I'm ever thankful there is someone who so accurately sees how natural Florida is under siege and who is willing to step up and, with the clarity of a cloudless spring day in Florida, say what must be said with such precision and plain truth that we cannot look away. That person is John Moran and this is what he said in newspapers around the state just now. It is well that you consider what he has to say. - Sandspur
And so it has
come to this. What was once Florida’s family secret is now in full view for all
the world to see.
The word is out:
We’ve been terrible stewards of our waters, and we have the international news
headlines to show for it.
 |
| John Moran |
“Guacamole-thick
algae” washes ashore on the beaches of the state the governor ironically
promotes as “the world’s top tourist destination.” And a huge swath of Lake
Okeechobee is covered in lurid green slime, visible from space.
Florida’s water
woes isn’t a new story, of course. This is just an old tale reaching a wider
audience.
The details may
differ but our springs and rivers and lakes and coastal waters have been
heading south for many years.
If a lie can
destroy a reputation, so too can the truth. And the pictures don’t lie. If a
state could declare environmental bankruptcy, Florida today would be in Chapter
11.
The sliming of
our waters is a growing public health threat, a deepening environmental crisis,
a looming economic disaster and a public relations nightmare.
And we can’t
blame the Army Corps of Engineers, or the EPA or an Act of God. Look in the
mirror, Florida. We did this. In crisis
there is opportunity, but it’s instructive to first consider the back story.
A long time ago
our political leaders saw clearly that Florida was headed down an unsustainable
path. “Ecological destruction in Florida is nothing less than economic suicide,”
declared Gov. Reubin Askew in 1971.
A year later the
Legislature passed landmark water management reforms, widely hailed as a
national model of wise governance.
The decades
passed, the pendulum swung and a new message – casting Florida’s environmental
protection and growth management laws as irksome impediments – was packaged and
propelled with a megaphone only deep pockets can buy.
And the guiding
ethos in Tallahassee shifted from a view of natural Florida as a special place
to be tended with stewardship, to a view of natural Florida as a commodity to
be exploited for profit.
Upholding our
social contract with the future gave way to magical thinking. Blinded by the
myth of endless water abundance, we ignored the truth that choices have
consequences and the table was set for the mess we face today.
And now we have
the 2016 Water Bill, widely seen as a give-away to Big Ag and Big Business: So
many words, so little protection.
Nature is
resilient but only to a degree. Florida is a place where 20 million people make
daily choices around water which seem entirely “reasonable” to them. We have
seen the net result of all that reasonableness and it is not a pretty picture.
Our waters are a
mess and we know how we got here:
• Groundwater overpumping;
• Pollution from fertilizer, and human and
animal waste;
• A failure of responsible government
oversight;
• Businesses that value their private profits
over our public waters; and
• Lack of civic engagement.
We are running
out of fresh water. By the state’s own estimates, Central Florida will tap out
legacy water supplies within 15 years.
Yet,
astonishingly, we continue to pour half our household water budget on the
ground for lawns and landscaping.
The pollutants
we spread on our farms and lawns, or flush down our drains, don’t just go away.
Some portion of that stuff ends up in our drinking water or fuels the slime
fouling our springs and beaches.
With a changing
climate, warmer waters will make these problems worse, as evidenced by the
toxic algae bloom in Lake Erie that left half a million Ohio residents without
drinking water two summers ago.
And scientists
are studying a link between cyanobacteria found in polluted Florida waters and
neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer’s and ALS.
We Floridians
are a curious lot. We tend to change our behavior only in times of crisis, and
we tend to elect politicians whose brains are wired to perceive a chance
encounter with a mosquito carrying the Zika virus as a greater threat than the
colossal disruption posed by the collapse of our waters.
We are missing
the big picture, in part because no Florida political leader has the honesty
and courage to tell us that our lifestyle choices and business practices are
destroying our springs and rivers and lakes and coastal waters.
When it comes to
inspiring the embrace of a new water ethic – in which we use less and pollute
less – the silence in Tallahassee is deafening.
My message to
our political leadership is clear: It is the earth that lies at the very center
of our existence and makes possible life itself, to say nothing of
human endeavors
like the economy.
That line about “the
business of government is business” is shallow and shortsighted. We must aim
higher: The business of government is well-being.
And to our
business leaders, I say there can be no long term well-being in Florida if we
continue to use and abuse our waters like there’s no tomorrow.
Will this be our
watershed moment? We get to decide, Florida. May wisdom be our guide.
_____________________________________________
