Right To Clean Water

Can an amendment save Florida’s vital resources?

Florida voters will experience an unlikely luxury of sorts in November when they get to make two choices lying outside the control of their legislators: One, a constitutional amendment that could shape the future of abortion rights and another that could shape the future of legal recreational marijuana in the Sunshine State.

Meanwhile, the determined proponents of a third amendment that would require state government to enforce clean water regulations already on the books are looking two years down the line. Although they failed to place the Right To Clean Water amendment on the ballot this year, they’re taking encouragement from the two proposed 2024 amendments. Putting an amendment on the ballot — even getting to that starting line — means going around or over the heads of an unwilling legislative body, whose majority may be ignoring or resisting the widespread will of their bosses. Those bosses are the people, not the lobbyists for special interests, say clean water amendment advocates.

Experts forecast that another significant algae bloom could result in billions of dollars in losses for Florida and the potential loss of tens of thousands of jobs.

“When citizens have acted at a local level to clean up water, we’ve been stopped by the Legislature, which stepped in and took rights away by preempting the authority of local governments,” says Joe Bonasia, a former educator and 2024 chairman of the Right To Clean Water amendment effort.

Numbers game

In 2020, 89% of voters in Orange County passed a clean water ordinance. State legislators immediately shut down that law for more than 1.4 million people in that county. They preempted local government control over any fight to clean up water or other natural resources in Florida’s 67 counties.

“It was that preemption that forced our hand,” Bonasia explains. “If the Legislature is not going to let us work on water quality in local government, we’ve got to go over their heads.”

To put an amendment up for a vote by all voters, its advocates, in effect, have to ask them to vote twice: once in a signed petition from each of 900,000 registered voters, delivered through the U.S. mail (not digitally) by individuals or petition collectors; and once again in the voting booth — but only after the state Supreme Court has reviewed the ballot language to ensure it’s legal.

Blue-green algae outbreaks have plagued Lake Okeechobee and surrounding waterways. COURTESY PHOTOS

Since there were just over 13.47 million registered voters in Florida as of the last day in March — about 5.2 million Republicans and 4.4 million Democrats, with another 3.5 million Independents and a few hundred thousand minor party voters, state records show — that means roughly one in every 15 registered voters will have to sign a petition by Dec. 31, next year. However, in gubernatorial election years, less than 60% of registered voters go to the polls when the contest does not involve a presidential race. Thus, one of about every seven or eight Floridians who go vote in November of 2026 would first have to sign a petition favoring the amendment by the end of next year.

That’s the number and the deadline. If organizers reach that goal, 60% or more of registered voters going to the polls would have to support it in the general election more than 11 months later.

BONASIA

Now, the clean water champions are better organized, better financed, and equipped with a singular reality: Clean water is a bi-partisan goal. Most, if not all, Floridians want it, in their view.

So what’s the problem?

The arguments

“The ballot issues this year are big: abortion. Legalized marijuana. That gets our attention,” says Rep. Adam Botana, a Republican from Dist. 81 based in Bonita Springs.

Although clean water is a bipartisan challenge, he agrees, Botana nevertheless sees water issues as long-standing problems of less-pressing immediacy, perhaps — problems in which the governor, the state Legislature and the people are already spending billions “to fix the problems our grandparents created.”

It just takes time, he suggests.

“We’re all about clean water; I ran on clean water. I own Bay Water Boat Club and Rentals in Bonita Springs and it’s the main reason I ran. The Legislature, the governor — we’ve given $6 billion over the years in Everglades restoration and to the process. But giving somebody the ability to sue for a river? I don’t support that. I never would. You know who is going to get rich off of this? The lawyers.”

In 2018, red tide outbreaks killed fish throughout Florida. The impact was significant in Lee County.

That criticism falls short, say the clean water amendment’s advocates.

“It’s not lawyer bait. That’s a false narrative,” insists Karl Deigert, a longtime charter boat captain and one-time owner of a boutique motel on the water in Matlacha, whose business, like many on or near the rivers flowing east and west out of Lake Okeechobee, was devastated by blue-green algae and red tide in 2018 and 2019. He is now chairman of the 2026 Florida Right To Clean Water political action committee.

The algal blooms choked off tourism and real estate values, as well as the service and commercial and sports fishing industries. They infested the St. Lucie River and Indian River Lagoon on the Atlantic coast and the Caloosahatchee River, with over 100 miles of coastline flanking its mouth at Sanibel Island on the Gulf coast.

DEIGERT

“Watching the environmental degradation accelerate,” Deigert explains, “I began a deep dive on the 1,000 cuts killing Florida: agricultural pollution flowing into Lake Okeechobee, phosphate mining, failing infrastructure, herbicides, pesticides, fertilizers and, ultimately, failed legislative and regulatory stewardship cored in a framework of failure. These policies do nothing until harmful impacts reach a point of no return, favoring remediation over prevention.”

That 2018-19 economic disaster led to the first organized effort to develop a Right To Clean Water amendment.

“Rep. Botana’s idea eliminates all our legal standing to remediate or bring corrective action for harm to our waters,” Deigert says. “So the only way we have to fight back is by holding state executive agencies like the Department of Environmental Protection or Water Management Districts accountable.”

Supporters of the Right to Clean Water Amendment are gathering signatures and hope to get it on the ballot in 2026. COURTESY PHOTO

Since laws have long since been established to regulate the amount of pollutants that can flow into any given waterway from any source — agricultural sources, septic runoff or lawn fertilizer, for example — they should be enforced.

That’s eminently doable, but it’s not happening, says Bonasia.

“We hear a lot about work being done, about the dollars being spent in pursuit of fixing our water system, but we don’t hear about actual efforts made successfully to get nutrients out of our waterways.”

The solution, he says: Go to www.Floridarighttocleanwater.org . Print out the petition. From anywhere in the state, mail it to the given address.

As for the lawyers feasting on the process, Deigert adds, no such civil actions would offer windfall awards by a court. “There would be no bonus money in it based on the amendment requirements. The Clean Water Amendment only allows civil actions against state executive agencies to have the courts compel those agencies to do the jobs we expect them to do.”

In other words, “a plaintiff is not seeking monetary damages or a big financial reward, which is lawyer bait.

These actions are not lawyer bait. Environmental lawyers will only get paid by the plaintiff at the regular hourly rate to protect the environment.”

And since the state agencies will already have issued a permit harming the waters, a fundamental court action could either require them to rescind a permit and correct the harm or require the polluter to fix it.

“In either case, it’s shifting the burden from the taxpayer to the polluter,” he adds.

Other politicians

The 66-word ballot summary for the proposed amendment goes like this:

“This amendment creates an enforceable, fundamental right to clean and healthy waters, authorizing a person to sue for equitable relief when a state executive agency, by action or inaction, allows (harm) to Florida waters. This amendment provides for strict judicial scrutiny of such action or inaction; adds to available remedies; identifies affected constitutional provisions; provides for enforcement; defines terms; and requires attorney’s fees and costs to prevailing plaintiffs.”

If advocates of that amendment are trying to go over legislators’ heads by getting it on the ballot, they also acknowledge how much the support of elected leaders could help their cause.

“The pressure is intense. We need legislators (to speak in support),” says Eve Samples, executive director of Friends of the Everglades, based in Stuart.

“Water is as relevant as abortion and legal recreational marijuana to most voters. So if some of these lawmakers who say they care about clean water can come out in support of this, they’ll put their money where their mouth is.”

Florida Weekly called or emailed all the state senators and representatives from both the Southwest Florida delegation and the Palm Beach County delegation, a total of 26 elected officials, to ask if they supported the proposed Right To Clean Water amendment or not and why.

Four responded. All had been sent the ballot summary. Each elected official’s name and contact information are included in this story.

In addition to Botana, District 91 Republican Peggy Gossett-Seidman, from Highland Beach, offered this response:

“I appreciate the initiative to clean water rights to all. As you know with my bills and backers, I have widespread support toward my water concerns. (But) at this time, I know too little about this ballot initiative that failed signatures. It would require meeting with policy people and house attorneys to determine if the language is suitable. If the words ‘rights to sue’ or ‘take legal action’ occur loosely without definition, it may not pass the muster test in the public or (in the) House.

Rep. Kelly Skidmore, a District 92 Democrat from Boca Raton, “did sign the (2024) petition and was in favor of the measure. She was very disappointed that it didn’t make it on the ballot,” a spokeswoman said.

District 88 Democrat Rep. Jervonte Edmonds, based in West Palm Beach, was unequivocal:

“Yes, I am in favor of the amendment.

“I believe that access to clean and healthy water is a fundamental right for all Floridians. Ensuring that our waters are protected is not only essential for the health and safety of our people but also crucial for the preservation of our state’s natural resources. This amendment provides a necessary framework to hold accountable those who jeopardize our water quality, thereby promoting a sustainable future for all residents of Florida. ”

The sustainable future won’t happen if another algal assault like that in 2018 occurs again — something scientists say is probable in current conditions.

The nonprofit Captains for Clean Water commissioned a study of the effects of that disaster “looking only at the economic impacts, the hemorrhaging, southwest Florida would experience if a HAB event similar to those in 2018 and in 2006 occurred again,” its literature explained. It did not mention the east coast, especially in Martin and Palm Beach Counties where losses were also extreme.

Southwest Florida losses alone could look like this, the report says:

• COMMERCIAL AND RECREATION FISHING: $460 million.

• JOBS lost in the coastal economy: 43,094.

• OUTPUT reduction from the coastal economy: $5.2 billion.

• PROPERTY VALUES lost: $17.8 billion.

• VALUE OF OUTDOOR RECREATION lost: $8.1 billion.

Matt DePaolis, the environmental policy director for the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation, where so much environmental and economic damage occurred during the 2018 event, points out that the amendment is not radical.

“There is a difference between rights to nature and rights of nature. The tree that owns itself or a lake with pollution being able to sue people — this isn’t that.

“This just gives a cause to action for rights that theoretically we already have, but now we don’t have a way to enact those.

“This isn’t doing anything radical except holding people accountable. We’re not giving natural things the right to a standing in court.”

Instead, he says, “This is very practical. ”

As Bonasia puts it about the Right to Clean Water amendment: “Ultimately, this is a numbers game. It’s very practical. So, everybody: Sign a petition, go get another three to five people to sign one, put it in an envelope, and mail it to our Fort Myers address. That’s the way this is going to happen.”

Then voters would get a chance to clean things up while Everglades restoration continues apace. ¦

In the KNOW

To Sign a Petition

Either print out the petition displayed on the website, or pick one up. Then mail to this address:

Floridarightocleanwater.org
13300 S. Cleveland Ave.
Suite 56
Fort Myers, FL
33907

Southwest Florida Delegation

SENATORS:

• Kathleen Passidomo (R-28); 239-417-6205 or 850-487-5028, passidomo.kathleen.web@flsenate.gov

• Ben Albritton (R-27); 850-487- 5027 or 863-534-0073, albritton. ben.web@flsenate.gov

• Erin Grall (r-29); 850-487-5029 or 772-595-1398, Grall.erin.web@flsenate.gov

• Jonathan Martin (R-33), 239-338- 2570 or 850-487-5033 and email, martin.jonathan.web@flsenate.gov

REPRESENTATIVES:

• Adam Botana (R-80), 850-717- 5080 or 239-949-6279:

Tiffany Esposito (R-77), 850-717- 5077 or 239-445-2357

• Mike Giallombardo (R-79): 850- 717-5079 or 239-772-1291

• Michael Grant (R-75): 850-717- 5075 or 941-613-0914

• Lauren Melo (R-82), 850-717-5082 or 239-417-6270 or 863-675-5267

• Jenna Persons-Mulicka (R-78), 850-717-5078 or 239-338-2328

• Spencer Roach (R-76), 850-717- 5076 or 239-656-7790

• Bob Rommel (R-81), 239-417-6200 or 850-717-5081

• Kaylee Tuck (R-83), 850-717-5083 or 863-386-6000 or 863-462-5019

Palm Beach County Delegation:

• SENATORS:

• Sen. Tina Polsky, Phone: 561-443- 8170, Dist. 30 Polsky.Tina.web@flsenate.gov

• Sen. Gayle Harrell, 772-221-4019, Dist. 31 Harrell.Gayle.web@flsenate.gov

• Sen. Bobby Powell, 561-650- 6880, Dist. 24 Powell.Bobby.web@flsenate.gov

• Sen. Lori Berman, 561-292-6014, DIST 26 Berman.Lori.web@flsenate.gov

REPRESENTATIVES:

• John Snyder, Dist. 86, 850-717- 5086. John.Snyder@myfloridahouse.gov

· Mike Caruso, Dist. 87, 561-650-1056 Mike.Caruso@myfloridahouse.gov

· Jervonte “Tae” Edmonds, Dist. 88, 561-242-5530 Jervonte.Edmonds@myfloridahouse.gov

· David Silvers, Dist. 89. 561-357- 4824 David.Silvers@myfloridahouse.gov

· Joseph Casello, Dist. 90, 561-292- 6015 Joseph.Casello@myfloridahouse.gov

· Peggy Gossett-Seidman, Dist. 91, 561-750-2396 Peggy.GossettSeidman@myfloridahouse.gov

· Kelly Skidmore, Dist. 92, 561-470- 2086 Kelly.Skidmore@myfloridahouse.gov

· Katherine Waldron, Dist. 93, 561- 291-6327 Katherine.Waldron@myfloridahouse.gov

· Rick Roth, Dist. 94, 561-791-4046 Rick.Roth@myfloridahouse.gov

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