For Immediate Release
November 23, 2019
** PRESS RELEASE**
MUCK CITY AFLAME:
Stop the Burn
protest highlights failure of FDACS to protect community
Belle Glade, FL – Sugar
growers around Belle Glade provided a toxic but illustrative backdrop to a
protest today in front of the Florida Forestry Division Work Center at 2842
FL-15, Belle Glade,
with smoke and ash plumes along the horizon in every direction. The scene underscored (1) the plague of air
pollution, health threats, and economic depression that pre-harvest sugarcane
field burning imposes on the Glades and (2) the failure of the Florida
Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to protect the health and
safety of the residents in and around the Everglades Agricultural Area.
Shanique Scott and Steve
Messam, both local residents born and raised in the Glades and leaders in the Stop the Burn – Go Green Campaign to end
pre-harvest sugarcane field burning, spoke to a crowd of over 30 activists in
front of a large figure of Smokey the Bear sign (http://bit.ly/35uUjjW) wearing a Stop the
Burn t-shirt. View the protest (17
minutes) here.
Two large posters of screen
shots from the Florida Forest Service’s active burn tracking tool from November
1, 2019 (http://bit.ly/Nov-1-2019-ash-plume) and November 14, 2018 vhttp://bit.ly/11-14-18_ash-plume)
showed huge swaths of the EAA shrouded in ash. A screen shot taken the morning of the
protest (http://bit.ly/Nov-23-FFS-Map-Burn) makes it clear that this
is not a rare phenomenon.
Per the Florida Forest
Service’s active burn tracking tool (http://tlhforucs02.doacs.state.fl.us/fmis.dataviewer), ash plumes often travel over 20 miles. Messam said “We have found ash plumes as long
as 26.21 miles long on the Forest Service website. You want to put our health
and safety first? Then give us at least a
27-30 mile buffer around our homes, schools,
streets, and churches right now and make that the first phase of an eventual a
complete ban in the near future.”
Messam added: “In a press conference on October 1,
Commissioner Fried said ‘keeping Florida’s residents, communities, and
environment safe is my number one priority.’
She also announced a new 80-acre buffer zone to protect wildlands from
pre-harvest burns, but our homes and schools are left unprotected. In fact, the new announced measures do nothing
to keep us safe and healthy. We are still choked by black snow while residents
in Eastern Palm Beach County are protected by burn wind restrictions. I refuse to accept that my people are less
worthy of protection. The industry needs to stop pre-harvest sugar field
burning and switch to green harvesting now.”
Scott remarked: “Thanksgiving is a time to celebrate the
harvest with family, and the Glades is a true horn of plenty. The sugar
industry reaps a profitable harvest from our rich soils but our communities
have not shared in the profits. In the
Glades, harvest season means smoke and ash, exacerbated asthma symptoms, the
high cost of cleaning off our cars and homes, keeping kids inside and
fear. This Thanksgiving needs to be the
last one celebrated under this dark cloud!”
Scott brought it all home
with stories about how generations of her family and neighbors have been
impacted by the burns. “The only smoke I want for Thanksgiving is a smoked
turkey! Until burning is completely
phased out and is replaced by green harvesting, we are not safe, we are not
healthy, and our lives are not respected.”
Messam went on to say: “We
are thankful for a number of things this year. The number of Stop the Burn Campaign activists is
growing every month. FDACS has started
to talk about green harvesting. Next
year we want to be thankful for a FDACS-sponsored green harvesting economic
opportunity workshop in Belle Glade; this is something Commissioner Nikki Fried
can start to plan for right now. And we
will be thankful when Commissioner Fried comes to Belle Glade to meet with us
and hear our stories; we have been asking her for months to come here and
experience the burns first-hand.”
The crowd got their two
cents in too by chanting “Hey hey, ho ho, toxic smoke has got to go!”
Photos taken on November
23, 2019 (morning before protest of the smoke/ash over Belle Glade: http://bit.ly/37wiyjt
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