Rick Scott defunded agencies tasked with overseeing red tide. Today he declares State of Emergency

"Well, well, well.

This is not going to help Florida Governor Rick Scott in his months-long effort to greenwash his despicable environmental policies. It came out just in time to frustrate his efforts to muddy the waters, so to speak, in his Trump-endorsed battle to unseat Democratic Senator Bill Nelson.

As many of you know, the discharge from Lake Okeechobee (laced with poisoned runoff from the sugar industry) gets released during the rainy season. It happens every year at this time (and even in winter, if it rains too much), and it is horrifying to witness. But this year the discharge is truly devastating both Florida’s Gulf and Atlantic coasts. The rivers that empty the lake, the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie, are void of life. Any marine species that swims into the discharge dies. The water is green and thick with algae. Many of our waterways and beaches are nothing more than a graveyard with the bodies of fish, bottlenose dolphins, manatees, turtles, and whale sharks littered about. Who wants to go for a swim and see that?

The discharge to the Gulf coast has combined with a red tide, making it a grim reminder of how ecological devastation can impact a community. Property values are plummeting, the tourism industry is hit hard, people are getting sick from just breathing, and we are devastated at what we are witnessing in the ocean.

Rick Scott previously declared a state of emergency for the Lake Okeechobee discharges for affected counties on the Atlantic side, but it’s too little, too late for many Floridians.

Today, Rick Scott is nibbling on some crow. The Orlando Weekly blogger Colin Wolf has noticed that today’s State of Emergency to fight our current outbreak of red tide comes from a governor who “cut nearly $700 million from Florida's environmental agencies (many of whom oversee algae outbreaks)”...."


https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/8/13/1788014/-Rick-Scott-defunded-agency-tasked-with-overseeing-red-tide-Today-he-declares-State-of-Emergency?detail=emaildkre

Red tide and green water? Florida beaches have a problem, and its name is Rick Scott

BY FABIOLA SANTIAGO

fsantiago@miamiherald.com

August 02, 2018 06:28 PM

Updated August 02, 2018 06:33 PM

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/fabiola-santiago/article215944365.html

I am not a fan of the Army Corps of Engineers. I have found that it is a bureaucracy which kills people. They failed on the Illinois levies in 93 and entire towns were lost, as a good friend was a Col. in the Illinois reserves as they tried to work with ACE and his experience is that they are generally dullards.

My experience is that people at ACE just hassle small landowners, and drop the ball on most major projects with terrible engineering. When I watched for a day as ACE was bringing dump truck after dump truck to close a gap where their levee had failed in NO, I called the Rock Island ACE folks and read them the riot act that they were killing people and that all they have to do is put steel pilings at the ends of the canal. We had just got a bid to put pilings on the south island, so I was completely familiar with how quick they can be sunk with an excavator on a barge. They had both ends closed about two days after I raised hell with Rock Island, who called down to NO. The ACE folks are killing the environment in South Florida. If there is an agency in government which needs immediate restructuring, it is ACE. We need politicians who put the environment as a high priority.

2seaoat wrote:I am not a fan of the Army Corps of Engineers.  I have found that it is a bureaucracy which kills people.   They failed on the Illinois levies in 93 and entire towns were lost, as a good friend was a Col. in the Illinois reserves as they tried to work with ACE and his experience is that they are generally dullards.

My experience is that people at ACE just hassle small landowners, and drop the ball on most major projects with terrible engineering.  When I watched for a day as ACE was bringing dump truck after dump truck to close a gap where their levee had failed in NO, I called the Rock Island ACE folks and read them the riot act that they were killing people and that all they have to do is put steel pilings at the ends of the canal.  We had just got a bid to put pilings on the south island, so I was completely familiar with how quick they can be sunk with an excavator on a barge.   They had both ends closed about two days after I raised hell with Rock Island, who called down to NO.  The ACE folks are killing the environment in South Florida.   If there is an agency in government which needs immediate restructuring, it is ACE.  We need politicians who put the environment as a high priority.

What does the Army Corps of Engineers have to do with this Red Tide issue? I don't get it, please explain.

They built dikes which stop the natural flow of water to the everglades and instead it is stored in a toxic soup which is released into the rivers. The sugar industry and more importantly all the development around Marco Island and the everglades requires that land which historically had seasonal flooding no longer purges that toxic soup. The everglades were a natural filter. My friends in south Florida say it is killing beach tourism and causing huge financial hits to the area.

The ACE needs to be reorganized and their failures environmentally have been epic, only matched by the people they have killed with poor engineering. I have spent a life time fighting government over reach and the boys on Rock Island ACE that I consider every last one of them as killers for what happened in Illinois and New Orleans. The Robinson decision now allows no protection from the tort immunity act for bastards that kill people. My feelings are very strong and I will be visiting Marco Island at the super bowl, and the red tide will not be an issue by winter, it is a summer scourge.

2seaoat wrote:They built dikes which stop the natural flow of water to the everglades and instead it is stored in a toxic soup which is released into the rivers.  The sugar industry and more importantly all the development around Marco Island and the everglades requires that land which historically had seasonal flooding no longer purges that toxic soup.  The everglades were a natural filter.  My friends in south Florida say it is killing beach tourism and causing huge financial hits to the area.

Thanks for the background. I don't know about the Corps of Engineers' involvement with either Rock Island or New Orleans but in this instance, they didn't just build the Okeechobee dikes on a whim. As far as I can see, it was originally a flood control project during the Hoover administration after two big hurricanes in the late 1920s.

After that, naturally, monied interests influenced Congress and the Corp to make a bunch of additions and changes. It doesn't seem to me that the Corp was acting on their own. Back in the twenties, environmental knowledge was pretty scarce. There's plenty of villains in this story.

Apparently, the history of flushing Lake Okeechobee goes back a ways, to the 1850s in fact:

https://www.news-press.com/story/life/2016/07/17/history-flushing-lake-okeechobee-everglades-cynthia-williams-tropicalia/86930340/

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/opinion/os-florida-environment-algae-mess-rick-scott-maxwell-20180726-story.html#

"Imagine for a moment that you see a guy slowly reaching toward a scalding hot stove.

Everyone around screams: “Don’t touch it! You’ll hurt yourself!”

But the guy pays them no mind and places his palm flush upon the bright orange burner, only to scream in surprise and agony as his flesh begins to char.

You’d think this man was pretty stupid, right?

Like sell-your-car-for-gas-money stupid.

Well, we are this man. This entire state.

For the past eight years, we stood by as the state decimated its environmental and water-protection agencies and repealed checks on sustainable growth.

Every step, we were warned: “Don’t do it! Things will go bad!”

But we paid them no mind. We watched as politicians shut down water-quality monitoring stations, stocked environmental boards with developers, slashed staff at the agencies that check for pollution and cut back on land-preservation programs.

Then we re-elected them.

And now our state is cloaked in gloppy blue-green algae that is shutting down businesses, killing animals and sending people to the hospital.

The headlines tell the story:

“Blue-green algae in St. Lucie River sending people to emergency rooms”

“Algae Bloom in Florida Prompts Fears About Harm to Health and Economy”

“Blue-green algae, red tide soil beaches, threaten Florida tourism”

What the muck did we think was going to happen?

You can’t treat your state like a toilet bowl and then get surprised when it backs up.

So when I watch politicians scurry to pollution sites with cameras in tow, acting shocked and outraged, they seem just as daft as that guy who can’t figure out why his scalded hand hurts.

Who is most to blame? Well, some Democrats want to blame all Republicans. But that’s not fair. Some Republicans have been enviro-champions, especially in the state senate.

It is, however, fair to blame Rick Scott.

This governor has undermined our natural resources for eight straight years. The data is trackable.

Under Jeb Bush and Charlie Crist, the state opened 1,000 to 1,500 cases a year to crack down on bad environmental actors.

Under Rick Scott, the number is closer to 250..."

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/opinion/os-florida-environment-algae-mess-rick-scott-maxwell-20180726-story.html#

Floridatexan wrote:
Under Jeb Bush and Charlie Crist, the state opened 1,000 to 1,500 cases a year to crack down on bad environmental actors.

They could have opened 10,000 cases and it would have made no difference whatsoever. Rick Scott is a scumbag but blaming a mess that's been a century in the making on him is bullshit. Instead of finding opinion columns that confirm your opinion, you might spend an hour or two educating yourself about the problem.

You want to really do something, go out and blow up some of the dikes. Opening cases and preaching may make people feel better but it accomplishes NOTHING!

Nothing changes until people start breaking shit.