But Towson Fraser, a spokesman for Florida House Majority Leader Mike Fasano, argues that steps are being taken that would prevent any contaminants from entering the drinking water. The bill would require a buffer zone between the untreated water and the stored water, as well as monitoring of the wells by the EPA.

Asked if there would be no chance of any contaminants entering the drinking water, Fraser said, "I wouldn't say there would be no chance, but with the EPA monitoring and the buffer zone, I think we'll be very well protected." Water taken out of the ground would of course be treated, Fraser says.

"It's sort of mind-boggling," says state House Democratic Leader Lois Frankel, who represents West Palm Beach.

"There's a lot of misinformation out there," counters Geof Mansfield, senior water analyst for the Jeb Bush-run Florida Department of Environmental Protection. "A lot of people are decrying this as if, willy-nilly, pollutants and contaminants will be injected into our groundwater. But this has all been designed in a way to protect human health and preserve the quality of our groundwater."

This makes Alan Farago, co-chairwoman of the Florida chapter of the Sierra Club, laugh. "The same agencies that are telling us not to worry are the ones that told us that, here in Miami, trillions of gallons of untreated municipal wastewater was supposed to stay underground 300 years, when it's bubbling up to the surface right now. These same agencies ruined the Everglades. These are the same people telling us that it will be OK if our water quality standards are lowered."

Everything about this bill is in dispute. No one can even agree how the whole thing started. Mansfield says the bill is part of Jeb Bush's search for long-term solutions to the state's pressing water needs, though he does admit that the bill is unique to Florida.

"It's hard to know exactly what's behind it," counters Frankel. "Whether it's really new science or just an administration that is so intent on tax cutting that they're willing to take these kinds of risks. [Jeb] Bush is on a tax-cutting tear. But we're having terrible trouble with our budget -- we have a billion-dollar shortfall this year, and his administration is looking every which way to try to save money."

Environmentalists say that the bill would necessitate a waiver from the EPA, as federal drinking water laws require that any water pumped into the ground be treated to meet the same standards for drinking water. But Gov. Bush's administration disagrees, arguing that the Safe Drinking Water Act does not make any such requirement, and that the bill would not require an EPA waiver.

"The federal Safe Drinking Water Act requires that water injected not endanger public health or endanger underground sources of drinking water," says Mansfield. The bill will not violate that law, he says, and the EPA has indicated to his department that the bill is "not inconsistent" with Safe Drinking Water Act standards, though it has not officially ruled so. An incarnation of the bill in the last legislative session was met with EPA "concerns," Mansfield says.

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