Florida’s waters are in a horrible mess and our state leaders are totally useless in finding a solution. In fact, they are the cause.
Political hot air blows strong and very little gets done. Lots of money is spent on symptoms with little or no reward. The hot air and the money are simply campaign tools for re-election. Our water situation is sickening and shameful, and it has caused some good people to move out of our state and has cost the state millions.
At this moment there is an ongoing campaign throughout Florida to add a new amendment to our state constitution, the Florida Right to Clean and Healthy Waters. This amendment is desperately needed and, if we want clean water, we will support it. Why? Simply because if the amendment fails, things will definitely get worse.
All of Florida’s freshwater is in a dangerous crisis — our springs, rivers, lakes, aquifer and our drinking water. A recent study determined that Florida leads the nation in polluted lakes.
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Your immediate reaction may be disbelief because we have our Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), our water management districts and our governor, who allocates large sums of money to fight green algae and red tide and to save the manatees and Lake Okeechobee. The DEP even has Basin Management Action Plans to ensure that our agricultural producers can be the best stewards of the land.
I am not exaggerating this crisis. We have all seen photos of the tons of dead fish and other water wildlife killed by red tide and the noxious green algae that we now know can cause health problems. We hear often about Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades, but seldom do we hear that Central and North Florida’s springs and rivers are flowing about one third less than they used to, and that their nitrate pollution is very high and going higher every year.
Our aquifer is also dropping. The graphs put out by the water management districts depict groundwater levels in downward moving lines, descending from left to right. These lines are constantly dropping, notwithstanding normal periods of rain fluctuations.
Even though there are some sincere people in the DEP and the water management districts, unwritten state policy will not let them protect our waters. These agencies continue to give out pumping permits and continue to lower the minimum flow and level values for our rivers, even as they know these things will further damage the rivers and springs. The Basin Management Action Plans are designed to fail, yet the DEP pushes them as the solution.
Our main problems are excessive nutrients and over-pumping of the aquifer. Sadly, our state agencies fully protect the abusers. Corporations run our Legislature, which refuses to follow the people’s will on the environment.
Our governor brags about spending money on the problems, but when doing so he very carefully avoids the polluters. He will spend money for fixes but not attack the sources. His policies dictate that the DEP and water management districts spend their time concocting plans that may save small amounts of water, but which never approach reducing pumping or significant amounts of pollutants.
Grassroots environmental organizations used to say the solution was to change the laws and elect better political representatives. Over the years it has become obvious that this approach is not working.
Every single time a good water law is proposed, it is either not allowed to advance through committee or polluters rewrite it into a useless bill. Our governor and legislators are not ready or willing to take on the hard battle of restoring our waters because they are more concerned with re-election than with saving the environment.
That is why we must all support this amendment that, if passed, may just escape those who want money instead of clean water.
You may read and sign the petition to qualify the “Florida Right to Clean and Healthy Waters” constitutional amendment for the 2024 ballot at floridarighttocleanwater.org.
Jim Tatum is a board member of Our Santa Fe River Inc. who lives in Tampa. This column is part of The Sun’s Messages from the Springs Heartland series.
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This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Jim Tatum: Florida Right to Clean and Healthy Waters Amendment needed