Senate President-designate Haridopolos and House Speaker-designate Cannon recently announced that they will hold a mini-special session November 16 to revive several bills and a budget appropriation previously vetoed by Governor Charlie Crist. House Bill 1385 is expected to be approved as a veto override. The bill provides for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to determine whether cleanup through natural processes, called natural attenuation, is cost-effective when the groundwater contamination is not spreading. The bill further provides that low-risk sites may be reassessed. The bill also allows owners of qualifying low-risk contaminated sites to ask the state to declare that no further cleanup action is required if specific requirements are met. By removing the low-risk sites, the state can focus on sites posing greater concern to regulators. The Department supported a similar bill, hoping to show progress cleaning sites and discourage legislators from transferring revenue for the state cleanup trust fund to other areas of the state budget. Crist previously vetoed the bill maintaining that it lowered cleanup standards, “without providing the funding to address whether this would put the public at greater risk.”
