Legacy Civil Engineers believes that Public health and safety are paramount concerns in the practice of engineering. Most engineers share those same values. Unfortunately, projects are often constructed where sound engineering practices are ignored. This has led to government intervention and regulation of scientific and engineering standards.

Over the past fifteen years, the leadership at Legacy Civil Engineers has witnessed massive growth in regulatory requirements. Very often, new regulatory standards are developed by government bureaucrats with no engineering or scientific credentials, and without the benefit of peer-reviewed, sound science. Many of the rules do not serve to ensure greater levels of Public safety and health. Many of the rules have the unintended effect of increasing project costs beyond the means of the project owner.

Florida has developed very good rule-making processes over the past decade, which mandate robust stakeholder discussions and detailed scientific and economic analysis. These are slow, deliberate processes, but the process helps to ensure a "buy-in" by those who are being regulated. Because the process is recent, and because the process is slow, it will take many years to undo the many over-zealous and ineffective rules that have been created in the backrooms of government agencies over the years. However, it is a good start.

Legacy Civil Engineers participates in Florida's rulemaking process and has joined a growing group of private and public sector leaders who espouse the concept of simple cost-effective rules that maximize the Public health and safety. Today, this movement is gaining dominance and we are seeing, throughout Florida's government agencies, a rollback in the regulatory excesses of the past two decades.

Legacy Civil Engineers lends its considerable technical expertise and political voice to this regulatory-reform effort. We do not bill our client for this effort, but we continually help to educated our clients on regulatory issues and we solicit the opinions of local policy makers in the processes. At Legacy Civil Engineers we subscribe to Thomas Paine's philosophy that the best government governs the least. We further believe that regulatory matters are best addressed at the local levels.

Below is a list of articles, blogs, and essays prepared by Mike Kelter, Vice President of Legacy Civil Engineers, pertaining to various regulatory and political issues that affect the delivery of cost-effective projects that protect the health and welfare of the Public:

WATER QUALITY REGULATION

This blog was posted on www.jacksonville.com on December 7, 2009 as EPA announced its intention of implementing Numeric Nutrient Rules on Florida's waters.
This blog was posted on www.jacksonville.com on January 15, 2010 after EPA announced publication of the proposed Numeric Nutrient Rules. Even though there was an announcement of rule publication, and a very short date for review and comment was set, EPA could provide nothing for the Public to review. During this period of time, Florida's governmental agencies remained silent. The work of reviewing the rules fell on a group of dedicated Private Sector scientists and engineers.
This blog was posted on www.jacksonville.com, and in numerous other publications around the State of Florida on February 19, 2010, following EPA's public comment session in Orlando, Florida. EPA held six of these sessions. Florida's water quality experts were out in force. Mike Kelter was Speaker #32 at this session. The EPA transcript of this session is provided HERE, beginning on Page 156 of the transcript.

This blog was posted on www.jacksonville.com on March 3, 2010 and was widely circulated around the State. This issue, which came up concurrent with the growing Numeric Nutrient battle between Florida and Washington, was about Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) rules for various water bodies in Florida. Between June 2009 and September 2009, a number of Florida's Cities and Counties were challenged by FDEP to agree to new TMDL rules in a very short period of time, or face unilateral rules made by EPA. Legacy Civil Engineers was concerned mostly with the rules for Doctors Lake in Clay County, which affected the Town of Orange Park, Clay County Utility Authority, and Clay County. Legacy Civil Engineers negotiated language into the rule that would protect Clay County's agencies from duplicating nutrient removal that was already specified in the Lower St. Johns River TMDL, adopted several months earlier. EPA apparently hated Florida's efforts to clean up surface waters in the state, and unilaterally (and secretly) vetoed the rules and imposed new rules that were not peer-reviewed by any of the stakeholders. The meeting discussed in this blog was held to discuss EPA's actions. Mike Kelter was furious with this turn of events and sent the ATTACHED EMAIL TO DREW BARTLETT of FDEP.

We rummaged through our files and found the EPA HAPPY FACE Picture, which is referenced in the blog and posted it below. It's a keeper! EPA's HAPPY COEFFICIENT went south from that point.

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This blog was posted on www.jacksonville.com on March 19, 2010 in response to in response to a letter received by FDEP Secretary Sole from USEPA Assistant Administrator Peter S. Silva stating that the new Numeric Nutrient rules would not be proposed until January 2011. According to the letter, the intended date of rule adoption would be January 2012. This time extension allowed Team Florida to mobilize its resources to file lawsuits against EPA over its actions. Eventually lawsuits were filed by almost every reputable Floridian, including several Attorney Generals, several Agricultural Commissioners, several Water Management districts, and dozens of municipalities.

This report was filed by Mike Kelter, acting in behalf of the Green Cove Springs City Council with the approval of the Orange Park Town Council. The report was presented to the Clay County Legislative Delegation during their annual meeting in November 2010. In his presentation to the Senators and Legislators on the Delegation, Mike requested stronger legislative and executive branch response to EPA's efforts to impose Washington-style regulations on Florida's waters. At this point in time, outgoing Agricultural (FDACS)Commissioner Bronson, incoming FDACs Commissioner Putnam, outgoing Attorney General McCollum, and incoming Attorney General Bondi were considering lawsuits against EPA. Mike contended that those suits would lack credibility without Florida's scientific community at FDEP and in the Water Management Districts. Mike argued that the legislature could, through legislative processes, compel the new Governor to direct the new FDEP Secretary to unleash Florida's considerable resources on behalf of all Florida water stakeholders.

By the middle of December 2010, numerous Florida agencies and governments were lining up to file lawsuits against EPA over the proposed Numeric Nutrient Rules. The response by Florida stakeholders was huge, catching EPA and its lobbyist friend totally off-guard. Lisa Jackson's EPA staff and lobbyists such as Riverkeeper's Executive Director Jimmy Orth, began a campaign of publicly disparaging Florida's businesses, farmers, utilities, and elected officials as being "cheap polluters". These were unfair characterizations of Florida's first-class efforts to address nutrient pollution in Florida's waters. After a particulary scathing letter to the editor from Jimmy Orth, posted in CLAY TODAY Mike Kelter responded on December 22, 2010 with the Letter to the Editor linked on the left. Mike argued that the stakeholders were doing more to clean up Florida's waters than either EPA or the Environmental special interests. Clay Today does not maintain a searchable archive, but images of this document can be found on Clay Today's e-files.