A few years ago, residents along the eastern St. Lucie River in Florida watched in disgust as the waterway turned green with a foul slime that wouldn't go away.
Health officials warned people to stay away from the river. Birds and fish got sick. Property values dived to new lows while politicians holding jarfuls of crud grimaced for the TV cameras and vowed to take action.
The mystery ooze was caused by nutrients dumped into Lake Okeechobee from farms, groves and ranchlands, churned by hurricanes and then pumped out by state water managers at the rate of 26,000 gallons per second.
It was a suffocating act of pollution that could easily happen again because the polluters still steer water policy, and the politicians.
U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney, a Republican of Tequesta, Fla., recently tacked a rider on the federal budget package that would prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency from enacting tighter restrictions on the amount of phosphorous and nitrogen that may be flushed into Florida's public waters.
The EPA rules, devised in conjunction with the state's Department of Environmental Protection, have been the subject of several public hearings. Public comments were 10-to-1 in favor of the regulations.
Critics say compliance would be too expensive for farms, small businesses and public utilities. State agriculture officials estimated a potential loss of 14,000 jobs, a sky-is-falling prediction that will never come to pass.
Rooney's lead role in trying to block the pollution guidelines is interesting because he supposedly represents all those folks along the St. Lucie who got slimed back in 2005.
In a lame op-ed column defending his position, the congressman wrote that the new EPA rules "could cost our state's economy about $2 billion and would double the average family's water bill."
It's a preposterous statement, pure fiction, but the aim isn't to inform people. The aim is to scare them. The script (and dire predictions) come from lobbyists for Big Agriculture, municipalities and corporate interests that freely use Florida's lakes, bays and rivers as a latrine.
Rooney doesn't use the word "polluters." He calls them "job creators."
The main objection to the rules is, naturally, that they're too strict. The revised limits on phosphorus and nitrogen -- which are found in sewage, fertilizer runoff and animal manure -- were set after state and federal scientists took about 13,000 water samples at 2,200 locations.
Rooney and others have been pressing for a third-party scientific review of the approved levels but environmental groups say the data are clear and that the time for delay is over.
It's an absolute fact that some farms and ranches will have to spend serious money to clean up their act. It's also an absolute fact that new pollution rules are essential for Florida's economic future.
Nothing says "Welcome to Florida!" like aerial video of a scum-filled river or a beach plastered with rotting fish.
Carl Hiaasen is a columnist for The Miami Herald.
