For Immediate Release
March 25, 2020
** PRESS RELEASE**
COVID-19 THREAT UNDERSCORES
NEED TO END
PRE-HARVEST SUGAR FIELD
BURNING
Belle Glade, FL – As
sugar growers in and around the Everglades
Agricultural Area continue to pre-harvest burn their sugarcane
fields in the midst of the Covid-19 threat, today Sierra Club urged Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried to start the phase out of the yearly 6-8 month burn season with a ban on burns within a 27-30 mile buffer zone. This is not a new request; the Stop the Burn Campaign has been
demanding an end to the toxic, outdated practice since 2015 and first asked
Commissioner Fried for the buffer zone around populated areas as a first phase
of a future complete ban at a protest in Belle Glade on November 23, 2019. The Covid-19 threat is an obvious underscore
to the urgency of the demand for action:
March 25, 2020
Commissioner Nikki Fried
Florida Department of Agriculture
and Consumer Services
Plaza Level 10, The Capitol
400 S. Monroe St.
Tallahassee, FL 32399-0800
RE: Stop the Burn and Covid-19
Dear Commissioner Fried:
In
a press conference on October 1, 2019 you said “keeping Florida’s residents,
communities, and environment safe is my number one priority.” You also announced a new 80-acre buffer zone
to protect wildlands from pre-harvest burns.
The Stop the Burn Campaign
refuses to accept that people living in the Glades are less worthy of
protection than are wildlands or less worthy of protection than the residents
of Wellington. But as of today they
remain unprotected. In fact, the new
measures announced in October 2019 did nothing to keep the residents in and
around the Everglades Agricultural Area safe and healthy. They are still choked by black snow while
residents in Eastern Palm Beach County are protected by burn wind restrictions.
Per
the Florida Forest Service’s active burn tracking tool, ash plumes often travel
well over 20 miles; in fact we have identified ash plumes as long as 26.21
miles long on the Forest Service website. As you and your department consider and
implement measures to protect Floridians from Covid-19, you must not forget
your stated priority. Pre-harvest sugar
field burning is a constant threat to respiratory health in the Glades for 6-8
months a year, and the added risk of Covid-19, on an already vulnerable
population during the burning season, is the perfect impetus for you to finally
institute the first phase of the end to pre-harvest sugar field burning right
now – a 27-30 mile buffer around homes,
schools, streets, and churches.
A
27-30 mile buffer around Moore Haven, Clewiston, South Bay, Belle Glade,
Pahokee, Indiantown and other impacted communities will be a first step toward
providing those Florida citizens the protection to which they have a right but
have been denied for generations.
We
understand that the eventual complete ban of pre-harvest burning in the future
must be effectuated in a series of phases; the Covid-19 threat requires that
phase one begins right now.
A comment posted on our Stop the Burn Campaign Facebook Page by
a resident of the Glades who suffers from COPD, paints a vivid picture: “They
are telling people not to leave their houses because of the virus. This is what
I go through every year during sugar cane burning season every year. I can’t
even come out of my house every time they burn year after year. Unreal! What
people are feeling right now with this virus, It’s how I feel every time they
burn sugar cane around here.”
The following highlights the reality
in which residents, and especially those with pre-existing respiratory
conditions, find themselves as they endure exposure to toxic sugarcane burning
pollution on top of the threat of Covid-19:
● “The coronavirus is deadly enough.
But some experts suspect bad air makes it worse.”https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/03/15/smoking-air-pollution-coronavirus/
● “Air pollution likely to increase
coronavirus death rate, warn experts” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/17/air-pollution-likely-to-increase-coronavirus-death-rate-warn-experts
● “Air pollution increases coronavirus
vulnerability, experts say” https://www.foxnews.com/science/air-pollution-increases-coronavirus-vulnerability-experts-claim
To truly prioritize the health and
safety of Glades residents, you must take the steps to institute a 27-30-mile
buffer zone now. The sugar industry
already “green harvests” when it is convenient for the industry itself; it is
now time for the sugar industry to green harvest within 27-30 miles of human
populations whether or not it is convenient, because Glades lives matter.
We expect bold leadership from you
Commissioner. We expect you to protect
the health, safety, and welfare of Florida’s most vulnerable communities
first. Institute the first phase of a
ban on pre-harvest sugar field burning and you will be true to your promise and
be the catalyst for a brand new, improved economic future for the Glades. Stand back and let the burning continue and
you will be remembered as yet another politician who pays lip service only to
your most vulnerable constituents.
Sincerely,
Patrick Ferguson
Sierra
Club Organizing Representative, Stop Sugar Field Burning Campaign
PO Box
2347
136A S.
Main St, Belle Glade, FL 33430
patrick.ferguson@sierraclub.org
954-288-4234
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