Advocates are cheering Governor Rick Scott’s proposal to spend $40 million on replacing septic tanks with sewer systems around the Indian River Lagoon.
They say it’s a good first step.
Gov. Rick Scott wants the funding for a matching grant program with communities around the Indian River Lagoon and Caloosahatchee River after last summer’s toxic algae blooms.
Mark Perry of the Florida Oceanographic Society says replacing septic tanks would help prevent polluting nutrients from washing into the waterways.
“It’s a very kind of expensive process, particularly when you have to redo infrastructure in a utility area that is very densely populated, ripping up streets and putting in force mains and so on and so on. So it can get very expensive very quickly.”
But the governor’s state budget proposal does not allocate funding for a reservoir south of Lake Okeechobee, something environmental groups say is critical to curbing the toxic blooms.
