Business-Friendly

From Bullsugar.

Action must be taken to stop the poisonous discharges from Lake Okeechobee into the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie Rivers. The red tide that kills fish and causes lung problems for people near the ocean has become an overwhelming summer problem in Florida. Elected state officials, including our governor, assign blame to the federal government. Elected officials in the federal government assign blame to Florida’s elected officials; the floodwaters from Lake O must go somewhere, or endanger the area around the lake. There’s plenty of blame to go around.

For years, there’s been a proposed Agricultural Area Reservoir to assist the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, which would direct more water south into the Everglades and Florida Bay, and rid the water of pollutants as well. The plans for this reservoir have been batted back and forth for at least a decade, but the Florida legislature has dragged its heels on actually building the thing. Acres keep getting removed from the plan and nothing’s being done.

Well, that’s not 100% correct. Florida has a ‘business-friendly’ government—the sort that has reduced the lunch ‘hour’ to 30 minutes and has made temp work a way of life. It also posts warnings to individual citizens about not using fertilizer, while allowing agribusiness to dump ‘nutrients’ (i.e. runoff) into Lake O. One rule for citizens, another rule for donors. The wildlife in the ocean doesn’t matter to some business owners nearly as much as the bottom line, and the same goes for the rivers and the people who live next to it. It’s a shame, but campaigns cost money.



From the Florida Phoenix.

Then, there’s our ‘business-friendly’ federal government, which has spent the last couple of decades gutting the Clean Water Act. No teeth at the federal level, permissiveness at the local level. We know that the fish don’t matter. The manatees don’t matter. And a few lawsuits from wheezing citizens aren’t going to hurt the bottom line of political donors by much. So, the ‘nutrients’ pour into the lake, making it toxic. And when the rainy season comes, that water needs to go into the ocean. It’s deep and will eventually break up the pollutants, right?

But how business-friendly is it when dead fish litter the shore and the algae blooms are so toxic that it creates lung problems for the citizens – and, more importantly to our state officials, the tourists and retirees who buy those million-dollar condos? Hotels are losing customers, and real estate deals are falling through. Who wants to live near a stinky shore that makes you cough?

We’re coming up on election time, though. Our Esteemed Governor, running for the U.S. Senate, declares now that he has asked the government to ‘expedite’ the development of the reservoir. Lip service is being paid to the sad situation on both coasts by the Florida Legislature. These are often the same officials taking donations from Big Sugar and the same people that didn’t want to use the money from 2014’s Amendment 1 for its earmarked purpose – conservation.

It’s far past time to buy the land and clean the lake. It’s far past time to identify and support lawmakers that want to resolve this crisis (of all parties), and replace the ones that helped create it (Rick Scott is not a friend to the ocean). That’s what’s business-friendly.

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