Group asks for veto of measure on wetlands

Environmentalists object to continuing an exemption from permitting requirements in the Panhandle.

PENSACOLA - An environmental group will ask Gov. Jeb Bush to veto legislation that would continue exempting the Florida Panhandle from state environmental resource permitting requirements that apply everywhere else in the state.

The exemption allows the development with permits of interior wetlands unconnected to other surface waters in 14 counties. Two other Panhandle counties, Escambia and Leon, have local permitting requirements.

Developers in the Panhandle also can dredge and fill such wetlands and surface waters without permits and are exempt from state limits on stormwater runoff quantity that apply elsewhere.

Panhandle lawmakers, citing cost and bureaucracy, successfully pushed for passage of the exemption's continuance during the legislative session that ended Friday.

Audubon of Florida policy director Eric Draper said his organization will seek a veto from Bush, who had put $1.9-million into his budget proposal to expand the state permitting program to the Panhandle, which is in the midst of a development boom.

Without the legislation, the exemption, in effect since the program began 10 years ago, would expire in July.

"No one came forward with significant advantages to adding another layer of regulation," said state Rep. Holly Benson, R-Pensacola.

The exemption covers a 16-county area with 800,000 acres of isolated wetlands not directly connected to other surface waters. Only two of those counties, Escambia and Leon, have local wetlands regulations.

Bush's press office referred questions to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. DEP spokeswoman Dee Ann Miller said ending the exemption is important but the agency has been using other ways to control stormwater and protect wetlands including public-private conservation agreements.

Four of the state's five water management districts pay for the permitting from property taxes of up to $1 per $1,000 of taxable value. Bush sought state dollars to do it in the Northwest Florida Water Management District because the Florida Constitution, alone among the districts, limits its revenue to 5 cents per $1,000 of taxable value.

[Last modified May 10, 2005, 01:02:19]