While there's no silver bullet, all elected officials could use their bully pulpits to demand water managers to more.   This is what 3,000+ cubic feet of water per second looked like at the St. Lucie Lock and Dam last weekend as discharges from Lake Okeechobee to the St. Lucie River began. Photo courtesy Jason Bultman.   DISCHARGE DISASTER: What are elected officials doing to stop it? Massive discharges to the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie rivers began this past Saturday, with up to 6,500 cubic feet of water per second roaring through the Julian Keen Jr. Lock and Dam/S-77 in Moore Haven and up to 3,600 cfs rushing through the St. Lucie Lock and Dam/S-80. Discharges will vary by day, for a 14-day average of 4,000 cfs to the Caloosahatchee, 1,800 cfs to the St. Lucie and 500 cfs to the Lake Worth Lagoon. It’s a man-made disaster likely to trigger oyster die-offs, seagrass loss and other ecological harm. What are our elected officials doing about this? To say “We have to be patient” until new projects like the Everglades Agricultural Area Reservoir come online doesn’t cut it. The estuaries and the communities that depend on them are suffering now, and we need action. Where are our champions? Why are so few elected leaders LEADING on this issue? Who's going to step up — and can it make a difference? For more, check out our latest on VoteWater.org. READ MORE AT VOTEWATER.ORG DONATE TO VOTEWATER   Think Big Sugar has nothing to do with the discharges? Think again Some on social media are trying to claim that Big Sugar and the vast sugarcane fields south of Lake O have nothing to do with the discharges. In this Instagram post, VoteWater Executive Director Gil Smart torpedoes that argument, explaining that the entire water management system south of Lake O is designed to keep Big Sugar high and dry — while the rest of us drown in dirty water. WATCH THE VIDEO (AND FOLLOW US) ON INSTAGRAM US Army Corps, SFWMD at Rivers Coalition Thursday to explain discharges At 11 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 22, officials from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the South Florida Water Management District will be the featured speakers at the Rivers Coalition’s monthly meeting at Stuart City Hall. If you can make it you should attend — either in person or via Zoom — to get a first-hand explanation of what’s happening, and get your questions answered. Time: 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Address: 121 SW Flagler Ave, Stuart, FL 34994 Zoom: Email [email protected] for Zoom link. This is your ‘Before’ picture On Facebook, former South Florida Water Management District Governing Board member Jacqui Thurlow-Lippisch posted the above pic, taken while she and husband Ed were flying above the St. Lucie Inlet before the discharges began. We’ll be interested — or disgusted — to see what this aerial view looks like in a month. Again: What are our elected officials doing about this? Lake Okeechobee discharges in the news *VoteWater Executive Director Gil Smart tells WGCU Public Media: “If these discharges have to continue into the algae season and we start getting algae, it's going to be a nightmare for those who live along the estuaries … It's going to kill living things.” *Stuart charter captain tells WPBF that even before the discharges, he’d seen a “dramatic” reduction in the number of fish in the St. Lucie: “Over the last two years, I’ve seen a 50% drop.” *What are discharges, and how much water is coming? TCPalm breaks it down for those new to the issue. And on the legislative front… As noted during last week’s Friends of the Everglades livestream, the Florida legislative session has (as usual) produced dozens of bad bills, but many have gone nowhere and have little chance of passing. Great news! But don’t pop the champagne just yet; there are still several pro-”sprawl” bills nearing the finish line. One (HB 1221) would water down the definition of “urban sprawl” itself, rendering it meaningless — and prompting more of it. Other bills would speed up the process of issuing residential building permits (HB 665) or expedite development permits and orders (HB 791), ostensibly reducing oversight. One of the proposals we were most concerned about, HB 789/SB 738, initially sought to saddle people or groups who brought a legal challenge to a Florida DEP or water management district "authorization" and lost to pay the agencies' legal fees; that provision was removed from both bills, as was a second section that mandated FDEP and water management districts to conduct a "holistic" review of the coastal permitting process, ostensibly to speed it up. But now the bills have hit a whole new snag, with attorneys complaining about one remaining provision that "could sharply limit the ability of toxic tort victims to recover damages from polluters who violate their permits," as Law360 put it (paywalled). The bills are headed for the House/Senate floor where they could run into significant opposition. Then there’s the budget: The House and Senate are far apart in terms of Everglades restoration, with the House spending plan matching up with Gov. DeSantis’s $745 million proposal. The Senate, by contrast, would allocate nearly $300 million less. Should the Senate budget vision win out, Florida would fall behind on the cost share of Everglades projects, which could force the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to halt construction on federal everglades projects. Another curious item: a Senate proposal (line 1696D of the Senate budget) to study the health and ecosystem of Lake Okeechobee. Conducted by the Water School at Florida Gulf Coast University, the study would, among other things, investigate “the health of plant, fish, and wildlife to be used for future planning of invasive plant control, replanting of native vegetation, and fish and game management.” Sounds innocuous — until you begin to wonder whether the study is ultimately intended to inform state water management strategies, and perhaps undermine LOSOM. We’ll be watching — and keep you updated. BECOME A MEMBER DONATE VoteWater 3727 SE Ocean Blvd Suite 200-A Stuart, FL 34996 | (772) 212-2939 VoteWater | 3727 SE Ocean Blvd, Suite 200-A, Stuart, FL 34996 Unsubscribe [email protected] Update Profile | Constant Contact Data Notice Sent by [email protected] powered by Try email marketing for free today!