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Groups ask EPA to take over water protection

TALLAHASSEE - Two national conservation groups said Thursday that Florida's environmental regulators have failed to enforce clean water standards and asked the federal government to take over those responsibilities from the state.

The Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club said they filed a 60-day notice of their intent to sue the federal Environmental Protection Agency to compel it to take over Clean Water Act enforcement in Florida.

In 1995, the EPA delegated responsibility for the provisions in the act to the state, which promised to uphold the federal law, said Eric Huber, a Sierra Club attorney.

Since then, the state has failed to issue permits that would limit the amount of dioxins, phosphorus, sewage and other pollutants entering Florida waterways, the groups contend.

DEP spokeswoman Deena Wells defended the agency, saying Florida's laws go further than federal standards and there is no need for the EPA to step in.

"Florida's waterways are cleaner and better protected than they were five years ago," Wells said.

But Huber said a state court's decision last week is an example of a breakdown of state controls over polluters. The court ruled Florida had to more vigorously regulate large dairies, which had to apply for waste-discharge permits to comply with state and federal clean water laws. The state is appealing.

FORT MYERS - A presumed length of pipe that ignited when workers at a scrap yard started to cut it up turned out to be an 8-foot rocket, dredged up in the Gulf of Mexico by a shrimp boat months ago, state officials said.

The Southwest Florida Domestic Security Task Force said in a press release that the owner of Ericksen & Jensen Shrimp Co. called the Lee County Sheriff's Office, saying the missile was likely one that one of its boats brought ashore after a net snagged it.

Age and water damage made it impossible to identify the type of missile, agents said, but it was thought to be a U.S. Navy practice rocket with propellant still inside.

When workers at Garden Street Iron & Metal put a torch to it to cut it up, fire and smoke shot out and it began scooting across the ground. "It started hissing and made a jet engine-like noise," said Robert Weber, Garden Street Iron's president. Weber picked up the missile with a crane, and it eventually fizzled out.