Letters to the Editors

Every turtle death at nuclear plant is a reason for alarm

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 11, 2001

Editor: Re: Turtles flocking to nuclear facility, April 4 Citrus Times:

Florida Power spokesman Mac Harris accuses the Nuclear Information and Resource Service and others who oppose the environmental damage caused by nuclear reactors of being "really an anti-nuclear group."

Absolutely. What does Mr. Harris imagine "anti- nuclear" groups do, and why does he think they exist?

The answer is to draw to public attention the lethal effects of nuclear power on the environment, on human health and safety and, in the case of Crystal River, on sea turtles. By its very nature, anti-nuclear work is inevitably about protecting the environment. It is precisely because nuclear power poses such high risks to the public and the environment that groups like NIRS and our own are engaged in studies like Licensed to Kill. It is the reason we espouse cleaner, cheaper and, above all, safer energy alternatives.

The Kemp's Ridley is the most severely endangered species of sea turtle in the world. The effects of capture at a nuclear plant on this species cannot be blithely dismissed as unimportant. Every death, like the one at Crystal River last month, has a cumulative impact on an already fragile population.

In Licensed to Kill we quoted FPC's own response when the National Marine Fisheries Service suggested that the utility attempt to discover why its reactors were capturing large quantities of sea turtles. NMFS recommended conducting tissue sampling of the captured Kemps and that FPC work on a design for diversionary structures to keep sea turtles away from the plant.

FPC's response was "the sampling of Kemp's Ridleys is unnecessary" while providing no explanation for this theory. FPC avoided the deterrent research as well, simply stating it was "not likely an effective means of reducing sea turtle takes." FPC has, by its own omission, never bothered to find out what is. The utility's plan to lobby for more sea turtle kill allowances is yet another case in point.
-- Linda Gunter, communications director, Safe Energy Communication Council, Washington, D.C.
author, Licensed to Kill

Altering nature while wasting tax dollars

Editor: Let me inform you all about a new attraction in our county. I am sure you all know about the alligators, "Lucifer" the hippo, and the Fish Bowl at the Homosassa Springs State Wildlife Park.

We have Crystal River and Kings Bay, with their wonderful manatees.

We have great beaches on the Gulf of Mexico.

We are blessed with the Ted Williams baseball museum, excellent subdivisions (like Black Diamond), and Rock Crusher Canyon for entertainment. We have it all.

So, you ask, "What is the new attraction?"

Let me inform you about the two "white elephants" in our county.

If you would like to see what I am talking about, take a ride to Floral City some day. Go east on County Road 48 (under the old oak trees) for about a mile. Take the left fork onto Duval Island. Slow down now, 100 yards or so on your right you will see the first of the two white elephants, also known as a 5-acre parking lot for cars and boat trailers at a cost of about $1-million. It is still being built.

Dear taxpayer, just keep going for another 100 yards and on your left is the second white elephant, a brand new boat ramp to launch boats into the lake (cost: $500,000). It looks new, beautiful and shiny. Right? I am sure by now you look around and scratch your head, and since you are a normal person you say, "Where is the lake?"

Well, let me explain what this is all about. You see, for thousands of years, there was a lake in Florida called the Tsala Apopka -- Chain of Lakes. Mother Nature also gave us a river a few miles east of the lakes, the beautiful Withlacoochee. At a certain point in the river there was a natural rock formation across the river about 3 feet to 5 feet high, which made the headwaters of the river rise and also spill water into the lakes at one point and out the other, down into the river again. Everybody was happy -- the fish, the birds and the people.

It is still a mystery to me, why one day, years ago, they blasted the rocks out of the river. What was the result? All that clean, sweet water rushed down the river into the gulf (where the water is not needed, obviously). Consequently the lakes got lower, the Floridan Aquifer was not replenished and the lakes were dying.

Then some smart people got together and replaced the rocks with a 3-foot to 5-foot rubber tube to dam the waters, as nature had originally intended. But it did not last long, because some smarter agency had the structure removed. Look at the county map. There is a lot of blue in the eastern part. However, there is no more water, only muck and ugly swamp. You ask who is to blame for this mess? I could name four or five agencies that keep studying and passing the buck. All are elected and appointed officials without backbone, and worst of all, our taxes pay their fat checks.

Wake up, folks! You heard of the Roman emperor who fiddled while Rome was burning. Well, our officials are studying and collecting good money while our lakes are dying, rotting!

But don't give up. It's not too late (maybe for old-timers like me), but think of your children and grandchildren. Don't they deserve what nature had intended for Citrus County? Get involved after you've looked at and enjoyed the two white elephants. It's free.
-- Adam Herzog, Floral City

Swiftmud must clean up its water mess

Editor: After having attended the recent meeting in regard to the rate increase for Rolling Oaks Utilities of Beverly Hills, I have several observations and a proposal to suggest.

First, may I observe the some of the statements were not cogent to the rate question. Instead they involved questions of service, billing procedures or the observation that other areas within the county are being allowed much larger allocations than are Beverly Hills patrons. The allocation question, of course, speaks to the basic unfairness of allowing some areas to use copious amounts of water while others may be punished for using a small fraction of that per capita allowance. The answer to that problem by the Southwest Florida Water Management District (appropriately called Swiftmud) was pure bureaucratic drivel. It is not their turn to have water usage examined, they said; Sugarmill Woods will be next in 2004. Does Swiftmud assume each district operates with its own aquifer?

Using the premise, which I learned as a child, that if you make a mess you must clean it up, may I suggest the following, as I did at the hearing. It comes from an examination of the evolution of the problem. Swiftmud, we learned, came into existence in 1972 to manage the use of water resources. Management as a process, implies planning, which would include "worst case scenarios" like drought, population demographics and the like. However, Swiftmud did not regulate developers who moved to build a community with extensive (and expensive) and apparently inefficient, lawn watering systems. Nor did Swiftmud have any interest in the zoning, which, by requiring the maintenance of attractive neighborhoods, effectively mandates the use of these systems.

When, during a water hearing at the Central Ridge Library a couple of years ago this May, I asked the Swiftmud speaker why they had not exercised control of this development, he said something like "We try not to fool with the developers." Apparently that was true. However, now they wish to create a situation that will require the victims of their failure to regulate appropriately to be penalized by water rates.

Who is at fault? Who created the mess and should take the lead in cleaning it up? And in what order?

First, Swiftmud, a regulating agency that is staffed, we presume, with capable, paid professionals who failed as water resource managers to plan or act when planning and action were needed.

Second, the developer, who created these inefficient systems and then assured the buyers Beverly Hills would never have a water problem since we sit right on top of one of the largest aquifers in the country. These claims went beyond simple advertising "puffery" since they promised something specific.

Third, the users, and more particularly those who do not take the water shortage seriously. These include not only householders but developers and golf courses and even the church on the circle in Beverly Hills, which was merrily watering its new sod while it rained recently.

Unfortunately, and unfairly, this list has become "inverted" and the user (that's us) will be punished, the developer is gone and Swiftmud, long derelict in its duties, emerges as the punisher.

In a spirit of fairness, what should be done? Who should clean up this mess? Swiftmud should take the lead with technical expertise and funding for such things as xeriscaping or the installation of more efficient watering systems. The developers, now having taken their profits and headed to greener pastures, should be recalled to participate. They made false claims and contributed to a problem which, because of its effect on the aquifer, has an environmental dimension. Certainly they should chip in. Finally, users need to take the control of water resources seriously.

Will it work? Swiftmud suggested, at the hearing, it was responsible to no one. But someone writes their checks, hires and fires them. We need to find out to whom they report. The developer can be located. The users are here. If the various resident organizations are serious, the time for initiating action is now.
-- Rodney M. Cole, Beverly Hills

Answers few at Beverly Hills water forum

Editor: Equivocation was the order of the day at the April 2 Citrus County Water Commission meeting, as John Parker, the representative of the Southwest Florida Water Management District, was repeatedly asked the question: "Your organization is asking us to keep our usage down to 150 gallons per person per day, or face the prospect of paying double, triple, or quadruple, the existing rate; where does that rate, and the data that brought it about, come from"?

Parker first chose not to answer at all, simply ignoring it. Pressed further, he stated, "It was a Swiftmud rule." When that didn't fly with the Water Board and 175-odd residents in attendance, he explained, "It was the result of a study he had no part in undertaking, therefore he was not prepared to comment on it." The idea of sending a representative, who admittedly knows nothing about it, to explain or defend one basic costly premise (that the 2.02 average number of people who inhabit the 5,431 homes in Beverly Hills should limit themselves to using no more than 150 gallons of water per person per day for all uses from watering lawns to brushing teeth), seems breathtakingly arrogant. However, arrogance comes easily to appointed bureaucrats who, somehow, always appear well paid and answerable to no one.

On the whole, it made for a poor presentation, and the local (Rolling Oaks) utility's request for an inverted rate schedule on water users of more than 9,000 gallons a month, was again put on hold till May. If and when implemented, this schedule would produce capital, according to the utility, that would enable it to upgrade its treatment plant and expand service to this area.

Vexing questions remain. Questions like: Where, in fact, did that minimum usage number come from? Who else in the county or state is bound by it? Even if a minimum usage goal per person per day is achieved, won't the hell-bent-for-election effort to draw people to this area (a successful effort that is increasing the population here by 30-50 percent each decade) negate it? And if a group of smaller "town house" lots are fed by one central meter, shouldn't that meter's billing be adjusted to reflect the total number of homes and people being served?

Answers to these inquiries from Swiftmud's Parker and Citrus' water guru, Robert Knight, were: "don't know," "don't know," "not sure," and "probably impossible or illegal."

We all know water conservation is a necessary, admirable, doable goal. We are not so sure that a capital fund drive on the backs of the consumers under the guise of conservation is something we can, or should, be involved with.
-- Mike Colbert, Beverly Hills

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