The Political Whore

By Kelly Cornelius
PoHo contributor & R-LAND activist

Since bad bills like SB 360, legislation to weaken severely growth management laws, and other developer dreams are still alive and well in Tally at the last hour, I wondered what our eight paid lobbyists for Hillsborough County are doing with their time. As legislators attempt to rob a fund to clean up polluted water sources from petroleum leaks (one is in my neighborhood). I wondered where Hillsborough’s Environmental Protection Commission is. I am still wondering. Citizen activist Dee Layne has spent many years up in Tallahassee during session fighting bad growth management and environmental bills that would harm Hillsborough. She does it for her organization Coalition for Responsible Growth C4RG and she sends back legislative alerts to those of us at home who care about being completely paved over or drinking petroleum laden water.

While she speaks in Committees to fight for Hillsborough our lobbyists have been silent. I asked our county for a detailed list of its activities, and all I got back was a handout that was from the Florida Association of Counties. Eight paid lobbyists and they are using other people’s work? According to Layne, the Association of Counties was not even against SB 360 until recently, so what the hell have our paid lobbyists been doing up there? I also asked for the county’s policy of exactly how and who instructs our lobbyists. I am still waiting and it appears they don’t have one. Uh-huh. I want to see a list of when they have spoken on the record in our behalf. If there isn’t documentation of it then how are taxpayers supposed to know we are getting our moneys worth? If bad growth management bills are not bad enough, there is a bad environmental bill to rob the toxic plume clean-up fund around many contaminated sites right here in Hillsborough. There might be one near you; here is the list and it is disturbing. In addition, this could cut the funding for 16-17 EPC employees.

According to Layne, the voting on this started late last week. Our fearless leader of the EPC, Dr. Richard Garrity, wrote a letter about it to legislators…………when? Wednesday April 22! Here’s the text:

April 22, 2009

Honorable Jeffrey Atwater
Senate President
404 S. Monroe Street Room
312 SOB
Tallahassee, FL 32399-1100

Executive Director Richard O. Garrity, Ph.D.
Roger P. Stewart Center
3629 Queen Palm Dr.• Tampa, FL 33619

Re: Budget: Inland Protection Trust Fund and State Funding of the Petroleum Cleanup Contracts for Local Programs

Dear Senator Atwater,

As Executive Director of the Environmental Protection Commission of Hillsborough County {EPC}, a local pollution control program, I wish to express my concern regarding current budget proposals from both the House and the Senate to nearly deplete the Inland Protection Trust Fund (IPTF), or under the current best case scenario, significantly diminish the IPTF’s current funding. This is the funding source that ensures the cleanup of petroleum pollutants that have been discharged into the environment from leaking underground and above ground storage systems. We are aware of the hard decisions that must be made during these difficult economic times; however, I am requesting that you reconsider this specific proposal for several reasons. Clearly such drastic reductions will not only have a detrimental effect to groundwater and environmental resources, but it will also have further significant economic impacts.

As you know, ninety percent (90%) of Florida’s drinking water comes from groundwater. Delaying or eliminating the State’s petroleum cleanup efforts will likely increase the spread of contamination at sites already being addressed. Stoppage of work at thousands of sites around the State will likely lead to the re-spreading of the plumes that were under cleanup, resulting in an increased cost of cleanup in the future. This spreading of pollutants will also increase the risks of human and wildlife exposure.

In Hillsborough County alone such significant funding reductions will lead to stoppage of cleanup work at more than three-hundred contaminated sites currently undergoing remediation and treatment. Depending on prioritization, it is also likely to result in minimal regulatory oversight at sites installing new petroleum storage systems. Such oversight is the key to prevention of future mishaps similar to those that generated a great number of the contaminated sites that exist today. This is clearly a case where postponement today will substantially increase the cost to accomplish the same goal in the future.

Locally, as well as statewide, these funding reductions will lead to substantial layoffs of highly trained government personnel employed to ensure the best use of State funds and to ensure that appropriate methods are used to achieve cleanup results. For Hillsborough County alone, the elimination of the IPTF funding will likely lead to up to sixteen professional employee layoffs. Since these functions are performed at the local level, significant employee Ilayoffs would lrikely occur within many other local governments.

The funding reductions will also lead to private sector, layoffs and impacts to small businesses such as engineering consulting firms, drilling contractors, and environmental laboratories that have developed expertise to address this needed environmental effort. The employees associated with contamination cleanup and site investigation are more often technical positions such as engineers, geologists, and scientists, as well as other skilled labor. The expertise that will be lost will not easily be replaced when these necessary programs are re-established.

I urge the legislature to reinstate adequate funding to keep this environmentally essential program running in order to provide the protections to the public and environment that these funds were initially established to preserve. The IPTF program has proven itself as a highly successful public/private partnership between the State, local governments, and the private sector, providing a highly efficient return on investment to the public and the resources of Florida.

Thank you for your consideration in this matter.

Sincerely,

Richard D. Garrity, Ph.D. Executive Director

cc: Governor Charlie Crist Hillsborough County Legislative Delegation Environmental Protection Commission Mike Sole, Secretary, FDEP

He waited until two days before to start lobbying people on something as important as a clean water source and the loss of 16 of his employees? This guy makes Mister Rogers look aggressive and he all but drove the front end loader to fill in our wetlands with the Hybrid yet still I am surprised. This appears to be too little too late and this lack of involvement at the state level could cripple what is left of our EPC not to mention contaminate our drinking water. Hello……..EPC where are you? What has the chairman of the EPC the New Blair Higginbotham done about it? According to his aide, the 8th commissioner, Mr. Johnson, he helped draft that letter with Garrity. Way to be on it, boys. Why are they not shouting this from the rooftops? Does the rest of the BOCC (which sadly also make up the EPC) even know about this? I bet the original Blair would be proud. So while bills that would allow our drinking water to be contaminated, our growth patterns to make Brandon look desirable and even a ban on impact fees to make sure developers get more welfare, where are Hillsborough’s representatives? Have they ever spoken on the record about these or any bills? I had to learn about it from the paper and a citizen. Team Sprawl will probably love to have some of these bad growth bills go through because it decreases the heat they would have to take back home for poor growth decisions if state rules change. In fact, according to some citizens following or attending the recently formed Economic Task Force, some of the crap they are pushing is very similar to ………..SB 360. No shock there.

What can you do? Contact the BOCC/EPC here. Tell them there is little time left and they should hold emergency meetings of the BOCC and EPC immediately to tell our lobbyists where they stand on these and other bills and to fight for us in Tally. Also ask them what the lobbyists have done so far and how much do they get paid to be sitting on the sidelines all this time.

You can also contact our local state legislators.

Send Dee Layne a Thank You on her C4RG website for being the only one willing to fight for Hillsborough up in Tally. If they change the laws up there what we do here won’t matter much.

Posted in Fix-it-now, Tampa Bay Politics, The Legislature | Leave a comment