“This is not just an environmental issue, it is also a public health issue,” Friends of the Everglades Executive Director Eve Samples said. “Even if you’re not directly on the water, you can be impacted by poor water quality and our state policymakers’ failure to do something about it.”
This is the people’s movement; our health depends on it. We need this to protect our water from continued degradation as our habitat becomes increasingly crowded. You can help by signing, and getting your family and friends to sign and mail in a paper petition. All Florida registered voters can sign this petition to get the Right to Clean Water on the 2026 ballot as an amendment to the Florida Constitution.
The following appeal to our readers was submitted by Lucinda Faulkner Merritt, Ambassador for the Right to Clean Water. Ms. Merritt will be presenting at our Special Annual Membership Meeting on June 5th at 6pm in the Board Room at RUM 138 at 2070 SW County Rd 138, Fort White, FL 32038.
All are welcome to attend.
OSFR President Joanne Tremblay
joanne.tremblay@oursantaferiver.org
“Giving Our River A Voice”
The Proposed Florida Right to Clean & Healthy Waters State Constitutional Amendment
Let’s Put the 🖤 in the Springs Heartland!
This amendment creates an enforceable, fundamental right to clean and healthy waters, authorizing a person to sue for equitable relief when a State executive agency, by action or inaction, allows harm or threat of harm to Florida waters… See: https://www.floridarighttocleanwater.org/
Readers of this newsletter will be aware that there was an effort to gather enough signed petitions to put a state constitutional amendment on Florida’s ballot this year that would guarantee our state’s citizens the right to have clean and healthy waters. Unfortunately, that effort fell short of the approximately 900,000 petitions needed, but the effort has been re-tooled for the 2026 ballot.
If you signed a petition during the 2024 effort, you will need to sign again for 2026. Here’s the link from which you can print the new petition: https://www.floridarighttocleanwater.org/petition
Why is this effort important?
All of our springs defender groups have been working through proper channels and “fighting the system” (the water management districts, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the Florida Legislature) to make the kinds of changes—increased flows and decreased pollution—that we need to save our beloved freshwater springs. But as the Florida Springs Council documents so well in just one example for the Santa Fe River basin, our efforts so far have failed: https://www.floridaspringscouncil.org/santafe
Part of the reason we have failed is because Floridians have bought into a couple of myths about our water. The first myth is that we have an infinite supply of freshwater. The second myth is that “out of sight, out of mind” is an effective pollution prevention strategy. Neither of those myths is true.
Another reason we have failed is because the decision makers in our state agencies—many of whom have been and are appointed by Florida’s governors—find it politically advantageous to ignore enforcement of Florida’s water laws.
The most important reason we have failed, however, is because our current laws actually permit individuals and businesses to damage natural systems in order to profit. Taxpayers are then left to pay for restoration projects. We’re privatizing profits and socializing losses.
This quote from Buckminster Fuller has always resonated with me: “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
To save our springs, we need to change the ways we are living with water. We need a new water ethic. We need to change the water paradigms that have guided us up until now, because those paradigms are not working. We need to change our thinking from “fighting” to “building a new model.” We need to change our strategies to aim for getting what we want instead of just asking for what we think we can get. Instead of fighting the existing system, we need to begin creating something new that’s based on love for our springs and rivers. We need to be working toward what anthropologists call “culture change.”
Changing our culture and our thinking is linked to changing our laws, and the proposed Florida Right to Clean & Healthy Waters (RTCW) state constitutional amendment does that in a profound way—by guaranteeing Floridians a fundamental RIGHT to clean water, a right that’s on a par with the freedoms we are guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution. The amendment offers us the highest possible protections for our waters and enables us to hold our state agencies accountable for their failures to protect our waterways. This is the kind of Green Amendment that is gaining traction throughout the United States; see: https://forthegenerations.org/
Remember that when given the chance to vote yes or no on saving our environment, Floridians have historically voted “yes” by large margins. The RTCW amendment will be a winner if we can gather enough petitions to get the amendment on the ballot.
You can show your love for our springs and rivers—help us put the heart in the Springs Heartland—by volunteering to help as an individual, a business or another kind of organization. Click on the “Support” tab here to see the pull-down list of ways to help: https://www.floridarighttocleanwater.org/
Petition campaigns are expensive. You can also help by donating to this effort: https://www.floridarighttocleanwater.org/donate
In particular, if you can help to collect petitions, please call David Moritz at (352) 575-6297 or go here to sign up: https://www.floridarighttocleanwater.org/team-3
Independent campaign consultants have told us that our petition-gathering effort has a strong foundation and can be successful. We simply need more people to get involved. You could even create your own team to help out and have fun together at the same time!
Remember that there’s no economic stability and no life, liberty or pursuit of happiness without clean water—and the RTCW effort aims to ensure clean water not only for us, for our rivers and springs, but also for our children and grandchildren.
For the generations,
Lucinda Faulkner Merritt, Ambassador
https://www.floridarighttocleanwater.org
You can help to collect petitions by calling David Moritz at (352) 575-6297 or go here to sign up: https://www.floridarighttocleanwater.org/team-3
A third very important myth is that our State is protecting our springs, rivers and aquifers. They blatantly lie to the public pounding their chests when, in reality, they are allowing our waters to decline year after year. The governor bolsters this lie by loudly proclaiming how much money he is spending on our waters. Most of this money treats symptoms and carefully avoids the main polluters.