Who put $400 million into Florida budget for a new reservoir?

When Historic City News reporters read about $400 Million that mysteriously appeared in this year’s proposed state budget, we couldn’t resist trying to sort through the clues about how it all happened. The mystery isn’t where the money would go. The mystery is who wanted it.

In the 2024-25 state budget now awaiting the governor’s signature, the Legislature told the St Johns River Water Management District to use that $400 million to buy land for the proposed 7,500-acre Grove Land Reservoir and Storm Water Treatment Area project in Okeechobee and Indian River counties and then to design and build it all.

The Native Americans called the great river “Welaka“, meaning river of lakes. The French, who built Fort Caroline on its banks, almost 50 years before the settlement in Jamestown, referred to it as “Riviere de Mai” because they settled there on May 1st. The Spanish, who wiped out the French, called the river “Rio de San Juan” after a mission near its mouth named San Juan del Puerto. Then the English took over and anglicized “San Juan” as “St Johns” which stuck.

So where did that decision to hand over so much money come from?

“But the most obvious suspect, the St Johns River Water Management District, didn’t ask for all those millions.  Why would they? The reservoir is not even close to ready to start construction,” Craig Pittman, a reporter with Florida Phoenix published on May 2.

No state agency has even approved a permit for the privately owned Grove Land project. In fact, in their most recent comments on the proposal, the state permitting folks wrote that, as currently proposed, a beneficial use could not be verified.

“I don’t know,” Lisa Rinaman of the Jacksonville-based environmental group St Johns Riverkeeper told reporters. “It was really shocking to us, the way it happened at the end of session. It’s mind-boggling, just the sheer magnitude of the appropriation.”

The Legislature offered no bills or resolutions about Grove Land before stuffing this wad of taxpayer cash into the budget like a burglar cramming loot into a bag. There was no discussion of it in pre-session delegation meetings that the public could attend, nor in the weeks of open committee meetings prior to the final rounds of budget bargaining. Only then did it emerge, like a snake slithering out from under a rock.

Even a politically savvy adviser to the folks who have been pushing for this project, former Florida Park Service director Eric Draper, told reporters that he had no idea that this budget bonanza was in the works. Draper is one of several environmental advocates who support the reservoir. Draper believes that it could help with the Indian River Lagoon’s terrible pollution problems.

Rinaman disagrees. She is worried it will simply transfer that pollution to the St Johns River. She pointed out that this is not the first time a “shift-the-burden” move has happened.

“If Grove Land moves forward as currently designed, it will increase phosphorous loads in the Upper St Johns twenty-fold,” Rinaman said. “This is just another attempt by the Legislature to solve South Florida’s problems by dumping them on North Florida.”

Pollution in the lower St Johns, especially in the tributaries, threatens human health, the economy, and the ecosystems that support plants, animals, and recreation according to the most recent “State of the River” report. Run-off from roads, development, failing septic tanks, past industrial activities, and agriculture pollutes the river, the report says.

What makes this situation worse, in 2007 the Legislature banned farmers near Lake Okeechobee, the Kissimmee River, and the Everglades from accepting the nearly 100,000 tons of South Florida’s sewage sludge that they’d been using to fertilize crops. Since that ban, the South Florida sewer systems have been trucking that stinky slop north so they can dump it on farms in the watershed of the St Johns River.

As a result, parts of the St Johns keep turning green. State officials have issued warnings about toxic blue-green algae blooms in the river in 2019, 2021, 2022, and 2023. This is why the idea of funneling in even MORE pollution to fuel those blooms is such a horrific thought for anyone like Rinaman who cares about the St Johns River. It’s a slow death by poison.

Basically, the three water management districts were handing out water use permits as if they were the ONLY ones handing out water use permits. You can probably guess what happened. Because they weren’t considering cumulative impacts, they overbooked the aquifer. Way too many people received permits, exceeding the amount of water that’s actually available.

The prospect of new suburbs with dry faucets and sputtering lawn sprinklers was not one anyone wanted to contemplate. Even worse, from the developers’ point of view, was to be told they couldn’t keep building because there was no water anymore.

In 2015, the Legislature created the controversial initiative as a regional water-supply planning effort to straighten it all out. This includes coming up with new sources of water other than pumping it out of the dwindling supply underground. Hence the legislative interest in building a 5,000-acre reservoir on the Grove Land property: It boosts the water supply so fast-growing Central Florida can continue growing.

And I do mean fast. Central Florida is booming like a Fourth of July party at the fireworks factory. It’s to the point now where even preserved land is being targeted for new roads and other developer-friendly uses.

“While this project is being considered in the budget, it was a worthy investment to plan for water needs decades from now,” Andres Malave, spokesman for House Speaker Paul Renner, told reporters via email.

During budget negotiations, the House Agriculture & Natural Resources Appropriations subcommittee pitched the idea of spending $200 million on “surface water storage and treatment,” Malave said.

The Senate countered with a line item for “Grove Land Reservoir and Storm Water Treatment Area Project” for $400 million. That counteroffer had the backing of outgoing Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, according to Senate spokeswoman, Katherine Betta.

“The president (a land use and real estate attorney) reviewed an appraisal and supported the Senate offering the remaining $200 million,” Betta told reporters.

But why do this without any state agency asking for the money? Because, she said, the leaders “saw a need and appropriated funds to address that need.”

Neither Betta nor Malave can say who first proposed spending so much taxpayer money on a project that has yet to prove it won’t harm the St. Johns River. So far, no one’s claiming credit. But maybe that silence tells us what we need to know.

The same holds true for politicians. If they’re doing something quietly, it’s not because they’re so darn modest. It’s because they’re up to something. The fact that no one is jumping up and down to claim credit for steering this moolah into the budget tells me the intentions behind it were less than honorable.

By that I mean this elected official doesn’t give a hoot about pollution. What’s important to him or her (and important campaign contributors) is increasing the water supply so developers can keep on developing.

Now, maybe the Grove Land reservoir is a worthy project. Maybe its stormwater treatment areas will be designed to capture every single smidgen of pollution before it flows into the St. Johns. And maybe I’ll hit the Powerball jackpot.

But the secrecy bothers me, as does the source of the $400 million.

If it’s such a good project, then it should be able to withstand public scrutiny instead of being smuggled in like contraband. And it seems to me that the current taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay the full price of a project that primarily benefits new growth.

Last year Gov. Ron DeSantis quietly vetoed a far smaller amount — $6 million — for this project. He’s usually in favor of whatever benefits developers, but maybe he’ll veto this $400 million too. If he does, then it would give legislators a chance to do this the right way, out in the open where everyone can see what’s happening.

Then maybe some smart person will suggest they impose impact fees on new development to pay for at least half the cost. That way, the taxpayers from all over the state don’t have to bear the entire burden for Central Florida.

Why didn’t they do it this way in the first place? That, my friends, is the real mystery.

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