Scott Lacks Insight

Scott Lacks Insight as He Tries to Fix Our Springs by Throwing Money at the Symptom
As a candidate, I find that Scott’s 10-year pledge of $500M for repairing our springs lacks insight; he is throwing money at the symptom, not the problem. If my house were flooding because of a massive hole in the roof, Scott would likely hire his friends to mop the floor and ignore the hole in the roof.

Like my flooding house, the degrading water quality of our springs is a symptom. We need to attack the reasons for their degradation. The reasons for our degrading springs are: 1) We are withdrawing too much water. 2) We are overloading the springs with toxins and nutrients because of overuse of pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers. 3) Climate change is causing large shifts in historical weather patterns. 4) We are paving and over-developing land that functioned as a natural and free filter.

The problem with Scott’s water and environmental plan is not limited to our springs. To address the agriculture destruction of the Everglades and to oversee its restoration, Scott appointed Mitchel A. Hutchcraft. Mitch is the Vice President of King Ranch, a massive South Florida farming firm with land holdings of 20,000 acres. King Ranch’s cane sugar farms are part of “Big Sugar”, which is responsible for much of the Everglades’ destruction.

We are running out of time to fix our ever-increasing list of problems. We need elect someone who understands the difference between a symptom and a problem. Someone who is not beholden to their overseers. Someone willing to attack the problems at their source.

Most of those caught up in our corrupt and dysfunction political system say that fixing our problems is easier said than done. To address the degradation of our water and over-development of our land, I say that as Governor, I will use the power of the office and Declare an Environmental State of Emergency.

Keith Stegath, Candidate for Governor
www.fla-gov.org