On Aug. 21, the EPA settled a major lawsuit with environmental groups over nutrient pollution in Florida.

The EPA told the states in 1998 to take care of setting those limits, but failed to ever follow up. So now EPA has agreed to step in and set a numeric limit on how much pollution from fertilized lawns and golf courses, leaky septic tanks and malfunctioning sewer plants can flow into Florida's waterways

Now it turns out this isn't just a problem in Florida.

This week the EPA's own inspector general released a report that the agency "should move immediately to adopt enforceable limits on the release of nutrient pollutants -- such as fertilizer and sewage -- into rivers and streams to halt the creation of dangerously low oxygen areas in water bodies," the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported.

Although it's been 11 years since EPA told the states to set their own limits, "half the states still had no numeric nutrient standards," the report says. "States have not been motivated to create these standards because implementing them is costly and often unpopular with various constituencies."

As a result, the nutrient pollution causes such major problems as the infamous "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico.

Time for action, says the report, recommending the EPA:

• Select "waters of national value," including the Gulf of Mexico, where numeric standards for nutrient pollution should be set.

• Set those standards.

• Establish EPA and state accountability for setting similar standards for the rest of the nation.

As we note in "Paving Paradise," nutrient pollution is the biggest water pollution problem in Florida.

The nutrients -- nitrogen and phosphorous -- flow into streams and lakes and rivers and spur the explosive growth of toxic algae. The result: blooms like the one that plagued the St. Johns River all summer long in 2005, turning it blue-green and "producing toxic fumes that left Jacksonville residents coughing and sneezing if they got downwind."

And where are the waterways with the biggest nutrient pollution problems? According to our analysis, it's the ones where the most wetlands have been wiped out.

"That’s no big surprise," we wrote. "Wetlands soak up rain and filter out pollution. Paving them over means the runoff and pollutants have to go somewhere else."