Environmental groups fire back after fertilizer ruling

Environmental groups fear more pollution might soon end up in our waterways. They call a recent ruling by a federal judge devastating news in the fight to clean up bays, rivers, and lakes in Southwest Florida.

Wednesday, they vowed to appeal the decision which essentially gives the state the power to set nutrient standards on upstream waters.

The Conservancy of Southwest Florida and others entered into an agreement with the EPA to create standards for bodies of water in the state. The federal agency deferred to Tallahassee to set the rules. Here's the problem. They do not exist in many places until you hit closer to the coast.

The fight to safeguard what makes our area so unique starts with neighborhood like Pelican Bay in Naples. The chairman of their services division, Tom Cravens, told us they are actively reaching out to homeowners. They want to educate them on what should and should not be washing into their 63 lakes.

"We don't want to put poison in our environment," said Cravens. "We've been monitoring these lakes and became concerned about the algae building up."

Cravens said most transplants to Southwest Florida don't realize certain fertilizers hurt the environment.

"I was ignorant about it. I was conscious of the environment. I thought it was important but I had no idea what was going on," remarked Cravens.

Wednesday afternoon, we meet up with Jennifer Hecker with the Conservancy of Southwest Florida, who says, "The fight is not over."

She said they plan to appeal the recent ruling. Hecker explained if standards aren't set to deal with pollution at the source, taxpayers' suffer the most.

"It becomes impossible to assign the responsibility back to the polluters. The taxpayers then have to clean it up at the public expense," remarked Hecker.

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Environmental groups fire back after fertilizer ruling