It's the spot in South Tampa where Bayshore Boulevard essentially dead-ends in the west, and it overlooks sparkling water, downtown Tampa and — perhaps ominously — ugly industrial facilities that loom to the southeast.
Just before noon on Thursday, that's where environmental advocates gathered to tout recent findings about Clean Water Act violations industries across the state have committed — violations for which they've largely gotten off with sans consequence.
The report, titled Troubled Waters, ranks Florida the tenth worst state when it comes to rampant illegal water pollution incidents.
For a state surrounded by water millions fly here to see each year, she said, that's a bad thing.
“What we have here are repeated violators of the Clean Water Act, the very federal environmental law that was developed to protect our waterways so that we can all enjoy them for fishing, swimming, recreation, drinking," said Jaclyn Lopez, senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. "These industrial polluters put that all at risk.”
She was referring to corporate polluters the group Environment Florida found to be in violation of federal rules a total of 270 times in the last 21 months. Half of those samples taken had at least twice the legal limit of pollutants.
Environment Florida's study, released Thursday, used water sample data companies routinely report to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Those samples are analyzed for materials like fecal coliform (an indicator of water-borne pathogens) and heavy metals like copper, which can impact development in fetuses and children.
Locally, the report lists TECO, Coca-Cola, phosphate giant Mosaic and Siesta Key Utilities Authority among the culprits.
Off in the distance behind Lopez and the others gathered behind a small lectern at the point, facilities belonging to two of those, TECO and Mosaic, stood along the waterfront.
“Those two plants alone contributed 24 and eight violations in less than two years with very little enforcement action taken against them," Lopez said. "These violators need to be in compliance with these rules because they protect all of us.”
That's ridiculous, said Jennifer Rubiello, director of Environment Florida, given how easy it is to reduce pollution.
“Here in the 21st Century, we know how to produce things in our economy without dumping chemicals into our rivers. And for those facilities that won't change on their own, we need robust enforcement of our clean water laws, including tough penalties so that it doesn't pay to pollute.”
Such protections work, advocates say, and all the proof of that one needs are the once-putrid water bodies that are now relatively safe and clean.
“When it comes to water quality, back in the 1970s, many of America's waters, including Tampa Bay right behind us and several others in Florida, were a mess, said Chris Meindl, a professor of geography at USF St. Petersburg. "Cleveland's Cuyahoga River was so filthy that it periodically caught fire, most famously in 1952 and again in 1969. North Florida's Fenton-Holloway River produced deformed fish. And Tampa Bay was so gross that even if you were blindfolded, the stench would alert you to its proximity. But natural systems are resilient. If you just stop throwing pollution at them, natural processes will allow them to recover.”
If we return to that dubious legacy by failing to enforce regulations, he said, Florida risks losing the bedrock of its economy.
“Florida's environment is a goose that lays golden eggs every single day," he said. "Some people try to frame environmental protection as a luxury good that we can ill afford. But this is nonsense. In Florida and elsewhere, a clean environment equals a strong economy. The math is as simple as that.”
U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Tampa, decried the dismantling of enforcement mechanisms that has occurred at the federal and state levels. This includes the Scott administration's cutting of some 600 Florida Department of Environmental Protection enforcement officers as well as the Trump Administration's efforts to stock the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency with industry-lined people like Scott Pruitt.
“This is a critical time, because the EPA under the Trump administration has so thoroughly aligned itself with polluters and special interests rather than the public interest. And this is of great concern," Castor said. "This report demonstrates there are far fewer enforcement actions coming out of the federal level."
With the cards stacked against the environment at the state and federal level, advocates don't have many avenues for holding polluters accountable.
Environment Florida did have some success in 2017 with a lawsuit against meat giant Pilgrim's Pride over pollution from a chicken plant it dumped into the Suwannee River in levels exceeding Clean Water Act allowances. They joined local stakeholders in a lawsuit against the company, which ultimately settled. If other companies are doing the same thing, perhaps there's a chance they'd change their behavior.
Yet given how it's elected political leadership that's looking the other way when it comes to key environmental regulations like the Clean Water Act (which President Nixon signed in the 1970s), there could be another solution afoot in the ballot box.
"Yes, there are political solutions and citizens need to be aware of those, but for today it's important that all Floridians realize that their economic wellbeing and their environmental health is at risk, and they have the power in their hands to call for action and make a change,” Castor said.
This article appears in Mar 29 – Apr 5, 2018.
