Making sense of conflicting environmental messages

May 2, 2021 Miscellaneous, Water Quantity Threats - Withdrawal Permits (under WMDs), Water Quality Threats by Friends & Other Advocates 1 Comment

It is pretty obvious in the article below that Dr. Knight did not reach a happy conclusion regarding the conflicting messages. The sad and ironic truth that comes through is that our state is not protecting our springs and rivers even though we have the laws and the means. The state’s officials work very hard at appearances but fail to address the main problems.

Read the original article here in the Gainesville Sun, where it will appear in the hard copy Sunday, May 2, 2021.

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

Making sense of conflicting environmental messages

Bob Knight

Guest columnist

Last Sunday’s opinion pages celebrating the 51st Earth Day were appropriately filled with messages about the importance of protecting our environment. But what was interesting to me was the juxtaposition of conflicting claims by environmentalists, agricultural representatives and state officials.

Interested readers of The Sun may be trying to make sense out of their divergent views. Here is my take.

The first piece I read was written by Dr. Ann Shortelle, executive director of the St. Johns River Water Management District. In her column, “Make water conservation part of your regular routine,” she reiterated her oft-repeated message that homeowners need to do more to reduce their personal uses of water.

Emphasizing that April is designated by the state as Water Conservation Month, she asked the public to cut back their outdoor water uses by half. Considering that more than 95% of that water is extracted from the groundwater, I suggest her agency should take a different tack.

Florida’s homeowners who follow the state’s “Florida Friendly Landscaping” program, farmers with encouragement from the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Services, and even our state government employees at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission are applying “millions of gallons” of herbicides in our most important natural waterways. Dr. Cox points out that we just reap what we sow when it comes to following the advice of the state’s experts.

Next, I read the column “Florida farmers, ranchers committed to conservation” by John L. Hoblick, president of the Florida Farm Bureau Federation. Hoblick reported that Florida’s farmers and ranchers are committed to soil, land and water conservation every day of the year by implementing agricultural best management practices to conserve more than 11 billion gallons of freshwater each year.

However, in 2015 the U.S. Geologic Survey reports that Florida’s agricultural community pumped an estimated 369 billion gallons of fresh groundwater. His estimate of water saved by improved farming practices is only 3% of the groundwater used for raising crops and does not offset predicted annual increases in agricultural irrigation estimated by the Florida Department of Agriculture. Also missing from Hoblick’s message is the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s estimate that current agricultural practices are responsible for 85% of the nitrogen polluting Florida’s springs.

In one respect these environmental problems are not the fault of the state’s farmers and ranchers. Responsibility for groundwater depletion and pollution and the resulting declining health of Florida’s springs resides on the desks of the state’s government officials.

If the Florida Department of Agriculture would present the facts to the state’s agricultural producers and insist that other state agencies enforce existing laws that are intended to protect Florida’s endangered waters, with proper incentives the agricultural community might change their harmful practices and take their rightful place at the table with environmentalists.

Finally, I ended my read with Susan Nugent’s column “Let’s act like every day is Earth Day,” offering climate reality advice for all Floridians. And I wholeheartedly agree that every day must be Earth Day for all of Florida’s residents and visitors.

Artificially raising the Earth’s average temperature just a few degrees may well create an unlivable environment for plants, wildlife and humans. We forget that past civilizations around the world ended in slow or rapidly unfolding disasters.

It is the height of folly to think that today’s interconnected worldwide civilization is immune to such an ending.

— Dr. Bob Knight is founder and director of the Howard T. Odum Florida Springs Institute located in High Springs and author of “Silenced Springs – Moving from Tragedy to Hope.”

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Friends & Other Advocates - Part of Our mission here at Our Santa Fe River is to inform the public about issues pertaining to the water quality and quantity of the Santa Fe River. We do that in many ways including posting articles here on Our website. To that end, we use many articles from many different sources.

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Michael Roth says:

May 2, 2021 at 8:09 am

Thank you, Dr. Knight, for giving perspective to the divergent messaging from a single Earth Day issue of The Sun, and for putting the ultimate responsibility with the state agencies that fail to protect through lax enforcement and contrived “science”.

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Making sense of conflicting environmental messages

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