Governor DeSantis: Stop the Greenwash
Hold Polluters Accountable
TAMPA, FL — Today Sierra Club Florida responded to Governor DeSantis' actions regarding the recent Red Tide outbreak and the state's wider water quality crisis in the following letter:
Aug. 3, 2021
RE: Stop the Greenwash and Hold Polluters Accountable
Dear Governor DeSantis:
Sierra Club, the oldest, largest environmental advocacy organization in the nation with more than 240,000 members and supporters in Florida wants to set the record straight. Yet another summer of slime has unfolded in Florida and we all have been horrified by the devastation to our environment, coastal economy and quality of life. Our current reality is of course no surprise to anyone — your administration's failure to implement or even encourage or promote stopping pollution at its source makes our repeatedly toxic waterways inevitable.
All hands are not on deck. Since your election, there has been little to show for all of your "all hands on deck" rhetoric. Photo ops, heralded appointments and multiple task forces have been all greenwash, an insidious greenwash that makes your inaction even more dangerous to the taxpayers of this state. The most glaring example is your failure to champion legislation that would have implemented the recommendations of your Harmful Algae Bloom/Red Tide and Blue Green Algae Task Forces.
Control and mitigation research and technologies and states of emergencies keep taxpayers on the "clean-up" treadmill but do nothing to stop pollution at its source. "After-the-fact" attention to harmful algal outbreaks is not what Florida needs.
The system is rigged. How many times have environmentalists brought in experts, submitted comments, attended meetings and served on technical advisory committees or task forces just to have their input ignored in order to make way for whatever the "regulated industry" (the polluter) desired? The public participation process has become yet another way to give your administration a toxic coat of greenwash.
Your dismissal of Piney Point's role in fueling red tide in Tampa Bay is reckless. There is no question that Piney Point has both fueled and intensified this red tide bloom. When you make public statements claiming that red tide blooms are "naturally occurring" and dismiss Piney Point you spread a dangerous false narrative that works to protect polluters from meaningful accountability. Rats are naturally occurring, but we know not to dump household garbage in the streets so as to avoid feeding a rat population explosion. Likewise, the science community has made it clear that dumping nutrient pollution (agricultural and urban fertilizer, animal manure, and sewage) into receiving water bodies, especially ones warmed by climate change, fuels harmful algae and increases the intensity and duration of toxic outbreaks. Your use of "naturally occurring" is a big red flag that the phosphate industry has you in its pocket.
Until pollution is stopped at its source, polluters will go on setting taxpayers up for a never-ending series of costly clean-ups. If we want to get off of the expensive clean-up treadmill, you and your Administration need to champion the strict regulation of the state's major polluters. The status quo is to give polluters everything they want where water quality legislation and agency action are concerned. That needs to end if we are to fix Florida's water quality crises.
If you truly believe in "protecting Florida together," you will end your greenwash campaign. It is time for you to direct your agencies and the legislature to exchange the greenwash for direct, enforced, restorative regulatory action.
Respectfully,