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TCPalm Trending Quick context on what people are talking about on the Treasure Coast - Don't let our toxic algae stories be lost

Stuart News - 3/7/2017

Last August, as blue-green algae decimated our waterways, I lugged several thousand letters – your letters – up the steps of the state capitol, intent upon delivering them to Gov. Rick Scott.

You clipped the form we printed in the paper, you scrawled your own letters, you filled postcards with your anguish at how this beautiful place should be so defiled. You demanded change – stop the discharges, buy the land.

But perhaps most strikingly, you told your stories.

You wrote about how the crisis had affected your life, your home, your family. Boaters wrote about how they'd become fearful of the water. Business owners wrote that customers were staying away, and revenues were drying up. Several wrote they were sure the algae was affecting their health, and they worried about the potential long-term damage.

The stories were moving and powerful. They put a human face on the ecological tragedy.

As the Legislature convenes this week, these stories will clash with a competing narrative. And our future might depend on which one resonates the most.

Our region will take center stage in Tallahassee over the next few months as legislators address several issues affecting the Treasure Coast. The marquee battle will be over Senate President Joe Negron's desire to buy land south of Lake Okeechobee for water storage. Sen. Rob Bradley's Senate Bill 10 and its House companion, HB 761, have generated furious pushback from communities south of the lake and the powerful sugar industry, which seek to kill the proposal.

Politics as usual is in full swing. Sugar cane farmers have blasted the Everglades Foundation for employing "fake science" and "fake economics" in its support of the Negron plan. Similarly, a full-page ad by U.S. Sugar in Sunday's Stuart News accused Mark Perry, executive director of the Florida Oceanographic Society, of "ignoring" facts "to parrot fake science that claims buying farm land south of Lake Okeechobee will fix all water problems."

But opponents also are marshaling their own stories in service of the cause. The sugar industry and groups like Glades Lives Matter tout the hard-working farmers in the Everglades Agricultural Area who could see their livelihood threatened if 60,000 acres is taken out of production and used instead for water storage. On its Facebook page, U.S. Sugar documents the tour groups who visit the sugarcane field to learn about how the product is grown and harvested.

Knowledge is power. But so is the emotional connection made by these narratives.

To be sure, the concerns of the glades communities are legitimate and must be addressed. While the algae hammered us, we don't wish to hammer them with job losses or economic hardship. This doesn't have to be a zero-sum game.

But we hope, just as we must respect their concerns and their story, that the communities south of the lake respect ours.

What's striking is how little regard opponents of the reservoir plan seem to have for those of us affected by last summer's crisis. It's almost thrown in as an aside – of course something should be done, but Negron's plan is the wrong "something."

If you don't live here, it seems, that something could be anything as long as it doesn't require sacrifice.

We, on the other hand, already have sacrificed.

When the Weather Channel's Kait Parker visited our region to film the documentary "Toxic Lake" last year, she interviewed Shannon Chapman of Martin County. Chapman talked about how her 20-month-old son, Bodie, inadvertently ingested algae while swimming and vomited all over his crib the next morning. He took a long time to recover from his illness. Chapman said her pediatrician noted while the water was beautiful to look at, perhaps the kids shouldn't swim in it.

In Tallahassee, Legislators and lobbyists will talk about acre-feet of water, they'll talk about CERP and CEPP, they'll talk about the billions it will cost to buy land as the reservoir plan proposes.

But as they do, they also need to remember Bodie Chapman and everyone else who was personally affected by the algae last year.

These are our stories. And all we ask is that we not be forced to repeat them.