It is a crisis big enough that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) agreed in November 2009 to set the first-ever legal limits for nutrient poisoning.

 

But, now, polluters are trying to derail efforts to clean up Florida's waters. They arrived enmasse recently at Congress, where they met with numerous federal lawmakers, asking them to add a rider to the federal appropriations bill. The rider would, unbelievably, prevent EPA from setting important new limits on nutrient pollution. The rider may be introduced in a few weeks.

 

These polluters act as if the dead fish floating on Florida waters don't exist. They ignore media reports like this recent TV news headline: "Unhealthy River Making Neighbors Sick." A 2008 Florida Department of Environmental Protection report found that half of the state's rivers, and more than half of its lakes, had poor water quality.

 

Exposure to these algae toxins — when people drink the water, touch it, or inhale vapors from it — can cause rashes, skin and eye irritation, allergic reactions, gastrointestinal upset, serious illness and even death.

 

The EPA committed to set nutrient pollution limits after Earthjustice — representing Florida Wildlife Federation, Sierra Club, Conservancy of Southwest Florida, Environmental Confederation of Southwest Florida, and the St. Johns Riverkeeper — filed a major lawsuit in July 2008 to compel the EPA to set strict limits on nutrient poisoning in public waters.

 

The suit challenged the unacceptable decade-long delay by the state and federal governments in setting limits for nutrient pollution. EPA is set to finalize pollution limits for Florida's freshwaters and lakes in October 2010. Pollution limits for estuaries and flowing waters in South Florida are to be set by August 2012.

 

This isn't just Florida's problem.

 

In Massachusetts, algae blooms and invasive plants now foul once-clear Silver Lake, which gets 10 million gallons of nutrient-poisoned water every day pumped from Monponsett and Furnace Ponds.

 

In Colorado, Grand Lake — once one of the clearest lakes in North America — turned pea-soup green with toxic algae that can make people and animals sick. Pollution shut down a drinking water plant that uses the lake's water. The main culprit is nutrient-poisoned water conveyed through the lake by the giant pumps and tunnels of the federal Colorado Big Thompson water-supply project.

 

Residents in Massachusetts, Colorado, Florida and the rest of the nation deserve to have clean water. We need to let our representatives and senators in Washington know that we'll hold them accountable if they bow to polluters instead of standing up for clean water.