Toxic algae bloom blankets Florida beaches, prompts state of emergency
Source: http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/01/us/florida-algae-pol
"The algae outbreaks are triggered by fertilizer sewage and manure pollution that the state has failed to properly regulate. It's like adding miracle grow to the water and it triggers massive algae outbreaks," Earthjustice spokeswoman Alisa Coe told CNN....
"We've seen this for years and years and instead of addressing the problem, here we are on the Fourth of July weekend with a state of emergency being declared," Coe said. "Usually folks would be out fishing, swimming and enjoying the beach with their families. Instead, they are left with water that is too toxic to touch."
Toxic blooms can affect the gastrointestinal system, liver, nervous system and skin, according to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection....
"We are used to seeing our rivers continually being polluted year after year but we have never seen our beaches polluted. What we are witnessing right now, it's the tip of the iceberg," he said.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/01/us/florida-algae-pollution/index.html
Read more: CNN
DirkGently
(12,151 posts)CurtEastPoint
(18,644 posts)mia
(8,360 posts)Added it to the OP.
Doesn't like regulations. Money is the most important thing of course her will take all of that money with him when he dies so that, the liberals can 't have any.
forest444
(5,902 posts)Reptilian Rick is so toxic, that algae wouldn't stand a chance.
coco77
(1,327 posts)About fun in sunny Florida for the holidays. Maybe he should take a dip to show them how its done.
forest444
(5,902 posts)His friends in Draco must be very jealous.
Fritz Walter
(4,291 posts)Throwing that toxic POS into the water would be the metaphorical last nail. Even the most hardy aquatic life forms would go belly-up!
I live in the St Johns River watershed (well north of the Treasure Ghost), and it's just a matter of time before the Koch Bros' GP Palatka plant's dumping millions of gallons of Dioxin directly into that waterway would yield multi-generational (if not permanent) harm to the flora and fauna here. Of course, Gov. Sauron ignores the protests by the St Johns Riverkeeper and others.
He is altogether evil.
forest444
(5,902 posts)Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)According to some DU'ers, neoliberal economics is great! And you can't complain if you don't have the solution! So it's not perfect but you have to take it anyway!
a la izquierda
(11,794 posts)Had an argument the other day with someone who clearly "knew" better than me. I love being DU-splained about a topic I'm pretty conversant in.
Hoppy
(3,595 posts)There have been regulations to lessen manure runoff but, God forbid anyone tamper with the green lawns in the McMansions and starter castles.
mia
(8,360 posts)Hoppy
(3,595 posts)There was a story in N.Y. Times about 15 years ago. A biologist from Maryland E.P.A. (or whatever it is called) was on the bay and inhaled spores from the algae he was studying. It was reported that after the exposure, he could not perform short division problems.
Scientific
(314 posts)As reported widely, the chemical-ag Zombie Zone is covering a vast area as big as the state of Connecticut this year.
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/06/gulf-mexico-braces-monsterous-dead-zone
SCVDem
(5,103 posts)In So. Ca. Is the prime example of farm runoff killing the wildlife and a resort area.
FlorIda refuses to learn.
Soon they will be inundated by these waters.
sadie jones
(6 posts)No more Cuban embargo,right? Let's buy Cuban sugar like we always did. Sugarcane grows better there with much less help. Hell, with all the great jobs the slug Scott is always bragging about he can certainly find something better for the poor souls who slave in those polluting cane fields and give that amazing lake a real chance at recovery. Maybe the Fanjul family can make nice with Raul and finally go home,their wealth could make a real difference in Cuba, we don't need them or their sugarcane in Florida, we got Rick Scott.
Judi Lynn
(160,527 posts)by suffering, broken, abused, mistreated men for whom they made NO adjustments for safety measures forever, keeping their passports so they could not leave, paying them slave wages, forcing them to live in crowded, filthy shacks, putting propaganda literature around their shacks threatening them to not make trouble, allowing no rest time, no water, nothing for these poor men with giant machetes working themselves to death.
Cuba does NOT want them back, they had enough of them so long ago.
For anyone wanting a good long look at these slimy people, here's the Vanity Fair article written about them:
In the Kingdom of Big Sugar
After their father lost one of Cubas great sugar fortunes to Castros revolution, Alfy and Pepe Fanjul built a new empire in Florida, importing cheap Jamaican labor to do the brutal, dangerous work of sugarcane harvesting, and wielding ever more political power in Tallahassee and Washington, D.C. In 1989, outraged by what he calls modern-day slavery, a crusading 37-year-old lawyer named Edward Tuddenham took them to court, spawning four ongoing class-action suits on behalf of 20,000 former workers. Marie Brenner investigates an epic legal war that pits the Fanjuls American Dream against the nightmare of migrant laborers.
by Marie Brenner,
|January 5, 2011 12:00 am
. . .
According to la bola, the rumor mill in Havana, the Gomez-Mena family emulated the French aristocracy and were as oblivious to the conditions in the fields as their 18th-century counterparts. Sugar had controlled the Cuban economy since the 19th century. Of the ruling sugar families, the Lobos were thought of as the most decent, whereas the Gomez-Menas had a reputation for being ruthless. While Alfy and Pepe Fanjul attended dances at the Havana Yacht Club, Cubas 500,000 cane cutters virtually starved six months out of the year. In Havana, at the Museo de la Revolución, there are now special display cases showing the brutal conditions in the sugar fields, which helped bring about the fall of the Batista regime.
. . .
Once at a fund-raising dinner with Al Gore, Alfy Fanjul brought up the 20-year, $300 million plan to clean up the Everglades that Big Sugar had committed to in 1994. Gores reaction was fast and combative. He appeared irritated that this sugar baronno matter how much money he had donatedwould think that Gore could be massaged in this way. In 1996, Gore had proposed a penny-a-pound polluters tax to protect the Everglades, and had lobbied to turn 100,000 acres of sugarcane fields back into swampland. The Fanjuls had taken Gore on then, calling the president while he was telling Monica Lewinsky that their relationship was over. They also mounted a counterattack on the penny-a-pound ballot initiative which featured incendiary TV commercials saying that the penny a pound would put sugar farmers out of business.
Sitting at the table that night, Gore began multiplying tons of sugar by 10 cents a pound sugar was then selling for about 10 cents above the world-market priceand made it clear that he felt Big Sugar had gotten off cheaply. Seemingly unimpressed by Big Sugars investment of $300 million over 20 years, Gore asked, And how much sugar subsidy do you get every year? Its not a subsidy, Alfy replied. He kept trying to convince the vice president that the $65 million subsidy that enriches Florida Crystals was sensible policy, but when he saw that he was getting nowhere, he retreated into a cold silence.
. . .
He had grown up in a world of bribes, watching his father pay mordidas to President Fulgencio Batista, which, he says, were the cost of doing business with dictators. The Fanjuls stayed above the fray of Cuban politics and refused to listen to rumors of Batistas brutal practice of torturing his enemies. Fanjul senior turned down the dictators offer to make him an ambassador. He was above politics, says Alfy.
. . .
I ask Cameron what he would say to Alfy Fanjul if he were sitting in the car with us. I would say to him that he hides from his dirty work. They try to pat you on the shoulder in order to get you to kill the other guy. Most of their guys in the field are the lead men and the ticket writers. They take them off the knife. They know that cutting cane is very hard, so they try to work on the bosss side. The boss tell them to cheat us, and they say, I have to do my job, man. I have to get away from the slavery. I have seen men working for 30-odd years on the contract. That man is old and shaky. He cannot get up the row as fast as he could. They use the term car faster than carthat man is old, I am young, faster than him.
I have seen young guys who have never cut cane before. I see guys crying and giving blood and coming out of the field crying because he has nothing on his check. I have seen guys injured, got cut, and their back pulled out. I have seen them sent home with nothing.
Nothing lasts forever. And someday those billionaires are going to die, and they are not going to be able to carry a cent with them. Everyone is going to atone for what he done!
More:
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2001/02/floridas-fanjuls-200102
I hope someone will take the time to read this article. It is deeply important in the view it gives of what has been going on in the sugar industry, and, in different forms, other industries where the owners have total control, and have stood even above the law for far too long. Thank you.
blueseas
(11,575 posts)I hope more people read this to fully understand.
sadie jones
(6 posts)Thank you Judy Lynn, I was hoping you'd spot my post knowing you would pick up the ball and run! Those cane fields are a major source of the enviromental degradation of one of the worlds most unique ecosystems. The Fanjuls are the very definition of Facism, their money poisons everything. I've seen Belleglade, I don't think there is an easier way to harvest sugarcane but to subject those workers to such horrific living conditions must surely be criminal, yet nothing has changed for years [ think United Fruit in our own back yard ] sugarcane is a tropical crop Florida is considered the subtropics meaning it is subject to lower temperatures and periods of frost requiring more attention and larger quantities of nitrogen and phosphorous. I have no doubt that the people of Cuba have no interest in ever seeing the Fanjul Family again but at the same time they have certainly worn out their welcome in Florida.
lonestarnot
(77,097 posts)Oil and greed another great combo.
GusBob
(7,286 posts)People are pissed
PatrickforO
(14,573 posts)I know there may be people here who genuinely believe in market solutions, but the neolib penchant for massive deregulation is SO very dangerous because the profit motive is a direct disincentive for businesses to be good environmental citizens. This is why all those consulting firms have told us for so many years that we can either have jobs or a clean environment but not both.
chernabog
(480 posts)Is directly responsible for this.
GusBob
(7,286 posts)Big Sugar is directly responsible
There is vegetable agriculture there too
No animals
chernabog
(480 posts)Plays a huge role in this.
GusBob
(7,286 posts)Every birthday cake we eat contributes more to the problem
Also if you enjoyed tomatoes, green peppers, strawberries or corn on the cob this Spring
yurbud
(39,405 posts)Firebrand Gary
(5,044 posts)Literally.
CRH
(1,553 posts)ought to be good for tourism. Does sound like earth justice.
hay rick
(7,611 posts)It has been clear for some time that toxic discharges from Lake Okeechobee to estuaries on both coasts will occur on a regular basis until more water can safely be sent south. This year just happens to be particularly bad. One of the two largest companies, U. S. Sugar, signed a contract with the state in 2008 to sell the land needed to create storage for water sent south. They changed their mind later and wanted to renege on the deal. They and Florida Crystals (controlled by Cuban expat billionaires, the Fanjuls) decided the easy way to get what they wanted was to buy politicians. They bought Scott, a stable of state legislators, and Marco Rubio. The land was available but the political will to make the purchase evaporated.
GusBob
(7,286 posts)Even the Wall Street Journal calls it a crime
hay rick
(7,611 posts)U. S. Sugar prices are almost double international prices due to import quotas and price supports. They are able to keep their subsidies because food stamps are also in the Farm Bill and representatives use the excuse of protecting food stamps to vote for a bill that includes subsidies. Their business model includes taking starving children as hostages.
They use a portion of the excess profits to buy politicians. The Fanjuls bankrolled Rubio's initial run for the Senate. Sugar lapdogs have made sure that Florida has never enforced the Polluter Pays amendment that was passed by the citizens of Florida back in the 90s. Instead, excess polluted storm water on sugar lands is routed into the tens of thousands of public land known as Storage Treatment Areas and Water Conservation Areas for storage and cleaning. Those lands are filled to capacity by the sugar companies and are therefore not available for excess water from Lake O, even though there are canals and pumps in place and it is all publicly owned and managed. The excess Lake O water then gets redirected to the coasts where it inflicts environmental and economic damage.
GusBob
(7,286 posts)People from all walks of life are pissed
lonestarnot
(77,097 posts)mopinko
(70,102 posts)oreo cookies to mexico, along with a whole lot of candy companies that were formerly in chicago.
they went to mexico and canada mostly for the cheaper sugar.
rexcat
(3,622 posts)in Brevard County FL recently had a major fish kill because of raw sewage being dumped into the water. Pollution of all sorts has been a major issue in FL for years.
Of course the Banana River is actually a very long lagoon rather than a river exacerbating the situation given it is tidal action the brings in water from the ocean to clean the waterway and not water flow as seen in a river.
Florida is a giant clusterf**k.
hay rick
(7,611 posts)The narrow openings on both ends of the lagoon retards tidal flushing. Estuaries with larger inlets are better able to handle discharge events.
Judi Lynn
(160,527 posts)Florida Woman Rinses Off Manatee Lost in Algae Bloom With Hose: 'It Was Struggling to Clear Its Airway'
Johanna Li
July 1, 2016
Since the state of emergency has been declared in four South Florida counties due to the excessive algae bloom, residents in the area have been complaining of its toxic results. One of those residents was a stray manatee, who appeared to be lost through the muddy water and wound up in a canal behind Chris Mascia Palas' home in Stuart.
"My family and I spotted a manatee struggling out behind our house in the canal," Mascia Palas wrote in a viral Facebook post. "It clearly was in search of fresh water."
Mascia Palas told InsideEdition.com she was shocked to find that a manatee had found its way into their canal, since neither she nor her neighbors have ever seen one in the area.
. . .
"As soon as (my husband) put the hose over the 'muck,' the manatee popped out of the water and started drinking water like never before," she told InsideEdition.com. "It was clear this mammal had not had water in a long time. You could see all the green algae coming out of its nose."
More:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/florida-woman-rinses-off-manatee-210600494.html?nhp=1
COLGATE4
(14,732 posts)And coresist, what could go wrong?