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Issues, Florida Chapter Agriculture Sierra Club supports sustainable farming practices for the provision of high quality food and forage. It is the responsibility of the citizens and the government of Florida to protect clean air, clean water and provide wildlife habitat, as they are necessary for production of vital healthy crops and livestock. Major Trends Florida is losing cropland at a rate of 246,000 acres per year to urban development. We need to preserve and protect remaining agricultural and rural land in Florida for future generations. This can be done through updating adequate local comprehensive plans to include urban boundary lines and provision of conservation easements Our natural resources are being quickly sacrificed to the demands of Industrial Agriculture. In some areas of Florida, industrial agriculture is responsible for groundwater pollution, contamination of the aquifer - the sole source of our drinking water, and poisoning of Florida's estuaries; these resources are vital for the our survival and for a thriving economy. The Florida legislature has refused to act in the past to prevent air and water pollution from agricultural sources that damage the environment and threaten the health of Florida's citizens. Our state legislators have rendered our local governments powerless to protect our citizens and natural resources. Industrial Agriculture has added a toxic cocktail of nutrients to Florida Bay and the Gulf of Mexico leading to massive fish kills and diseases plaguing the coral reefs in the Florida Keys. Green algae laden water has replaced clear healthy water. Coastal waters are so sick that reported deaths of manatees and dolphins, fish and bird kills and diseases affecting sea turtles have risen dramatically. Deadly Red tide events are occurring more often. Aquatic life, sea grasses and Coral Reefs require clear, clean, nutrient-free waters to thrive. Threats Industrial agriculture has now polluted the Suwannee River Basin worse than Lake Okeechobee. Almost a million acres of sugar cane is grown in the Everglades Agricultural Area south of Lake Okeechobee. Fifty years ago the Army Corps of Engineers drained 700,000 acres in the heart of the Everglades at the headwaters of the River of Grass. The Everglades are being poisoned by the pollution-laden water pumped off those sugar cane fields. The polluted runoff makes its way through the Shark River Slough into Florida Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. The amount of nitrogen flowing with runoff into the Florida Bay went from roughly 750 tons in 1981 to more than 2,500 tons in 1982, according to statistics from South Florida Water Management District. The numbers skyrocketed in the 1990's and peaked in 1995 to almost 5,000 tons. Jeb Bush's administration recently gave Big Sugar phosphorous pollution extensions for another 10 years adding more harm to the ecosystem. In recent years, hundreds of mega-dairies and industrial poultry producers have located over the high recharge area of the Floridan aquifer in the Suwannee River Basin of North Central Florida. The Suwannee River Basin has become an open sewer for Big Agribusiness. The unique Springs that dot the Suwannee River are now polluted with high levels of nitrates and have turned green with suffocating algal growth. Water quality ratings have radically declined as a result of the untreated raw sewage being produced. Over 3,000 tons of nitrate-nitrogen and 750 tons of phosphorous are transported down the Suwannee River annually to the Gulf of Mexico. The productive Suwannee estuary is extremely threatened. The crabbers, clammers and fishermen depend on healthy waters in the estuary. This nitrate pollution has resulted in unnaturally high levels of harmful algae that consume oxygen needed by fish and other marine animals. Algal blooms are in part responsible for massive die-offs of sponges and grass beds in Florida Bay. Harmful algal blooms (HABS) cause shellfish and tropical fish poisonings, wildlife mortalities and respiratory irritation and neurocognitive disease in humans. Human health and wildlife health is linked with ecological disturbances. The Department of Health has reported increased levels of nitrates and fecal coliform contamination in North Florida wells, as well as at coastal beaches. There have been over 260 beach closures this year and the state is now providing bottled water to two N. Florida counties. This type of contamination can cause illness and diseases such as hepatitis, typhoid, cholera, dysentery and gastroenteritis. Pfiesteria-like organisms found in the rivers cause lesions in fish and are blamed for fish kills in South Florida. They may become more numerous as sewage and fertilizer-laced stormwater fill Florida rivers with chemical nutrients. Satellite imagery has shown this years blackwater water mass event in Florida Bay to be larger than 1,000 square miles. A Karenia brevis bloom resulted in the Florida manatee die-off. Red tides, chiefly dinoflagellate blooms, have led to the morbidity and mortality of many species. Exposure to toxins occurs through ingestion of cells (e.g., by filter feeders such as sponges, molluscs) (Reinisch et al. 1984) bioaccumulation by consumption of contaminated prey (by molluscs, crustaceans, gastropods, fish, birds, turtles, marine mammals and humans. Cyanobacteria biotoxins can cause tumors (Falconer and Humpage 1996) and have been implicated in chronic diseases of freshwater and estuarine animals. Toxic benthic dinoflagellates (Prorocentrum spp.) can also produce tumor-promoting agents, like okadaic acid, that has been found within the fibroid tissue of dead green sea turtles. Concerns Under Chapter 823.14 of the Florida Right to Farm Act (George Kirkpatrick amendment 1997) a corporation has the right to establish a factory farm operation and may situate 1 million chickens, 4,000 cows and 10,000 pigs on property in an aquifer recharge area, next door to a 1st magnitude Spring, a school, hospital, or church, anywhere in the state of Florida. Since this amendment was added, pollution has become rampant in Florida. This amendment has brought about a breakdown in local planning, community protection and the regulation of potential nuisances or pollution.
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