Chalk another one up for the metaphorical death stare of renowned gun rights lobbyist Marion Hammer.
Two weeks ago, the former NRA champion called for the dismantling of the Southwest Florida Water Management District (Swiftmud) over its lawsuit against a gun range from which the lead of thousands of pounds of spent bullets leached into the surrounding ecosystem (including nearby Sawgrass Lake Park's protected wetlands); arsenic, too.
Lead contamination at the park was so bad that Pinellas Schools stopped taking students there on field trips last year, over a decade since the battle between the range and the agency resulted in a settlement requiring the facility to clean up spent bullets before they could contaminate the surrounding area (and a state law barring governments from suing gun ranges, oddly enough).
On Tuesday, the agency's board voted to drop its suit against the Pinellas Park firing range, reports the Tampa Bay Times' Craig Pittman.
The agency did so at the last minute, Pittman writes, as part of its consent agenda at a meeting on Tuesday, and a spokeswoman for Swiftmud wouldn't give an answer as to why, other than citing "a change" that took place at the Skyway Trap & Skeet Club.
The governor's office didn't offer much of a peep, either.
Perhaps the gun club really did change its polluting ways (notably, according to Swiftmud, they did swap out their lead bullets for ones made of steel as part of the settlement).
Or, perhaps Governor Rick Scott's administration suggested it might do to Swiftmud (a state-run agency charged with monitoring and protecting the region's precious water resources) what it did to climate change.
Who knows?
This article appears in Feb 18-24, 2016.