What a mess this has become for South 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/
 
Yours truly was on the radio last Sunday on WDAE up in Tampa with my good friend Captain Mike Anderson. This as we discuss the FWC proposal of reopening next May 2021 (targeted) of Snook, Redfish and Sea Trout that was closed due to Red Tide and other Water Quality issues...

Now this is not the entire show, and it got at times, a little heated with some callers as expected... But I was asked to call in and discuss my take on the topic and an element that I thought, was not being employed to help combat such :cool: 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:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LaC5sd3mbryq9qFi_LDWbFVXWhRx54lY/view?usp=sharing

Hope you thought that prospective was helpful? And as always, I try to do my best to always represent Performance Outdoors.Net in a positive light for us as a group that are all looking to help each other, and those causes we feel need attention ;)

Here are some other postings on this subject matter in general, this so may you also feel compelled to post those causes and help them with exposure here on the Site:

https://www.performanceoutdoors.net/threads/calls-to-action-other-conservation-related-concerns.9487/

https://www.performanceoutdoors.net/threads/show-your-support.9949/

So please do, if you have Sportsman groups that you are involved with and or support. Share those causes here on the Site with us in this targeted section! Maybe as a collective, we can help them expand their reach to an even larger group of people World Wide :)

My Best,
Dave
 
Finally, some progress on these discharges that are creating such havoc:

CFCW_PJ-8-2.jpg


https://captainsforcleanwater.org/corps-selects-final-losom-model-run/?utm_source=Captains+For+Clean+Water&utm_campaign=f60181e0b3-LOSOM+ICYMI&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_60e87aae01-f60181e0b3-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D&ct=t%28LOSOM+ICYMI%29&mc_cid=f60181e0b3&mc_eid=ae23633a48

So please do, if you have Sportsman groups that you are involved with and or support. Share those causes here on the Site with us in this targeted section! Maybe as a collective, we can help them expand their reach to an even larger group of people World Wide :cool:

My Best,
Dave
 
Some of the latest from Captains for Clean Water on this subject....


Progress is being made (Amen) and I thank those here, who may have pitched in even if it was sending a simple canned email to help with the efforts :)

So please do, if you have Sportsman groups that you are involved with and or support. Share those causes here on the Site with us in this targeted section! Maybe as a collective, we can help them expand their reach to an even larger group of people World Wide :cool:

My Best,
Dave
 
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