Reef Relief has long worked to improve state and national standards for water quality in the Florida Keys, particularly on the reef and in Florida Bay. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has extended the deadlines for the proposed establishment of numeric nutrient criteria for Florida’s estuarine and coastal waters (statewide), inland waters in South Florida (including canals), and downstream protection values for estuaries by ten months. This decision, which was made by mutual agreement between EPA and the parties involved in the Consent Decree (Florida Department of Environmental Protection and various plantiffs), will allow EPA to send the data and methods used to develop numeric nutrient criteria for Florida’s coastal waters to a Science Advisory Board for an independent public peer review. Both the letter to the Department as well as the Joint Notice to the Court are posted to the Department’s website at http://www.dep.state.fl.us/water/wqssp/nutrients/federal.htm .
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection initiated development of numeric nutrient criteria for estuaries earlier this year and conducted public meetings around the state in February and March to discuss the development of numeric nutrient criteria for estuarine and coastal systems. As a result of these public meetings and subsequent analyses, the Department is preparing reports on numeric nutrient criteria development in these estuarine and coastal systems. Draft reports will be posted in the next few weeks to the Department’s website at http://www.dep.state.fl.us/water/wqssp/nutrients/estuarine.htm . The PowerPoint presentations from the earlier public meetings have already been posted to this website.
The Department will be conducting four public meetings to discuss these estuarine and coastal system numeric nutrient criteria reports as follows:
DATE AND TIME: Tuesday, August 24, 2010, 9:00 a.m.
PLACE: Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Bob Martinez Center, Room 609, 2600 Blair Stone Road, Tallahassee, Florida 32399
AREA TO BE COVERED: Perdido Bay to Apalachee Bay
DATE AND TIME: Thursday, August 26, 2010, 9:00 a.m.
PLACE: South Florida Water Management District Auditorium, 3301 Gun Club Road, West Palm Beach, Florida 33406
AREA TO BE COVERED: Rookery Bay to St. Lucie River Estuary
DATE AND TIME: Tuesday, August 31, 2010, 1:00 p.m. and Wednesday, September 1, 2010, 9:00 a.m.
PLACE: Guana-Tolomato-Matanzas Research Reserve Auditorium, 505 Guana River Road, Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida 32082
AREA TO BE COVERED: Indian River Lagoon to St. Marys River Estuary
DATE AND TIME: Thursday, September 2, 2010, 9:00 a.m. and Friday, September 3, 2010, 9:00 a.m.
PLACE: Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council Conference Room, 4000 Gateway Centre Boulevard, Suite 100, Pinellas Park, Florida 33782
AREA TO BE COVERED: Suwannee River Estuary to Caloosahatchee River/Charlotte Harbor (NOTE: The morning of September 2nd will be dedicated to numeric nutrient criteria discussions of the Tampa Bay, Sarasota Bay, and Charlotte Harbor National Estuarine Program areas)
Most of the meetings can be expected to run until mid-afternoon or later with the exception of the September 1st and 3rd meetings, which will be limited to the morning. To ensure constructive dialogue during the meetings, we strongly encourage you to review the reports once they are posted to the Department’s website as discussed above. All of the meetings are open to the public, and we welcome any feedback you may have on the documents.
The Department has also established a Marine Numeric Nutrient Criteria Technical Advisory Committee (MTAC) to assist in our efforts to derive Florida’s marine numeric nutrient criteria. This TAC is separate and distinct from a previous TAC established for nutrient criteria development for freshwater systems (lakes, streams, and canals). The first meeting of the MTAC, which is open to the public, is scheduled as follows:
DATE AND TIME: Wednesday, September 15, 2010, 9:00 a.m.
PLACE: Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Bob Martinez Center, Room 609, 2600 Blair Stone Road, Tallahassee, Florida 32399