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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Legislature: Florida Fertilizer Sales Bans May Be Struck Down

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Friday, April 16, 2010   

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - As the Tampa City Council pledged support Thursday for a ban on fertilizer sales during the rainy season, the Florida legislature continued its efforts to void such bans - currently adopted by more than 40 local governments. House Bill 1445 passed and the legislation is now being considered by the Florida Senate. It would void current ordinances that impose blackouts on fertilizer sales, and would require cities and counties to prove that their local waters are impaired before new restrictions on fertilizer use can be imposed.

Monica Reimer, an attorney for Earthjustice, which opposes the state law, says local regulations help control fertilizer pollution, which triggers toxic algae blooms that hurt wildlife, people, and the economy.

"It is the one thing that the local governments can do that really can achieve success as far as reducing this problem, and what the state is doing is forever making it so that we are going to have green waters in the state of Florida."

Supporters of the bill, which would put the Florida Department of Agriculture Consumer Services in charge of regulating fertilizer, say it would avoid local "fertilizer cops" and would be good for business. Reimer says it may be good for the fertilizer business, but it would hurt Florida tourism.

She says the toxins in the algae cause both respiratory ailments and skin infections, and these health risks are a risk to the tourist economy.

"When you have an economy that is very largely water-dependent, green waters, toxic waters, waters that make people have to go to the hospital, make it so that people don't want to be there."

Reimer says local fertilizer ordinances also save taxpayer money. When Pinellas County passed theirs, they blamed nutrient pollution for $30 million in local repairs.

"Regulating fertilizer use is the lowest-cost approach to controlling these nutrients, which create bright green algae blooms that make it so that nobody wants to go in the water, fish in the water, swim in the water, or live on the water."

The Senate version, Bill 382, will be heard by the Health Regulation Committee on Monday afternoon.





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