Last week, officials from the Boynton/Delray Beach South Central Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant agreed to test Atlantic waters for elevated nutrient levels, to determine if sewage discharges are responsible for a proliferation of algae that independent scientists, county officials and veteran divers all agree is killing a coral reef worth many millions to the local economy. The plant, which discharges partially treated sewage into nearshore waters, has been operating without a permit since December 2005.

Local coral reef advocates complain that Plant officials only accepted the testing begrudgingly, and that additional studies will only result in the documentation of the death of yet another coral reef. Sensing that Florida the Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) is poised to renew the discharge permit, on condition of water-quality and other testing--but without sewage treatment upgrades--attorney Barry Silver wrote FDEP, saying that, “The sewer plant has not demonstrated good faith in complying with State and Federal law.”

Silver also pointed out that, “The plant’s failure to provide FDEP with the requested information in a timely manner can only be viewed as foot dragging and a blatant defiance of the law and its responsibilities to the public.”

Reef advocates say that further studies are a way for the regulatory agencies to appear to be doing something about the problem, without addressing it directly. And, in his letter to FDEP, Silver wrote that the “significant body of evidence,” already collected by independent scientists, “is undeniable.” Dr. Brian LaPoint, a biochemist at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute, has published a number of studies on these sewage discharges, and even pinpointed the outfall as the source of contamination by “fingerprinting” the pollution source/plant food with biochemical analysis.

So far, FDEP has rejected the Plant’s renewal application five times for failing to provide the information necessary for regulators to assess discharge impacts on the reefs. Through the long course of this battle, Palm Beach County Reef Rescue, a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting coral reefs, has collected thousands of signatures asking FDEP not to renew the plant’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination Permit (NPDES). Visit www.reef-rescue.org. In case local politics prevail over the outcries of local divers and anglers and over the finding of the recently released University of Florida Outfall Study, Silver, on behalf of the Palm beach County Environmental Coalition, has threatened to sue FDEP should the agency renew the plant’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDS) permit, before the plant cleans up its act.

“Consider this correspondence as a 60 day notification to initiate legal action as require by law should the State of Florida fail to exercise its judicial responsibility pursuant to the Federal Pollution Control Act and other applicable State and Federal law,” Silver concluded.