Why I am NOT writing. By Geniusofdespair

I really hate writing for this blog now. I think because government: County, State and Federal is just so very bad, embarrassingly bad.  I feel like I am always looking away -- as if there is a dead rat on the sidewalk and I don't want to barf. How much can you look away? But when I don't, it just makes me crazy. We have a Bizarro world filled with hater, xenophobic, racist people. I have never seen anything like this in my lifetime... 

Everyone I research has skeletons in their closet. I can’t do it anymore, it sucks my optimism gene dry.

The Garbage Of "Estuary Protection Wells" ... by gimleteye

Florida is swimming in a sea of pollution. It is not a blameless event. Our water catastrophe has many mothers and fathers, but it is undeniably the case that Republican leadership in the state legislature and two terms of Gov. Rick Scott -- an opponent of environmental regulation and enforcement -- led to massive taxpayer jeopardy, severe risk to public health where people come into contact with dangerous toxins in the water, and a mess of property values including the lands of the Seminole and Miccosuckee Tribes.

Scott, who is running for US Senate against incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson, blames the federal government and "funding shortfalls". These talking points are cynical and wrong. Technically speaking, the federal government through the US Army Corps of Engineers manages the flood control system in South Florida, but Florida calls the shots.

Yesterday, a Miccosukee leader put it in context: "In the old days they practiced genocide against Native Americans by passing blankets to us with smallpox. Today they don't need smallpox, they just send us another kind of blanket: polluted waters."

The funding shortfalls are a result of the Republican Congress and the Trump White House.  They claim funding environmental protection is too expensive. Moreover, they heartily endorse turning over environmental protection agencies to polluters. They will not strengthen water quality laws because -- they claim -- the states can do it.

This is Big Sugar's claim, supported by Rick Scott, in a federal appeals court challenging Everglades protection measures that Scott has already taken credit for. But states like Florida deliberately underfund, undercut, and erode water quality protections.

Downstream in the Everglades, the Miccosukee Tribe is drowning in polluted water and upstream, suburban homeowners' pets are dying from contact with toxic water. Logic is dying in Florida because when common sense arrives -- like using eminent domain to build adequate storage and treatment marshes to clean up the foul water -- it is beaten into a pulp by Republicans who say: "You can't 'take' private property from sugar billionaires!". Actually, yes we can. 

Instead of hard, fast numerical standards to restrict pollution where it occurs, Florida is suffering under the figments of "voluntary compliance" and the kinds of soft, squishy verbiage that buries cause and effect where the sun doesn't shine.

That is exactly how Scott's South Florida Water Management District proposes to address the pollution crisis in Lake Okeechobee and highly toxic cyanobacteria algae blooms that are driving Florida's reputation as a tourist wonderland into the the toxic muck.

Yesterday, the District governing board -- Scott political appointees -- approved burying billions of gallons of filthy water in deep wells underground. They are called "emergency estuary protection wells", and they will work just about as well as Aladdin's magic carpet; great in juvenile imaginations and the supply chain that pushes the magical thinking into hard, engineered profits.

The Bush Environmental Protection Agency let this well drilling technology metastasize in Florida. The agency relaxed tough standards prohibiting migration of injection fluids underground. That rule, part of the Safe Drinking Water Act, was precautionary and prescriptive.

In a state virtually defined by porous aquifer layers, an earlier generation of leadership agreed that maybe using underground wells to dump shit, whether treated or not, was a bad idea. Funny how the goal lines change, isn't it, when it comes to the environment.

So instead of addressing pollution at its source or using shallow storage and treatment marshes sized to treat the toxic mess -- deemed too expensive to special interests who massively dominate the legislature and legislators' political campaigns -- Scott's appointees did the opposite yesterday: they decided to bury the problem. One of Scott's governing board members, Brandon Tucker, defended the indefensible in a Sunshine News OPED, "Misinformation results in a domino effect that can have real consequences on the future of restoration in South Florida. False information is published, the public accepts it as fact, campaigns of support are raised and media channels use this misinformation as if it were gospel."

The District extruded its misinformation-filled gospel: "The South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) Governing Board on Thursday approved a plan to move forward with test wells and exploration of a strategy that could further reduce damaging discharges to the coastal estuaries while larger Everglades restoration projects are completed. "With inconsistencies in federal funding causing delays to long-term restoration projects, Emergency Estuary Protection Wells serve as the most immediate and most beneficial option to provide relief to our northern estuaries during high water emergencies," said SFWMD Governing Board member Brandon Tucker. "This Board supports this proven, cost effective technology while working toward the ultimate goal of getting large-scale Everglades restoration projects online."

Shannon Estenoz, a former governing board member of the District and now COO of the Everglades Foundation, addressed the magical thinking of the Scott appointees in a June OPED, "Deep injection wells not the answer to state's water problems" in the TC Palm, "Not much is known about what happens when vast quantities of water are forced deep underground. Floridians, more than anyone else, know what harm can occur when massive volumes of water are forced to go where they don’t belong. More fundamentally, deep injection wells represent old, flawed thinking that tries to solve the problem of too much rain by “getting rid of water.” This sounds familiar. It is what our predecessors did when they designed the flood management system causing our current problems. They thought they could benignly shed trillions of gallons of water by dumping it into the Gulf and the Atlantic."

No, it is not the federal government's fault no matter how many times the state's GOP Congressional delegation and Gov. Scott repeat the lie: the fault belongs with state government which citizens and conservation groups have sued, time and again, demanding the state follow its own laws and fund environmental protection measures. (After Florida voters overwhelmingly approved a 2014 ballot referendum to allocate billions to purchase environmentally sensitive lands, the Republican legislature and Gov. Scott refused to do it. Environmentalists sued in state court and won.)

Jobs, jobs, jobs, beats like a metronome, while campaign funders get rich polluting waters we need for healthy, productive lives. Billions of taxpayer dollars continue to be spent in the grim charade, without addressing pollution at its source.

Yes, Democrats bear a fair share of responsibility for letting polluters get away with murder in Florida; for failing to confront the phalanxes of lobbyists in the state capitol who also profit from the state's miserable water quality disasters. But Gov. Scott and his GOP allies own this mess and neither "emergency estuary protection wells" nor any other creative loafing is going to change the outcome.

That power is in the hands of voters in November.

Andrew Gillum has Florida's vote ... by gimleteye

Florida Democratic candidate for Governor Andrew Gillum chooses Chris King as running mate. Both advocate changing state laws that turned Florida's waters into toxic sacrifice zones for Big Sugar profits

Here is an important interview with Andrew Gillum, the Democratic candidate for governor, standing at the polluted shore of Florida's tourism-dependent west coast.

At min. 5:36 of this interview shared on Facebook, Andrew Gillum calls for eminent domain, a legitimate government purpose to take land for fair market value for a critical public purpose: to build sufficient storage and treatment marshes to avoid spewing toxic waters from Lake Okeechobee -- waters made toxic by decades of Big Sugar farm runoff -- into the Everglades, into the Caloosahatchee, and the St. Lucie rivers.

https://www.facebook.com/andrewgillumfl/videos/316675085827506/UzpfSTIxNDQ4MDUzODcwMzY2NzoxMTUyNTIxMTU4MjMyOTI5/

Here is a FACT: in 2017 the Republican majority in the Florida legislature and Gov. Rick Scott (who wants your vote to be next US Senator) turned the Everglades reservoir bill -- to cost at least $2 billion -- into a Trojan Horse for Big Sugar's purposes: block eminent domain.

If that $2 billion had been used to close the 2010 deal to put US Sugar Corporation lands into public ownership, we would be nearly a decade closer to fixing the state's pollution crisis. But we aren't because Rick Scott and a Republican legislature claimed doing so was "too expensive", not important enough, and "extreme".

Tell that to businesses, visitors and residents (many of whom are Republicans!) whose quality of life, property values, and opinion of Florida is turning to shit like Florida waters.

It is going to take a new Democratic majority and a Democratic governor to undo tragic mistakes made by Rick Scott and the GOP, stretching back decades.

Why, tragic mistakes? Because today Rick Scott and his supporters support another dirty scheme: to pump billions of gallons of toxic water deep underground in a scheme that serves only one purpose: make well drillers, engineers, and lobbyists very rich. They even have a marketing tested name for this idiocy: "estuary protection wells". BULLSHIT.

It's another scam by Big Sugar to wring the last penny of profit from former Everglades wetlands until they can repurpose those lands as zero lot line housing, strip malls, inland ports, and power plants. Billionaire polluters have wrecked the state of Florida, and only voters can change that outcome.

Andrew Gillum gets it. Let's hope Florida voters finally get it too.


(Read more about eminent domain and Big Sugar, here.)

How the environment and toxic waters played in yesterday's primary election: quick take ... by gimleteye

Quick reactions this morning.

Gwen Graham: hurt by the American Dream Mall/ Graham Companies issue.

Big Sugar's sweet embrace wrecked Adam Putnam with disaffected coastal Republicans, who are watching their businesses and coastal property values disintegrate.

DeSantis took up the war against Big Sugar's dark influence over Florida politics and gained massively among Republican voters impacted by the state's toxic tides.

Rick Scott is also clearly aligned with the state's biggest polluters.

Prediction: Gillum, who was slow to warm to the importance of the toxic waters issue, will quickly come around.

It would be a big mistake for Gillum's campaign to align with the Big Sugar/ Jesse Jackson faction of the African American vote.

Election Day: VOTE ... by gimleteye

Today is primary day in Florida. Do your civic responsibility: VOTE.

Democracy requires the active involvement of citizens or it is bound to wither. The least you can do to honor the sacrifices made on our behalf by past generations is to exercise your right to vote.

And when you vote if you are Republican, my advice: do not vote for Adam Putnam, running for governor, or Matt Caldwell, running for state agriculture commissioner. They are part of the Toxic Trio including Rick Scott, responsible for the failure of the state to protect human health from toxics in our waters.

Gov. Rick Scott's refusal to test for toxics in water puts your life at risk but he wants to be your next US senator ... by gimleteye

The same state, Florida, that won't share data with the public or even acknowledge rare pediatric cancer clusters has neither tested, nor routinely analyzed, nor established protocols to monitor potentially lethal bacteria-laden algae coating its coasts.

Three years ago, Eye On Miami wrote about a distinguished statistician, Dr. Raid Amin, at the University of West Florida whose peer-reviewed analyses of rare pediatric cancer clusters had been ignored by the Florida Department of Health. The State Department of Health not only refused comment, in 2015 it refused to participate in a symposium convened by the top statisticians in the nation who reviewed Amin's data.

Today, millions of Floridians are discovering that the Florida Department of Health has studiously downplayed, ignored, and outright refused to test for deadly cyanobacteria in the massive toxic algae outbreaks that are wreaking havoc on public health, the economy, and the state's reputation as a tourism-friendly destination.

Who gave orders to the Florida State Department of Health to ignore the likelihood of rare pediatric cancer clusters? Who ordered the Florid State Department of Health to glide past the monitoring and disclosure of accurate information on cyanobacteria in Florida waters?

Yesterday, the Fort Myers News Press published a damning report, "Its mission is “to protect, promote and improve the health of all people in Florida through integrated state, county, and community efforts,” but Florida’s Department of Health has remained quiet as the blue-green algae/red tide crisis has escalated into an unprecedented toxic calamity."

The statistical prevalence of rare pediatric cancers and the presence of deadly toxins in Florida waters are not blameless phenomena. The same principle applies in so far as the Florida Department of Health is concerned: "do not seek, and ye shall not find."

The failure to test, to develop best science and analyses, leading to clear and enforceable pollution rules, and the failure to inform the public are decisions executed by senior state health care officials at the direction of the Governor of Florida, Rick Scott.

Today Gov. Rick Scott is running for US Senate. He is sprinkling state money into communities and businesses wrecked by foul, green algae coating Florida's coasts. A few million here. A few million there. He makes an occasional trip into affected waterways with angry citizens and bad photo ops kept at a distance from his US senate campaign.

Scott's handlers know: this is HIS disaster.

This state emergency didn't just pop up on his watch. 2013. Winter 2015/2016. 2018.

Today's toxic emergency in Florida's waterways is one Gov. Rick Scott substantially aided and abetted through his support of polluting industries that have dominated the rules and regulations meant to protect water quality in Florida.

Before spending his own fortune to win the governor's mansion, Scott navigated at the margins of health care reimbursements from government to hospitals and physicians. Put another way, government rules were a playing field and mastering the reimbursement game conferred great wealth on Florida's future governor.

It is a similar game with water management and infrastructure; public benefits that can be "re-balanced" to protect private profits.

The affinity between Gov. Rick Scott and the billionaire polluters of Florida's waterways is real. Over many decades, Big Sugar developed strategies and tactics to control the water quality "playing field", including rules governing pollution, and to persuade the public that they -- private industry -- were doing the best for Florida's economy, natural resources, and jobs.

Big Sugar never paid the full price of externalizing its pollution of Florida's waterways because it dominates the state legislature and Congress -- regularly flooding the hallways of the capitols with squads of lobbyists when its control is challenged by environmentalists or public emergencies like our current toxic catastrophe.

These natural allies -- Gov. Rick Scott and Big Sugar -- have one goal: to lock down the prerogatives of power and wealth at the expense of the public. And now, shockingly, at real cost to public health and safety.

This claim isn't idle speculation. According to yesterday's report, "Starting July 27, the Lee County Health Department didn't return increasingly urgent telephone calls from The News-Press with questions about its response and role, namely: At what point does a novel crisis like this merit intense surveillance and study? On Aug. 1, the department emailed that a reporter's questions had been referred to the state office in Tallahassee. Following another series of emails and calls, state officials responded to a reporter Aug. 10 by email, but they provided inaccurate information, according to scientists and neurologists."

Florida's water crisis is Flint, Michigan -- where government literally refused to protect against lead in drinking water supplies -- stretched across millions of citizens and billions of dollars of tourism-related businesses. It is proven every day, on every tide, in every photograph of the algae blooms containing cyanobacteria that is massively destroying Florida wildlife and exposing visitors, residents, taxpayers and voters to long-term health risks including those linked to severe and untreatable neurological diseases.

And Rick Scott, the political leader most responsible for this disaster and the silence of the Florida Department of Health, still wants your vote.

The only remedy -- and safety -- for jobs, the economy and our waters is the ballot box: REJECT the Toxic Trio. Scott, Putnam, and Caldwell ... by gimleteye

In his OPED published by the Treasure Coast Palm Dr. Gary Goforth writes that upcoming elections are pivotal for the state's economic future; severely threatened by water pollution. He is correct. 100 percent.

Gov. Rick Scott, running against incumbent Bill Nelson for the US Senate, blames the federal government for failing to protect Florida's water. The facts are indisputable: Scott and his designated successor, Adam Putnam, have relentlessly ATTACKED federal efforts to clean up Florida's waters. The reason is simple.

Their major campaign benefactors are polluters. Big Sugar. It is no mystery why Big Sugar uses politicians like Scott, Putnam, and Matt Caldwell, the state legislator trying to take over Putnam's job as ag commissioner: they profit when regulatory hurdles are weakened, eroded, diminished, and rendered ineffectual.

They mint billions. Taxpayers pay the price.

Somehow, Florida voters were conned over years and decades that without jobs we "could not afford" environmental regulations that strictly protected our waters and that industries were the better arbiters of what was in the public interest.

This trend started in the 1980's Reagan era with the Wise Use Movement, uniting timber, mining, and fossil fuel extraction industries who linked up with free market/ libertarians to undermine the purpose of environmental rules developed (in a Republican administration) a decade earlier. At the time, Big Sugar billionaires like the Fanjuls and US Sugar Corporation shareholders saw the wisdom joining their interests to a movement that began in the fight for access and rights to exploit for their profit publicly owned lands in the American west.

The trend continued through the 2000's and the rise of the Tea Party, in Florida and elsewhere, whose leaders have championed the anti-environmental regulatory agendas of polluters.

The net result is where we are today: leaders like Gov. Rick Scott scrambling to paper over terrible legislative errors with campaign ads that misdirect voters. It is NOT the federal government's fault that Florida has abdicated its responsibility to effectively protect our waters. Waters we need for our economy. Waters we need for our lives.

The Lake Okeechobee disaster is engulfing Florida. It is the result of policies actively pursued by elected officials who have taken sugar campaign money and badly cheated the public.

The only remedy -- and safety -- for jobs, the economy, and our waters is the ballot box. This November, VOTE!


State officials must strengthen environmental policies to solve algae crisis | Guest column
Gary Goforth Published 6:00 a.m. ET Aug. 22, 2018
Treasure Coast Palm

Through recent changes in environmental policies, the state of Florida has failed to protect the health of its citizens, the environment and regional economies from ongoing toxic algae crises.

As we vote this fall, it is critical we elect leaders willing to restore strong environmental policies.

The source of the toxic blue-green algae currently damaging estuarine ecosystems, regional economies and human health is a very polluted Lake Okeechobee. Members of every branch of Florida government, state agencies and others have known about the source of this pollution for more than 45 years: excessive levels of nutrient loads in stormwater from the surrounding watershed.

In 2001, the state developed a total maximum daily load of phosphorus for the lake’s watershed, established specifically to reduce the frequency of algal blooms in the lake. State legislation then established a January 2015 deadline for achieving compliance.

Hundreds of millions in public funds have been spent on dairy buyouts, agricultural best management practices, regional water-quality treatment projects and other efforts. However, the state continues to allow landowners to discharge high levels of nutrients with little to no enforcement, and the pollution of Lake Okeechobee and the estuaries continues.

The water quality of the lake is at an all-time crisis level and human health, the environment and the regional economy are suffering as polluted lake water is discharged to the estuaries.

In 2017, phosphorus loading to the lake was more than five times the total-maximum-daily-load target. The result: an algae bloom covered 90 percent of the lake this summer.

Pointing fingers at the federal government is misguided, for it is the state, not the federal government, which has the primary obligation to protect water quality. Recent policy changes in Tallahassee have exacerbated the effects of pollution of the lake and in the estuaries. These policies need to be reversed in order to control the toxic algae crises.

Our choices in the upcoming elections will be pivotal.

Examples of damaging policies that should be reversed by those elected include:

1. Significant environmental protections were dismantled in the state’s 2016 omnibus water bill. For example, the January 2015 deadline to clean up water entering the lake was deleted and replaced with an ambiguous planning process. Also, a quantitative regulatory program for limiting discharges was replaced with a planning process with no enforcement provisions to hold landowners accountable for the pollution leaving their land.

2. State agencies charged with protection of water quality have had their staffs and budgets slashed in response to mandates from Tallahassee. The state Department of Environmental Protection lost more than 1,000 jobs, and the number of new enforcement cases has plummeted by 86 percent since 2010.

3. The state’s annual “progress report” on pollution of the lake underestimates pollution loads and needs to be improved. For the last two years, DEP published reports indicating phosphorus loading to the lake has decreased, yet these claims conflict with the measured loads to the lake.

4. The legislative and executive branches have failed to implement the will of the people as expressed in the Florida Water and Land Conservation Initiative (“Amendment 1”). Designated funds need to be appropriated to implement storage and treatment projects around the lake.

5. The state encourages application of nutrient-rich human wastewater residuals (Class AA biosolids). These applications have been estimated at up to 1,000 tons of phosphorus into the Lake Okeechobee watershed every year. Applying biosolids in excess of plant requirements must cease.

Accelerating the state and federal projects to send more lake water south will certainly provide some long-term relief to the algae crises. However, those projects will not stop the discharge of polluted lake water to the estuaries. As long as the state fails to carry out its duty to control the pollution of Lake Okeechobee, recurring algae crises will be the norm.

By restoring strong environmental policies for the state, those we elect in November will be our best hope in resolving the toxic algae crises.

Dr. Gary Goforth is a Stuart-based environmental engineer with more than three decades of experience in water resource management in Florida. He serves on the board of directors of the Florida Oceanographic Society.

It's Election Season, And Rick Scott Republicans Are Running From Pollution Woes Fast As They Can ... by gimleteye

Rick Scott was smart enough to be Florida governor for two terms and steadfastly avoid direct interaction with voters that could make headlines on TV news and social media. But he didn't expect severe, unremitting pollution to trip up his campaign for US Senate.

Last week, Scott ducked into the St. Lucie River for a quick photo op then disappeared faster than you can say, Houdini.

Houdini was the famous escape artist who succumbed to a common fatal infection with the words, "I'm tired of fighting." I don't think Scott is half the escape artist as Houdini, or, that the Republicans and Democrats and Independents of Florida are tired of fighting the rampant pollution that is destroying the "jobs" economy Scott professes to hold as his top priority.

The facts are clear enough. Scott killed the science capacity of the water management district and installed a governing board that uses millions in your tax dollars to spread fake news and propaganda. Its primary purpose is to shield the state's top polluters, Big Sugar, from scrutiny and criticism.

Under Rick Scott, enforcement actions against polluters have plunged precipitously. Scott, also, objected to the effort by the federal government to put limits on exactly the pollutants that are causing red tides and spreading marine death throughout south Florida, exposing residents and visitors to harmful algae called Cyanobacteria. It is linked to Alzheimer's. Now Scott is trying to blame the federal government for the state's pollution crisis.

Nice try, Rick, but you are no Houdini.

If you are a taxpayer, you are not tired of fighting. If you are voting age, this November you will crowd the polls like schools of fish looking for good water.

Remember the names of the polluters' friends in high office: Big Sugar is aiming Rick Scott to the US Senate. Adam Putnam, the current Agriculture Commissioner, is being promoted to governor, and Sugar's friendliest legislator, Matt Caldwell, is being pushed into the ag position being vacated by Putnam. These are the Toxic Trio and they DO NOT DESERVE YOUR VOTE.

Too bad it takes the massive pollution of Florida's waters to wake up voters. We've been heading to this perilous direction for a long, long time. Don't get tired of fighting. Get even. Vote.

District 8 County Commission Daniella Levine Cava ... by gimleteye

The Miami Herald published its primary endorsements on the weekend, including its support for Daniella Levine Cava, District 8 county commissioner.

It is important for voters to know there are TWO upcoming elections: a primary election on August 28th and a general election on Nov. 6th.

County commission races will be decided on August 28th. These are "non-partisan". One in particular attracts our interest: County Commission District 8.

This seat has been held by Daniella Levine Cava, who won a rare victory against an incumbent commissioner four years ago.

Daniella, as she is familiar to her constituents, brought considerable skills to the job of county commissioners as a long-time community leader. She has ably represented her district and showed leadership on countywide areas of concern, including public sector issues, transportation and the environment.

Daniella has been an advocate for expanding transit options within the developed sections of the county and opposed moving the Urban Development Boundary. She takes strong principled positions and is persuasive, even when she is in the minority.

We need more leadership like Daniella Levine Cava. She has earned the public trust and confidence.

Gov. Rick Scott Let Down Florida. You Don't "Fail Upwards" Into The US Senate ... by gimleteye

Environmentalists warned Rick Scott not to do it.

Now he pretends it didn't happen.

Now Florida is coated in toxic algae linked to Alzheimer's and other neurological diseases.

Rick Scott wants your vote for US Senator.

Don't give it to him.

SENATOR STEWART CALLS ON GOVERNOR SCOTT TO RESCIND EXECUTIVE ORDERS, BEGIN STEPS TO HALT MASSIVE ENVIRONMENTAL DESTRUCTION

ORLANDO, Fla. – With a large area of Florida imperiled by spreading toxic algae blooms, and as the death toll of marine life continues to mount at a staggering pace, State Senator Linda Stewart (D-Orlando) on Friday called on Governor Rick Scott to immediately reverse his executive orders issued seven years ago which allowed unfettered deregulation of critical protections once safeguarding the state’s fragile environment.

“I call on you to take the first step in halting this unprecedented destruction by immediately reversing course on your orders to deregulate the environmental safeguards once in place,” wrote Senator Stewart in a letter delivered earlier today to Governor Rick Scott. “This massive and deadly algae bloom is not a sudden occurrence. It is the culmination of almost eight years of unleashed pollution into our waterways from a number of sources, which will take years to reverse. We cannot stop the poison already in the water, but we can take steps to stop the future destruction of our environment.”

Governor Scott issued his executive orders soon after taking office, which called for, among other things, the immediate suspension of all rulemaking by any of his agencies pending a review by the Office of Fiscal Accountability and Regulatory Reform, which was established under his direct control. The office, in turn, was directed to examine whether any proposed and existing rules and regulations imposed “burdensome costs on businesses; and are justifiable when the overall cost-effectiveness and economic impact of the regulation…is considered.”

Governor Scott’s undermining of the environment didn’t stop there. He also dramatically cut the amount of funding dedicated to safeguarding the environment, stripping state oversight of local development while slashing budgets for the Department of Environmental Protection and local water management districts, and cutting critical regulatory staff including scientists.
Among the results was a nosedive in enforcement activity against Florida’s polluters and lax attitudes by the state government towards non-compliance.

“There are multiple players responsible for the damage we now see culminating in the horrible damage to our water and our sea life,” wrote Senator Stewart, who is traveling to South Florida to meet with those impacted by the deadly blooms and is examining legislative action to help reverse the destruction. “Whether it stemmed from agricultural runoff, leaking septic tanks, or irresponsible disposal of hazardous waste, none of it occurred in a vacuum. But all of it can be traced back to an executive decision that said anything goes in the name of making money.”