For Immediate Release:
October 1, 2019
**PRESS
RELEASE**
Public
Safety Comes First?
Changes to Pre-Harvest Sugar Field
Burning Fall Short
Belle Glade – In response to Commissioner of
Agriculture Nikki Fried’s announcement of changes to the pre-harvest sugar
field burning protocols, Patrick Ferguson, Organizing Representative for the Sierra Club Stop
Pre-harvest Sugar Field Burning Campaign provides the following
statement:
“While
we are pleased that Commissioner Fried stated that these changes are a first
and not the last step, the announced modifications to the sugar field burning
regulations will not stop the smoke and ash the residents in and around the
Everglades Agricultural Area have been forced to endure. However, the
announcements are a sign that the Stop
the Burn activists who have been leading the fight since 2015 are on the
right track. When FDACS announces a plan to phase out sugar field burning once
and for all, and the switch to modern, sustainable green harvesting, we will
celebrate.
There
are five main takeaways:
- It is disingenuous to conflate
pre-harvest burning with “prescribed burning.” Agricultural burning used by sugar
growers to decrease their harvesting costs cannot and must not be likened
to the prescribed burning that keeps Florida wildlands healthy. To label pre-harvest sugar field burning
as “prescribed burning” and a “sustainability tool “is to unapologetically
proclaim that it is good for us
and the environment. Nothing could
be further from the truth.
- The announced “two field rule”
which will provide an 80-acre buffer between burned sugar fields and wild
lands makes it clear that FDACS understands that nearby flames are a
danger to the wild environment.
What is the disconnect that keeps the Department from seeing that
nearby flames are also a danger to the human environment? Prohibiting pre-harvest burning around
schools and homes should be the first phase of the transition toward green
harvesting and a complete ban on pre-harvest sugar field burning.
- The discriminatory nature of
the wind restrictions has not been eliminated. Neither the new weather/smoke modeling
systems nor dispersion-related permitting will change the fact that
Florida citizens in Pahokee, Belle Glade, South Bay, Indiantown,
Clewiston, and Ortona will continue to suffer the ash and smoke while those
living in eastern Palm Beach County remain protected by wind
direction-based permitting. The
wind direction-based rules are inherently unjust, protecting the wealthier
and whiter communities while literally choking the less affluent, more
diverse neighborhoods with smoke, ash, and the concomitant health
impacts.
- It is easy to say “public
safety comes first” but until the people of Western Palm Beach, Martin,
Hendry, and Glades counties are protected from smoke and ash it is not and
cannot be a true statement.
- What is most noteworthy to our
campaign, and most important for the sugar industry to hear and accept, is
that FDACS is encouraging the move to green harvesting and is directing
attention to the biomass industry.
Green harvesting is the only way forward. It is the win-win-win
solution that has already been proven sustainable, successful, and
profitable elsewhere. What is Florida waiting for?
Pre-harvest
sugar field burning is an outdated, toxic, inherently unjust, and entirely
unneeded practice that the Florida sugar industry keeps and defends because no
one in power has been willing to say no to them. Commissioner Fried has made a move in the
right direction but it is nowhere close to being enough.”
Campaign materials:
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