We need an Environmental Spotlight team in Florida

A few weeks ago it was suggested we needed a lagoon czar. This suggestion sent chills up and down my spine because we do not need ONE person to be in charge of our Indian River Lagoon. Shortly after that Big Sugar went on a PR junket to ply us with more of their propaganda.

I understand BS! I really do. This is life as you see it from where you sit. It’s time now for you to move forward. It’s time to be part of the solution.

This is video of my friend, Indian River Keeper, Marty Baum on the first day I ever heard him speak. I put up this video on the old UVU sight at CH2 in Miami along with the other videos. When I went back and I checked the hits kept going up and up. When it went up to about 2500 I knew something was amiss. I think probably every person in Clewiston saw this video.

Fast forward to Our Sugarland Rally, brainchild of Justin Riney. The Rally was suppose to bring the east and west together in the middle and find some way for all of us to work together. Why? Because there are issues for all of us. It’s not right that people that live in the EAA have to worry about being flooded. He said “Flood the Fields not flood the houses.” He knew what we didn’t know at the time and that is that water is held in the sugar fields. We are not putting the people in the EAA in danger. Big Sugar and their relationship with SFWMD are. Politics are putting them in danger. The inability of this issue to be solved is putting them in danger. Our elected officials are putting them in danger. The media, when they report inaccurate information are putting them in danger.
What happened with this video is Big Sugar got a hold of it and said “Look! Those people over in Martin County want your home to be flooded.” Craziness ensued on the Clewiston newspaper Facebook page. I have screen shots somewhere. The whole thing was preposterous. We came to help. We came to start a conversation. People like Bubba Wade and Judy Sanchez made sure that conversation did not happen. They are hurting the people in the EAA by blocking the solution.
Last year I went to multiple SFWMD meetings and sat behind my camera. Multiple scientists went up before the SFWMD and told the board why the land needed to be bought and why the water needed to go south. This is not just for us but for the Everglades, The Florida Bay, the drinking water of South Florida and to help prevent salt water intrusion.
So when Bubba Wade on his PR junket to the TC Palm makes comments about science not being on our side we know it is just not true. Bubbaloney! (snitched from Charles Grande) Judy Sanchez tried to pull in Paul Tudor Jones who really has nothing to do with us getting slammed with gross discussing water. Unsuccessful diversion!
Big Sugar’s PR firm sent the bigwigs out on a junket. This is what you do when things are not going well. They are loosing the PR war because of the multiple groups calling them out and people getting educated on what the story is. multiple groups, multiple writers. It’s a good thing. The more we push the more propaganda they put out. It’s everywhere like dog poop. It’s on the tv. It’s in the newspaper. Big ads that cost big bucks.
It’s very hard to get this message out as a soundbite. Our local CBS (Jana Eschbach does a great job. Michael William’s from WPTV has tried very hard to be fair on the subject. Jay Cashmere on the other hand did a story featuring sugar baby Marco Rubio and Doug Smith. Jay should be ashamed of himself for putting out such blatant propaganda.

Water at the St Lucie Locks May 2016

All we see all day and night on the tv is ads from Big Sugar telling us not to forget they are farmers. The same goes for ad’s in our newspaper. Big full page ads. That’s a lot of money. They must be doing great financially to be able to pay for all these ads.
The Economic Council of Martin County has been invaded and so was our Martin County Fair.

The truth is in a good free market if you have a good product you don’t have to run endless propaganda ads to tell us how great you are. Calling yourselves farmers does a disservice to the real farmers that grow our vegetables. No one hates farmers because we love our veggies. It’s like a bunch of drug dealers putting out ads that heroin is good for you. Farmers stay away from these people. Don’t let the public perception get mushed.

Water at the St Lucie Locks May 2016

Big Sugar flooded themselves with the help of SFWMD. They will say they didn’t back pump and they will sell SFWMD out. “It wasn’t us it was them!” (like a bunch of five year olds)

This is where we are at. We are in the middle of a propaganda war and we still have the same issues. The people out in the EAA are still in danger because of the Dike. We are being slaughtered by discharges and toxic algae which causes Alzheimers is on the way.

What to do?

We need a spotlight team of environmental writers from different news sources that will be 100 percent real. We have many great writers that understand that issue but we have no idea what happens behind the scenes in the TV stations and on the editorial boards. In this world of corporate media we need the best information and we cannot rely on one source.

Water at the St Lucie Locks May 2016

It has to come from the media because if it comes from an organization it just get’s vilified from other organizations and it will never end.

Big Sugar is throwing everyone under the bus with their hysterical propaganda. The farmers, the hardworking people that live out in the EAA, The east and the west.

Here is my list
Alan Farago from Eye on Miami
Craig Pittman from the Tampa Bay Times
Bruce Ritchie from Politico
Tyler Treadway from the TC Palm
David Fleshler from the Sun Sentinel
Jana Eschbach from CBS 12

Feel free to ad some names to the list.

This has to got to stop. I posted photos here that I took two weeks ago at the locks. When I left my face burned for three days.

The only way for it to stop is for the people to elect people who will stop it. The only way this is going to happen is if they have the truthful information from the Fourth Estate. We need reporters like this to tell the story and tell it right.