Although we have already posted on this news, more and more articles are spreading and indeed it is worthy of more discussing.
Trumpeting, perhaps.
It is so refreshing to see that municipal water planners have the leadership to make this decision even as Swiftmud continues to hand out pumping permits to anyone who requests one, disregarding the current water crisis their actions have created.
At any rate, this is so unusual for Florida that the Washington Post has carried the news.
I personally have sat through so many meetings of commissioners and public representatives where timid little “leaders” say that they cannot vote for some law or ordinance protecting the water because they are afraid the water districts will overrule it or because they will get sued.
The worst excuse of all is when a harmful exception is requested and a commissioner will say to the effect that “this is bad, but because 5 years ago we allowed so and so to break the rules, now we have to allow this.” Yes, I have heard that spoken by a commissioner more than once. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
We of course are not happy that the bottling plant is expanding, but in the long run we believe that new development would harm the environment more than the extra water taken from the spring.
Comments by OSFR historian Jim Tatum.
jim.tatum@oursantaferiver.org
– A river is like a life: once taken,
it cannot be brought back © Jim Tatum
