The summers of 2016 and 2018 were months of algae-fueled states of emergency, deadly health consequences and shuttered businesses. Pets died, people became severely ill and our tourism economy took a major hit because the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers decided to release hundreds of thousands of gallons of toxic algae-ridden water into our estuaries.
Whether it was a restaurant on the water or a fishing charter, business owners had to compensate for huge losses because of the Army Corps’s decision to treat our community like a sewer.
As your Representative in Congress, my top priority is to make sure we never have another lost summer. That’s why I fought to force the Army Corps to rewrite the operating schedule for Lake Okeechobee and why I continue to push for responsible management of the lake.
