Let’s Do Our Jobs on Region’s Environment

The following guest column by Gulf Coast President/CEO Mark Pritchett appeared in the April 17, 2021 edition of SRQ Daily:

You would think we’d get it by now. Are our collective memories that short?

Just three years ago, a toxic red tide bloom along our regional shorelines devastated our tourism economy, degraded our quality of life, and killed our sealife. Also in 2018, a different but noxious blue green slime spoiled the fresh waters on both coasts and created another “Floriduh” headline.

But here we are again. Making international negative news when the Piney Point industrial site in Manatee County literally spilled over into a crisis. The effluent plume from this phosphate processing waste dump will linger in Tampa Bay for months, possibly fueling another red tide outbreak and destroying local sealife.

And it only gets worse. A model wetlands-redevelopment project planned for Sarasota that would restore wetlands and improve water quality going into Phillippi Creek and Sarasota Bay was denied funding by our own local representative on the Southwest Florida Water Management District.

When are we going to learn? Our local waters are our Blue Economy. But some of our recent actions and policies treat them like our blue dumping ponds.

Protecting and restoring environmental water quality is one of the most important things we can do to maintain and improve our region’s coveted quality of life. The recreation, tourism, fishing, and real estate for which we’re known all depend on healthy waterways. Tax revenues from these activities fund the infrastructure, roads, schools, parks, beaches, and social services that we expect and rely on. Clean water is not only an environmental issue for our region. It is an economic issue. It is a health issue. It is an equity issue. It should not be a partisan issue.

Read the full article here in the SRQ DAILY SATURDAY PERSPECTIVES EDITION