The last year could be considered a success in local environmental activism. After years of support for these measures down the west coast, and varied stakeholder input across the Tampa Bay watershed, the Suncoast Sierra Club headed the coalition that created the space for passage of strong, local fertilizer and landscape management ordinances. These measures passed in Gulfport, unanimously in St. Petersburg, and in January of 2010, the strongest ordinance in Florida was passed by the Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners in a 6-1, vote. (A video of the meeting can be found here.) These actions are critical to the health of our ponds, streams, rivers, Gulf and Tampa Bay. Algae fed by excessive nitrogen runoff contributes to the explosive harmful algal blooms like Red Tide and the 14-mile long brown goo that lived and spread across Tampa Bay last year.
Suncoast Sierra Club continues to participate in this process by working for ordinances in Hillsborough and Manatee Counties, as well as through participation in the Tampa Bay Estuary Program’s educational development and outreach. (The TBEP Urban Fertilizer Use information is located on their website.) These regulations will be most effective if we can effect a sea change in the way residents view their own yards & lawns, and by taking personal responsibility for learning how to do it right. Sierra Club has committed to assisting TBEP and Pinellas County with that ongoing effort. With help from our friends in the Audubon Society, the Florida Native Plant Society, the Pinellas County Extension, Green Florida, and many others, we add our voices to the growing chorus of folks calling for "Food Not Lawns,' creating Florida yards and neighborhoods using native and Florida-friendly plants, and shifting to more sustainable and affordable approaches to our green spaces.
As usual, in 2009 our Coastal Task Force had to perform an about-face from fertilizer to offshore and nearshore oil drilling. As a member of the Protect Florida’s Beaches coalition, we helped successfully lobby in last year’s Florida Legislative Session to put the brakes on nearshore (3-10 miles) drilling proposals. But as we’ve come to know, this is the “threat that never dies." Year after year we’ve stepped up to testify and lobby against lifting the ban on drilling in the Federal Waters of the eastern Gulf, the area from 10-236 miles. Year after year we’ve held the Feds at bay, through the efforts of many, including U.S. Congressman C.W. Bill Young. Congressman Young has been the guy holding back that oil-slicked tide for decades in the U.S. House, supported by many other elected officials, businesses, environmentalists and citizens. We must monitor and stay ready to defend against the continued issue of lifting the moratorium on drilling in Federal waters – language that has been surreptitiously added to the Senate versions of the Federal Climate Bill. Our own Senator Bill Nelson has threatened to filibuster if the Gulf drilling language isn’t removed from the Climate Bill. (Go Senator Nelson!)
Now, the issue has expanded. There are some in the Florida Legislature who have become mysteriously and rabidly attached to selling Florida’s future to drilling interests in our nearshore waters.
This article appears in Mar 10-16, 2010.