When asked by a Miami Herald reporter when the state will address the root cause of climate change, increasing greenhouse gas emissions, DeSantis did not answer the question and instead talked about how the state has long been a target for hurricanes.
No, in Florida we are not interested in root causes nor sources of our water problems. We just want to study them more, talk about it and waste time and money on new technology to treat the visible symptoms in front of us. That keeps the polluters/users happy and thus our governor.
Climate change is nothing new in the history of Florida; our state has been inundated and has resurfaced multiple times. What is new this time is humankind’s contributions messing with nature.
Read the complete article here at WUSF.
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
Florida gets another $404 million for climate change prep. It needs billions more
Florida gets another $404 million for climate change prep. It needs billions more
Gov. Ron DeSantis announced funding for another 113 projects, including a $25 million mobile home wastewater collection project in Pinellas County.
The most vulnerable state in the nation is finally getting a billion-dollar boost to its plans to protect itself against the rising sea, the tip of the trillion-dollar iceberg of climate change expenses the state faces.
On Tuesday, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced funding for another 113 projects that will install new stormwater pumps and drains in flood-prone cities, convert leaky septic tanks to sewer lines, elevate and flood-proof critical buildings and restore wetlands over the next three years.
It’s the largest amount of money for climate change preparation ever seen in Florida — and the $404 million is all from the federal American Rescue Plan, the $1.9 trillion-dollar COVID-19 relief act championed by the Biden administration.
Combined with the $270 million three-year funding announced by Florida late last year for 76 similar projects, it’s the most significant investment in resilience in Florida. With local matching funds, the total investment tops $1.2 billion.
“All these projects will enhance Florida’s efforts to mitigate and prepare against flooding,” DeSantis said. “We’re happy to be delivering instead of just talking.”
Miami-Dade County alone accounted for $160 million of the pot, with 35 projects funded covering everything from flood and storm-proofing wastewater treatment plants to raising the banks of canals and building a big new seawall at Vizcaya Museum and Gardens.
“Miami-Dade was the winner,” DeSantis said.
Other key projects include a $25 million mobile home wastewater collection project in Pinellas County, the biggest of five the county received, a $40 million stormwater pump station in Jacksonville and $35 million for Islamorada to upgrade its water main.
A notable exclusion from the list of winners was the South Florida Water Management District, which requested more money than any other municipality in the state at $763 million.
Florida Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Shawn Hamilton said the district wasn’t qualified to ask for any of the money in the first place because it wasn’t a local government, but it was eligible for the $270 million in grants awarded in December as part of the state’s sea level rise plan.
The district did not receive any funding from that pool, although the St. Johns River Water Management District did get five projects funded. In a statement, SFWMD spokesman Randy Smith confirmed that the district was ineligible for the funds and said it is “excited about the momentum for resiliency efforts in Florida….”
So far, all of these hundreds of millions in funding for climate change projects address the symptoms of climate change, rising tides causing additional flooding, degrading septic and wastewater systems and swamping roads.
When asked by a Miami Herald reporter when the state will address the root cause of climate change, increasing greenhouse gas emissions, DeSantis did not answer the question and instead talked about how the state has long been a target for hurricanes.
“We’re not going to be able to stop being vulnerable,” he said. “We’re going to mitigate what Mother Nature is throwing at us.”
The governor did not use the phrases sea level rise or climate change in either announcement Tuesday.
The $674 million in state funding announced so far barely scratches the surface of the need for sea level rise adaptation in the state. More than 600 projects were submitted to the initial Resilient Florida grant program, totaling more than $2.3 billion in asks for state money to help with more than $3.8 billion in projects. South Florida alone asked for $1.7 billion of the total $2.3 billion.
Wesley Brooks, the state’s new chief resilience officer, said the state is not done funding these much-needed projects.
“We can and must do more to support resilience priorities for our inland and coastal communities,” he said.
This story was produced in partnership with the Florida Climate Reporting Network, a multi-newsroom initiative formed to cover the impacts of climate change in the state.
