The Florida chapter of the Koch-affiliated tea party group Americans for Prosperity yesterday called for people to sign up for rallies affiliated with National School Choice Week, which starts next week.
Environmentalists and researchers have long felt fear when confronted with a proposed pipeline that will carry waste away from a Palatka paper mill and into the St. Johns River. For at least one scientist, it’s a fear of the unknown.
In an op-ed published in today’s Florida Times-Union, St. Johns Riverkeeper Neil Armingeon writes that Floridians “deserve answers” about a nearly four-mile pipeline that would carry waste from a Palatka paper mill owned by Koch Industries subsidiary Georgia-Pacific into the St. Johns River.
During a Jacksonville city council meeting Monday, state Rep. Lake Ray, R-Jacksonville, spoke out against a resolution that would delay the construction of a four-mile waste pipeline from Georgia-Pacific’s Palatka mill to the St. Johns River. Ray, who also acts as the executive director of a business association that represents Georgia-Pacific, said a decision to delay the pipeline could be detrimental to securing Gov. Rick Scott’s help with other Jacksonville needs.
At a press conference held today in downtown Jacksonville, leaders from the St. Johns Riverkeeper and the Jacksonville City Council again touted their firm stance against the construction of Georgia-Pacific’s hotly contested pipeline, which would reroute waste from the company’s Palatka plant directly into the St. Johns River.
Controversy surrounding a proposed 40-mile four-mile pipeline to reroute paper mill effluent from a small Palatka creek into the large St. Johns River shows no signs of dying down. A recently passed resolution by the Jacksonville City Council aims to delay the pipeline in order to further study its potential environmental effects.
Water pollution in the state of Florida might be a major problem for the state’s citizens, but a Monday meeting of major stakeholders in the EPA’s “numeric nutrient criteria” — a set of standards to clean up Florida waterways — revealed that industry and agriculture leaders have laid claim to the issue.
Representatives from major industries (including JEA and Georgia-Pacific) and environmental groups (like the Conservancy of Southwest Florida and Earthjustice) gathered in Orlando early this morning to discuss a much-disputed set of federal water pollution standards and the costs associated with compliance.
Since launching its campaign against a pipeline that would reroute much of a Palatka paper mill’s effluent into the St. Johns River, the St. Johns Riverkeeper has continued to maintain a drumbeat around the issue.
In recent months, the Scott administration has cut $305 million from environmental land-buying projects in the state budget, all but ignored pleas to halt the construction of a Georgia-Pacific pipeline to funnel additional effluent into the St. Johns River and attempted to halt or delay the implementation of a set of criteria to govern water pollution in the state.The administration also made cuts to the state’s five water management districts, and sent out a memo asking them to “reexamine” how they do business. Now, new allegations that the administration hopes to begin privatizing camping in some state parks have surfaced.
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