We all know that Martin County has been fighting against the ACOE and SFWMD’s Lake Okeechobee discharges into the St Lucie River/Southern Indian River Lagoon since the 1930s. But if someone asked, “when did the modern river movement REALLY get going?” Without a doubt, the answer would be: August 3rd, 2013, at the “Save the St Lucie River and Wildlife Protest,” St Lucie Lock and Dam, organized via Facebook by at the time, 29-year-old Evan Miller.
In the year 2013, Evan along with friends, not only put together THE protest at the locks, but also other memorable events such as the “Sandbar Party” where hundreds of attendees wore toxic radiation suits in light of the toxic river waters of 2013, as well as the rally at the beach also bringing thousands where the people spelled out in human form SAVE OUR RIVER!
I spoke with Evan about a month ago as he was organizing this Saturday’s event “Save Our Rivers, Restore the Everglades, March to Buy the Sugarland!” and in the course of the conversation he told me that “Facebook had changed, and that it has become more difficult to reach as many people as were reached in 2013.”
I found this really interesting, especially that Evan knew such, (the young people are so much wiser to social media), and it got me thinking that this “would make sense” as the Arab Spring overseas and all that was happening with social media on a world level from 2011-2013 did in fact become an issue for governments world-wide trying to “keep order…”
Perhaps “the government” did somehow get Facebook to change its logarithms so that crowds/protesters would have a more difficult time “organizing”…sometimes against their own governments….I do remember hearing something about all this on the news….then it went quiet…..
Anyway, Evan is a local “genius” at organizing events and helping to put pressure on elected officials and agencies thus inspiring support of clean water for the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon. Evan and good friend Clint Starling, also a great organizer, have represented Citizen’s for Clean Water on the Rivers Coalition since 2013. (http://riverscoalition.org)
We river “ancient ones,” are thankful to this younger generation that has turned up the volume and is using new tools for riding our ancient river protest wave to a better water future!
To really add to the event, reports are out that a VIP, maybe President Obama, will be flying over on Saturday on his way to play golf…..SO COME OUT this Saturday, March 28th, at 11:00, fly the flag—bring your parents! bring your kids!—-to Stuart Beach and participate in Evan’s newest rally, a march from Stuart to Jensen Beach: SAVE THE RIVER. RESTORE THE EVERGLADES. MARCH TO BUY THE SUGARLAND!
Let’s support Evan and our rivers once again by the thousands! Let’s demand clean water for today and for the future!
For information go to event : (https://www.facebook.com/citizens4cleanwater) SAVE OUR RIVER, RESTORE THE EVERGLADES! MARCH TO BUY THE SUGARLAND! ___________________
TC PALM article, Tyler Treadway, SRL- Wildlife Protest 2013: http://www.tcpalm.com/franchise/indian-river-lagoon/health/indian-river-lagoon-rally_20140515202725771
