Cris Costello of Sierra Club has sent out the following important message.
As most of you know, their is no current balance between the environment and agriculture. AG wins every time. We need agriculture but it must be radically changed to be sustainable. To do this we must all work together and share the costs, but it must be made sustainable and soon. Our groundwater is limited and our rivers are stifled with tons of nitrates from over-fertilizing.
We must stop this bad bill which goes in the opposite direction from what is needed in Florida. Please take action.
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
Please join the fight to get SB2508 vetoed by the Governor
SB2508, if allowed to pass into law, will upend everything we have ever depended upon to acquire top-rate conservation land in Florida by tipping the balance (such as it is) between agriculture and the environment dramatically toward agriculture.
This bill shifts the focus of land acquisition from the scientifically-based Acquisition and Restoration Council (ARC) selection and prioritization process in the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to the Rural and Family Lands Program (RFL) in the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (DACS), which is bad enough.
But SB2508 adds insult to injury by:
(1) removing the current requirement that ranch and timber lands be prioritized, thereby opening up any agricultural land–whether or not it has quality conservation potential–for purchase with the limited funds the state devotes to land acquisition;
(2) providing that the RFL lands must, at the request of the landowner, be open to leasing for mitigation banking; and
(3) allowing DEP to accept funds from electric, water, gas, and sewer utilities seeking Environmental Resource Permits or Wetlands Dredge and Fill 404 Permits in return for expediting those permit applications. This is pay-to-play at its worst.
Don’t be fooled by anyone claiming SB2508 was “improved” to protect the Everglades, it was not–the Everglades will suffer as much as the rest of the state if this bill is not vetoed.
We must do everything we can to convince Governor DeSantis to veto SB2508.
Thank you for your support.
Cris Costello
Senior Organizing Manager,
Sierra Club Florida Chapter
