Gainesville Sun · It’s time for new laws to protect Florida’s waters

Photo: John Moran

Thomas Linzey
This article was first published in the Gainesville Sun on Jan. 30, 2020. 

Across the state, Florida waterways are under siege.

In North Florida, the Santa Fe River is threatened by proposed phosphate mining while being impacted by agriculture and nitrate pollution. In South Florida, the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie rivers are routinely assaulted by toxic releases. Pensacola Bay is choked from nutrient and sediment dumping, while the Wekiva and Econlockhatchee rivers struggle to breathe from nitrogen and phosphorus loading.

Couple that with Nestle’s proposal to pump 1.1 million gallons of water a day from one of Florida’s most popular springs, and it becomes clear that our current laws are failing us.

In response to those threats, however, people in nine Florida counties, including Alachua, have begun to demand stronger water protections.

These community leaders are proposing new county laws that recognize people’s rights to clean water as well as the rights of Florida’s waterways to exist, to flourish and to be restored.

While their work represents a seismic shift in how our system of law views nature, the people of Florida are not alone in advancing these rights.