Water is everything for families like mine that live along the Treasure Coast. We rely on clean water for drinking, recreation, and business.

Despite being so vital to our livelihoods, our estuaries and rivers are being POISONED with POLLUTION by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The Corps’ RECKLESS decision to keep pumping dangerous toxins into the St. Lucie has us staring down the barrel of another lost summer. This week alone, we’ve started seeing more cases of blue-green algae within the C-44 canal.

That’s why I’m demanding the Corps initiate a long-term halt to the discharges. The Corps’ conduct has not only been damaging to our way of life, but also in contradiction to their own data.

The Corps spent several years weighing hundreds of thousands of options for managing Lake Okeechobee without polluting the surrounding environment. The best plan they came up with after that tedious endeavor would have prohibited discharges to the St. Lucie right now. For some reason that plan is being IGNORED.

Our community has been victimized by these discharges for decades, causing serious public health issues, damaging our ecosystem, and devastating tourism. The Corps has continued doing this even though there are better alternatives, like sending the water south.

Now we’re hearing the Corps is initiating a two-week pause. But at the same time, they are weighing new proposals that would dangerously increase the discharges being made into the St. Lucie.

How does that make sense? A two-week pause, followed by a doubling of discharges will do nothing to protect our community. Instead, it will make the situation so much worse.

The bottom line is that algal blooms are already here and the Army Corps does not have a credible plan to prevent another lost summer. I’m demanding they halt the discharges.

The Treasure Coast is not Florida’s septic tank.