In my beloved state, toxic algae blooms have caused my least favorite Gov. Rick Scott to declare a state of emergency in two counties. While Scott has blamed the feds for letting a dam on Lake Okeechobee deteriorate many environmentalists are blaming Big Sugar; they believe the problem is due to their giant pollution runoff into Lake O. There have been plenty of news reports and pictures published this week from around the state, showing a thick, sludgy green algae in waterways. There have even been some Manatees trapped in the bloom.
Enough is enough. And I’m not alone.
Brent Meinhold, a local surf shop manager, started a petition you can sign here demanding that Publix stop carrying products from U.S. Sugar and Florida Crystals and its already got more than 10,000 signatures:
“We’re not trying to put Publix or even Big Sugar out of business, but we want them to acknowledge their role in creating this disaster and their need to fix it.
It’s a ghost town around here. This time of year there’d be 200 people at the beach by now,” he says. “We had to cancel our surf camp. These kids have come from all over to our surf camp to get out there to learn to surf and we had to call them up and tell them we can’t go.”
This week, the Army Corps of Engineers started reducing outflow from Lake Okeechobee to try and stop the problem but Senators Bill Nelson and Marco Rubio want them to stop the water flow completely.
Publix has yet to comment on the petition but the public has already sounded off. Meinhold told Miami New Times, “Big Sugar is always trying to put the blame on other people, but there’s no question that their practices are the problem. This is one way to pressure them for change.”
Source: Miami New Times
