer to another important environmental post.Want to guess where? As a member of the Environmental Regulation Commission … you know, the group that hasn’t met a single time since he took office. Advertisement

AdvertisementBy Orlando SentinelApr 09, 2021 at 1:35 pmLast week, the nation watched as Florida dumped more than 200 million gallons of wastewater into Tampa Bay to avoid a community-flooding disaster.With that environmental mess unfolding, it seemed like a good time to check and see what the state’s Environmental Regulation Commission had been doing.AdvertisementNothing, as it turns out.The board hadn’t met a single time in 2021.AdvertisementOr in 2020, 2019 and 2018 for that matter.In fact, you have to go back to February of 2017 to find the last time this commission met … this commission...

Florida’s environmental commission hasn’t met in 4 years | Commentary

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