Swimmers enjoying Rainbow Springs State Park, via Florida State Parks.
Dear Santa,
Hi there! Hope you’re doing well this year, in spite of the North Pole’s accelerated melt rate. I hear that’s happening because of that thing our governor and Legislature don’t want us to talk about. Don’t put coal in their stockings, though — they’ll probably just burn it.
I want to start this letter by thanking you for the many wonderful gifts you’ve brought us already. We’ve enjoyed an early Christmas bonanza here in Florida, thanks to three pieces of positive news:
1) The newly reconstituted Milton City Council — remade by river advocates who were worried about the future of the Blackwater River — voted to move the new sewer plant so it won’t pollute one of the most pristine rivers in the South.
2) The newly reconstituted Manatee County Commission reversed its decision shrinking its development buffers, which the old pro-development majority passed last year to make it easier to pave over wetlands. The new commissioners restored the old rules that were more protective of those vital swamps, marshes, and bogs.
3) Most surprising of all, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection may be buying the land by the Apalachicola River on which the ironically named Clear Water Land & Minerals wants to drill for oil.
First the state agency says yes to the drilling permit, then it’s sued by outraged environmental groups, then it suddenly discovers it could just buy the property and protect it. Why not do that in the first place?
“Florida mulls buying land that includes Apalachicola River oil drilling site,” Politico Florida reported last week. Here’s hoping they stop mulling and start acting to, you know, protect the environment, like it says in their name.
This much good news is nice, Santa, but I’m wondering if you’d be willing to indulge my request for just a few more Christmas miracles.
For starters, let’s talk some more about the DEP.
Breaking the law
I called up several folks for ideas on what to tell you, Santa. One of the first people I talked to was Ryan Smart, executive director of the Florida Springs Council. He knew exactly what to ask you for.
“I want state agencies to follow the law,” he told me.
Doesn’t sound too outrageous, does it? But in Florida, following the law seems to be downright difficult if not impossible if it offends some polluter or resource hog.
In 2016, the Legislature designated 30 of the state’s waterways as “Outstanding Florida Springs,” and ordered the DEP to adopt rules to prevent any harm to these springs from groundwater withdrawals.
Did the DEP folks jump up and shout, “Yessir, right away”? No, they did not.
Instead of responding to the alarm, the DEP has repeatedly hit the snooze button. Year after year, DEP would offer up some draft rules that were clearly inadequate, then withdraw them. Nothing would reach the point where anyone could sue.
Each time that DEP delayed adopting anything, the rules from before the law passed remained in place. Those are the rules the state agencies continue to follow as they issue hundreds of permits that harm those 30 springs.
Finally, last week, the DEP officially issued its proposed new rules. They’re just as bad as the old ones that were in place in 2016, Smart said. But now, the Florida Springs Council can sue the DEP to make it do what the law ordered.
“There are a lot of good laws on the books,” he told me. “If only the state agencies would follow them.”
That leads us to my next request. It involves the part of the DEP that oversees the state parks.
Protect the parks
Even though you live pretty far north of here, you may have heard that we had a big ruckus recently. It was over the DEP allowing some little-known organizations to build golf courses, hotels, and pickleball courts in our award-winning state parks.
“Florida’s state parks are one of the glories of this place we call home,” I wrote then. “Our 175 parks span nearly 800,000 acres where you can hike, fish, swim, bike, canoe, kayak, watch wildlife, or simply gaze in open-mouthed awe at your surroundings.”
The prospect of adding golf and pickleball to those activities did not thrill park fans. People from every political stripe who enjoy our parks hated this proposal. There were more red lights flashing than if poor Rudolph wandered into a Hall of Mirrors.
Finally, Gov. Ron DeSantis emerged from wherever he’d been hiding to say the DEP’s plans were half-baked and would be put on hold. He didn’t say when they might be fully baked, but the implication was that they’d come back to life in 2025.
This month, Sen. Gayle Harrell filed a bill to drive a stake into the heart of those plans and prevent them from ever reviving.
Senate Bill 80 would prohibit the parks from offering “sports that require sporting facilities, such as golf courses, tennis courts, pickleball fields, and other similar facilities.” The bill would also prohibit construction activities within a state park that “may cause significant harm to the resources” of the park.
Right now, there’s no companion bill in the House, which would make passing this nearly impossible in the session that starts March 4. Can you help us out there, Santa?
With or without a big red bow on top, please deliver a companion parks bill in the House and urge them to pass it. Impress on our elected representatives how popular such a bill would be — regardless of whether it embarrasses the governor.
Now, I know you prefer milk and cookies, but it’s time to talk about water.
Beach blanket bingo
Florida’s most beautiful features include our many waterways. Our rivers, bays, estuaries, and lakes are an important part of Florida’s identity, as well as a big draw for the tourists.
Yet we’ve done a miserable job of keeping our water clean.
I could cite lots of examples, such as the fact that Florida has more polluted lakes than any other state. There’s now a concerted effort to put the right to clean water in our state constitution.
But let’s focus on just one major failure: Our beaches.
When I talked to Katie Bauman, Florida policy manager for the Surfrider Foundation, she told me she’d ask Santa to fix our beach monitoring system. Specifically, she’d request you help Florida find a way to plug the holes in its beach water quality monitoring, which are many.
“Water is the very lifeblood of our state,” she said.
Despite this obvious fact, the Legislature has failed since 2011 to fully fund what’s supposed to be a statewide water monitoring system, she told me. Tallahassee is supposed to match what the federal government puts in to constitute a full $1 million but has not done so for 13 years.
“We’ve been completely reliant on an annual $500,000 appropriation from the federal government,” she said. “As a result, there are places not being monitored and gaps in the system.”
Unless you’re one of the Surfing Santas, you might not know this, but most people who go to the beach like to know beforehand if they’re plunging into water that could make them sick. Nobody wants to play the sudden illness and death version of Beach Blanket Bingo.
Everyone tries to avoid what the public health experts euphemistically call a “high fecal coliform count,” or even some harmful toxic algae blooms. We’ve had lots of those blooms in recent years, which should tell you what a terrific job the DeSantis DEP is doing on this.
Yet right now, there are stretches of the Florida coast where you can’t find out if the water is too polluted for swimming. So, Santa, please deliver us a way to pay for covering those gaps and unifying the monitoring system.
Otherwise, ewwwwww.
Summoning the spirits
I know this seems like I’m asking you for what Pearl Bailey referred to as “A Five-Pound Box of Money.” But I’m not — not really.
What we most need in Florida right now are some leaders who would rather improve our state than pull silly stunts using our tax money (and then waste even more money defending it in court).
When I talked to Casey Darling Kniffin of the Florida Wildlife Federation, she reminded me that in 2014, 75% of Florida voters passed a measure known as Amendment 1. The measure was supposed to provide $300 million a year for acquiring land that needs preservation as state parks, forests, beaches, and springs.
The Legislature has steadfastly refused to spend that much money on what the voters ordered them to spend it on. Yes, we’re dealing with more people who don’t want to obey the law.
Surely the recent parks eruption has convinced them of the political danger of seeming like an enemy of preserving what’s best about our state. That’s why Kniffin’s request, dear Santa, is for at least one or two years of full funding from Amendment 1.
Is there any chance you’re friends with the late Charles Dickens? Could you perhaps dispatch those Spirits of Christmas Past, Present, and Future that scared Mr. Scrooge straight? Maybe the Christmas Future fellow could show them the dire consequences of their wrong-headed actions.
The person who first mentioned summoning the spirits to me was Matthew Schwartz of the South Florida Wildlands Association. He’s concerned about our runaway growth that’s making everything from our traffic to our sewer problems worse.
“No matter how much success environmentalists have,” he said, “it’s impossible to make progress on big problems like shrinking wildlife habitat, wetlands protection and restoration, deteriorating aquifers and springsheds, algae blooms, and the health of Florida’s estuaries unless the rampant rezoning of Florida’s rural lands for new development is reined in.”
Last but not least, I have a request related to our Florida wildlife.
An un-bear-able situation
You may have noticed this since you fly over our state once a year, but lots of people here own firearms and they’re not shy about using them, especially on holidays like Christmas, the Fourth of July, and New Years’ Eve. For some people here, the answer to every problem is: “Shoot first, ask questions later!”
At their Dec. 11 meeting, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission was supposed to hear a report on our bear population. The staff “recommended no changes to the state’s Bear Management Plan,” according to Schwartz.
But some of their bosses were ready to shoot at stuff anyway.
“To the surprise of staff, commissioners asked them to have (a) potential hunt plan ready by May of 2025 for more public debate and an eventual vote,” Schwartz reported.
Hunters killed 36 lactating mama bears, out of more than 300 bears that were slain in just two days. The FWC ended the hunt early because the number of deaths quickly exceeded the quota it had set for the week.
That 2015 hunt created so much bad publicity for the FWC that the state agency has repeatedly shied away from holding another one. But as more and more humans have invaded bear habitat, there’s been more and more clamor to let everyone shoot at them again.
Earlier this year, in fact, our fine legislators passed a new law to make it legal to “stand your ground” against bears. The sponsor, Republican Rep. Jason Shoaf, said this bill was aimed (sorry!) not at Florida’s regular old shy bears but rather at what he called “crack bears.”
“When you run into one of these crack bears,” he said, “you should be able to shoot it, period. And you shouldn’t have to pause or be afraid you’re gonna get arrested or harassed or pay fines. That’s just crazy.”
The claim that there are bears on crack running amok in the Panhandle is a big load of what bears deposit in the woods. Yet the credulous House and Senate passed the bill by wide margins and DeSantis quietly signed it into law.
Now we’re going to talk about shooting those regular old shy bears too, because our rampant sprawl is pushing them out of their habitat.
So, for my final request, dear Santa, could you provide the bears with some safe space where they can hide out until this hunting fervor fades? Maybe even take some back to the North Pole with you. The way it’s been warming up there lately, these Florida natives should feel right at home.
YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE.