Sunshine State Republicans weakened environmental protections. The ensuing slimeageddon is changing their party.
Excerpt from this Grist story:
Before you start to think this is just a story about dogs, consider when it happened — the tail end of last August, during the summer that algae ate Florida. Cyanobacteria filled Lake Okeechobee, Florida’s largest lake, while another pollution-induced environmental hazard, red tide, crept up both of Florida’s coasts, reaching as far north as Daytona Beach. Tourists questioned whether it was safe to take a dip in Florida’s waters. Governor Rick Scott eventually declared a state of emergency. In a few short months, the Sunshine State’s algae crisis went from a rumor residents shrugged off to a top campaign issue in the 2018 election.
As candidates were out surveying the muck — with plenty of time for photo-ops, of course — Harris’ Pomeranian was spending four days fighting for her life in the veterinary hospital. At one point, Pandora was on eight different IV drugs. Harris made plans with an in-home pet euthanasia specialist before the light returned to Pandora’s eyes. Even though the 54-year old Harris calls the turnaround a miracle, she said she was “pissed” that the Army Corps of Engineers discharged the slime that sickened her dog from Lake Okeechobee into the St. Lucie River in the first place. “These discharges, they’re not just bad for our environment,” Harris said. The real-estate property manager worries that the algae is putting people’s health at risk.
Activists, including South Florida’s Sierra Club chapters and Bull Sugar — a nonprofit that protects Central Florida estuaries — believed there was a link between toxic algae and neurodegeneration in animals, and there’s research to back them up. They tried to educate their neighbors even as some continued to boat and swim in the mucky water. But it wasn’t the environmentalists or the dog owners who forced Florida’s politicians to take notice. They started paying attention because the ugly green slop (as well as the red tide) had started damaging businesses, with significant losses reported in the real estate, commercial fishing, and tourism industries.
As the state’s environmental woes took a toll on businesses across Florida, then-Representative Ron DeSantis began telling voters he’d clean it all up if they elected him governor– and he won office, in part, on that promise. The early returns suggest he’s delivering. Despite earning a lifetime score of 2 percent on the League of Conservation Voters’ environmental scorecard during his six years in the U.S. House of Representatives, the Republican has proposed shifts from the pro-business (and pro-polluting) policies of his predecessor.