Pulp-And-Paper Takes On Florida Wastewater Regulations

The pulp-and-paper industry is taking on Florida’s water quality regulations, and the courts recently cleared the way for the challenge.

“Nearly a year after a state regulatory commission approved controversial new water-quality standards, an appeals court ruled that a pulp-and-paper industry group should be able to challenge the measures,” News Service of Florida reported.

A challenge to the rules by a group that includes companies such as Georgia-Pacific and International Paper Company was originally blocked, but the First District Court of Appeals overturned that decision in July.

The water quality rules, developed by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), were approved last year. The rules revised the limits for chemicals in waterways. The federal Clean Water Act requires that states periodically review their standards, according to the DEP. Florida had not updated this set of water standards since 1992.

The pulp-and-paper industry said Florida relied on problematic methods to develop its water quality rules.

State regulators said the water quality rules bring more chemicals under regulation and adjust the standards for various others.

"Both the new and updated criteria have been calculated using the most advanced science, including recently issued guidance from the U.S. EPA for updating 43 chemicals whose standards are more than 20 years old," the department said in the online post, per the Orlando Weekly.

The city of Miami and the Seminole Tribe of Florida have also challenged the rules — but those challenges “raise substantially different arguments in fighting the standards,” the Orlando Weekly reported.

The Miami challenge argued that the "proposed rule is arbitrary and capricious —- particularly because the rule loosens restrictions on permissible levels of carcinogens in Florida surface waters with absolutely no justification for the need for the increased levels of the toxins nor the increased health risks to Florida citizens," the Weekly reported.

A challenge filed by the Seminole Tribe argues that the standards do not sufficiently cater to health needs of people who each large amounts of fish.

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