The Blue Path Newsletter Summer 2012

Florida’s Best Future

Summer Solstice 2012

The choice is ours

Floridians: What’s your vision for Florida’s best future?

When you drink water, remember the spring.

— Chinese proverb

CONTENTS page

2

Water Use & Wise Choices Civics 101 page

3

Blue Revolution

Exhibition: Travels on the Blue Path page

4

What Can You Do? Selected Resources

Healthy springs, lakes, rivers and coastal beaches? High-quality jobs and a prosperous economy? How about an education system that prepares young people for the global 21st-century workforce? Do you believe Florida deserves her best destiny? Do we have a viable choice?

Florida’s Blue Path charts a course that allows us to choose all of the above. In fact, take heart! Everything we need for Florida’s best future is already present in our Florida friendly back yard!

Compare these futures: Florida’s economic history has largely been a process of taking raw materials and using them to generate one-time profits. We overfished our seas, exhausted our soils, drained away our water and left behind many impoverished communities. The current extractive economy treats water as both nuisance and commodity. This is the mindset that sought to get rid of water and got rid of too much; now it seeks to control and privatize water in man-made systems. We’re asked to believe that this is Florida’s destiny.

There is another choice. Already many thousands of Floridians are engaged in the new creative economy. We seek ways to grow crops, maintain cities, and generate power while valuing and living sustainably with our land, air and water. New technologies in biomedical research, electronics, agriculture, green building and transportation combine with the arts and music, film and digital media industries. Creative communities flourish because there is an open sharing of diverse ideas, everyone contributes what they do best, and prosperity is spread to all citizens. In this new economy, Florida has all of the ingredients to take our rightful place as a global model.

The time has come to choose Florida’s best future.

These can be inspiring times as we Floridians exercise our choice to create a paradigm shift in how we live and make a living. The choice begins with all of us imagining a different future, finding rewards in adopting new practices, and commanding better from our leaders.

Florida’s Best Choice the vision: On The Blue Path, Floridians discover new ways to live with water and recognize that a healthy environment is essential for a prosperous economy.

www.TheBluePath.org The Blue Path includes the water programs of Florida’s Eden, an educational 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

We believe The Blue Path offers a blueprint for Florida’s best choice.

Facebook.com/TravelsOnTheBluePath www.TheBluePath.org

PAGE 2

What Is It?

Conservation or Desalination? Water Use & Wise Choices

“The Blue Path” is the name that writer Cynthia Barnett coined for the water programs of Florida’s Eden.

These programs are designed to educate us about our water and to inspire us to work together to find creative solutions for Florida’s water problems.

Water use in Florida has risen as our population has increased, and the days of plentiful water are over.

We are now pumping water out of our aquifer faster than rainfall can recharge it. Most of that water is used for agricultural irrigation, public water supplies, and power generation.

It takes water to run power plants, and it takes power to draw water—so when you flip the power switch you turn on the water, and when you turn on the water you flip the power switch.

In Florida, turf grass is a “crop” that accounts for one of the largest percentages of water used for agricultural irrigation, and landscape watering accounts for most of the water used in the average home.

All of us—policy makers, business owners, agriculturalists, public utility workers, householders— make daily choices about water use, and bad choices cost money in the long run. Restoration costs for The Everglades in South Florida, for example, are estimated in billions of dollars.

Do we want to sacrifice our lakes, rivers, and springs so we can have lush lawns? Or could we make a pleasant difference by converting all or parts of our yards from grass to lovely Florida friendly plants that require less water?

Do we want the State of Florida to spend money for expensive alternative water supply projects, such as desalination plants, that can have unfortunate unintended consequences? Or do we want to conserve water instead, which is the cheapest, easiest solution to water problems?

We Floridians have some important choices to make.

Water Usage

by Category

The Vision

All water sources in Florida are connected, but water use statistics differentiate between groundwater and surface waters.

On The Blue Path, Floridians discover new ways to live with water and recognize that a healthy environment is essential for a prosperous economy.

At left, water withdrawn from the Floridan Aquifer and other groundwater sources.

At right, water drawn from rivers, lakes and other surface sources.

Note that nearly half of all public supply is used to water residential lawns. Recreational irrigation is for golf courses.

Source: USGS, 2005

Two Problems Florida has two water problems, one with water quality and one with water quantity or supply.

This issue of our newsletter focuses on problems with water supply.

Civics 101: Who Makes Water Use Decisions for the State of Florida?

Conservation and protection of our natural resources are mandated by the Florida Constitution. Article II, Section 7(a) reads: “It shall be the policy of the state to conserve and protect its natural resources and scenic beauty. Adequate provision shall be made by law for the abatement of air and water pollution and of excessive and unnecessary noise and for the conservation and protection of natural resources.”

In 1972, after a series of floods, Floridians voted in a statewide referendum to tax themselves to create five water management districts.

In 1975, the Florida Legislature created the Florida Department of Environmental Regulation (now Environmental Protection) and gave it supervisory authority over the water management districts.

Currently, board members of the water management districts decide whether or not to issue consumptive use permits for water withdrawals. Board members are appointed by Florida’s Governor. The Governor also appoints the director of the Department of Environmental Protection. The Governor and Cabinet serve as the appellate body that reviews water management district actions.

Summer Solstice 2012

www.TheBluePath.org

PAGE 3

Is It Time for a Blue Revolution?

Anyone who has ever sat through a water • We try to keep water local. policy meeting may know this scenario: A • We avoid the two big mistakes of our history: scientist presents findings that demonstrate overtapping aquifers and surface waters and one thing, only to have another scientist chime overrelying on the costliest fixes that bring in to demonstrate something completely unintended consequences to future generations. different. Often what results is a stalemate, • We leave as much as prudently possible in with important decisions indefinitely delayed. nature—aquifers, wetlands, and rivers—so that In her book Blue Revolution: Unmaking our children and grandchildren, with benefit of America’s Water Crisis (Beacon Press, 2011), time and evolving knowledge, can make their own Cynthia Barnett outlines a water ethic that decisions about water. offers specific guidance for Floridians and our Barnett is a former senior writer with Florida Trend water managers: business magazine who has a master’s degree in • Americans value water, from appreciating environmental history. In researching Blue Revolution, local streams to pricing water right. she visited places all over the world to find out how people have worked together to solve their water • We work together to use less and less— problems. In the United States, she cites successful rather than fight each other to grab seat belt campaigns, anti-littering and anti-smoking more and more. campaigns as examples of how the adoption of new ethics can lead to changes in behavior.

Watch Barnett give an informative talk about her work on Blue Revolution: clintonschoolspeakers. com/lecture/view/blue-revolution/ “Water laws, water politics, water funding, and even water science can bend in all sorts of strange ways,” Barnett concludes. “A shared water ethic is the only straight guide we have to know whether water decisions are right for future generations.”

Travels on The Blue Path Exhibit 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., Monday-Saturday Seagle Building 408 W. University Avenue, Gainesville Ground Floor, East Hallway

Water Exhibit on View in Gainesville

Travels on the Blue Path is an exhibition that uses art and graphic design to explore our relationship with water.

Beginning with the myth that Florida has unlimited water supplies, the exhibition takes the viewer on a journey that spans the legend of Ponce de Leon’s search for a Fountain of Youth, the draining of The Everglades, and springs as early indicators of water problems.

Travels then considers the hidden costs of bad decisions about water and points the way to a new vision for Florida in which we work together using ethics, conservation, education, discovery, creativity, and innovation to solve our water problems.

We are planning to construct clones of Travels that can travel throughout Florida and function as anchors for local programs and public discussions about water. For more information, visit Facebook.com/TravelsOnTheBluePath, or call Lu Merritt at 386-454-0415.

At right, “Spirit of the Springs” painting by Johnny Dame

Summer Solstice 2012

www.TheBluePath.org

PAGE 4

What Can You Do on The Blue Path?

It is our privilege to live among the largest concentration of freshwater springs in the world; over 1000 springs have been identified at last count. For centuries, artists, writers, scientists and explorers have been inspired by the wonder and beauty of these crystal blue outpourings of water from deep within the aquifer.

And yet, our springs—as well as our lakes and rivers—are degrading at an alarming rate due to overpumping, reduced flow, and high nutrient levels.

Because 2012 is an election year, we have a great opportunity to push water to the forefront of public discussion with our current and future lawmakers. We believe that if enough of us speak up for our waters, we can save them.

In addition to using less water and fertilizer at your home or business, we encourage you to educate yourselves. Visit your local library and check out some of the books or DVDs listed on our Blue Path website at: www.TheBluePath.org/programs

The frog does not drink up the pond in which he lives.

— Native American saying

Find a nearby water group and get in touch with those people; ask questions. Go to a water management district meeting. Volunteer for a river cleanup or simply get out on the water and look around. Talk to your families, friends, co-workers, neighbors, and people in your church groups.

Then, go out to campaign rallies, write, email, or telephone your elected officials and those people who are running for office in your districts, and ask them your best questions about water. Help us create a citizens’ campaign that will focus public attention on Florida’s water issues. Imagine a great Blue Path flowing all the way to Tallahassee, lined with Floridians commanding that our elected officials abide by the Florida Constitution by shifting our priorities to statewide water conservation and and policies that value and protect our natural resources!

Selected Resources Websites: The Blue Path, programs and resources Thebluepath.org/programs Travels on the Blue Path Facebook Page facebook.com/TravelsOnTheBluePath floridaspringsinstitute.org Howard T. Odum Florida Springs Institute Florida-Friendly Landscaping floridayards.org/ Sierra Club - Clean Water for Florida florida.sierraclub.org/water_quality.asp (Slime Crimes) Articles: Florida Conservation Coalition, Water Paper floridaconservationcoalition.org/pages/resources Books: Blue Revolution: Unmaking America’s Water Crisis, Cynthia Barnett, Beacon Press, 2011 Mirage: Florida and the Vanishing Water of the Eastern U.S., Cynthia Barnett, Univ. of Michigan Press, 2007 DVDs: Gimme Green www.gimmegreen.com

Published by Florida’s Eden, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization P.O. Box 357336, Gainesville, FL 32635 ph: 352-377-0777 www.TheBluePath.org