"thunder" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 28 Jan 2006 13:52:47 +0000, NOYB wrote:


The ban has helped certain populations like seatrout over the past
several
years... but overall the fishing has been poor this year. The Army Corp
of Engineers is dumping too much freshwater down the Caloosahatchee to
drain Okeechobee, and it's killing the estuary system.

The offshore scene (30 miles) is still doing pretty well, but the bait
fish run (and the king and spanish mackeral/tarpon that follow them)
which
usually takes place in the Fall simply didn't happen this year. Most
believe that the runoff from the Caloosahatchee is to blame. The Corp
was
pumping something like 2 million gallons of polluted lake water per
minute
into the estuaries and onto the beaches of Ft. Myers and Sanibel.

It may get worse, before it gets better. The St. Lucie River is now so
bad that there is a "no contact" advisory. The group defending the St.
Lucie want more water released into the Calooshatchee. I've never been
too impressed with Florida's "good old boy" governing style. They seem to
be willing to trash all of South Florida, all so a few West Palm families
can make their money in sugar. It doesn't seem right to me.

It doesn't seem right to me either. In the mid-90's, voters adopted an
Amendment known as "polluter pays". With "polluter pays", the law was
written such that whoever did the polluting of the Everglades, would have to
pay for the cleanup. There was a class-action suit filed in 1998 regarding
the government's inaction on the matter...and as far as I know, there's
still been no ruling on the matter:

http://www.saveoureverglades.org/pol...lass_main.html

About 2 weeks ago, they stopped the releases down the Caloosahatchee. I
went out today, and that awful brown water we have had since last Fall, is
now a pretty green/blue.

Unfortunately, some nincompoop at South Florida Water Mgmt has decided that
the salinity in the estuary system has gotten too high again (at least
that's the excuse)...so they're going to release more water down the river.

Recently, Sen. Bill Nelson came to Ft. Myers to inspect the water quality
issue. He's seeking Federal funding for alternative water basins/reservoirs
to dump the Okeechobee water into. But why?!? Big Sugar ought to pay...not
the American taxpayer. Nevertheless, the water quality has been pretty good
since his trip. ;-)