A prick is defined
by Merriam Webster as the act of piercing something with a fine, sharp point
leaving a mark or shallow hole. There
are other meanings you’ll find in Encyclopedia Britannica
Company’s Merriam Webster dictionary but for the sake of propriety I need
to stick with this one, although one might find other definitions more
applicable.
The significance
of a prick is this. The pain of one
prick, while bothersome and certainly undesirable, is perhaps tolerable, but
many pricks will cause serious pain, illness and even death.
The normal human
reaction after the first prick is do what’s reasonably possible to avoid the
pain of another. Somewhere in the back
of one’s mind, following a prick, a voice can be heard saying, “Do not
disregard this seemingly minor irritation.
It could be the first of many, and many can be dangerous to one’s well
being.”
Though Florida’s
environment has suffered the damage of many pricks over the decades, that voice
in the back of our collective minds seems to have been quieted. As a society, it appears we have lost our
ability to hear the warning, or perhaps for political reasons we have simply chosen
to ignore it.
Florida’s limited
remaining natural environment is suffering from many pricks. There are many examples. The vast Floridan Aquifer, to suggest one,
can withstand the removal of its waters up to a certain point, but thereafter,
will begin to suffer perhaps irreparably.
As the number of withdrawal points and removal rates increase, surface
water bodies begin to disappear and, beneath the surface, salt water, which
surrounds all fresh water in aquifer storage, begins to invade.
In the early
1920’s, the City of St. Petersburg lost its supply of fresh water to salt
intrusion from the nearby Gulf. Its wells
were located on the Pinellas peninsular where the zone of fresh water was shallow
and limited. Knowing water would be found
further inland, the city moved its wells to northwest Hillsborough County.
As St. Petersburg’s
population grew and withdrawals increased, the population within the withdrawal
area was also growing. More and more
people began to notice local lakes were declining and wetlands were drying
out. The problem worsened with the
arrival of the Pinellas County utility system which also placed wellfields in
northwest Hillsborough, as well as further north into Pasco County. There were
wet years, but the ability of the system to recover grew ever slower until
eventually even hurricanes could not replenish the aquifer enough to sustain
the historic average surface water elevations. The endless pricks began to overwhelm
the system and the effect was inevitable.
One of the lawyers
involved in the ensuing water battles that lasted for decades was Ed de la Parte who
worked for Pickens Talley, Pinellas County’s utilities director. Talley often enjoyed pointing out how vast
the Florida
Aquifer was and how silly it was to suggest that the paltry millions of
gallons per day the city and county were pumping might be harmful. Fortunately, that pumping has been
drastically reduced through the efforts of local activists and the SWFWMD, and
the hydrologic system is recovering. It
was an expensive and near tragic lesson.
North Florida is
known for having the highest concentration of first magnitude springs in the
world. Today, however, the
groundwater system is suffering and the once unmatched beauty and clarity
of the springs are showing it. Too many
straws are sucking the lifeblood from the vast underground system that feeds
them and nutrients in the form of nitrates from septic tanks, agriculture and
golf courses are enriching what remains of their flows. Algal slime known as lyngbya is killing the native
eel grass and clouding the water that was at one time so clean and clear one
could drink it by the handful.
Now, a Canadian
billionaire wants permission to put ten thousand cows on 30,000 acres
nearby and is claiming the hundreds of tons of manure that will be generated
and the withdrawal of 13.2 million gallons per day of water from the same
system that feeds Silver Springs will do no harm. The same Ed de la Parte that believed Pickens
Talley 25 years ago when he stated the Floridan Aquifer was so vast the pumping
from northwest Hillsborough County was not causing harm is now claiming the
same thing in Marion County. Ed de la
Parte is the attorney representing the Canadian billionaire.
Clearly, he does
not grasp the concept of death that can be caused by a thousand pricks. A single cactus spine is of little
consequence, but one
might not survive a fall into a bed of cacti. De la Parte should remember the lesson and the
cost to his previous client, and the near tragic impact upon northwest
Hillsborough County.
It is an old
problem when a user claims the impact of his use upon a “commons” is not the one
that is causing destruction. It is the
collective use of others that is the genesis of the problem, and thus his use
should continue to be acceptable. This
classic point was made by a biology professor of the University of California,
Santa Barbara, in 1968, Garrett Hardin.
In his article, “The
Tragedy of the Commons,” (Science
Magazine, December 13, 1968) he wrote:
The tragedy of the commons develops
in this way. Picture a pasture open to all. It is to be expected that each
herdsman will try to keep as many cattle as possible on the commons. Such an
arrangement may work reasonably satisfactorily for centuries because tribal
wars, poaching, and disease keep the numbers of both man and beast well below
the carrying capacity of the land. Finally, however, comes the day of
reckoning, that is, the day when the long-desired goal of social stability
becomes a reality. At this point, the inherent logic of the commons
remorselessly generates tragedy.
As a rational being, each herdsman
seeks to maximize his gain. Explicitly or implicitly, more or less consciously,
he asks, "What is the utility to me of adding one more animal to my
herd?" This utility has one negative and one positive component.
1) The positive component is a
function of the increment of one animal. Since the herdsman receives all the
proceeds from the sale of the additional animal, the positive utility is nearly
+1.
2) The negative component is a
function of the additional overgrazing created by one more animal. Since,
however, the effects of overgrazing are shared by all the herdsmen, the
negative utility for any particular decision-making herdsman is only a fraction
of 1.
Adding together the component
partial utilities, the rational herdsman concludes that the only sensible
course for him to pursue is to add another animal to his herd. And another; and
another... But this is the conclusion reached by each and every rational
herdsman sharing a commons. Therein is the tragedy. Each man is
locked into a system that compels him to increase his herd without limit--in a
world that is limited. Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each
pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the
commons. Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all.
Some would say that this is a
platitude. Would that it were! In a sense, it was learned thousands of years
ago, but natural selection favors the forces of psychological denial (8).
The individual benefits as an individual from his ability to
deny the truth even though society as a whole, of which he is a part, suffers.
(Emphasis added)
Would it be
unthinkable to consider that the environment of Florida may on the brink of suffering
its own tragedy of commons? Florida’s
unique natural environment belongs to no one. It belongs to all. Yet we seem
determined to abuse and neglect it to extinction. We are suffering it pricks from a thousand
wrongs and yet there are those who would prick it even more and claim it is not
their prick that’s destroying it. This
is Ed de la Parte’s song on behalf of the Canadian billionaire and the “prick”
he would brandish upon Silver Springs.
Pricks can come in
all sizes. Some are not small, such as
the proposed Farmton Tract, a 59,000-acre, 50-year, planned community of 25,000
rooftops, millions of square feet of commercial development straddling both Volusia
and Brevard counties. Even though the
project leaders have promised a sizeable portion of the total acreage (80%)
will be “conserved forever,” it is still a prick on the larger body of environmental
Florida and may have serious impacts on the very unique aquifer system
underlying Volusia County. How many more
pricks like this can we stand?
Will it matter,
though, if there’s no one to oversee and assure the good things this project
proposes are actually delivered?
Hundreds of water management professionals who dedicated much of their
lives to protecting natural Florida have been shown the door at the state’s
five water management districts. Those
in charge of the store now, are all about firing the bag boys and decreasing
the cost of running it and not whether customers will return, all in the name
of cutting costs. How is all the slicing
and dicing of Florida’s environmental protections going to bring more business
to Florida? It is an ill conceived,
systematic removal of the state’s nose in a misguided attempt to improve its
face.
Our
business-oriented governor stopped the acquisition of all environmental lands
by the water management districts and told them to begin selling off “the surplus.” Apparently, it is of no concern that the land’s
cost to the public will likely be much more than what a fire sale might bring during
the currently ongoing recession. Nor is there any concern that the purchases
were demanded by a majority of Florida voters on two separate occasions in the
first place and that selling any environmental land is something of a breach of
public trust. This is truly one of the
dumbest pricks of all and an important one that could stunt Florida’s
environmental quality of life for generations if not forever. Some of the lands that could be purchased at
bargain prices now are irreplaceable but will be lost forever if the
opportunity to conserve them is allowed to pass. Protests
and plain attempts at persuading common sense are having the same effect as
the sounds of falling trees in a forest when there’s no one there to hear.
The list goes on
and on. Tens of millions of acres of
natural Florida has already been lost which will never be recovered. Think Everglades. Think hundreds of miles of
beaches covered with condos but no nesting
Leatherbacks or Sooty
Terns. The state has already
suffered the damning consequences of a million pricks, and yet, we hear
everyday how the current administration has devised a new way to prick it again
and again.
He has ordered his
regulators to “work with the business community” rather than seek out violators,
but instead, they are giving away the store, according to would-be whistleblower
Connie
Bersok. “Working with” has come to
mean “grant the permit.”
Between the
seemingly hellish intent of the legislature to revoke all sensible protections
needed to sustain Florida’s natural systems and the mindless destructive
policies initiated by a governor with no background in government or the science
of ecology, Florida’s unique and once grand natural environment is destined to
become a parking lot unless attitudes change, and the attitude I’m talking
about is that of the voting public.
That voice in back of our
cumulative minds is speaking to us. An
awakening is needed before the store is looted, the “common” is destroyed, and
it’s just too late. Let us heed the
warning.
