Dave LeGear
Contributing Member
- State
- Florida
Some of the latest from Captains for Clean Water on this subject....
The latest political scheme you need to know about
There are games being played in Washington, DC right now that could have devastating impacts on our waters in South Florida. Here is the "cliff notes" version of what's happening and why.
1. What is the issue?
Representative Alcee Hastings and Senator Rick Scott are fighting to add language to the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) of 2020 that would tie the Lake Okeechobee Regulation Schedule to the "savings clause" in CERP.
2. What would it do?
Lock in water supply for industrial agriculture as the priority for Lake O management decisions over drinking water supply, human health and safety, and the environment.
3. Why are they doing this?
The industrial sugar industry is not happy about the deviation made by the Army Corps of Engineers to Lake O operations last year—lowering the lake in the dry season to prevent harmful discharges and toxic algal blooms and provide capacity for summer rains. As Hurricane Dorian approached, the Corps then had the flexibility to forgo devastating, high-volume releases. U.S. Sugar filed a lawsuit against the Army Corps for making this deviation.
4. What's really happening here?
The Army Corps is currently undergoing a public planning process to develop a new operations plan called the Lake Okeechobee System Operating Manual (LOSOM). Sneaking the proposed language into WRDA is an effort by the sugar industry to go around that process and guarantee water supply for their profits at the expense of the rest of the state which depends on clean water as our economic driver.
5. What would this mean for our water?
If this passes, water management would revert back to the broken management system that was in place in December 2000. This would threaten drinking water supply, result in higher lake levels, more toxic discharges and harmful algal blooms, starve the Everglades and Florida Bay of desperately-needed water, and undermine the progress and investments made over the last two decades.
You can find a detailed report of the situation updated daily on our blog including informative videos, media coverage, and how you can take action here:
https://captainsforcleanwater.org/special-interests-attempt-to-reconfigure-lake-o-schedule-to-their-benefit/
The latest political scheme you need to know about
There are games being played in Washington, DC right now that could have devastating impacts on our waters in South Florida. Here is the "cliff notes" version of what's happening and why.
1. What is the issue?
Representative Alcee Hastings and Senator Rick Scott are fighting to add language to the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) of 2020 that would tie the Lake Okeechobee Regulation Schedule to the "savings clause" in CERP.
2. What would it do?
Lock in water supply for industrial agriculture as the priority for Lake O management decisions over drinking water supply, human health and safety, and the environment.
3. Why are they doing this?
The industrial sugar industry is not happy about the deviation made by the Army Corps of Engineers to Lake O operations last year—lowering the lake in the dry season to prevent harmful discharges and toxic algal blooms and provide capacity for summer rains. As Hurricane Dorian approached, the Corps then had the flexibility to forgo devastating, high-volume releases. U.S. Sugar filed a lawsuit against the Army Corps for making this deviation.
4. What's really happening here?
The Army Corps is currently undergoing a public planning process to develop a new operations plan called the Lake Okeechobee System Operating Manual (LOSOM). Sneaking the proposed language into WRDA is an effort by the sugar industry to go around that process and guarantee water supply for their profits at the expense of the rest of the state which depends on clean water as our economic driver.
5. What would this mean for our water?
If this passes, water management would revert back to the broken management system that was in place in December 2000. This would threaten drinking water supply, result in higher lake levels, more toxic discharges and harmful algal blooms, starve the Everglades and Florida Bay of desperately-needed water, and undermine the progress and investments made over the last two decades.
You can find a detailed report of the situation updated daily on our blog including informative videos, media coverage, and how you can take action here:
https://captainsforcleanwater.org/special-interests-attempt-to-reconfigure-lake-o-schedule-to-their-benefit/
So click on the link below, and hopefully it will work for you also? This since it was simply too large of a file to post direct here on the Site, thus I cooked up a little programming workaround:
