Three months ago, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency settled a lawsuit filed by environmental groups over water pollution limits for Florida's waterways.

Under the settlement -- which was approved by a federal judge last week over objections from industry and agriculture -- the EPA agreed to set numeric limits on how much nutrient pollution is allowed to foul Florida's rivers, streams lakes and bays.

Cleaning up Florida's waterways to comply with the new standards is likely to change everything from how suburban lawns are fertilized to how stormwater runoff and sewage are treated -- and, according to opponents, cost billions. It is also likely to lead to a push to preserve more natural wetlands and create or restore others, since wetlands function as filters to flowing pollution.

David Guest, the lawyer for Earthjustice who pursued the lawsuit, pointed out that the EPA told all states in 1998 to set limits on nutrient pollution, and warned it would do it for them if no action was taken by 2004. But 2004 passed with no action, so finally last year Earthjustice joined Sierra Club, the Florida Wildlife Federation, the Conservancy of Southwest Florida, the Environmental Confederation of Southwest Florida and the St. Johns Riverkeeper to sue the EPA.

It probably would have been hard for the EPA to continue defending itself against the suit after its own inspector general published a report criticizing the agency for dawdling around so long about making the state's comply with the 1972 law.

At the time of that August settlement, environmental groups promised that Florida would be only the first state where the EPA would face such a lawsuit over nutrient pollution standards. Sure enough, groups in Wisconsin have now notified the EPA they plan to sue the agency over the exact same pollutants.

Why Wisconsin and not one of the 48 other states? Because that state's Department of Natural Resources has developed a good database on phosphorus loadings in the state.

"The science is farther ahead in Wisconsin," said Albert Ettinger of the Environmental Law & Policy Center.