On behalf of the founders of the Now or Neverglades Declaration, I want you wish each of you Happy Holidays and a Healthy New Year!
As 2016 comes to a close in our lives as Everglades and clean water warriors, we must ask ourselves – what is ahead?
This year began with toxic, algal blooms in South Florida waters (including our coastal communities and Florida Bay) – yet ends with hope for what is to come next.
We have found an Everglades champion in Joe Negron. In August, in front of a standing room of business leaders, environmentalists and local residents, Florida Senate President Joe Negron announced his plan to move forward with the much-needed EAA Reservoir.
The Weather Channel recently produced a film that backs up the facts and truth behind the Lake Okeechobee problem and what’s at stake.
Also this month, The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Committee on Independent Scientific Review of Everglades Restoration Progress (CISRERP), a non-governmental body charged with providing Congress with independent and objective scientific information, released its sixth biennial review on the progress of Everglades restoration.
The 2016 findings underscored declarations by more than 200 scientists that critical water storage outlined in the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) is falling far behind what is needed to protect this one-of-a-kind ecosystem.
We are gambling with Florida’s future. What the people of Florida want now is action. Senate President Negron’s plan to buy land for water storage south of Lake Okeechobee is the key to getting restoration back on track.
We also continue to grow our grassroots army, with close to 40,000 signatures on the #NowOrNeverglades Declaration.
Thank you for being part of the movement. This is just the beginning, so we ask that you stay along with us for the ride, because the best is yet to come.
We will restore America’s Everglades for future generations!
Sandy Moret
Islamorada, Florida
