Importantly, the results of careful assessments of these uncertainties
appear to have been downplayed in the public discourse
about the needs for water pollution controls. For example, in its
background discussion on proposed rules to establish water quality
standards (WQSs) in Florida for estuaries, coastal waters, and South
Florida flowing inland waters, the US Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) argued that: “[n]itrogen and phosphorous pollution
has been linked to human health impacts in Florida primarily
through illnesses associated with HABs. Although marine HABs
occur naturally, increased nutrient loadings and pollution have
been linked to increased occurrence of some types of HABs (EPA,
2012a,b: 74936). The occurrence of Florida red tides as the consequence
of nutrient pollution has served as the basis for seemingly
unimpeachable assertions made by public authorities for the implementation
of water pollution controls (Sarasota County Fertilizer
and Landscape Management Code, Ord. No. 2007-062), when in
reality the relationship between nutrients and K. brevis blooms
may be more complex and non-linear. Consequently, the public
may be incompletely informed, or even confused about the rationales
for water pollution controls. In an environment beset with
uncertainty, in which the causes, occurrences, and potency of
Florida red tides appear to the layperson to be haphazard at best,
providing the public with probabilistic, risk-based arguments
might have been more sensible and more plausible. Doing so, however,
would have weakened the argument for the promulgation of
water pollution controls at state and local levels.
2.3. Framework