REMEMBER WHEN THIS WAS THEIR ANSWER TO THE LOW LAKE?????? LAKE OKEECHOBEE BACKPUMPING FACT SHEET Lake Okeechobee has a surface area of 730 square miles and is the second largest freshwater lake wholly within the United States.  The Lake has been classified by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection as a Class I Drinking Water source, which requires strict standards allowing only small amounts of pollution.  The Lake is the sole source of drinking water for several small towns on the south rim of the Lake and one of the sources of drinking water for West Palm Beach, Fort Myers, and the entire Lower East Coast metropolitan area.  The region south of the Lake, known as the Everglades Agricultural Area ("EAA"), contains over a half million acres of former Everglades that have been diked and drained to make them suitable for urban and agricultural development. Most of the land is in sugar cane cultivation.  Three companies own 87% of the land within the EAA. One of those companies is the United States Sugar Corporation which owns 104,000 acres in the EAA, much of it in the area directly south of Lake Okeechobee.  Polluted water is pumped off the sugar cane fields and collected in large District-owned canals.  At the north ends of these canals, the District owns and operates three pumping stations, S-2, S-3, and S-4, which are built into the Herbert Hoover Dike that surrounds Lake Okeechobee.  Each of these pumping stations has either three or four very large pumps each powered by a diesel engine about four times the size of a semi trailer engine. When all the pumps in a pump station are operating, the discharge is equivalent to the flow of a medium size Florida river.  The flow from the pumps creates a highly visible "plume" of dark (sometimes even black) colored water that can reach nine miles out into Lake Okeechobee.  The plume contains high levels of nutrients (phosphorus and nitrogen) and high levels of dissolved organic materials that come from agricultural and urban wastes.  One of the largest pump stations is within 2 and ½ miles of the drinking water intake of South Bay, one of the small towns on the south rim of the Lake that uses the Lake for drinking water.  Earthjustice brought this lawsuit against the South Florida Water Management District in 2002 on behalf of the Florida Wildlife Federation.  The case is a Clean Water Act "citizen suit" which sought a declaration from the court that the District had to obtain federal Clean Water Act "point source" permits for its pump station discharges.  As "point sources," the discharges from the pumping station must meet pollution limits applicable to Lake Okeechobee.  The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians entered the lawsuit in support of the environmental groups.  The United States Sugar Corporation entered the case in support of the District.  The Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers entered the case on the side of the polluters - the District and U.S. Sugar - in early 2005. This was the first occasion in the 33 year history of the EPA that it entered a water pollution case on the side of a polluter.  No EPA witness testified at the trial and no EPA witnesses were provided for depositions.  Florida Wildlife Federation argued that when the District collects and then moves water in a way that harms the receiving water body (here Lake Okeechobee) it is responsible for cleaning up the pollution in the same way a city is responsible for cleaning up sewage it collects in its sewage system before it discharges its wastewater.  On average, the S-2, S-3, and S-4 pumping stations discharge 32 billion gallons of water into Lake Okeechobee each year.  Today, on average, the pumps contribute the equivalent of 60,000 one hundred pound bags of phosphorus to the Lake each year.  Because of this excessive fertilization, the Lake now chronically suffers from toxic blue-green algae blooms, including one in 2005 that generated toxin levels in Lake Okeechobee 65 times greater than the World Health OrganizationÂs safe drinking water guidelines.  Blue-green algae toxins can affect the liver, nervous system and skin and have been linked to increases in liver cancer, chronic fatigue illness, skin rashes, abdominal cramps, nausea, diarrhea and vomiting, as well as deaths of dogs and cattle. The toxins are not removed by chlorination or boiling and algaecides (which kill the algae) result in the release of the toxins into the environment.  Phosphorus pollution levels in the Lake have risen continuously from about 40 parts per billion in 1960 to 240 parts per billion last year  an all time high. Phosphorus is a main ingredient in fertilizer and is an important component of animal waste and sewage.  The state and EPA have recently determined that the maximum allowable level of phosphorus pollution is 40 parts per billion.  In 1976, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection contended that backpumping into Lake Okeechobee from the pumping stations should be stopped. At trial, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection reversed position and sided with the District in contending that no Clean Water Act permit was necessary.  After the trial was completed but before a decision was issued, EPA proposed an administrative rule that would exempt all water transfers from permitting under the Clean Water Act. The South Florida Water Management District  the defendant in the backpumping case  explained that the rule is "expressly designed" for the backpumping lawsuit.  Thirteen states and the Canadian province of Manitoba filed comments in opposition to the proposed EPA rule as did over 50 national conservation organizations.  Earthjustice will take the EPA to court to challenge the legality of the new water transfers exemption rule when it is adopted by EPA. The theory of the case will be that EPA may not legally exempt any polluters from the Clean Water ActÂs permitting requirements.

I would like to add that I was at the North Olympic Fruit Club meeting when the speaker gave an excellent program on Seed Saving for Gardeners. She passed out Territorial Catalogs and related no negative information about the Territorial Seed Company or any seed company. She said that the seed catalog gave excellent growing information. She was able to show how to read the catalog to tell open pollinated varieties from the hybrids. She did talk about Seminis and Monsanto and how the seed industry is becoming centralized. Of course someone asked the GMO question and the information given was that home garden seed suppliers do not sell GMO seeds. Again, the speaker was educating and training us how to become empowered not only to collect seeds for success, but also to selectively breed the best seeds for our individual tastes, nutrition and seed vigor. She also directed us to the Organic Seed Alliance website for a list of Seminis seeds and some informational articles about the history of the seed trade. We all need to be careful about putting misinformation out on the web. I have been a customer of Territorial Seeds since 1982. For a period in the early '80s I would write and beg them to send seeds to me in Pennsylvania when we lived there. With their seeds and a very small garden I was able to have succes at the local farmers market. I continue to buy from Territorial, but on my own decide whether to select seeds supplied by Seminis. Instead of spreading rumors about Territorial and other seed sellers, support the small breeders who do sell to Territorial or grow our own seeds. Seminis does supply some excellent varieties of seeds. I would think that with all of the bad publicity this would be an opportunity for smaller seed growers to develop new competing varieties. The agricultural universities were major seed breeders and researchers in the past.

I can certainly appreciate all the frustration contained in this thread. While I could regurgitate my angst with building our custom home that took about 8 months longer than the builder noted in the contract, I'll just get to the point at the end of our story. We knew going in we were going to be stretching ourselves financially. We'd become accustomed to having a certain amount of discretionary $$ to do what we liked, when we liked. We knew that was going to change, gave ourselves a 5 year 'scrimp plan' as we didn't want to 'scrimp' on building. As noted above, nothing seems to work out like planned, spent quite a bit more than planned but still within the 'plan'. Now 2 years into it and the reality of it is settling in, scrimping isn't fun. I'm a car guy and can not indulge that 'want' right now, our trips are shorter and closer to home, we can't always join the crowd on evenings out. I sometimes loose sight of the plan and get frustrated we're in this situation even though our eyes were wide open going in. I just have to step back for a moment and appreciate what we have and know that sticking to the plan is critical to opening up more opportunities in the future. Heck, only 3 years to go right?? Yep, gotta look at it that way or just get depressed. I love my house, my DW my kids and I don't even mind my 55 mile, 1 way commute to work (been doing that for almost 20 years, actually used to be longer). We've got our dream home on 30 acres in the country, what's to complain about? It's really easy to get jaded, to see only what's wrong, to lose sight of what's important, to give in to doubt and self loathing (why did I ever do this?). It's all temporary, life moves so fast the things that kept us awake at night last year are hard to recall this year, was it really worth all the lost sleep? Most situations work themselves out if you just keep in mind what you want. It's easy to give in to the negative, too easy, it's easy to lose sight of what you believe in, it's easy to be distracted by all the things that pop up in everyday life. Once in a while it's important to step away, take stock in your life, revisit the things that motivate you and keep you looking forward, reinvest in your mental well being, fortify yourself for the challenges ahead. Sometimes we have to see the 'wrong' thing through just so we can get to what we believe is 'right'. One thing I tell people is it's better to make a decision, be it right or wrong, than to procrastinate and worry something to the point your unable to do anything. If it's right you'll know it and move forward, if it's wrong, you'll learn why and make the necessary changes to make it work. I'm an electrical engineer, that sort of thinking keeps projects alive, promotes learning, and creates a feeling of accomplishment. Not everything is a home run but if you don't swing the bat you can't hit the ball.

I met with the other, smaller company Friday. I was there for 3 hours. I really want to work with them - they really took time to understand the project and what's important to me. I don't think I want to go with Marsh though. I have the door sample along with the door sample from Norcraft and the Marsh door edges don't seem as crisp. They carry Cabico, she thinks it will likely be out of my budget (but to go with a better cabinet, I would be willing to go up a bit), but is going to price it. The company I want to work with carries Marsh, Medallion, Cabico, Holiday, Rosewood, and Design Craft. If we can't find something that works without going crazy on the budget, then I can hold my nose and call the other company. But I really don't want to do that. I've been trying to talk my husband into Barker! He's not enthused or motivated to do RTA. With the whole house disassembled in the construction process, we really wouldn't have a place to store and assemble.