The nation’s Clean Water Act became law fifty years ago in response to growing concern about the health of America’s waters. Yet, despite a massive amount of environmental laws and regulations and funds, over half of Florida’s 4,393 waterways are still officially impaired. With the “new normal” of routine harmful algal blooms, widespread pathogenic and toxic contamination, frequent mortality events and staggering loss of critical wetlands, our people, our wildlife, our businesses, and our economies continue to suffer. The answer isn’t political. We need a legal measure that empowers Floridians to hold their own government accountable when it comes to water.
In time for Earth Day, FloridaRightToCleanWater.org is launching its campaign to qualify a “Right to Clean and Healthy Waters” state constitutional amendment for the 2024 ballot.
Karl Deigert, former boat captain and waterfront motel owner, and current Chair of FloridaRightToCleanWater.org political committee, says, “Waiting 50 years for any law to work is just crazy. Our system is broken. We the People need to fix it or we’re asking for 50 more years of environmental and economic ruin in what used to be paradise.”
“Florida has great water protection laws on the books, but they’re not well enforced,” says Melissa Martin, retired U.S. Marine Corps judge advocate, Florida attorney, and primary author of the amendment. “The state executive branch has been wielding too much legislative and judicial power without proper checks and balances. A lot of great people work in those agencies, but as a whole, because of how the system is designed, the state has been able to ignore public comments and the needs of local governments, especially if such public interests conflict with the special interests they’ve been told to serve.”
“With a constitutionally protected Right to Clean and Healthy Waters,” Martin continues, “the will of the people will be enshrined and enforceable in the state’s most important document. This is no regular law. This right is indefeasible, fundamental, and inherent to what it means to live as humans. It’s not hyperbole to say we absolutely need clean water, as all living things do. Should Floridians vote this amendment into the state constitution, it will not only be beyond the power of any governmental entity to annul or alter, as we have unfortunately seen happen in Florida with other citizen initiatives, but it will be a part of what it means to be a Floridian. This will be a declaration for the world to hear: ‘Floridians value their waters more than the pollution rights of profiteers.’ Yes, Florida’s open for business – as long as you’re responsible and respect our waters the way you should.”
Deigert and Martin say the law can bring needed change to environmental protection in Florida, claiming it reaches all forms of harm to all types of important waters, from polluting our estuaries, to draining our springs to destroying our wetlands.
“We’re all in the same boat here, and it’s been sinking. Florida has already lost 9.3 million acres of wetlands –her kidneys—half of what we used to have. Embarrassingly, it’s the most wetland loss in the nation,” Deigert says. “We have to stop the crazy, and this amendment helps us do that. For example, wetland destruction would violate our Right to Clean and Healthy Waters. After the state loses a few lawsuits regarding wetland permits they should not have issued, they’ll stop issuing them. This law draws the line and says, ‘No more; enough is enough.’”
“We hope it will be the most effective green amendment in the nation,” says Joseph Bonasia, Campaign Communications Director and Chair of the Florida Rights of Nature Network, which was involved in the drafting of the amendment. “No, it’s not a Rights of Nature law. It’s a right to nature law, but it helps greatly in bringing about the change we need if we are to restore our relationship with the natural world, which is what Rights of Nature is really about.”
In 2020, the state legislature in its Clean Waterways Act, attempted to preempt local governments from granting rights to nature and granting citizens any new right having to do with the natural world, which would include the right to clean air and water.
“Whether or not the state preemption is eventually held unconstitutional, we had to resort to this citizens’ initiative to restore important home rule authority and to make the will of Floridians not just clear but enforceable,” Bonasia continues. “The current system leans heavily in favoring the rights and interests of corporations to pollute and degrade our water systems for profit. It’s common knowledge that special interests have undue influence on lawmakers and consequently on environmental policies and agencies. This amendment pivots us away from this dysfunction and begins the paradigm shift toward responsible governance that benefits all of us.”
Deigert states, “Clean water is one of the few issues everyone can link arms about, spanning party lines, as it affects all of us, in so many different aspects of our lives in Florida. Only those who currently benefit from a broken system, at our expense, at our loss, will be against this.”
“Yes, we have an uphill battle to fight with everything thrown against citizen initiatives these days, “Martin says, “but everyone I’ve met so far who has stepped up to this call has the same heart – a Marine’s heart, the type that doesn’t shrink in the face of challenge. This will be a very personal call to the same heart of like–minded organizations, businesses, and registered voters, because we’ll need everyone to sign a petition and do something more to help ensure this becomes a reality – for all Floridians and future generations. This is a legacy event.”
891,589 signed and verified petitions are needed to qualify the “Right to Clean and Healthy Waters” amendment for the 2024 ballot. Everyone can learn more, volunteer, donate and review and download the petition at FloridaRightToCleanWater.org and follow the campaign on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and YouTube.
Donations are deeply appreciated and can also be mailed to the FloridaRightToCleanWater.org political committee, 13300 South Cleveland Ave, Suite 56, Fort Myers, FL 33907.
Florida’s #WatershedMoment · #RTCW2024 · #FLRTCW
For more information, contact:
Karl Deigert
Chair Chair and SWFL Regional Director
FloridaRightToCleanWater.org
239–898–2044 631–365–1399
karldeigert@gmail.comm
Joseph Bonasia
Florida Rights of Nature Network
631-365-1399
jbonasia@hotmail.co
