Imagine for a moment that you see a guy slowly reaching toward a scalding hot stove.
Everyone around screams: “Don’t touch it! You’ll hurt yourself!”
But the guy pays them no mind and places his palm flush upon the bright orange burner, only to scream in surprise and agony as his flesh begins to char.
You’d think this man was pretty stupid, right?
Like sell-your-car-for-gas-money stupid.
Well, we are this man. This entire state.
For the past eight years, we stood by as the state decimated its environmental and water-protection agencies and repealed checks on sustainable growth.
Every step, we were warned: “Don’t do it! Things will go bad!”
But we paid them no mind. We watched as politicians shut down water-quality monitoring stations, stocked environmental boards with developers, slashed staff at the agencies that check for pollution and cut back on land-preservation programs.
Then we re-elected them.
And now our state is cloaked in gloppy blue-green algae that is shutting down businesses, killing animals and sending people to the hospital.
The headlines tell the story:
“Blue-green algae in St. Lucie River sending people to emergency rooms”
“Algae Bloom in Florida Prompts Fears About Harm to Health and Economy”
“Blue-green algae, red tide soil beaches, threaten Florida tourism”
What the muck did we think was going to happen?
You can’t treat your state like a toilet bowl and then get surprised when it backs up.
So when I watch politicians scurry to pollution sites with cameras in tow, acting shocked and outraged, they seem just as daft as that guy who can’t figure out why his scalded hand hurts.
Who is most to blame? Well, some Democrats want to blame all Republicans. But that’s not fair. Some Republicans have been enviro-champions, especially in the state senate.
It is, however, fair to blame Rick Scott.
This governor has undermined our natural resources for eight straight years. The data is trackable.
Under Jeb Bush and Charlie Crist, the state opened 1,000 to 1,500 cases a year to crack down on bad environmental actors.
Under Rick Scott, the number is closer to 250.
“There is little to no enforcement,” said Jerry Phillips. “To call it a ‘major decline’ would be putting it lightly.”
Phillips runs the Florida division of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, the group that tracked the decline. The report concluded: “… the impact of Governor Scott’s policies has been to essentially eliminate serious environmental enforcement in Florida.”
Hello, blue-green slop.
Phillips described the state’s Department of Environmental Protection as a shell of its former self.
But that’s just the start. Scott also decimated the state’s growth-planning agency. He stocked water-management boards with industry insiders who profit off their positions. He shut down water-quality monitoring offices.
Newspapers wrote about all this. I wrote about all this. Everyone knew the burner was hot. So spare me the pearl-clutching.
Certainly, Scott didn’t act alone. Others helped make this mess: Big Sugar, agribusinesses and developers. Local governments that allow cement to be poured where land is needed as a filter. Those of us who use fertilizer that foul the waterways. Weak-kneed politicians who allow septic systems to inject nitrogen into our groundwater supply when they’re working and far fouler substances in when they don’t. And the GOP-led Legislature, which approved most everything Scott wanted.
But Scott led the way, often under the mantra of being “business-friendly.”
When asked about the PEER report tracking his administration’s slack enforcement, Scott’s environmental department responded by touting a “near-record high compliance rate of 96 percent” among Florida businesses. In other words: Florida cracks down less on environmental problems because there are fewer problems to crack down upon.
Sure.
So if a beat cop walked a crime-infested part of town, making 20 arrests a week — only to be replaced by a newbie cop who made only five arrests a week — you shouldn’t blame the new cop. Instead, you should believe most of the criminals just suddenly decided to turn into model citizens.
Sure.
To Politico, Scott’s campaign also blamed election-year politics for PEER’s unflattering report.
Except the group has been issuing annual reports since before Scott even took office. And what about all the blue-green glop? Was that PEER’s creation too?
I do agree, though, that people are finally paying more attention — now that the glop is shutting down part of the state and that the guy partially responsible for the swampy mess wants voters to send him to Washington’s swamp next.
But sure, governor, blame it all on politics. Feel free to stand thigh-deep in the blue-green muck that smells like mold and death and is sending people to emergency rooms — and tell everyone what a bang-up job you’ve done with the environment.
smaxwell@orlandosentinel.com
