Next week will be the final Constitution Revision Commission public hearing before the process of the full commission debating and voting on which proposals, if any, of the 37 proposed, actually make it to the 2018 ballot. The final public hearing will be held on Florida’s west coast, in beautiful St Petersburg, Florida.
I wish to thank the Center for Biological Diversity (http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/about/contact/) for, on their own, embracing P91, “No Oil and Gas Drilling in Florida’s Territorial Seas,” our state waters. Their press release is below. All are welcome to attend!
The image above was made by Friends of the River Kidz. I love it; please share!
Press Conference in St. Petersburg Will Support Ballot Measure Banning Nearshore Oil Drilling in Florida
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla.— Business owners, elected officials, scientists and environmental activists will unite on Tuesday, Mar. 13 to urge Florida’s Constitutional Revision Commission (CRC) to place Proposal 91 on the November 2018 ballot — a constitutional measure that would ban near-shore oil drilling in the state.
Businesses, scientists, elected officials, tourism and environmental will stand in support of Proposal 91 at the commission’s final public hearing being held in St. Petersburg that same day.
“We have a chance to make history and turn the ship,” says Jacqui Thurlow-Lippisch, a CRC member who sponsored Proposal 91 after she was approached by environmental groups. “We would be the only state in the nation to have this in our state constitution.”
What: Press Conference to support a ban on nearshore oil drilling ahead of the Constitutional Revision Commission’s hearing.
When: Tuesday, Mar. 13 at 11 a.m.
Where: University Student Center – USF St. Petersburg, 140 USFSP Harborwalk S, St. Petersburg, FL 33701
Who: Jacqui Thurlow-Lippisch, elected officials, business owners, tourism operation owners, scientists, environmental groups and representatives from the fishing industry.
Background
Proposal 91, being considered by the Constitutional Revision Commission, would ban oil drilling in state waters. The commission meets just once every 20 years to revise Florida’s constitution. It will place measures on the November 2018 ballot that, if approved by voters, will amend the Florida Constitution. As an amendment to the state Constitution, Proposal 91 would prohibit offshore drilling in state waters (within 3 miles on the East Coast, 9 miles on the West Coast).
Proposal 91 has already passed out of two CRC committees and will be voted upon by the full CRC after the final public hearing Mar. 13 in St Petersburg.
The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.6 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.
President Negron’s recent press release about his visit to Washington DC to discuss Lake Okeechobee discharges is below as addressed to the Florida Senate. It pleases me to see that his words are in keeping with his first op-ed on the issue published in TCPalm on October 17, 2012. Some people don’t realize how long Senator Negron has been working on this.
In 2012 Senator Negron wrote:
“While the Corps claims that public safely is its top priority, it ignores calamitous results actually inflicted on the St Lucie Estuary. Its erroneous logic goes something like this: in order to avoid possible harm, we will inflict certain harm. The Army Corps is killing our oyster beds and sea grasses, while turning the St Lucie River into a grotesque brown cesspool unfit for swimming or fishing…”
Senator Negron 2014, JTL
President Office — Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 2, 2017
CONTACT: Katie Betta, (850) 487-5229
MEMORANDUM: UPDATE REGARDING LAKE OKEECHOBEE DISCHARGES
TO: All Senators
On Monday and Tuesday of this week, I had the opportunity to meet in Washington with Senator Rubio, Senator Nelson, Members of Congress, senior budget staff, and high-level representatives of the Army Corps of Engineers to discuss the best way to reduce and ultimately eliminate the devastating discharges from Lake Okeechobee. After completing these meetings and reviewing related documents, here are five things I know:
1. If Florida advances funds to complete the rehabilitation of the Herbert Hoover Dike around Lake Okeechobee, the federal government will not repay the money to Florida. We will have simply spent hundreds of millions of dollars of General Revenue funds on what is unquestionably a federal responsibility.
2. As I have consistently advocated from day one, Florida’s best scientists should determine the Lake Okeechobee Release Schedule (LORS) and not the Army Corps of Engineers. Achieving this goal would take an act of Congress, a highly unlikely outcome.
3. Once the Herbert Hoover Dike rehabilitation is complete in 2024, the Army Corps of Engineers is not committed to storing one more gallon of water in Lake Okeechobee. The LORS must go through a multi-year review process, with the Corps predicting only negligible modifications to the release schedule. The Corps wants to avoid expected negative impacts it believes would result if the Lake is managed at higher levels than the present.
4. Under both the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) and the Central Everglades Planning Project (CEPP), redirecting damaging Lake Okeechobee discharges southward to improve the flow, timing, and distribution of water through the Everglades has already been authorized. The issue is not if we will have additional southern storage, it is when and where.
5. If the Florida Legislature approves and funds additional water storage south of Lake Okeechobee, the Army Corps of Engineers will reevaluate the order of priority in the 2016 Integrated Delivery Schedule (IDS). Florida is a partner in Everglades restoration and its decisions influence and impact federal participation in the 50-50 matching program. An example of this reality is the Corps’ recent initiation of the Lake Okeechobee Watershed one year earlier than planned after adverse discharge events.
I look forward to discussing this important issue further when we reconvene in Tallahassee next week.
