By Rick Beottger

The treasure: the Everglades, Florida Bay, and our living Coral Reef. They are a treasure not only to our state, but the nation as a whole. Agricultural run off, mainly nitrogen compounds, is ruining our water, plant life, fish, and birds.  We now know that excess nitrogen also is a main contributor to Global warming, so Nitrogen excess is a huge problem.

 

New scientific testing has established that 80% of the nitrogen comes from agriculture and only 20% from septic tanks.

 

Recently, the folks up around the Indian River and its lagoons have done the most and best protesting, so the Army Corps of Engineers has turned the flush valve our way again, and when that water is released, full force, it threatens to destroy our seagrass beds and reef.

 

So what can be done? First, all in South Florida have to insist that Nitrogen laden water must NOT be released into Florida Bay. We must make it clear that if we are ignored, each and every one of us will seek reparations for our businesses and home values as a result of damage done to our ecosystem.

 

Then “We the People”, meaning of the United States and not just Florida, should  buy back our land from the sugar plantation owners (these lands have historically been a large part of the problem) and use these lands as water storage and treatment areas to be researched and studied so nitrogen laden, dirty water can, once and for all, be treated properly.

 

So it comes down to setting a price, and having our great country open its wallet to save a treasure of inestimable value from Nitrogen in the water that creates algae, which depletes the oxygen, creates red tides, and kills the fish. Fewer fish starves the birds, in a great chain of loss and destruction.

 

Could this miserable Congress and beleaguered administration be convinced to leave a legacy of good, to counterbalance the disdain which they currently have in the public eye?

 

We have a problem in South Florida of historic, tragic proportions. But one which could be fixed with a few signatures on a piece of paper, a simple bill to buy some nitrogen-rich land, for the Keys are NOT a toilet. Once and for all, we in the Keys and South Florida must insist: Not IN OUR BACKYARD!

 

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