SUGAR BACK-PUMPING INCREASES DIKE FAILURE RISK
POSTED ON SEPTEMBER 21, 2017
With weeks left in the 2017 hurricane season, and open speculation about how long the Herbert Hoover dike can hold back a rising Lake Okeechobee, how can the sugar industry possibly justify adding to the danger by back-pumping billions of gallons of water off their fields?

Dry Fields in the EAA, September 16. Photo by Adam Dubbin/Save Florida Waters Now.

Never mind whether it's legal to risk the lives of thousands living in the shadow of the aging dam...how is this even human?


The South Florida Water Management District quietly stopped back-pumping yesterday. It's tempting to call it an attack of conscience, but there simply may not have been any more water left to dump into the lake. Sugarcane fields were dry and EAA canals were already low last Saturday, when all of Florida was watching Hurricane Maria and wondering how much more destruction was on the way.

So while people from communities hardest hit by Hurricane Irma were finally allowed back to check on their houses, and many--especially south of Miami and in the Keys--were finding out they no longer have houses...

...and people on the Gulf coast were wading through contaminated floodwater to rescue what they could...

...and people in Glades communities are waiting for the next evacuation order, hearing yet again about how their homes stand in the shadow of one of the most vulnerable dams in the country...

...the sugar industry was busily adding their runoff to the rising water, apparently unconcerned about straining the dike, unconcerned about prolonging the discharges, unconcerned about exposing riverside communities to untreated pollution and deadly toxins, unconcerned about its neighbors altogether. (Although industry executives did find time to generate some free publicity in the communities it was endangering at the time.)

How is SFWMD's letting sugar's billionaires drain their properties into a rising lake not reckless? Or unethical? Or criminal?

Water managers might claim Irma's rainfall gave them little choice, but that's not entirely true. In an emergency like Irma, the district can require the sugar industry to keep water on their fields. They didn't. Just days after the storm their properties were pumped out and the rain they got was already lapping against the dike or blasting down the St. Lucie.

The lake is still rising. The Army Corps says even with the locks to the St. Lucie and the Caloosahatchee wide-open Lake Okeechobee will swell to 17 feet. Would holding rainfall on 450,000 acres of sugarcane fields instead of back-pumping it into the lake have made the difference? Not likely. But contributing the six inches that fell on the EAA to the water levels already stressing the dike, putting thousands of lives at higher risk for the sake of a better sugarcane crop, is at best profoundly wrong.

There are so many inspiring stories of Floridians heroically stretching themselves to help their neighbors through this brutal time. This is not one of them. It turns out there is no situation where the sugar industry won't prioritize its own profit margins over human health and safety.

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The REAL truth is....both of the forum idiots are OWNED.
-BOTH of them have no clue who their owner is.
-They are both card carrying narcissists.
^These are PROVED facts.

Rick Scott is in charge of SFWMD. 

Remember all those cuts to SFWMD that you praised as him cutting out the dead wood? That was him remaking the SFWMD in his image. Anything that SFWMD (or any of the WMDs) is now doing that you do not like is on Rick Scott and the Florida legislature that are dictating to the districts how they should operate.

SJRWMD didn't open C54 and dump all that ag water into Stick Marsh because the Upper Basin Flood Control Project was in jeopardy. Tallahassee called Palatka and told them to make it look like they were doing what they could to help out Sanford, Geneva, and Astor. You can read the system operating manual for youself and see that the upper basin project did not reach the triggers for a C54 dump but dump they did.

Nice to see you siding with the environmentalists though. When are you going to go picket the governor's mansion and demand that the sugar farms be turned into water retention areas?

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Oh yeah. The back pumping volume is small compared to what is coming down the Kissimmee River. It isn't so much that water being a threat to Herbert Hoover dyke. It is that they areas being pumped aren't set up to recieve and hold over-flow from the lake. And the sugar water is nasty with excess nutrients.

Another Oh Yeah. Look at the Port Myaca section of the dyke over the last few years. Some huge new pump facilities have been built since 2012. 

Oh yeah again. Rick Scott said the solution to the Lake O discharges was to just make the dyke higher and stronger so the lake could be safely held at 18, 19, 20 feet. You know what that would do to what remains of the marshes and SAV on which the fisheries in the lake depend?

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Bullshit!

Liar!

The South Florida Water Management District is controlled by:

The Governing Board consists of Daniel O'Keefe, Chair; Kevin Powers, Vice Chair; Rick Barber, Sandy Batchelor, Mitch Hutchcraft, James Moran, Juan Portuondo, Timothy Sargent and Glenn Waldman.

The Executive Director of the agency is Peter Antonacci.

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The REAL truth is....both of the forum idiots are OWNED.
-BOTH of them have no clue who their owner is.
-They are both card carrying narcissists.
^These are PROVED facts.

All appointed by the governor

Again...BULLSHIT!

The Governing Board appoints the Executive Director, who directs all South Florida Water Management District activities. The Florida Senate confirms this candidate.

ALL Governing Board members MUST also be confirmed by the Florida State Senate!

Sucks to be so wrong so often.



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The REAL truth is....both of the forum idiots are OWNED.
-BOTH of them have no clue who their owner is.
-They are both card carrying narcissists.
^These are PROVED facts.

..and they were confirmed by a Republican Senate. The same senate that passed legislation that lets corporations police themselves when it comes to pollution.

I believe the director Scott appointed is a developer from the Keys with no environmental background and experience.

I didn't vote for Scott and I didn't vote for Posey. I have nothing to do with the pollution that plagues the state. If you want real change, vote for a Democrat.

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I was right.

He would rather lie about the GOP and their actions than admit that they are directly responsible for diluting the regulations that were the basis of our protection.

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"One of the reasons why propaganda tries to get you to hate government is because it's the one existing institution in which people can participate to some extent and constrain tyrannical unaccountable power." Noam Chomsky.

Ahh, yes...once again utterly clueless and even more ignorant F.ucking K.ook flaps its MILO! suckin blubbery lips about something it simply either doesnt understand. Or deliberately lies and spins about.
And or both.
A chumpfscum maggot and a rick scott sodomist has no place
on this or any other forum daring an opinion on this issue.
It is you and your support of the enemies of our natural resources in my state that are at the root of the problem.
So: sit the fuck down. And for god sake, shut the fuck up.
I will start posting facts from legit sources. But: rick scott and our pig sugar paid off legislators ARE the root and the source of the problems. Period.....

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It's a democratic hoax

FK the lying, clueless turd.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...ndustry_n_5627128.html

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I was right.

..and he will vote for Scott to be in the senate and for Putnam to become governor, then bitch because our environment is shit.



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I was right.

Edited: 09/24/2017 at 12:00 PM by Cole

All nine of the current governing board members of the SFWMD were appointed by Rick Scott. The executive director is recommended by the board, but subject to the governor's approval and senate confirmation. The previous ED (very recently replaced) was a state attorney, no science or water resources experience.

That's like saying that you have nothing to do with abortion but being an abortion doctor you just keep killing babies!!

YOU are the one polluting!

Get another job!

What you do is sick!

Blame it on whomever you want...it's YOU doing it!

One other thing...IDIOT...MOST of those creeps have been in office for years!

Scott only appointed two!

FOOL!

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The REAL truth is....both of the forum idiots are OWNED.
-BOTH of them have no clue who their owner is.
-They are both card carrying narcissists.
^These are PROVED facts.

WOW!

That's some real current crap you have right there Coleslaw!

07/28/2014.

You also failed to mention this: "The hunting trips were classified as fundraising events."

Is that the BEST you can do?!?!

FOOL!

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The REAL truth is....both of the forum idiots are OWNED.
-BOTH of them have no clue who their owner is.
-They are both card carrying narcissists.
^These are PROVED facts.

You're not even making sense of your lies anymore. Big sugar is it polluting but YOU are the polluter? Insanity.

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"One of the reasons why propaganda tries to get you to hate government is because it's the one existing institution in which people can participate to some extent and constrain tyrannical unaccountable power." Noam Chomsky.

South Florida Water Management is the liable entity.

They are in bed with Big Sugar.

Been in bed with Big Sugar for decades!

Coleslaw technically works for Big Sugar.

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The REAL truth is....both of the forum idiots are OWNED.
-BOTH of them have no clue who their owner is.
-They are both card carrying narcissists.
^These are PROVED facts.

I oversee rain, ground and surface water sites. They measure rain fall and the height of the water, they have nothing to do with how the water got there or how it got polluted. That is state business.

Flooding and groundwater are extremely important in this state, are you really dumb enough to believe we shouldn't be monitoring them?

You voted for Scott, what did you expect?

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I was right.

You work for Big Sugar...I don't give a shit what you say!

You're a liar.



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The REAL truth is....both of the forum idiots are OWNED.
-BOTH of them have no clue who their owner is.
-They are both card carrying narcissists.
^These are PROVED facts.

You defended Scott's free trips from Big Sugar on one hand, then attack them with the other?

You are a fool among fools. Pathetic.

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I was right.

As i said: shut the fuck up ignorant chumpfdirt scott sucking maggot. Criminally ignorant and stupid.
If odiferous noises emanate from this goon, its lies or propaganda. As i said before: dimwit wouldnt know a FACT! if it was shoved in its bunghole.
There's tremendous information available for us, the MAJORITY! of thinking voters. Who have had enough of this lying propaganda and destruction of our water resources and businesses. And then dare call those actions "CONSERVATIVE"! And we can do something about it y'all

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It's a democratic hoax