by Allie Preston

Leaders generally don't answer a crisis with, "Let us do nothing."

A week after the Economic Council of Martin County sponsored a robot telemarketing blitz urging residents to do nothing to support legislation to cut toxic discharges, Martin Health System’s leadership broke with the group and demanded action. As the area’s biggest employer, Martin Health System took a stand for the Treasure Coast economy and public health, demonstrating how community leaders and medical professionals respond to emergencies.

As sugar lobbyists fought with lawmakers in Tallahassee over revisions to weaken Joe Negron’s SB 10, CEO Rob Lord stood behind Martin Memorial Hospital, on a dock overlooking the St. Lucie River, and declared support for the Now Or Neverglades principles of the bill to stop toxic cyanobacteria blooms from destroying the fragile waterway. Amid rounds of applause, he voiced the need to purchase land in the Everglades Agricultural Area to store, treat, and send clean freshwater south to Everglades National Park and Florida Bay, and not to coastal estuaries.

Lord and Dr. Steve Parr, director of emergency medicine, described last summer’s increases in emergency room visits when toxic algae blooms from Lake Okeechobee were at their worst. The spike in cases potentially linked to the toxins convinced them there was no other option than to treat the bloom as a public health crisis. They spoke of precautions similar to “the Ebola situation,” and warned residents of the remaining dangers lurking in the muck beneath the surface, and of effects that people who were exposed to cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) may still be years away from seeing.

On Wednesday, during the height of tourist season, a large algae bloom appeared off Islamorada, lapping the docks at Worldwide Sportsman. Worldwide is part of Bass Pro Shops, the largest retail fishing company in the world; thousands of visitors are going to see this. On Thursday Keys fishing guides took a day off work to spell the word 'HELP' with their flats skiffs in the affected area.

Is Tallahassee paying attention? Maybe. Also on Thursday dozens of people from South Florida — doctors, fishing guides, boat builders, realtors — traveled north to speak before the Florida Senate Appropriations committee in favor of SB10, the bill that will create a dynamic reservoir south of Lake Okeechobee, to send clean freshwater to Florida Bay and ease the cycles that trigger algae blooms. The bill passed committee, and heads to the senate floor next.

By Peter Girard

Florida’s water management system is broken. Water management districts are political and dysfunctional. Private interests routinely hoard freshwater, pass flood risks to residential communities, and dump pollution into public waterways.

Led by the biggest and most powerful South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD), these organizations answer only to the governor, who is allowed by law to appoint donors and friends to their boards. The result is that water management districts’ leadership, budgets, and policies are controlled by the same users they were designed to regulate.

This is exactly the kind of systematic failure this year’s Constitutional Revision Commission (CRC) was created to fix. In a tropical climate whose economy, public health, and environment depends on the fragile balance of freshwater, Florida’s water management districts may be our most important government institutions. Making them democratic and accountable could be the most important contribution the CRC can make to our future.

Because their governing boards are political appointees, the districts have always been prone to capture by the highest bidder; and the sugar industry, with its massive water requirements and equally massive taxpayer subsidies, has no trouble outbidding everyone else. But the industry never openly controlled the SFWMD the way it has under the Scott administration.

Hundreds of captains and guides are headed to Tallahassee on April 11th to tell their stories to lawmakers. You should, too.

Now Or Neverglades Sportfishing Day will unite people who depend on healthy fisheries for their livelihoods--fishermen, boat builders, outfitters… but also people who just love the water and refuse to stay quiet while our estuaries die. Legislators have asked us again and again to tell them in person about the impact of Florida’s water management crises, to take our stories to them. On April 11th we’re bringing them a boatful.

The reason it makes a difference is that numbers are abstract, even when they’re impressive. Florida’s fishing industry contributes $9.7 billion and 129,000 jobs to our economy, and boating contributes another $10.4 billion and 83,000 jobs--and both are dwarfed by our $89.1 billion tourism industry and its 1.1 million jobs. And toxic discharges and the diversion of freshwater from the Everglades puts every dollar of it at risk.

In a fight as bitter as Florida’s struggle for clean water, virtually no one can manage to face the opposition with civility and a constructive outlook, much less a smile. If you haven’t met Maggy Hurchalla, you should--even if she’s not on your side. Start by watching this:

Political cartoonists know they’re on the mark when their targets blow up. Herblock drove Nixon crazy. Thomas Nast did the same to Boss Tweed. Garry Trudeau enraged tobacco companies. Here in Florida, Andy Marlette infuriates Big Sugar.

His work is honest, clever, and deeply troubling for politicians and sugar company operatives who’d rather operate in the shadows, out of public view. Shining a light on the industry’s dealings earned him a recent visit from US Sugar’s goon squad and a public smearing from the company’s director of spin, Judy Sanchez -- both high compliments.

Sanchez is clearly frustrated that her henchmen’s re-education efforts didn’t take: Marlette wasn’t buying their alternative facts. So she repeated them. Without belaboring the point, here’s where they’re untruthful:

SB10 made it over its next hurdle in the Senate this week, although not without a few surprises. Sen. Bradley opened by reiterating the inexcusable conditions that coastal communities experienced as a result of toxic discharges. He noted that a State of Emergency is in most cases created by an act of God, but this was a glaring exception. Our 242-day exposure to dangerous cyanobacteria and the tremendous economic loss that resulted were self-inflicted. “This from a state that brags about its water.”

People from all across the state traveled to address the committee with personal stories. Captain Adam Morley of St. Augustine reminded the council that the effects of toxic algae are a shared burden throughout Florida. “When the gates open up, the guides down there are displaced and they come up to where the water is still healthy, destabilizing the local industry that I work on. This is not just a South Florida issue – it is a state-wide issue, it affects all of us.”