{"id":693,"date":"2019-01-16T18:16:59","date_gmt":"2019-01-16T23:16:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/conservation\/?p=693"},"modified":"2019-01-16T18:16:59","modified_gmt":"2019-01-16T23:16:59","slug":"icymi-florida-sierra-responds-to-desantis-water-policy-outline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/?p=693","title":{"rendered":"ICYMI: Florida Sierra Responds to DeSantis Water Policy Outline"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color:#333333; font-family:Arial\"><span style=\"background-color:white\">Sierra Club Florida is pleased that Governor DeSantis is tackling Florida&#8217;s water crisis as an immediate, top priority in his administration.\u00a0 We like his emphasis on reducing nutrient pollution, but have a few questions and concerns about the details of his announcement:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"background-color:white\"><strong>We support:<\/strong><\/span><br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt\"><br \/>\n\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<div style=\"background: white\"><span style=\"color:#333333; font-family:Arial\">Focus on nutrient pollution.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div style=\"background: white\"><span style=\"color:#333333; font-family:Arial\">Creation of a science office at DEP.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div style=\"background: white\"><span style=\"color:#333333; font-family:Arial\">Expediting Everglades restoration projects.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div style=\"background: white\"><span style=\"color:#333333; font-family:Arial\">Septic conversion program.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div style=\"background: white\"><span style=\"color:#333333; font-family:Arial\">Commitment to enforce environmental regulations.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div style=\"background: white\"><span style=\"color:#333333; font-family:Arial\">Additional stormwater treatment for the C-43 reservoir.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div style=\"background: white\"><span style=\"color:#333333; font-family:Arial\">Commitment to protect Apalachicola River and to stop State of Georgia&#8217;s harmful water withdrawals affecting Florida.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"color:#333333; font-family:Arial\"><br \/><span style=\"background-color:white\">Frank Jackalone, Sierra Club Florida Chapter Director said &#8220;<em>In his first week in office, Governor DeSantis has done more to address Florida&#8217;s water quality crisis than Governor Rick Scott did in eight years.<\/em>&#8220;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"background-color:white\"><strong>Major concerns:<\/strong><\/span><br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div style=\"background: white\"><span style=\"color:#333333; font-family:Arial\">We oppose immediate work on the poorly designed Everglades Agricultural Area Reservoir. It first needs to be redesigned to include a shallower, wider reservoir with a major land purchase to provide for the necessary treatment of water from the reservoir before it is released south to the Everglades.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div style=\"background: white\"><span style=\"color:#333333; font-family:Arial\">There is no mention of the need to work with the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (DACS) to address agricultural pollution.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div style=\"background: white\"><span style=\"color:#333333; font-family:Arial\">There is no mention of the need to combat climate change which is making Florida&#8217;s waters warmer and intensifying harmful algae blooms.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div style=\"background: white\"><span style=\"color:#333333; font-family:Arial\">Like Governor Scott, Governor DeSantis opposes offshore drilling off Florida&#8217;s coasts without also opposing new drilling in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico which is the oil industry&#8217;s real target, or the expansion of inland oil drilling within the Greater Everglades.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div style=\"background: white\"><span style=\"color:#333333; font-family:Arial\">Governor DeSantis needs to oppose acid matrix limestone fracturing which is how the oil and gas industries do fracking in Florida. We are disappointed that he singles out &#8220;hydraulic fracturing&#8221; which isn&#8217;t the form of fracking that is done in Florida.\u00a0 Last year&#8217;s bipartisan bills banning fracking recognized this distinction.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div style=\"background: white\"><span style=\"color:#333333; font-family:Arial\">Nutrient pollution feeds\/fuels both blue green algae and Red Tide.\u00a0 Nutrient reduction strategies and regulation should also be focused on preventing Red Tide that threatens coastal communities.\u00a0 Just studying Red Tide is not enough.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div style=\"background: white\"><span style=\"color:#333333; font-family:Arial\">The failure to make a commitment to the reinstatement of strong statewide and regional land use planning.\u00a0 Governor Rick Scott dismantled the Department of Community Affairs, which had overseen large-scale developments impacting Florida&#8217;s natural resources for over three decades; Governor DeSantis can and must compensate for the last eight years.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sierra Club Florida is pleased that Governor DeSantis is tackling Florida&#8217;s water crisis as an immediate, top priority in his administration.\u00a0 We like his emphasis on reducing nutrient pollution, but have a few questions and concerns about the details of his announcement: We support: Focus on nutrient pollution. Creation of a science office at DEP. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gci"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=693"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":694,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693\/revisions\/694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}