Environmental groups want EPA to nix Florida’s new water standards

With a series of legal challenges still hanging fire, environmental groups are asking the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to reject Florida’s controversial water quality standards.

Environmental groups are asking the EPA to reject Florida's latest water quality standards.

Rachel Silverstein, executive director of Miami Waterkeepers, accuses state regulators of using a statistical sleight of hand to justify higher levels of toxins.

“We’re really concerned about things like the bioaccumulation factor and how these chemicals actually accumulate in fish and then get transferred to the human population; toxicity limits and other ways that they accounted for risk.”

The standards are being challenged administratively and in a Pensacola federal court. State regulators say the standards, which are more stringent for some pollutants and more lax for others, are safe and based on the latest science.