Important work by the FSC. Something that is a message to the state that they are intentionally failing in their job to protect our resources.
Please help if you can.
Comments by OSFR historian Jim Tatum.
jim.tatum@oursantaferiver.org
– A river is like a life: once taken,
it cannot be brought back © Jim Tatum
FSC’s legal team has been hard at work defending springs and holding our state agencies accountable.
On Monday, November 24th, FSC filed two new petitions challenging the 
2025 Suwannee and Wekiva Basin Management Action Plans. These plans violate clear statutory requirements for improving springs water quality, reducing agricultural pollution, and holding polluters accountable for reducing excessive pollution. We are proud to be joined by Friends of the Wekiva River in challenging the Wekiwa and Rocks Springs BMAP.
One week later, on December 1st, we filed the final brief in our ongoing appeal to require DEP to adopt consumptive use permitting rules that prevent harm to Outstanding Florida Springs, as required by law since 2016.
Together, these legal challenges go after the two biggest threats to Florida’s springs: nitrogen pollution from agriculture, septic tanks, and urban fertilizer and decreased flows due from over-pumping allowed by harmful consumptive use permits. We do not take the decision to go to court lightly, but we firmly believe that our state agencies must follow the law and that it is at the core of FSC’s mission to hold them accountable when they do not.
2025 Suwannee River Springs and Wekiwa & Rock Springs Basin Management Action Plan Challenges
In 2023, the 1st District Court of Appeals ruled in favor of springs groups, led by FSC, in a challenge to four invalid and ineffective water quality restoration plans (known as BMAPs) for Outstanding Florida Springs. The 1st DCA ruled that DEP violated the law by not assigning enforceable pollution load reductions to all polluters within springs basins and mandated that the agency adopt new BMAPs by July 1, 2025.
In late June 2025, DEP proposed new BMAPs for all Outstanding Florida Springs. The good news is that because of the previous legal challenge, springs BMAPs now contain enforceable pollution reduction assignments for all polluters. The bad news is that the 2025 BMAPs still violate multiple requirements in Florida law. Most importantly, the BMAPs fail to include sufficient projects, practices, and strategies to reduce nutrient pollution and achieve water quality goals.
After consultation with local advocates, attorneys, scientists, and policy experts, FSC focused on two BMAPs – Suwannee River and Wekiwa and Rock Springs – that exemplify DEP and FDACS refusal to address harmful pollution from urban and agricultural pollution sources as required by Florida law.
Outstanding Florida Springs Harm Rule Appeal
On Aug. 13, FSC filed an appeal with the 1st District Court of Appeal to overturn the decision made by the Administrative Law Judge on the “Springs Harm Rule”—our legal challenge against FDEP’s weak water use permitting rules proposed for Outstanding Florida Springs.
FSC argued that the proposed rules are an unlawful end-run around the Legislature’s mandate in section 373.219(3), Florida Statutes, that FDEP adopt rules that prevent groundwater withdrawals from harming Outstanding Florida Springs. The new Outstanding Florida Springs permitting standard in 373.219(3), Florida Statutes, required DEP to adopt new CUP rules that prevent harm specific to Outstanding Florida Springs. DEP instead recycled existing rule language already applicable to all water bodies generally; the same language that has caused significant harm to Outstanding Florida Springs. As a matter of law, this Court should reverse the ALJ’s ruling upholding the Rules because: (1) the ALJ misinterpreted Supreme Court precedent that a judge need not make a threshold determination of statutory ambiguity before turning to available tools of statutory construction; and (2) the ALJ misinterpreted the statute’s plain language.
This week, FSC filed our final brief and motions in this multi-year effort to enforce the law and protect springs from harmful water withdrawals. Both FSC and DEP have requested oral arguments before the 1st DCA. We hope to have a successful conclusion to this case in early 2026.
Support this Critical Work
FSC is one of the only environmental groups in Florida that dedicates the time, resources, and energy necessary to successfully challenge state agencies when they ignore the law in order to benefit the bottom-lines of polluters, excessive water users, and developers at the expense of our springs, rivers, and wildlife. This work is difficult, expensive, and critical to Florida’s future.
We couldn’t do this work without our incredible legal team: Doug MacLaughlin, Matt Farmer, John Thomas, Bob Palmer, the attorneys and clerks at the Stetson University Jacobs Law Clinic for Democracy & the Environment, and you.
At the end of the day, FSC’s legal work is only possible because of your support. If you believe that our springs and rivers are worth protecting and want someone to represent your interests in court, please consider making a donation to support FSC’s legal work today.
And, this Giving Tuesday is extra special because we have an incredible donor who is multiplying your impact when you sign up as a new Sustaining Member of the Florida Springs Council. Whether it’s a monthly donation of $6, $10, $15 or more, every new Sustaining Member through 2025 is an extra $100 for springs protection.
Click Here to Join Our Sustaining Members
Thank you for holding polluters accountable with us,
Ryan Smart
Florida Springs Council
Executive Director
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