Summary
The proposed rule amendment contains the following revisions: (1) the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) will accept regulatory responsibility for any shore protection structures, including seawalls, within the Mosquito Lagoon, Banana River, or Indian River, including all tributaries thereto, that serve residential dwelling units that are the responsibility of DEP to review; (2) DEP will accept regulatory responsibility for review of non-exempt aquaculture activities; (3) DEP will accept regulatory responsibility for review of all activities on sovereignty submerged lands leased by DEP’s Division of Recreation and Parks (except for activities proposed by DEP); (4) numerous clarifications are made regarding the division of responsibilities with respect to various facilities and mining activities regulated by DEP; (5) clarifications are made regarding the procedures to be followed for incorrectly submitted applications and petitions, and for permit modifications; (6) expansion of the instances when the District and DEP can deviate from the general division of responsibilities when one agency has a proprietary interest (such as a conservation easement) in the project; (7) DEP will relinquish much of their current mitigation bank and regional offsite mitigation area (“ROMA”) agreement proposal review so that DEP will only review permit applications for mitigation banks and ROMA agreement proposals filed by: (a) entities proposing to use District-owned lands; (b) governmental entities (excluding DEP), solely to offset impacts to single-family residential units for which DEP reviews and takes final action; and (c) the District; and (8) the District will coordinate compliance and enforcement actions with DEP for environmental resource permit (ERP) violations that also constitute a sovereignty submerged lands (SSL) violation, where the resolution of the ERP violation does not fully resolve the SSL violation (so that DEP can address the SSL violation).