➤ Big Sugar is suing the Army Corps, trying to block construction (again) of the Everglades Reservoir project. They claim it will not provide THEM with more water for irrigation. False claims + bad intentions = more distractions.
➤ Health officials issue toxic blue-green algae (cyanobacteria) bloom alerts for multiple Lake Okeechobee locations.
➤ Harmful sugarcane burns garner national attention from the press and members of Congress following the investigative report from ProPublica and the Palm Beach Post.
EVERGLADES CALL TO ACTION
The Army Corps is in the final stages of writing LOSOM – the rules to better manage the water in Lake O. They have received tens of thousands of emails from the public, and they are still listening. Even if you sent an email previously, they want to hear from you!
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Sugar lawsuit says Corps is breaking a promise made in a 2000 plan to save the Everglades | Palm Beach Post
The arrogance of three sugar corporations to claim the public’s water as their own is more than outrageous, it is destructive. They will not go quietly – hence, more lawsuits. Keep fighting, Floridians. You are making the difference.
Lake O discharges: Sugar growers sue Army Corps over EAA reservoir. Will it delay project? | TC Palm
Big Sugar is hopping mad and suing the Army Corps for MORE of the public’s water. The days of one crop with no nutritional value, subsidized by the taxpayers, contributing less than one quarter of one percent to our economy, commandeering the water for the rest of South Florida for their private use, are nearing an end. Proof: Angry temper tantrums seen in three MORE sugar lawsuits.
FDLE opens investigation into controversial Central Florida Senate election | Orlando Sentinel
We’ll take a stab at a prediction on this one – Big Sugar has it’s fingerprints all over these three ghost candidate campaigns. With multiple state agencies investigating, this will be VERY interesting to watch unfold.
‘A complete failure of the state’: Authorities didn’t heed researchers’ calls to study health effects of burning sugar cane | ProPublica
Like others in the Glades, Peggy Cuyler, 37, doesn’t let her kids outside during cane season. The reactions are immediate, she said. “It chokes them.”
Miami-Dade commissioner’s push to move Urban Development Boundary meets resistance | Miami Herald
There is a hard line in Miami-Dade County to guard against further development into protected and critical wetlands and the Everglades. It’s the Urban Development Boundary, or UDB, and another set of developers wants to cross it. They’re using Miami-Dade County Commissioner Kionne McGhee to do it.