Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on Wednesday asked lawmakers to increase fines that can be levied for sewage spills by 50 percent.
The proposal would apply to all polluters, including local municipalities and private businesses.
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State officials have been quiet about how many local governments are fined every year, but the governor says the fines aren’t penalizing enough.
A huge sewage dump that occurred two years ago made news in St. Petersburg during Hurricane Irma. However, last December the Department of Environmental Protection said St. Pete, Clearwater, and Tampa all dumped millions of gallons of sewage into the bay after a big rain event.
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Governor DeSantis said in his announcement:
“What we end up seeing happening is you have some of these municipalities, it’s cheaper for them to pay a fine and spew all this sewage into the water ways because it’s the cost of doing business.
“So they’d rather do that than invest in the infrastructure they need to make sure the water ways surrounding them are safe and clean.”2
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Local governments have not yet officially responded to how this will impact their decisions when waste water systems are threatened by hurricanes or other natural events.
If the fines are large enough, some local governments may begin to upgrade their systems.
An overhaul of the wastewater in St. Petersburg is already underway.
