Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been a big fan of the Bugs Bunny cartoons. I love when he does something outrageous and then turns to the camera and says, “Don’t I stink?” That’s interesting!
But now Gov. Ron DeSantis has taken actions that mean he really is a stinker. And I don’t think it’s interesting at all.
That image came to mind recently when the governor issued the last and most significant veto of his career.
The bill he vetoed included “biosolids,” an unpleasant term for the grossly disgusting waste long known as sewage sludge.
There isn’t much news coverage of this veto that I can find. Probably because this is such a stinky subject. But you need to know who is responsible because it will affect the quality of water that people across Florida drink.
The bill he vetoed, House Bill 1245, was intended to fill a gaping hole in Florida’s pollution regulations by restricting the dumping of Class AA sludge.
AA grade is the highest quality sludge, similar to the best flavor you get when you lick a used ashtray.
Lisa Linaman (Photo courtesy of St. John’s Riverkeeper)
“We have been working on disposing of Class AA biosolids for nearly a decade,” said Lisa Linamin, executive director of the St. Johns Riverkeeper organization. “Currently, there are no protective guardrails for Class AA.…It is not regulated.”
Thanks to the governor, dumping it on farmers’ fields will remain unregulated across Florida.
What I found particularly interesting was that he gave his reasons for vetoing the bill. If we run out of sewage sludge, we can replace his veto message.
The amount of fertilizer is about the same.
Tsunami of toilet filth
Chamber of Commerce people like to brag about the 900 new immigrants arriving every day, but they never mention the results.
The amount of poop produced by these large numbers of people continues to increase. How do we deal with the tsunami of toilet waste?
Our sewage treatment plants (many of which are old, outdated and underpowered) collect and process all the poop. But like David Copperfield with the Statue of Liberty, you can’t erase it completely.
After treatment, the sewage treatment plant must figure out what to do with the concentrated waste from the waste stream. It’s sewage sludge. Well, excuse me, “biosolids.”
Farmers end up using it as fertilizer for their crops, but inevitably what they get is far more than what they and their crops need. Sludge also contains many nasty contaminants, 352 of which, according to a 2018 Environmental Protection Agency report. That list may include “forever chemicals” that tend to cause cancer.
When truckers were dumping sludge into farmers’ fields around Lake Okeechobee, excess pollutants ended up in the Everglades.
So in 2007, Congress passed a law that essentially prohibited farms near Lake Okeechobee, the Kissimmee River and the Everglades from accepting 100,000 tons of South Florida Class B sewage sludge shipped by truck.
However, this law did not stop them from dumping the sludge elsewhere.
The truck began heading north to dump in the St. Johns River watershed. By 2019, Florida Today was calling Central Florida “Sludge Central.”
Here’s the good news. A bill passed by the Legislature this spring included new rules that would ban the dumping of Class B biosolids anywhere in the state starting in 2028. This is part of a nationwide effort to stop the use of this harmful gelatinous mess.
Now that you’re done shouting, it’s time for some bad news.
Another bill that passed would limit the amount of Class AA biosolids applied to a farmer’s field to the amount that field needs for the crop. Carriers could no longer throw away all their cargo and wash their hands.
Thanks to the governor’s veto, there is currently no legislation to stop Class AA indiscriminate dumping across the state.
And it’s clear from the governor’s veto letter that he’s blushing with pride for having done it.
Everyone agrees
I went back and reviewed the legislative committee hearings on the biosolids bill. they were really great.
I have often made fun of the fine Congress. After all, these are the people who once mistakenly outlawed sex. But this time, they got it right—evidence of the old Southern principle that even a blind pig sometimes finds an acorn.
The biosolids bill passed unanimously every time it met in committee in both the House and Senate. When the bill was then brought to the floor, it passed both the House and Senate without a single negative vote.
Whether it was the party, the committee or the caucus, everyone agreed that this was a big problem that the nation needed to solve.
State Sen. Jennifer Bradley, via Florida Senate
“Florida spends billions of dollars on water quality,” said Sen. Jennifer Bradley, R-Fleming Island, sponsor of the Senate version. “That’s what makes our state special and beautiful and great. But we can’t sustain that when there are huge loopholes in our biosolids regulations.”
There’s a loophole here. When a sewage facility produces sludge, you pay someone to take it away. The company that wins the transportation bid is often the one with the lowest rates. Usually this means the carrier is looking for the cheapest way to dispose of it.
To do this, it is often dumped in farmers’ fields not far from the sewage treatment plant. How much to dump is determined by how much the carrier is hauling, not what the site needs. Therefore, the excess is often washed away in the first storm.
The bill passed by Congress would change that. Dumping would be limited to the amount that is optimal for farmers, not transporters. Nowadays, the goal is not just disposal, but “beneficial reuse.”
I spoke with executives at Biosolids, and the company doesn’t do the wasteful practices that most other companies do.
Merrill Brothers, an Indiana company, has been hauling sludge since 1982 and has been doing the same in Florida since 2011. Blake Merrill is the second generation of his family to run this place.
He says Class B biosolids have a “muddy consistency” (horrible!) and a well-known odor. In contrast, Class AA biosolids are pasteurized like milk. The process involves drying the sludge in places like the 3-acre Merrill Greenhouse in Pasco County.
As a result, Class AA biosolids look like pellets, he explained. Although this method is more expensive, it is worth the extra step to remove some of the contaminants.
However, Class AA still contains many nutrients. Merrill Brothers supported the bill that passed.
“What you have to remember is that you and I and other people in Florida produce this waste every day,” he said. “So you can’t just say, ‘Oh, this isn’t my problem.'”
Blake Merrill (center) introduces his facility in Pasco County (via subject).
lack of understanding
Linaman’s St. John’s Water Authority was not alone in asking the state to better regulate the sewage sludge industry. John Henry November of the Public Trust for Conservation was also working on the project. In fact, his group has been grappling with the biosolids issue since 2013.
You can imagine how frustrated both parties were to see the bill passed through Congress without any sign of opposition, only to be tackled inches short of the finish line.
DeSantis’ veto, November said, “demonstrates a lack of understanding of what this bill is trying to do.”
The November comments echoed those of a Fort Pierce environmental consultant named Gary Roderick, former chief of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s Southeast Division.
In his letter, DeSantis argued that the bill “creates unnecessary regulations” and “imposes onerous record-keeping obligations on landowners.”
John November, via Public Trust for Conservation.
Gary Roderick from the subject
Please note that currently there are no regulations for Class AA biosolids. Therefore, for DeSantis, regulations on these pollutants are unnecessary.
Regarding “onerous record-keeping,” Roderick pointed out to me that the state previously required records of how much sludge was being dumped and where.
This situation stopped in 2013 under former Gov. Rick Scott, who prioritized business over the environment in every situation. Mr Scott called on environmental regulators to “assist” companies in complying with the law, rather than accusing them of breaking it.
Before 2013, Roderick said, “we actually knew how much of this human waste was being disposed of (by site and county inventory) and where it was being disposed of.”
No one can now say exactly where and how much sewage sludge is being dumped because the state has eliminated those reporting requirements, he noted. But that’s probably a lot, considering the fact that our population now has more than 23 million people who regularly use the toilet.
Given the governor’s ignorant comments, Roderick suggested that DeSantis, a lawyer by trade, may not know much about how agriculture works or the importance of record-keeping.
“Does he think (farmers) don’t know how much fertilizer they put on their land?” asked Roderick. “Or does he think older people are illiterate?”
These “troubling” records will most likely “be used to bring questionable litigation,” the governor warned, without explaining why he thinks they are questionable. To this, Roderick replies, with obvious sarcasm, “Well, we might have to do something about this contamination.”
DeSantis wrote that the bill’s goal of cleaning up pollution is laudable, but “can be achieved through existing oversight” by the DEP and the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.
If those state agencies come up with a measure to control the sludge being dumped in the state, “I’d love to see it!” Linaman said.
clear commitment
The most ironic line in the governor’s letter is, “My administration’s commitment to improving water quality is clear.”
That sentence is incomplete. It should have said “obviously doesn’t exist”.
As I pointed out just a few weeks ago, Mr. DeSantis was elected in 2018 on a promise to solve Florida’s growing toxic algae bloom problem. He appointed actual scientists to give him advice, but then ignored almost everything they told him to do.
Our boots-wearing governors have backed away from their own commitments because they have no will to crack down on polluters. After all, they tend to contribute significantly to campaigns.
Instead, he contracted with an Israeli company to repeatedly dump a hydrogen peroxide mixture into the waterway, quelling the bloom for a time. But they always come back.
By January, he will be out of office, out of public office, and no longer able to block environmental progress. According to the Lakeland Ledger, he bought a home near Lake Wales.
I am confident that the people who passed this bill in Congress this year will try again in 2027. We’re going to have another governor in office, probably one with backbone.
I think clean water advocates should never forget that DeSantis has tainted us all. I think next year’s bill should specify that the only place in the state where anyone can dump as much sewage sludge as they want is the former governor’s site. Destincas’ new front garden.
It’s for his own benefit. All that extra fertilizer helps grow a hedge large enough to hide from all those angry at his repeated betrayals.
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