My Opinion
Are you a little uneasy with the current plans to fix Lake O and the water systems, including estuaries, as I am? Well, let's take a look at the great minds who developed these ideas and their motivations.
First we have the US Army Corps of Engineers, who got us in this mess in the first place. These are the folks who straightened the Kissimmee River so pollutants could reach Okeechobee quicker and in greater concentrations. These are the folks who connected the Caloosahatchee to Lake O so the Everglades could be drained for agriculture. These are the folks who wrote the discharge schedule (in the 70's) that ignores consequence to rivers and estuaries. It appears their ONLY intellectual tool is a bulldozer. If you only have one tool to use isn't that always going to be the only solution you advance?
Then we have SFWMD, which should stand for Sugar Funded Weapons of Mass Destruction. They do a heck of a job representing and protecting the Ag industry to the destruction of everyone else in the system. Well duh, three board members are still in the sugar industry. Every solution they advance involves sacrifice on all parts of the system EXCEPT the EAA.
The core of the idea involves taking a nasty 750,000 acre reservoir (Lake O) and creating several smaller versions of it, to be managed BY THE SAME PEOPLE (see above). Can you see logic in that plan? The initial fix involves creating a filthy holding pond slightly smaller than the Island of Sanibel (12,000 acres) and it's only a drop in the bucket toward their solution.
I submit their solution is no solution. It is merely an expansion and continuation of our current disaster. I reject the notion that the way to fix a broken and mismanaged problem is to just make it bigger and spread it around.
A true and FAIR solution is to: 1..keep the Lake level at 12' in spite of demands by the EAA, 2..rewrite the discharge schedule so the various communities, including agriculture, can SHARE the consequence of extra rain and hurricanes when it's best for each of them to take a share, 3..finally begin to identify, and hold responsible, every community on the water trail who contributes to the nutrients and pollution, 4.. re-create a delivery system Canal) to move water South, 5..support the Bill in Florida Legislature that the SFWMD Board is elected NOT appointed.
Are you a little uneasy with the current plans to fix Lake O and the water systems, including estuaries, as I am? Well, let's take a look at the great minds who developed these ideas and their motivations.
First we have the US Army Corps of Engineers, who got us in this mess in the first place. These are the folks who straightened the Kissimmee River so pollutants could reach Okeechobee quicker and in greater concentrations. These are the folks who connected the Caloosahatchee to Lake O so the Everglades could be drained for agriculture. These are the folks who wrote the discharge schedule (in the 70's) that ignores consequence to rivers and estuaries. It appears their ONLY intellectual tool is a bulldozer. If you only have one tool to use isn't that always going to be the only solution you advance?
Then we have SFWMD, which should stand for Sugar Funded Weapons of Mass Destruction. They do a heck of a job representing and protecting the Ag industry to the destruction of everyone else in the system. Well duh, three board members are still in the sugar industry. Every solution they advance involves sacrifice on all parts of the system EXCEPT the EAA.
The core of the idea involves taking a nasty 750,000 acre reservoir (Lake O) and creating several smaller versions of it, to be managed BY THE SAME PEOPLE (see above). Can you see logic in that plan? The initial fix involves creating a filthy holding pond slightly smaller than the Island of Sanibel (12,000 acres) and it's only a drop in the bucket toward their solution.
I submit their solution is no solution. It is merely an expansion and continuation of our current disaster. I reject the notion that the way to fix a broken and mismanaged problem is to just make it bigger and spread it around.
A true and FAIR solution is to: 1..keep the Lake level at 12' in spite of demands by the EAA, 2..rewrite the discharge schedule so the various communities, including agriculture, can SHARE the consequence of extra rain and hurricanes when it's best for each of them to take a share, 3..finally begin to identify, and hold responsible, every community on the water trail who contributes to the nutrients and pollution, 4.. re-create a delivery system Canal) to move water South, 5..support the Bill in Florida Legislature that the SFWMD Board is elected NOT appointed.