“Call The Fool”
To the editor:
Gov. Rick Scott holds the keys to unlocking or locking the gates of hell which are the Lake Okeechobee discharges. He also holds Amendment 1 on his desk. Amendment 1 is the funding to preserve and protect our environment which all of you voted for by over 75 percent. Part of that money is meant to use for the purchase of the land south of Lake Okeechobee, which the sugar industry offered to sell the state. This also means if Rick Scott decides to purchase the land, the water from the Lake would again begin to flow south naturally into the Everglades, finally ending the fresh water releases down our river which has destroyed our water quality and created toxic water in our estuaries and gulf of Mexico that has killed sea life by record numbers and threatened to destroy our lifeline in tourism as a community.
The problem is, however, Rick Scott has hinted that he will not purchase the land due to his ties to Big Sugar contributions to his office and other state legislatures elections. Governor Scott and the Florida House has a deadline to vote on using these funds for whatever they feel they want. That deadline is May 1.
As a call to action, we ask all of you to take to your phone, your email, and your ability to write him a letter demanding the state buy this land before the May 1 deadline in a community wide effort dubbed “Call The Fool On April Fools’ Day.”
This is no joke however. We need all of you to flood his office with our demand to save our community from the Lake Okeechobee discharges NOW. The “fool” thinks we aren’t paying attention to his greed while basically spelling out the death of Fort Myers Beach just to continue making the sugar industry happy while we lose everything we know as home. The offer by the sugar industry expires in October. They really don’t want to sell that land. They would rather continue to grow sugar cane crops than care about saving the Everglades or saving our little seven-mile island from chemical-laced “fresh” water that pollutes our community waterways by being sent down our river. Hence, the Everglades dying. It’s being starved to death while we are the victim of back-pumped chemicals gushing into our paradise.
We, as clean water activists, have set up a Facebook event page called “call the fool on April fools day” to help raise awareness nationally, statewide and locally for all to demand the purchase. We are in a do-or-die situation FMB. If the governor decides not to purchase this land, then this is our last stand to know FMB as what it is.
In less then 10 years, our town will become a disaster zone because of the toxic discharges. We as FMB will simply no longer be able to handle the destruction. No more clean water means no more tourism. As we all know without clean water that means no more tourism as a town the lives and dies by the tourism sword. It really is the fight of our lives for FMB. We ask as clean water activists for all of you to join in with us on April Fools’ Day and make the very important calls, emails and hand-written letters to his office as not a form of protest, yet a form of fighting for your home town. Call the fool!?Email the fool!?Write the fool! ?If not, we choose to lose everything.
John G Heim
Clean water activist
Fort Myers Beach