SWFL Clean Water Movement incorporates
It took almost a year, but local eco-activism group SWFL Clean Water Movement received its nonprofit status last month.
Co-founder John Heim said the application to incorporate was at first denied, but after making corrections, it was approved and the status granted in March. The board members are Heim, Ber Stevenson and Linda Ryckman.
Clean Water Movement has been quiet for a few months, but has several things planned for the future.
On April 11, Heim said about six members of the group plan to travel to Tallahassee to voice support of Senator Joe Negron’s plan, the bulk of which proposes buying 60,000 acres south of Lake Okeechobee for a reservoir to send water south to Florida Bay while treating it. Negron included his proposal in a bill brought forth by Senator Rob Bradley in January. SB 10: Water Resources is currently headed toward an appropriations committee meeting.
SWFL will be in Tallahassee at the same time as Captains for Clean Water, another local activism group that organized the Florida Sportfishing Day for April 11. CCW plans to meet with senators and representatives and help local businesses explain how the water quality has affected their ways of life.
“We’re trying to make our own agenda,” Heim said. “We hope to speak to (Negron) in person, get into Rubio’s office, get with the movers and shakers.”
Heim said Negron’s proposal, which had an estimated $2 billion-plus price tag last summer, is the dead-end for water quality solutions.
“We’re running out of options. If they make the deal, we still won’t get our hands on the land until 2020,” he said. “(Now) the water is pristine, it’s quiet because everyone forgot. The discharges will be back,and people will be hooting and hollering again.”