The issue is quite simple:  manatees are lacking food because polluted waters block out the sun so their food doesn’t grow.  The State of Florida will not clean up the water because that would cost too much money.

So they talk about it and try Band Aid solutions that are temporary at best.

Read the original article with photos here in TCPalm.  Also please go to Florida Right to Clean Water and send in the petition, our only hope to make Florida protect our waters.

Unlike some of the other large creatures that inhabit Florida’s waters, like alligators and sharks, most tourists and locals alike seem to love sea cows. And, as best we can tell, they love us back. Or, at worst, the slow-moving mammals regard humans with benevolent indifference.

Therefore, it didn’t come as a huge shock earlier this month when a consortium of environmentally oriented groups sent the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service notice of its plans to sue the federal agency for failing to adequately protect manatees.

While there seems to be near-unanimous agreement (aside from a few boaters cranky about slow-speed zones) about the value of protecting manatees, there also seems to be a general unwillingness to directly address the greatest danger they face.

Hungry sea cowsManatee feeding station in Brevard ready for cold weather

A grim famine‘Dissolving on the inside’: Photos show how starvation is killing Florida manatees

Which is more than a little ironic, because by saving manatees, we would also be saving the waters upon which our local economy and many of our own recreational activities depend.

Simply put, saving manatees won’t happen without saving our water.

It’s all well and good to start manatee feeding programs, like the one launched in December 2021 after a record number of manatee deaths due to starvation. But manatees aren’t biologically wired to eat lettuce. They crave the seagrass that grows along the sandy bottom of the Indian River Lagoon and connected waterways.

What’s killing seagrass is pollution. And a great deal of it is coming from agricultural runoff and sewage discharges.

Bear Warriors United, a wildlife protection nonprofit, had the right idea when it filed a federal lawsuit against the Florida Department of Environmental Protection in February. The lawsuit alleges the state agency violated the Endangered Species Act by allowing manatees to be killed in the lagoon’s northern section by failing to properly regulate polluters.

Lesley Blackner, the plaintiffs’ attorney, said she “just connected the dots” between septic and sewer plant discharges into the lagoon and manatees that died after losing their food source.

A similar approach has worked before. In the mid-1990s, Blackner represented New Smyrna Beach residents who thought Volusia County’s policy of allowing beach driving endangered sea turtles. Blackner’s clients won, and the county was forced to sharply limit places where its tradition of beach driving is allowed.

While different government agencies have thrown dribs and drabs of money at programs that incrementally clean the lagoon, Blackner said more drastic measures are needed.

“We have to have a come-to-Jesus moment on the lagoon,” she said. “That hasn’t happened yet.”

Maybe we are heading in the right direction, though. While it’s debatable whether downgrading the manatees’ federal status from “threatened” to “endangered” would make a big difference, getting rid of pollution that’s destroying their food certainly could.

Do state government officials really have to wait until another lawsuit is filed on behalf of manatees living in the southern portion of the lagoon? Maybe they could finally get in front of the problem and put more urgency into cleanup ― to benefit us all.

Despite the obvious size difference, manatees are the proverbial canaries in the coal mine. If they’re not able to survive in the lagoon’s waters, then the days when humans will be able to use them are numbered.

We can root for manatees because they’re cute and cuddly looking. We also need to protect them because our fates are more closely tied to theirs than we might think.

Editorials published by TCPalm/Treasure Coast Newspapers are decided collectively by its editorial board. To respond to this editorial with a letter to the editor, email up to 300 words to TCNLetters@TCPalm.com.