40D-80.075: Regulatory Portion of Recovery Strategy for the Dover/Plant City Water Use Caution Area
PURPOSE AND EFFECT: In January 2010, farmers in the Dover/Plant City area pumped large quantities of groundwater to protect their crops. This combined pumping dropped the aquifer level 60 feet and caused more than 750 temporarily dry wells for neighboring homeowners. Pumping groundwater for freeze protection is a best management practice for strawberry, citrus, and other industries and is authorized by water use permits. However, the farmers were responsible for fixing hundreds of the dry wells. Amendments to Chapter 40D-80, Florida Administrative Code are being made as part of a rulemaking package, which will also include amendments to Chapters 40D-1, 40D-2, and 40D-8, F.A.C., to prevent a similar situation. Effective and complete implementation of the current phase of the management strategy for the Dover/Plant City area frost/freeze crop protection pumping is dependent on each of the proposed amendments to Chapters 40D-1, 40D-2, 40D-8 and 40D-80, F.A.C. Amendments to Chapter 40D-8, F.A.C., will establish a minimum aquifer level. The District has determined that the actual levels are below the proposed minimum aquifer level. As required by Section 373.0421, F.S., amendments to Chapter 40D-80, F.A.C., will establish a minimum aquifer level recovery strategy for the Dover/Plant City area. This will be accomplished by the proposed water use permitting rule amendments to Chapter 40D-2, F.A.C., that are part of this rulemaking package, and non-regulatory mechanisms including assistance in offsetting ground water withdrawals for frost/freeze protection through the Facilitating Agricultural Resource Management Systems (FARMS) program. Amendments to Chapters 40D-1 and 40D-2, F.A.C., will add new forms and list updated forms as it relates to water use permitting in the Dover/Plant City Water Use Caution Area being proposed in companion proposed amendments to Chapter 40D-2, F.A.C.
SUMMARY: The recovery strategy proposed in Rule 40D-80.075, F.A.C., for the Minimum Aquifer Level for the Dover/Plant City WUCA allows for the gradual restoration of the aquifer level so that permittees have time to adapt to new practices or use alternative water sources. The recovery strategy has a goal of reducing groundwater pumping for freeze protection by 20% within 10 years. In addition to the regulatory mechanisms included in proposed amendments to Chapters 40D-1 and 40D-2, F.A.C., the District has revised its program called Facilitating Agricultural Resource Management Systems to provide enhanced funding opportunities for growers in the Dover/Plant City WUCA to install alternative methods of frost/freeze crop protection rather the continue use of groundwater pumping. By reducing groundwater pumping for freeze protection by 20% during future freeze events, actual groundwater levels are predicted to remain above the minimum aquifer level and impacts should be avoided or minimized. This goal will be reviewed after the first five years.
SUMMARY OF STATEMENT OF ESTIMATED REGULATORY COSTS: From January 3-13, 2010, for the first time during the period that records have been kept, temperatures in eastern Hillsborough County and western Polk County dropped below 34 degrees for 11 consecutive days. As a result, area farmers pumped large quantities of groundwater to protect their crops. This combined pumping dropped the aquifer level 60 feet, contributed to the more than 140 sinkholes and caused more than 750 neighboring groundwater wells to be damaged or to temporarily go dry. Under Florida Statute and District water use permitting rules this damage is not allowable. Therefore, in response to the 2010 freeze event combined with previous freeze events that also resulted in dry wells and sinkholes in the Dover/Plant City area, the Southwest Florida Water Management District is revising its rules in Chapters 40D-1, 40D-2, 40D-8, and 40D-80, F.A.C., to reduce the potential for impacts from groundwater pumping during future freeze events. The District is establishing a Water Use Caution Area, a Minimum Aquifer Level, a Minimum Aquifer Protection Zone and a Minimum Aquifer Level Recovery Strategy to manage permits authorized to withdraw groundwater for frost/freeze crop protection. The objective of the Recovery Strategy is by January 2020, to reduce groundwater withdrawals for frost/freeze protection by 20% from January 2010 quantities to lessen the potential that drawdown during a future frost/freeze event would lower the aquifer level at District Well DV-1 Suwannee below 10 feet NGVD. The intent is to lessen the likelihood of domestic well failures and sinkhole formation over time in the Dover/Plant City area during freeze events when groundwater is pumped to protect valuable but cold sensitive crops. Permittees and applicants that typically use groundwater for frost/freeze crop protection and most likely affected by the proposed rules are strawberry, citrus, blueberry, nursery and tropical fish farms.
During rule development the District considered many options including: (1) an across the board reduction in water quantities; (2) requiring water use permittees to obtain insurance to cover mitigation costs, and (3) relying on existing rules to deny application for permits on an application by application, case by case basis. However, while the District could require immediate changes or cutbacks by permittees, the District believed that the economic cost to permittees would be too great and opted for a regulatory program that does not reduce quantities on existing permits unless economically feasible alternative means are available and sets a reduction goal of 20 percent over 10 years.
Relying solely on a regulatory approach, such as across the board cuts in frost/freeze quantities or limiting the duration of allowable pumping during frost freeze events could have a significant impact on the agricultural and overall economy of the area. Unlike some other crops that can be insured against natural disasters such as hail, there is no freeze event subsidized crop insurance for strawberries, the main crop in the area. Further, such insurance generally requires the grower to make every effort to protect the crop, including pumping groundwater. The grower would be responsible for any losses due to freezes. Therefore, the grower will utilize permitted frost/freeze protection water quantities and/or a financially feasible alternative means to protect the crop.
The regulatory provisions of the recovery strategy are designed primarily to restrict any new impacts from frost/freeze withdrawals on groundwater levels in the Minimum Aquifer Level Protection Zone. This is accomplished by restricting new increases in frost/freeze protection groundwater quantities that affect the Minimum Aquifer Level Protection Zone so that water levels will not be lowered even further during frost//freeze events. To some extent, frost/freeze protection groundwater quantities may be reduced through rule provisions such as net benefit when an increase in frost/freeze protection is requested. In that case where one permittee requests an increase in frost/freeze protection groundwater quantities, another permittee can agree that a specified portion of its groundwater withdrawal will be reduced and reserved to protect the aquifer level.
The primary method for reducing existing groundwater withdrawals for frost/freeze protection in and around the Minimum Aquifer Level Protection Zone will be non-regulatory. The focus of this effort is to provide further financial incentives for water users to adopt technologies that reduce groundwater use such as the use of tailwater recovery systems and protection methods other than water such as crop cloths and crop enclosures.
In accordance with statute and District rule, to prevent further water level declines during frost/freeze events, new groundwater quantities for cold protection that impact the Minimum Aquifer Level Protection Zone will not be permitted. Applicants for new frost freeze groundwater quantities may eliminate the impact by relocating withdrawals, developing alternative sources or means of cold protection, or providing a net benefit that offsets the impact of the proposed withdrawals plus a 20% net benefit. Alternative sources or means of cold protection range from $581 to $3,700 per acre farmed per year for row and tree crops and approximately $78 per hundred square feet of pond for fish farms. Per acre costs vary by the type of crop grown and the size of the farm.
Existing permitted groundwater quantities for cold protection that impact the Minimum Aquifer Level Protection Zone will not be affected. However when existing water use permittees apply for renewal of their permits that have cold protection quantities that impact the Minimum Aquifer Protection Zone they will have to incur the cost to investigate the feasibility of alternative cold protection methods (costs addressed above) and implement them if economically, technically and environmentally feasible to reduce existing impacts. As part of the non-regulatory portion of the recovery strategy, the District intends to fund 75% of the equipment costs of alternative cold protection measures that reduce cold protection withdrawals within in the DPCWUCA and 50% to 75% of equipment costs for projects outside the DPCWUCA that reduce impacts on the Minimum Aquifer Level Protection Zone, significantly reducing the costs, which are only incurred after finding that they are feasible, addressed above. Proposed relocation and net benefit provisions are designed to lessen the impact of the proposed rules by allowing the movement and expansion of the affected agricultural industries so long as the relocation does not increase cold protection impacts and the expansion contributes to lessening of such impacts.
To better monitor and model cold protection impacts, the District will provide meters and automatic meter reading devices to existing permittees that do not have them and:
have groundwater cold protection quantities or crops that typically require cold protection quantities in the DPCWUCA, and
have 100,000 gpd or more of groundwater permitted in the DPCWUCA.
New permttees that meet the above conditions will as one of the permit conditions have to purchase, install and maintain the required meters at an annualized cost range of $10 to $103 per acre per withdrawal site. The District will pay the AMR data collection and transmission subscription costs for both existing and new permittees required to meter and use AMR devices.
Current permit conditions in the Dover/Plant City area generally place the burden of well complaint investigation and repair on more recent permittees. Proposed revisions will significantly reduce the likelihood that an individual permittee will have to incur the costs of multiple well mitigation investigations and repairs as often occurred in the 2010 freeze event.
To provide flow meters, AMR devices, AMR data reporting subscriptions and revise well mitigation allocation methods, the District will incur approximately $6.1 million in one-time and $582,000 in recurring annual costs. The proposed revisions are not anticipated to generate rule implementation costs to any other state or local agencies nor are they anticipated to have any effects on state or local revenues.
No small cities or counties are affected by the proposed rules. Only those small businesses that exceed the permitting thresholds in Rule 40D-2.041, F.A.C. and have, would typically use, or request new groundwater quantities for frost/freeze protection in the DPCWUCA, or whose existing or proposed groundwater frost/freeze protection withdrawals outside the DPCWUCA that would impact the Minimum Aquifer Level Protection Zone, will be affected as previously described. As noted above, the District will reduce the cost to existing small businesses that must comply with the rule by providing meters and AMR devices, and covering the costs of AMR data reporting subscriptions so as to minimize costs to small businesses resulting from the regulation designed to allow the small business to continue to operate in compliance with statute and District rule. The District also intends to cost share the alternative frost/freeze protection costs that are deemed economically, technically and environmentally feasible that existing small business permittees may have to incur.
Any person who wishes to provide information regarding a statement of estimated regulatory costs, or provide a proposal for a lower cost regulatory alternative must do so in writing within 21 days of this notice.
SPECIFIC AUTHORITY: 120.54, 373.0421, 373.044, 373.113, 373.171 FS.
LAW IMPLEMENTED: 373.016, 373.023, 373.036, 373.042, 373.0421, 373.171 FS.
IF REQUESTED WITHIN 21 DAYS OF THE DATE OF THIS NOTICE, A HEARING WILL BE HELD AT THE DATE,TIME AND PLACE SHOWN BELOW(IF NOT REQUESTED, THIS HEARING WILL NOT BE HELD):
DATE AND TIME: January 25, 2011, 9:00 a.m.
PLACE: Southwest Florida Water Management District, Tampa Service Office, 7601 US 301, Tampa, FL 33637
Pursuant to the provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act, any person requiring special accommodations to participate in this workshop/meeting is asked to advise the agency at least 5 days before the workshop/meeting by contacting: The Southwest Florida Water Management District Human Resources Director, 2379 Broad Street, Brooksville, Florida 34604-6899; telephone (352)796-7211, ext. 4702 or 1(800)423-1476 (FL only), ext. 4702; TDD (FL only) 1(800)231-6103; or email to ADACoordinator@swfwmd.state.fl.us. If you are hearing or speech impaired, please contact the agency using the Florida Relay Service, 1(800)955-8771 (TDD) or 1(800)955-8770 (Voice).
THE PERSON TO BE CONTACTED REGARDING THE PROPOSED RULE IS: Pamela Gifford, Office of General Counsel, 2379 Broad St., Brooksville, FL 34604-6899, (352)796-7211 (4156) (OGC #2010010)
THE FULL TEXT OF THE PROPOSED RULE IS:
40D-80.075 Regulatory Portion of Recovery Strategy for the Dover/Plant City Water Use Caution Area.
(1) Background.
From January 3-13, 2010, for the first time during the period that records have been kept, temperatures in eastern Hillsborough County and western Polk County dropped below 34 degrees for 11 consecutive days. As a result, area farmers pumped large quantities of groundwater to protect their crops. This combined pumping dropped the aquifer level 60 feet, contributed to the large number of sinkhole occurrences, and caused more than 750 neighboring groundwater wells to be damaged or to temporarily go dry. Although pumping groundwater for frost/freeze protection of crops is authorized by their water use permits, permittees are responsible for reversing the impacts to wells in their mitigation areas. The District developed a multi-faceted approach to address these issues that included a series of work sessions for invited guests and technical experts to review public input received and to provide feedback to assist District staff in developing recommended solutions. Additional staff efforts included the coordination of a multi-governmental task force to secure state and federal funding for sinkhole and other repairs, and development of recommendations for modifications to well construction, pump depth and pressure valve cutoff devices criteria and inspections. Staff, after considerable discussions and public input, developed a more equitable approach for assigning well mitigation responsibility for frost/freeze related events. In doing so the staff made further recommendations for limitations on additional groundwater use for frost/freeze protection, developing means to significantly increase the percentage of frost/freeze protection in the area accomplished by methods other than groundwater, enhancing communications with the public and permittees during a frost/freeze event, and expansion of permit and hydrologic data collection.
(2) Objectives of Recovery Strategy.
The objective of the Districts Recovery Strategy is to reduce groundwater withdrawals used for frost/freeze protection by 20% from January 2010 withdrawal quantities by January 2020. This reduction is intended to lessen the potential that drawdown during a future frost/freeze event would lower the aquifer level at District Well DV-1 Suwannee below 10 feet NGVD (1929).
(3) Recovery Strategy Mechanisms.
(a) The non-regulatory mechanisms include assistance in offsetting groundwater withdrawals for frost/freeze protection through the Facilitating Agricultural Resource Management Systems program, providing enhanced data for irrigation system management, and other means.
(b) The water use permitting rules in Chapter 40D-2, F.A.C., and the Basis of Review for Water Use Permits, incorporated by reference in Rule 40D-2.091, F.A.C., in particular section 7.4, address groundwater withdrawal impacts, alternative water supplies, frost/freeze protection methods, and resource recovery. In combination, these rules along with the non-regulatory mechanisms are intended to result in recovery to the Minimum Aquifer Level.
(4) Periodic Review of Recovery Strategy.
Progress toward achieving the Minimum Aquifer Level will be continuously evaluated, with a comprehensive assessment in 2015. This evaluation will include an assessment of the reduction in groundwater withdrawals used for frost/freeze protection in the Dover/Plant City WUCA and the resulting reduced impact on the Minimum Aquifer Level. If by January 2015 a 10% reduction in groundwater withdrawals for frost/freeze protection from January 2010 quantities has not been achieved, the Recovery Strategy will be reassessed. If by January 2020 a 20% reduction in groundwater withdrawals used for frost/freeze protection has not been achieved or if the Minimum Aquifer Level has not been achieved, the Recovery Strategy will be reassessed. Evaluation of these reduction goals will include the frost/freeze design event specified in Section 7.4 1. of the WUP Basis of Review.
(5) The provisions of subsections 40D-80.075(1)-(4), F.A.C., are intended to provide an overview of resource conditions related to the water bodies for which a Minimum Aquifer Level has been established and the components of the Recovery Strategy. The provisions of the permitting rules in Chapter 40D-2, F.A.C., and the Basis of Review for Water Use Permitting shall control in the event of any conflict or inconsistency with the provisions of subsections 40D-80.075(1)-(4), F.A.C.
Rulemaking Authority 120.54, 373.0421, 373.044, 373.113, 373.171 FS. Law Implemented 373.016, 373.023, 373.036, 373.042, 373.0421, 373.171 FS. HistoryNew_________.
