Amendment 1 packs committee room as enviros outline spending recommendation

Senate committee meetings without bills on the agenda rarely draw crowds, but the Senate Committee on Environmental Preservation and Conservation meeting on Wednesday was an exception.

With more than $700 million in revenue at stake in the coming fiscal year from a broadly-worded conservation funding initiative, representatives of environmental groups, water utilities, developers, industry groups and state agencies packed the meeting to find out how the money may be spent.

Amendment 1 was approved by 75 percent of voters in November. Environmental group representatives said they’re against spending the revenue on wastewater projects and they want more money for buying land than the state is spending now.

Florida’s Water & Land Legacy, the political committee that collected signatures to put the initiative on the ballot, wants nearly half to go towards the Florida Forever land-buying program and Everglades restoration, Eric Draper of Audubon Florida, said Wednesday.

Draper outlined a spending recommendation for a Senate committee after some senators clashed over whether the money should be used to clean up wastewater to protect springs.

“I would recommend to you looking at the long history of funding those wastewater (projects) from other sources,” Draper told the Senate Committee on Environmental Preservation and Conservation.

That countered an arguments from Sen. David Simmons, R-Altamonte Springs, that the amendment was written broadly to provide for water quality improvements.

He sponsored a bill last year to provide an estimated $365 million per year on projects to protect springs including sewage treatment plant improvements and hooking up homes that now are on septic tanks. While the bill failed, it shows the amount of Amendment 1 revenue that could be soaked up by wastewater projects in coming years.

Florida had the largest land-buying program in the nation with at least $300 million per year spent from 1990 until 2009 when funding was eliminated. Since 2010, the Legislature has appropriated about 5 percent on average of that historic spending on land buying.

Florida’s Water & Land Legacy also would spend 13 percent of Amendment 1 revenue on land management, 7 percent on springs, 4 percent on paying rural landowners not to develop and 3 percent beach management.

In fiscal year 2015-16, the group would spend 26 percent to pay for debt for past land purchases. As those bonds are retired in a few years, Draper said, the amount available for other Amendment 1 programs would increase proportionately.

Earlier in the meeting, Simmons said the amendment was written broadly by supporters with the goal of preserving water in a “pristine” environment.

“I think we are not limited to acquiring land,” Simmons said. “There’s a whole group of things that can and should be done to solve the problem.”

But Sen. Thad Altman, R-Melbourne, disagreed with Simmons, saying the amendment language emphasized land acquisition. He said the funding initiative was approved by voters who were frustrated with by the lack of money spent recently on land-buying.

“My feeling is we do have legislative discretion, but the intent of the amendment is acquiring and improving lands,” he said.

Only environmental group representatives spoke during the public comment portion of the meeting. No action was taken, and the Senate has set up a web page to post documents to take public comment on Amendment 1.

Doug Mann, representing the Florida H2O Coalition created by Associated Industries of Florida, said afterwards that the meeting was a good start in figuring out how Amendment 1 money should be spent.

Asked how the coalition wants the money spent, he said, “That’s the Legislature’s job.”

“It was good to see a positive discussion started on this issue,” Mann said.

(Bruce Ritchie (@bruceritchie) is an independent journalist covering environment and growth management issues in Tallahassee. He also is editor of Floridaenvironments.com.)