TALLAHASSEE, Florida — Environmentalists at a public hearing Monday criticized proposed state rules to protect springs from groundwater overpumping, saying the proposal is long overdue and too vague to actually protect the state’s waters.
Representatives of the Florida Springs Council and other groups urged the Department of Environmental Protection to strengthen the rules proposed in response to 2016 legislation.
Pumping for new developments and water bottling already is reducing springs flows, speakers said at the hearing in Tallahassee. They said the proposed rules eight years later are vague and won’t protect springs in the future.
Jake Varn, who was secretary of the Florida Department of Environmental Regulation from 1979 to 1981 before it became DEP, said the hearing was illegal because state law requires department officials to answer questions posed by the speakers.
