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On Jan. 21, Gov. Rick Scott signed a bill that overhauls how Florida regulates water pollution.

Critics say it lets polluters decide how they’ll reduce nitrogen in stormwater runoff that fouls Lake Okeechobee, the St. Lucie River and the Indian River Lagoon — with no deadlines and weak enforcement.

Treasure Coast Newspapers asked: How will we know if, when and by how much the water is getting cleaner?

Our investigation found the state’s annual progress report likely paints an overly rosy picture.

Among the reasons: It uses the honor system, gives some projects a questionable amount of credit and ignores Lake Okeechobee discharges.

On paper, the state is ahead of its 2018 goal to reduce pollution that fouls the St. Lucie River, but whether the water is any cleaner is anyone's guess. The state's annual progress report on its 2013 cleanup plan takes polluters at their word, gives them credit for actions they can't prove worked and ignores key factors like Lake Okeechobee discharges.

For example, the state credits Port St. Lucie with keeping 9,388 pounds of nitrogen out of the river each year through an educational program that includes a website and brochures, as well as a summer ban on fertilizers. But the report does not explain how the state arrived at such a specific number.

Turns out, that and many other numbers in the report are estimates based on computer models. The state does not measure whether people are actually reading the information, changing their behaviors and adhering to the ordinances to reduce nitrogen pollution that can spur toxic algae blooms in the river.

The state defends its calculations, saying they're "based on peer-reviewed data and actual water quality data." The Department of Environmental Protection is revising its methods and promises a more thorough analysis in 2018, according to project head David Glassner. The department is open to denoting in future reports which data is the result of measurements versus computer models, said Kevin Coyne, an environmental administrator.

It is important that the report's findings are as accurate as possible because they are used to inform policy and financial decisions, such as which water projects to do.

"They tend to underestimate the problem — basically going to sugarcoat what is going on," said Drew Martin, spokesman for the Sierra Club Loxahatchee Group. "They're going to go out of their way to make it look good."

Guess and check

The state collects and publishes measured, quality-controlled water data; however, it is unclear how much of it is used to estimate the effectiveness of the 198 projects and programs designed to clean the river, which drains a portion of its water into the Indian River Lagoon.

In the original 2013 cleanup plan, the state lists the locations and capabilities of 98 water quality monitors within the river and environs. But only one water quality measurement is explicitly mentioned in the report: a water-sampling station at the Roosevelt Bridge in Stuart. DEP could not provide another specific example of where water quality measurements were used in the 2015 report.

"Nowhere in the report does it distinguish real data from simulated numbers," said Gary Goforth, a Stuart environmental engineer who designed and evaluated water projects for the South Florida Water Management District for nearly 20 years, including the Kissimmee River restoration. "It gives the reader the impression these are real numbers."

The reason for using computer models is twofold, said Del Bottcher, a state contractor who has done computer modeling for the Lake Okeechobee cleanup plan. Computer modeling shows how similar, future projects could affect water quality and gives a best estimate when something cannot be measured, he said.

"The bottom line, if you want to know what is coming out of a stream, you have to measure it," Bottcher said.

Even if the estimates are spot-on, the progress report credits polluters for nitrogen-reducing measures they took as far back as 2000 — 13 years before the state even launched the cleanup plan.

"The situation is much worse than what the state's progress report claims," Goforth said, calling it "fictitious and misleading."

Goforth ran his own analysis using the state's publicly available measured data and presented it to DEP in September. The agency's 2015 progress report issued in December did not factor in his methods or findings, and ignored huge nitrogen loads from one of the river's biggest polluter: Lake Okeechobee discharges.

Lake O

The state's final, 2028 goal, is to reduce the amount of nitrogen flowing into the river to 1.14 million pounds each year — a little more than a fueled and filled Boeing 747.

Even if the state's calculations proclaim it is exceeding that goal, the river still could be loaded with nitrogen-rich lake water.

Case in point: The lake alone dumped 1.3 million pounds of nitrogen into the river during the "Lost Summer of 2013" — so named for the resulting toxic algae blooms that kept people from enjoying the water. It was so bad protesters held a mock funeral for the river and lagoon.

Yet the state's first progress report in 2014 said polluters were ahead of their nitrogen-cutting goal.

Asked if he would cite the state report, Goforth said, "No ... I wouldn't base any decisions on it."

The state didn't factor in lake discharges, Glassner said, because "we don't want to make them (St. Lucie River polluters) responsible for something someone is doing up the Kissimmee." He means polluted stormwater runoff from Orlando-area cities and farms that flows from the Kissimmee River into Lake Okeechobee and out the St. Lucie River.

"It's kind of frustrating to see all these management plans out there and the river looks like it does," said Liberta Scotto, a marine biologist and former researcher at Florida Atlantic University's Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute who has worked on the river and the lagoon since the '70s.

Honor system

When it comes to nitrogen, the river's most consistent polluter is agriculture. The industry contributed 71 percent of the river's nitrogen in 2013, the state estimates.

Yet the industry contributed only 26 percent of the reductions during the last reporting period, July 1, 2014 to June 30. One Martin County project alone — a $3 million Bessey Creek water treatment facility — reduced twice as much nitrogen as the entire agriculture industry during the same period.

Within the 16-county South Florida water district — stretching from Orlando to the Florida Keys — the state has only six employees to monitor farms for compliance with the cleanup plan, according to the progress report. To get full credit for compliance, all farmers have to do is sign a document saying they intend to implement guidelines called "best management practices." Those practices include such voluntary measures as reducing fertilizer application during the rainy season, so it doesn't run off into the river.

The progress report assumes 100 percent of farmers who sign the document fully comply with those guidelines.

"With no data, the state has no idea what is coming off these farms," Goforth said.

Gov. Rick Scott in January signed a bill that adds verification and enforcement measures to the guidelines, but the legislation contains no details and critics say there are no deadlines and only weak enforcement measures.

Until that bill goes into effect July 1 and DEP updates its progress reporting methods, Treasure Coast residents will continue to wrestle with the disconnect between seeing a polluted river and the state saying it's exceeding its pollution-control goals.

"I've become skeptical of anything and everything called a 'report' by the state," Indian Riverkeeper Marty Baum said. "Everything I've been involved with them is skewed to support agriculture."