Nurse
Pamela Joy, 57, had a question, in fact a series of questions all about the
same issue: “Why is it OK for them (the Army Corps of Engineers) to flood us
and destroy the Indian River? Why is one industry, sugar, more important than
all the species (that live in the river)?”
She
pointed to the shirt she was wearing, a blue tee shirt imprinted with the image
of a skeletal fish. “This is what we have in our lagoon. We want healthy fish.
This is our sad, mourning shirt.”
It
was before-breakfast early on a foggy Feb. 5, and I was out to witness protestors objecting to the
announcement that the Corps might start discharging as much as 756.2 million
gallons of polluted water into the Indian River estuary this very day. About 25
demonstrators were gathered next to the St. Lucie Locks to show that
they are fed up with a system that protects sugar plantations while causing an
environmental catastrophe in the Indian River Lagoon.
As
it turned out, the Corps. announced that no discharge would go to the Indian
River right now, but starting tomorrow, Saturday, a dump of 1,000 cubic feet of
water per second will flood the Caloosahatchie Estuary in western Florida.
Massive
discharges of toxic, polluted water went into both estuaries last summer and
continued into October. Now, unusually heavy winter rains have once again
filled Lake Okeechobee to levels that the Corps said could be dangerous and
cause a breach of the dike. If the discharge occurred while they were at the
locks, the protestors would see the dirty water passing through.
Local
experts, including Mark Perry, executive director of the Florida Oceanographic
Institute, disagreed vehemently with the Corps assessment of the situation.
“There’s no danger of a breach,” said Perry, according to the The Stuart News. He noted that it might
rain some more, but then again, might not. Other experts said the Corps could
release water into storm water treatment and conservation areas south of the
Lake, and that they were following old, outdated protocols.
A
spokesperson for the Army Corps told The
Stuart News that the Corps is simply following federal law, which requires
them to give priority to the sugar plantations, which were experiencing
flooding from the recent rain. Water drained from the plantations was filling
those storm water and conservation areas, and there was even a possibility, she
said, that they would pump some of that polluted water back into the lake.
So
why is this happening and will continue to happen? The sad answer to Pamela Joy’s question is this: Because the
law is written that way. And the laws have been written to suit Big Sugar.##
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