MANATEE -- County commissioners might try to beat a deadline for implementing strict local ordinances about fertilizing lawns in the summer.
Commissioners will hold a public hearing at their next meeting to discuss a proposed fertilizer ordinance designed to limit the amount of nitrogen that ends up in the area’s estuaries and other waterways similar to one Pinellas County adopted last year.
Commissioner Joe McClash asked for the public hearing Tuesday after learning that amendments to fertilizer bills in the Florida House and Senate would allow counties with existing fertilizer ordinances that are stronger than state models to be grandfathered in.
The request puts Manatee in a position to quickly move ahead with its plans to adopt local fertilizer regulations, possibly beating the deadline and being grandfathered in like Pinellas, Hillsborough and Sarasota counties. Pinellas and Hillsborough passed ordinances last year. Sarasota has had an ordinance since 2007.
Nanette O’Hara, outreach coordinator for the Tampa Bay Estuary Program, said Manatee is the only county in the Tampa Bay watershed that does not have its own local fertilizer ordinance. The county had been working on an ordinance similar to the one Pinellas County adopted when legislation to ban local ordinances was proposed.
Local government officials have called the ordinance another tool in their quest to prevent pollution and subsequent costly clean-ups to meet water quality requirements.
They say local fertilizer ordinances can cut down on nitrogen run-off into estuaries, bays and other waterways.
But retailers argue myriad local ordinances are confusing and that the state should control any fertilizer regulations.
The last-minute request for a public hearing means commissioners don’t have time to discuss the ordinance in a work session.
“Time is of the essence,” McClash said, noting a July 1 deadline to have local ordinances set in a House bill under consideration.
The county has all of the reports and studies it needs to consider a local ordinance because the natural resources department had been working with the Tampa Bay Estuary Program on its research and the draft of the ordinance.
“Everything is changing so quickly, but right now, if our ordinance is in place by the end of the session, we are grandfathered in,” said Commissioner Michael Gallen.
