For Immediate Release
Contact Cris Costello, Sierra Club, 941-914-0421
(cell),
Julia Hathaway, Sierra Club, West Palm Beach,
202-315-8211 (cell)
Residents
to hold major protest outside sugar meeting
Governor Scott’s water
managers to be lampooned as beholden to Sugar Daddies.
When: Thursday,
March 12, 2015
Protest: 8:30 a.m. to 12 Noon.
Press conference: 9 a.m.
Where: South
Florida Water Management District Governing Board Headquarters
3301 Gun Club Road, West Palm Beach, Florida, 33406, outside
the main entrance.
What: Protest to Buy Sugar Land
NOW!
More than a hundred residents from Central,
Southwest and Southeast Florida will protest Governor Rick Scott and his
appointed water managers outside the South Florida Water Management District
headquarters for failing to acquire 48,600 acres of US Sugar land to restore
the Everglades and protect the coasts from pollution. The state of Florida has an
option to purchase by October, but water managers must take action now for the
process to begin and Amendment One funds to be used. According to the
University of Florida, the land purchase must be considered to stop marine life
die-offs in the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie River basins and along the Indian
River Lagoon.
**VISUALS** A Sugar Daddy dressed in
costume buying off water managers with fake money and protesters with signs and
solidarity fish.
Why: The
South Florida Water Management District and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
are dumping about a half billion gallons of highly polluted fresh water a day
into the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers, polluting critical marine
habitats and harming communities.
Residents are incredulous that Governor Scott and his appointees will not consider the 48,600 acre purchase option in the US Sugar contract in spite of algal blooms and massive marine die offs that occurred in Indian River Lagoon in 2013 and are now threatening.
As polluted water is dumped to the coasts, the
Everglades subject of a multibillion restoration project, is starving for
water. The solution, according to University of Florida scientists, is to pursue
48,600 acres of sugar land to store and clean the water. Governing board members have largely ignored those
pleas and appear intent to allow Big Sugar to walk out of a deal and let restoration
evaporate forever.
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