Yesterday I was sitting on my little 17’ boat in the middle of Tarpon Bay enjoying the sunshine and the beauty that was all around me. We like to go over there and just turn the engine off and just drift. Sometimes we see a dolphin or two and can even see a manatee every now and then. There is always a ton of birds like pelicans, egrets and cormorants. Very peaceful but yet still very much alive. As I was sitting there I was wondering what my next subject should be for my blog so I sent out a tweet asking for suggestions. I am so widely read that only one person replied back but the suggestion fit what I was doing that day. The suggestion was that I should write about clean water. I have written about the environment and clean water before but I am pretty sure that I will write many times about the environment that surrounds me.

I grew up on the Great Lakes in the 50s and 60s. I swam, fished and just enjoyed the beauty that Lake Michigan had to offer for our daily lives. As an adult I sailed for more than 30 years on that great lake both racing and just cruising. I learned that the water around us is something to be cherished and not taken for granted.  As a youth I saw a lot of the effects of pollution on the Great Lakes. Industry needed water and the Great Lakes had it. Industry needed  to transport goods and that could be done on the Great Lakes using huge Great Lake Freighters like the Edmond Fitzgerald. During much of that time many Industries really didn’t care what they were dumping into the lakes and in many cases,  many cities didn’t either. Lake Erie was at one time was so polluted it was declared dead. Did people know what they were doing? Well, the answer is yes. The first Federal Water Pollution Control Act was enacted in 1948. Growing public awareness led to the Amended Federal Water Pollution Control act in 1972 which became known as the Clean Water Act.

I think that most of us would agree that everyone has a right to clean drinking water. For more than a century we have known that the lead in pipes is dangerous especially to children. After a century we have not done enough about it. Could it be that it is more of an inner-city problem than a problem in suburban America? Could it be that it is a bigger problem in older and poorer cities like Flint Michigan so the average middle class person does not care? Could it be because we haven’t done enough to clean up our aging water treatment facilities? Could it be that for years our water infrastructure has been ignored just like many of our inner city problem because we have turned our backs on the poor? Could it be because the rich could care less if the poor live or die? Maybe all of the above and more?  The Biden Administration has stepped up to the plate on this one and it is a good thing because both parties are guilty on this front .

After all we know about water pollution and how we have to protect our wetlands along comes Trump and rolls back decades of clean water protection. Why? To make it easier on businesses and farmers not to comply with existing Federal guidelines. The Clean Water Act was put there to make it harder to pollute. It is not suppose to be a business friendly Act. Business shouldn’t be able to put profit over life and the environment. The Gulf of Mexico has a dead zone of over 6000 sq. miles. Most of that is man made from runoff from cities and agriculture. These dead zones are also starting to show up in other parts like the Pacific Northwest. All life begins with our oceans and we need to protect them from greed and from a lack of caring. We need to protect them from ourselves. Trumps record in the environment and climate change was not a good one that is for sure.

When I first moved to Florida a couple of years ago we were in the midst of a perfect storm. Water was being released from Lake Okeechobee causing a Green Algae bloom while the Red Tide was happening. The results were hundreds of thousand or even maybe millions of marine life dead. I saw it with my own eyes in Pine Island Sound. Things were so bad that people with respiratory problems were encouraged to wear masks. The death of all the marine life was enough to bring me to tears. If we are going to survive we need to do a better job.

The other day as I was returning to the Marina were I keep my boat and a boat flying a Trump flag was just going out. Boats flying Trump flags are still very common here in Florida. What struck me funny about the Trump flag he was flying said “Don’t Blame Me. I Voted For Trump”. Here was a man enjoying the waters and praising a man that would destroy our waters for profit and complaining about a man, Biden that is trying to help save them.  We are our own worst enemy.

 

History of the Clean Water Act | US EPA

Trump rolls back decades of Clean Water Act protections - BBC News

Happening Now: Dead Zone in the Gulf 2021 (noaa.gov)

Dead Zones of the Pacific Northwest | Ocean Today (noaa.gov)

Every Insane Thing Donald Trump Has Said About Global Warming – Mother Jones