Is Florida water ‘dirtier’ under DeSantis? Here’s what the data shows

The first days of the second term of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is full of news about water.

In DeSantis’ inaugural address on January 3, the Republican governor touted his investments to improve the state’s water quality, and he promised millions more to come in the next legislative session.

Democratic state lawmakers weren’t sold on DeSantis’ environmental success; a member of the House from St. Petersburg said the opposite is true.

“The results are clear – Florida’s water is dirtier and sicker than when Gov. DeSantis first took office,” Rep. Lindsay Cross, D-St. Petersburg, said in a statement on January 3.

We want to know if Florida’s water quality has declined as Cross says. We quickly learned that the words chosen by Cross, an environmental scientist, were not the same words used by environmental agencies to test and track water conditions.

Cross also did not specify what type of water he was talking about.

There are many different types of bodies of water in Florida – lakes, rivers, springs and beaches, just to name a few. Each system has its own challenges, and there is no catch-all unit of measurement to summarize the health of all water bodies in the state.

When we asked Cross for evidence of his claim, he said: “My statement refers to the state in general, but especially to our coastal estuaries.” He said algae events, including red tide and blue-green algae, will last longer and cause more damage.

Estuaries are bodies of water where fresh water from rivers or streams meets salt water in the ocean. The largest estuary in Florida is Tampa Bay, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Here’s what we found when we tested Cross’s claim. DeSantis’ press office directed us to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

Many estuaries do not meet water quality standards under DeSantis

We contacted the Florida Department of Environmental Protection for information on the state’s overall water health, but did not receive a response by press time.

As part of the federal Clean Water Act, the department must submit a biennial report on Florida’s waters to the US Environmental Protection Agency.

This report provides an analysis of bodies of water in Florida that have become too polluted for swimming or drinking. The department examines streams, lakes, estuaries, and coastal waters for water quality and outlines the causes of pollution.

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PolitiFact reviewed department reports from 2018, 2020 and 2022. We found that more and more of the state’s water bodies are impaired — meaning they don’t meet water quality standards.

In 2018, before DeSantis took office, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection reported that 2.5 million acres of the state’s estuaries were polluted and unsuitable for drinking or recreation. That number drops to 2.1 million in 2020 before growing to 3.1 million in 2022.

That growth is fueled, in part, by an increase in nutrient pollution, which can exacerbate algae blooms that are toxic to wildlife and cause health complications for people who swim in or drink from in such waters.

Florida’s lakes and coastlines face similar challenges

Other Florida waters also experienced an initial decrease in pollution when DeSantis took office and then an increase at the end of his first term.

• Lakes: In 2018, more than 1 million acres of lakes across Florida were designated as unsuitable for swimming and aquatic life. The number drops to about 893,000 hectares in 2020, before rising to 2.1 million in 2022.
• Coastal waters: Coastal waters, which include beaches, have less dramatic shifts in pollution. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection identified 2,718 miles of coastline as damaged in 2018. The number drops to 1,529 miles in 2020 and increases to 1,570 in 2022.

Florida’s rivers have had a steady decline in miles of impaired water, however. In 2018, more than 70,000 miles of streams were polluted. By 2022, that will drop to 15,000.

Cross cited red tide and blue-green algae events to support his claim that the state’s water is more polluted. Although the red tide has been all over the news, there is a data issue in comparing these events over time.

We were unable to find data comparing the overall severity and extent of algal blooms from one calendar year to the next during DeSantis’ tenure.

“In the Everglades and throughout Florida’s lakes, harmful toxic algae blooms have become an almost annual event fed by fertilizer runoff from farms and subdivisions,” the Environmental Integrity Project, a nonprofit organization in advocacy in Washington, DC, ended after reviewing state reports.

The Environmental Integrity Project evaluates the latest water quality analysis submitted by each state. Its report was released March 17, 2022, a month before Florida released its latest state water data. According to the report:

• Florida leads the nation for the total acreage of lakes deemed too dirty for swimming and aquatic life. When looking at the percentage of lakes examined, Florida is fourth.
• Florida also has the second most square miles of polluted estuaries in the U.S. It ranks ninth when looking at the percentage of estuaries inspected.

While Florida’s water issues are acknowledged, experts say the problems are not new.

“Florida has had water issues for as long as people have been selling land here. So, these issues are definitely at the forefront of DeSantis,” said Matt DePaolis, director of environmental policy at the nonprofit Sanibel-Captiva. Conservation Foundation.

DeSantis also pursued several actions to improve the state’s water quality. He re-established the Blue-Green Algae task force to report on “the causes and solutions to Florida’s red tide crisis,” and invested a total of $40 million to address the problem.

But DeSantis could always do more, DePaolis said.

The Blue-Green Algae Task Force, for example, provided 33 recommendations in 2019. A coalition of environmental organizations found in August 2022 that 27 recommendations had not yet been implemented.

DeSantis announced a proposal on Jan. 10 to invest an additional $3 million to address issues affecting Florida’s environment and water.

Our verdict

Cross said Florida’s water is “dirtier and sicker” than when DeSantis took office in 2019.

His statement is broad, and does not capture all the units of measurement to determine whether all the different waterbodies in Florida are dirtier or sicker. But experts mostly agree with his assessment of the declining state of Florida’s water quality, saying the underlying conditions predate DeSantis’ administration.

Comprehensive analyzes submitted to the EPA during DeSantis’ time in the governor’s office show that a growing number of the state’s waters, including estuaries and lakes, are impaired — meaning, they don’t meet the standards of water quality. The condition of coastal waters and streams has improved since before DeSantis’ time in office.

The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details. We rate it Half True.