by Richard Prior
Staff Writer
Decades of using and abusing the state’s natural resources have driven home the lesson that it’s not nice to fool with Mother Nature.
Mother had been her usually patient self, but now her back is up. And it’s not a pretty sight.
“I don’t think there’s ever been a time in Florida’s history where we were on such crash courses into each other and apart from each other,” said State Senate President Jim King. “If Florida is to have a legacy to leave environmentally, all the sides, all the stakeholders, all the parties have to shoulder a fair share of the load, be responsible for a fair share of the sacrifices.”
King discussed where the environment has been and where it is likely to go before another packed house last week at Florida Coastal School of Law.
It was the second, and last, day of the Northeast Florida Environmental Summit 2003, organized by the school’s Center for Strategic Governance and International Initiatives.
“This summit clearly has become one of the finest examples of a relentless pursuit of areas of critical concern in our region’s environment,” said Eric Smith, the Center’s executive director. “To have over 200 people in a two-day span participate one way or another with such a great diversity of interests is a real credit to our students who were very involved in producing it and to our strategic alliance partners from business and commerce.”
The co-chairs who organized the event were Megan Seitz, Jeremy Simons and Garrett Strahl, chair of the Center’s board.
Undoing the damage that’s been done to the Everglades is a monumental, ongoing project with the state and federal governments splitting the $8 billion tab, King said. Years ago, the Corps of Engineers put in dams and dikes to minimize regular flooding. Advertisements spotlighted “some of the most prestigious farms ever available,” he added.
“They said, ‘We want agrarian development; please come.’ They advertised all over to get all these farmers to come.”
They did, establishing one of the great fruit and vegetable market development areas in the country. And raising havoc in the Everglades.
“We’re going back now to do away with some of those things advertised so strongly and so proudly,” said King. “With the passage of time and the introduction of new science, that’s proven it was probably erroneous thinking to begin with.”
Now that corrections are being made to that “correction, up pops a new demon,” he added. “We now have concerns from the Florida Protective Reef Association, who says what we’re doing in the Everglades is putting in jeopardy Florida Bay and, consequently, the Keys and the coral reefs that go with them.”
He would like to say that scientists are united behind the Florida Forever program, but they’re not, King conceded. But that is the approach being followed for now.
“Hopefully, the generation to come will say the Florida Legislature and the people of Florida did the right thing in realizing the resource we have and protecting it,” he said. “We’re going to have to make sure to withstand continual efforts to chip away at the plan, to have this jewel protected.”
King’s Natural Resources Committee was sent out to hear the public’s reaction to the Council of 100’s declaration that everybody in Florida owns the water, and everybody may tap it that needs it.
One hundred and sixty-four speakers in six communities later, there were only two dissenters.
Clearly, King said, “you’re going to have to do something. You’re going to have to encourage every county to do everything they can to come up with their own supply.
“When all that fails, you’ve got two choices. You can curtail growth completely. There are some people who would say that is a great idea.
“You also have to balance the economics of this with the environmental impact of it. I think it’s foolish to think you can totally curtail growth and not pay a hefty price for it.”
In fact, said King, striking a balance between economic development and environmental protection will be the key issue in the state for at least the next half dozen years.
“Even the most why-save-it-when-you-can-pave-it folks recognize that we have an obligation, a trust, to make sure the generations that follow us can enjoy the state that we know today. You’re going to have to have some control of growth.
“And long-term planning is going to have to be more than two years. That’s a problem because administrations in this state politically change every two years.”
Part of the problem is 1,000 new residents coming into the state every day, he said. The biggest part of that problem is that nearly all want to live on one of the coasts.
“We’ve got to redirect the momentum,” he said. “We’ve got to encourage internal development, which is where we’ve got the most available land.”
Following his talk, King was presented the inaugural Champion for Democracy Award for preserving the dignity and fairness of the legislative process.