Here's what Florida's Legislature should prioritize in 2024

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Another Florida legislative session is right around the corner, and you know what that means: More bad bills destined to result in dirtier water, more giveaways to special interests and good bills left stranded without sufficient support.

It’s how we roll in Florida. And we, of course, are looking to change that.

Among our Legislative Priorities for the upcoming 2024 Legislative Session:

• Hands off wetlands protections
• Don’t ban fertilizer bans
• Reject attempts to boost agricultural fertilizer use
• Address toxic blue-green algae before it’s too late
• Fix Florida’s broken Basin Management Action Plans
• Get a better handle on runaway growth
• Send more clean water south
• Stop sugarcane burning 

As wish lists go, this one’s pretty ambitious. But this session we plan on being even more proactive, flagging good and bad proposals even sooner — and raising even more of a ruckus over the bad bills.

And we need your help. We’ll furnish you with the background and provide ample opportunity for you to weigh in. For it’s only when we make a ruckus on behalf of clean water that our voices can be heard in Tallahassee.

For more detail on our priorities, check out our latest blog post.

The good news: Lake Okeechobee is slowly receding. As of Wednesday the lake stood at 16.2 feet and it appears (knock on wood) that we've seen the peak for 2023.

But as we've been noting for weeks, the forecast calls for a strong El Nino this winter, meaning more rain than usual. And that could mean dry-season discharges.

At TCPalm this week, outdoors writer Ed Killer agreed, saying winter Lake O discharges are "inevitable." Read the column — and keep your fingers crossed he, and we, are wrong,

As noted in our "Deep Dive" last week, the flooding in the central Everglades region has been driven primarily by rainfall; but nearly 1/3 of the water that continues to inundate tree islands, harm animals and people originated in the stormwater treatment areas south of Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades Agricultural Area. This is runoff, water coming off the vast sugarcane fields of the EAA. The way south Florida's drainage system works, the farm fields of the EAA stay dry even as the water conservation area are flooded.

But it doesn't have to be that way, as we explain here.

P.S. Signatures Needed! The "Right to Clean and Healthy Waters" petition needs 900,000 signature by November 30 to get on the 2024 ballot. The petition can be printed out and signed here: http://www.floridarighttocleanwater.org/