DeSantis ignores law requiring new rules to protect Florida springs

Gov. Ron “Golf Means More to Me Than Your Silly State Parks” DeSantis likes to tout himself as a serious law-and-order politician, despite endorsing a convicted felon for president.

But did you know he’s actually an outlaw?

It’s true! He’s the biggest scofflaw Florida’s seen since notorious Western gunslinger John Wesley Hardin was captured in Pensacola because his gun got tangled in his suspenders!

As Judas Priest would put it, DeSantis has been “breaking the law! breaking the law!” ever since he took office. There’s no sign that he’s inclined to change his ways, either, because he’s suffered no consequences from his illegal actions.

And it’s hurting every single one of us.

The law he’s been breaking is one passed in 2016 under his predecessor, former Gov. Rick Scott, R-Plead the Fifth. It’s called “The Florida Springs and Aquifer Protection Act.”

For once, the title of a bill accurately conveyed its purpose. The law also included a word you seldom see in state law: “urgently,” as in: “The Legislature recognizes that action is urgently needed.”

The law designated 30 of the state’s waterways as “Outstanding Florida Springs,” which means they are such Florida treasures that they deserve extra protection. That way, they’ll be around for future generations of Floridians to enjoy.

The list runs from Alexander Spring in Lake County to Wekiwa Spring in Orange County and includes quite a few big names, such as Silver Springs, where glass bottom boats used to run. Several are part of the state park system, which means they’re owned by us taxpayers.

The law — it’s FS 373.219(3) if you want to look it up — says the state must develop and adopt rules to prevent any harm to these springs from groundwater withdrawals.

Alas, DeSantis’ Department of Environmental Procrastination — er, excuse me, “Protection” — has broken this law over and over again. His DEP has been dragging its feet about making any changes that might better protect the springs.

Some 120 people showed up last week for a hearing in Apopka on the latest DEP ruse — er, excuse me, “proposed rules.” It’s the third such hearing since the law passed, Ryan Smart, executive director of the Florida Springs Council, told me this week.

The DEP keeps proposing rules that do nothing for the springs, he said. The public complains that they’re inadequate. Then, the DEP withdraws the proposed rules and promises better ones. Each time, DEP delays adopting anything, so the rules from before the law passed remain in place.

“Meanwhile,” he told me,”there’s hundreds and hundreds of consumptive use permits issued.”

Lifeblood of the Florida economy

Have you ever splashed around in a Florida spring?

I have, and let me tell you, in the heat of the summer, there’s no better place to cool off. To me, this is a quintessential Florida experience, more magical (and much cheaper) than a trip to Disney World.

Sometimes, you can see manatees swimming through the bubbling water, or turtles, and fish that seem to be floating through what Marjorie Stoneman Douglas called “bowls of liquid light.”

Florida has more first-magnitude springs than anywhere else in the world. They were our first tourist attraction, drawing gullible Northerners convinced by medical quacks that sitting in the springs produced health benefits. The supposed physical benefits were bogus, but I think the mental ones are real.

They’re still a major tourist draw. Florida State University says just one, Wakulla Springs State Park, contributes about $20 million annually in tourism spending.

And since the source of our spring flow is the aquifer that provides most of our drinking water, it’s a way to make sure the unseen plumbing that keeps us all alive is still working.

“Water is the lifeblood of the Florida economy, and clean water is essential for us and our children,” David Simmons, who, as a Republican senator from Central Florida, sponsored the bill on the springs, told me. “That’s why it’s critical that our springs be protected.”

Simmons’ law says, “For Outstanding Florida Springs, the department shall adopt uniform rules for issuing permits which prevent groundwater withdrawals that are harmful to the water resources and adopt by rule a uniform definition of the term ‘harmful to the water resources’ to provide water management districts with minimum standards necessary to be consistent with the overall water policy of the state.”

The bill that passed the Legislature said the DEP would have until 2017 to come up with these rules. Instead of leaping to comply, the agency granted itself more time to come up with what they were required to produce.

And then the DEP did it again in 2018. And in 2019. And in 2020. And one more time in 2021.

That’s FIVE times that the DEP said it needed another year to comply with the law. I wish I could use that trick with my taxes: “Yes, Mr. IRS Agent, I just gave myself a fifth extension to pay you, so we’re cool.” I don’t think that would go over well, do you?

Each time DEP granted itself an extension, this was the explanation it posted on its website: “The department needs additional time to further develop and solicit public comment on the rules associated with this rulemaking effort.” The nod and wink were implied.

Finally, in 2022, the agency announced that it had drafted new regulations. Isn’t that awesome?

There was just one teensy little problem. The language in DEP’s new rules was about the same as the old rules that the state was using when issuing permits in 2016. You know, the rules that so upset the Legislature that it wanted them replaced urgently.

When the public pointed out the problem, we began this repeated round of issuing “new” rules and then withdrawing them.

For springs advocates, this has been like being trapped in a Florida-centric version of “Groundhog Day” — but so far, without the happy ending.

Simmons told me he can’t understand why DEP has repeatedly avoided complying with the law he drafted. Last year, to help the agency out, he even drew up some proposed rules himself and sent them to the DEP.  He told me he received no response.

The Florida Springs Council has also submitted its own proposed rules to DEP. The response from DEP was identical to the one Simmons received.

But that makes sense to me. When you’re an outlaw, you’ve got to lie low and keep quiet.

The giant sucking sound

During his most recent inaugural speech, our Desperado-in-Chief said, “We promised to usher in a new era of stewardship for Florida’s natural resources by promoting water quality and Everglades restoration efforts — and we delivered.”

Whatever he delivered apparently went to the wrong address. When it comes to clean water, he’s as much of a criminal as Fiona Apple.

DeSantis’ one major innovation has been to cut a secret deal with an Israeli company to repeatedly dump a hydrogen peroxide mixture called Lake Guard Oxy on toxic algae blooms to make them dissipate. But the blooms keep coming back because the state fails to stop pollution at its source.

Two things are important to maintaining our springs: Quantity and quality of the water. These two factors are connected, too. If the flow is strong, it can flush out pollutants. A lighter flow has a difficult time doing that.

The photos of Poe Springs then and now show the decline. Photo by John Moran.

Florida’s been messing up both by handing out water consumption permits with all the restraint of an unscrupulous dentist handing out Halloween candy to trick-or-treating future patients.

For decades we’ve been pretending that our aquifer possesses an unlimited supply of fresh water, but it does not. You can almost hear the giant sucking sound from the ever-growing population of users demanding new water consumption permits.

“A 2018 study revealed a 32 percent reduction in average spring flows between 1950 and 2010; divers now walk through caves that they previously had to swim through,” National Geographic reported in 2020. “The aquifer is in trouble, and projections are that Florida’s freshwater basins may get even drier.”

To confirm my suspicions about this, I consulted Bob Knight of the Florida Springs Institute, who been studying these natural phenomena for 40 years. Sure enough, Florida’s springs are showing decreased flow, with all that that implies.

“When they have decreased flow, they have increased algae,” he told me. “And the more they’re dominated by algae, the more depopulated of wildlife species they become.”

The springs’ decreased flow is due to the millions of gallons of water being pumped out of the aquifer to sprinkle golf courses, water crops, keep suburban lawns looking healthy, and so forth. They are the mundane killers of one of the things that make Florida special.

Four years ago, the first time I wrote about this situation, I checked with one of the state water agencies with a lot of springs in its jurisdiction, the Suwannee River Water Management District. In just one year, it had issued 22 new permits to suck water out of the aquifer and renewed another 16. Not one had been denied.

One particularly bad permit from the Suwannee agency, approved in 2021, allowed a company called Seven Springs Water to pump 984,000 gallons a day out of the aquifer at Ginnie Springs and sell it to Nestlé to bottle.

Except for ponying up for the paltry cost of the permit, neither Seven Springs nor Nestlé will pay the state a dime for sucking up all that water and selling it.

That 984,000 gallons-a-day permit the agency’s board approved provides a big increase from the 265,000 gallons a day that Seven Springs had been pumping for years. Oh, if only there had been some rules in place to prevent big water users from harming outstanding springs!

Oh, well, maybe next year.

I asked Knight if he had any insight into why the DEP has repeatedly refused to follow the law.

“The DEP is not interested in protecting the springs from harm,” he told me. “They’re concerned about doing something to look like they’re doing something. But the only harm they’re concerned about is the harm to industries like agriculture and land development. They’re trying to do what the governor tells them to.”

An oath of omertà

So, to recap: It’s been eight years since the Legislature told the DEP to fix this, and the DEP, an agency under the governor’s control, has refused to do it. To quote a popular sitcom from years ago: Eight is enough.

I tried to talk to the DEP about this, but when I contacted them for comment, I heard the same silence Simmons did. Perhaps the governor made the agency personnel take an oath of “omertà” not unlike the one the Corleones enforced.

I wish I could tell you that, in the words of the Clash, DeSantis fought the law, and the law won. Unfortunately, the law has not won. It’s been trampled underfoot like grapes in a vineyard.

Smart told me his group of springs advocates wants the state to either adopt the rules they proposed or else adopt those bad ones so they can sue the DEP to overturn them. By repeatedly postponing any action, the DEP has thwarted their ability to take DeSantis to court.

I have a different suggestion. Mine is based on an episode of “The Andy Griffith Show.”

The Mayberry gas station was run by a pre-Marines Gomer Pyle. One day, he spotted Deputy Barney Fife making an illegal U-turn, one that Gomer had been told he could not make. Gomer ran after Barney yelling, “CITIZENS ARREST!” over and over until he stopped.

I would encourage you, every time you see our lawless governor poke his head out of the mansion or step off his jet, to point in his direction and yell, “CITIZEN’S ARREST!” Try to use Gomer’s nasal tone, too, for maximum annoyance. Send him emails and leave him voicemails with the same message.

As we learned during the Great DeSantis State Parks Debacle, he does respond to public shaming.

Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com. Follow Florida Phoenix on Facebook and X.