2013 Florida Legislative Summary - Environmental and Water Bills

1. 2013 Legis lative Update
Lower Wes t Coas t Utility Council
May 14, 2013
Thomas F. Mullin, Es q.

2. Summary of Ses s ion
• 286 bills passed both the Senate and House, 37
bills signed by Gov. Scott, 11 vetoed, and the rest
await signature (or passage without).
• Big focus of this years’ session was Medicaid
expansion, Citizen’s Property Insurance, and
ethics and elections reform
• Surprisingly active on environmental and water
bills after prior two years included major changes
to environmental and growth management laws

3. Conservation Budget
$$$$
• Florida Forever
• $10 million from General Revenue
• $10 million from Land & Water Trust Fund for military buffers
• $50 million from sales of surplus lands
• Everglades Restoration
• $70 million from trust funds
• Springs Protection
• $10 million
• Conservation and Rural Lands
• $11.1 million from General Revenue
• Greenways and Trails
• $10 million a year for 5 years from FDOT Trust Fund

4. Everglades Improvement &
Management – HB 7065
• Adds a per acre tax for agricultural property in Everglades
Agricultural Area (EAA) to fund $880 million Everglades
restoration plan (“Long-Term Plan”)
• Finds that BMPs by owners/users of land in the EAA reduces
nutrients in Everglades Protection Area
• Authorizes continued ad valorem tax use by SFWMD for
implementation of Everglades restoration plan
• Authorizes $32 million annually from general revenue and trust
fund for FDEP Restoration Strategies Regional Water Quality Plan

5. Environmental Regulation –
HB 999
• Limits the request by local governments for requesting
additional information on development permit
applications to three requests.
• Authorizes the lease of sovereign submerged lands for
use as marinas, boatyards, and marine retailers, with
restrictions.
• WMD is the only water well construction license
required for the construction, repair, or abandonment of
water wells in the state.

6. Environmental Regulation –
HB 999
• Exempts from environmental resource permitting rules:
• Construction, operation or maintenance of any wholly
owned manmade ponds constructed entirely in
uplands or drainage ditches constructed in uplands;
or
• Activities affecting wetlands created solely by the
unreasonable and negligent flooding or interference
with the natural flow of surface water caused by an
adjoining landowner.

7. Environmental Regulation –
HB 999
• When calculating agricultural self-supplied
water needs, the WMD must consider the
data of future water supply demands
provided by DACS.
• Require DACS to establish an agricultural
water supply planning program that includes
certain data and provide criteria for
development of data.

8. Environmental Regulation –
HB 999
• On the last day of the session, the legislature removed
some controversial provisions of the bill. First, the
moratorium on fertilizer regulation by local governments
was removed. Also, the section concerning impacts to
wetlands by water control districts was stricken. Finally,
the approved bill did not include the section related to
fees charged to governmental entities for stormwater
utility bills.
• The bill contains a provision ratifying several no-bid
sugar leases that were approved by the Governor and
Cabinet earlier this year and are under legal challenge.

9. Numeric Nutrient Criteria –
SB 1808
• The bill directs DEP to establish specific numeric
nutrient criteria for unimpaired waters (including
DEP’s calculation of the current conditions of
those waters) and for those estuaries and non-
estuarine coastal waters without numeric nutrient
criteria established by rule or final order as of the
date of the report.
• Directs DEP to send a report to the Legislature
and Governor conveying the status of
establishing numeric nutrient criteria.

10. Numeric Nutrient Criteria –
SB 1808
• Authorizes the FDEP to implement the NNC through the state’s Total
Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) program if the water body has been verified
as impaired. TMDL’s limit the quantity or load of a specific pollutant,
including nutrients, that may enter the waterbody.
• Orders the FDEP to establish estuary specific nitrogen, phosphorus and
chlorophyll-a criteria for any estuaries not already subject to NNC, and
establish chlorophyll-a for non-estuary coastal waters by December 1,
2014.
• Represents the final step necessary for Florida to take full control of the
regulation of nutrients in its waterbodies. Federal Court must approve an
amendment to the Consent Decree authorizing FDEP’s NNC.. EPA’s
2009 Determination Letter finding that NNC were necessary must be
withdrawn.

11. Public Private Partners hips –
HB 85
• Creates the Florida Public –Private Partnership
Act in Section 287.05712, F.S.
• Contains standards for agreements between
public entities and private entities to finance,
construct, develop or upgrade facilities or other
public infrastructure.

12. Public Private Partners hips –
HB 85
• Addresses the procurement process, project
qualification processes, project approval
requirements, and comprehensive agreement
requirements for qualifying projects.
• “Qualifying project” means a facility or project that
serves a public purpose; improvements of buildings
to be principally used by a public entity or the public
at large or that supports a public service delivery
system; or a water, wastewater or surface water
management facility.

13. Public Private Partners hips –
HB 85
• Sets forth the notice requirements for accepting
an unsolicited bid, and competing bids.
• Specifies the information which must be
contained within the comprehensive agreement
between the public and private entities.
• Promotes long-term permit language for
alternative water supplies.

14. Cons umptive Us e Permits for
Alternative Water Supplies –
SB 364
• Requires issuance of a permit duration of at least
30, and possibly as long as 37 years, for an
alternative water supply project.
• Prohibits the WMD from reducing the AWS
allocation during the compliance review, unless a
reduction is needed to address adverse
environmental impacts or interference with
existing legal users.

15. Cons umptive Us e Permits for
Alternative Water Supplies –
SB 364
• A WMD can not reduce an AWS allocation simply
because the total quantity has not been used or
anticipated to be used during the permit term.
• A permit issued under this bill (i.e. 30+ year AWS
permit) may not authorize the use of non-
brackish groundwater supplies or non-alternative
water supplies.

16. Water Supply – SB 948
• Adds utility companies, private landowners, water consumers,
and FDACS to the list of entities that should cooperate to meet
water needs.
• Strengthens the role of agriculture in water supply planning by:
• Adding FDACS as to list of agencies the WMDs must
consult with for regional water supply planning
• Must include agricultural demand projections in regional
water supply plan
• FDACS must establish an agricultural water supply planning
program that uses best available data
• WMD must engage with, and assist, “self-suppliers” during
planning process

17. Water Quality Credit Trading –
HB 713
• Open WQ Credit Trading throughout Florida.
• DEP may authorize through BMAP’s.
• Participation is voluntary.
• Rulemaking to implement not required.

18. Ons ite Sewage Treatment and
Dis pos al Sys tems – HB 375
• Revises and softens some of the onsite sewage treatment and
disposal system (septic tank) permitting and inspection
requirements that were imposed by the legislature over the
past several years.
• Revise frequency of inspections for homeowners.
• Provides that single-family homeowners may be approved by
FDEP to operate and maintain their own onsite sewage.
• Home owner must receive certification from the treatment
system’s manufacturer that the property owner received
training on service and installation of the system.

19. Manufacturing Development –
HB 357
• Creates an expedited permitting and development
approval process for manufacturing projects, either new
construction or expansion of an existing facility.
• Local government would pass a local manufacturing
development program that sets forth procedures and
criteria for approval of a matter development plan.
• Local government may not require additional local
government approvals other than building permits.

20. Stormwater Management Permits –
SB 934
• Authorizes certain municipalities and counties to
adopt “stormwater adaptive management plans”
and obtain conceptual permits from the DEP or
WMD for urban redevelopment projects.
• Presumption that stormwater discharges for
projects which demonstrate net improvement in
water quality discharged do not cause or
contribute to violation of water quality criteria.

21. Stormwater Management Permits –
SB 934
• Must not prescribe additional or more stringent
limitations concerning quantity and quality of
discharges from stormwater management systems
beyond those provided in the section.
• Must be issued for a duration of 20 years unless
otherwise requested by the applicant.

22. Total Maximum Daily Loads –
SB 1806
• Specifically excludes TMDLs from the legislative
ratification requirements of s. 120.541(3), F.S.
• The change exempts rules adopting TMDLs from
having to comply with the statute that requires
rules having greater than $1 million impact on the
regulated community over 5 years from receiving
legislative ratification.

23. Water Management Dis tricts –
SB 244
• Relates to the establishment of MFLs and water
reservations.
• Came about as a result of concern that MFLs
adopted by SRWMD for the Suwannee and
Santa Fe Rivers would never be met because of
the impact on permitted users.

24. Water Management Dis tricts –
SB 244
• Requires water management districts to apply, without adopting
by rule, the reservations, minimum flows and levels, recovery
and prevention strategies adopted by DEP.
• Requires a regional water supply authority and the applicable
water management district to jointly develop the water supply
component of the regional plan, when the geographic area of
study of project crosses boundaries of water management
districts.

25. Liability of Des ign Profes s ionals –
SB 286
• Creates a new Section 558.022, Florida Statutes, which limits the
professional liability of “design professionals”. A design professional includes
a licensed architect, interior designer, landscape architect, engineer, surveyor
or geologist. Geologist is a new profession added to the definition.
• Provides that design professionals are not individually liable for damages
resulting from their negligence occurring within the course and scope of
professional services while employed or acting as an agent of a business
entity.
• Provides specific conditions must exist for such limitation on liability apply.
Namely, the contract between the business entity and claimant must not
name the design professional as a party to the contract, the contract must
clearly state that an individual employee or agent may not be held individually
liable, the business entity maintains professional liability insurance pursuant
to the contract, and the damages alleged are economic, and do not extend to
personal injuries or property not subject to the contract.

26. Brownfields - HB 415
(Did not pas s )
Proposed Amendments to Chapter 376, Florida
Statues would have:
• Revised procedures, public notice and adoption
of brownfields designations.
• Addressed designations within and outside
specified redevelopment areas, enterprise zones,
etc.

27. Ques tions ?
Thomas F. Mullin, Es q.
TMullin@s fflaw.com
(561) 982-7114
SOUTH FLORIDA
7700 Congress Ave., Suite 2201
Boca Raton, FL 33487
NORTH FLORIDA
2548 Blairstone Pines Dr.
Tallahassee, FL 32301
CENTRAL FLORIDA
766 N. Sun Dr., Suite 4030
Lake Mary, FL 32746