WAR on TURF WARS

If any war, the USA should launch a war against turf wars of its own agencies: federal, state, county, city, local, districts - and countless other power-hungry agencies that viciously, underhandedly and treacherously keep fighting each other for more power – and money, of course. Here and there we hear horror stories about abominable mismanagement, waste and inefficiencies resulting from turf wars the agencies are waging on each other – even at the cost of lives of US soldiers who are in real harm’s way on the real battle lines, lately in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Not so deadly but almost as vicious are the turf wars of different government agencies responsible for our otherwise peaceful environment. Example ? Take the current prolonged skirmishes between the FDEP and the US-EPA, entered by the NGO snipers and Agri-Industrial lobby grenadiers, with the SFWMD and US-ACE just sitting ducks in the line of those heavy fire exchanges concerning the Numerical Nutrient Criteria for Florida waters.
Democracy is an awesome instrument. However, when the turf wars and lobby muscles take over, it is torn to shreds with bits and pieces of it only serving as wound dressing rags for the adversaries. Reflecting the political scene that we all love to watch – but fret when hit with shrapnels from it in the form of economic supercrises that impoverished 97% of us.
Asked to mediate, the superstrong judicial arm rips into the fray from all directions on behalf of any party. Under the circumstances, it costs us billions and we hardly get anywhere - -
Problems will perhaps be resolved - as the fire is eventually put out by the rising seas sneaking up behind our backs through the middle of the Everglades a hundred or so years from now. But who would care for such a ‘distant’ future ?
Only about 10 million people to evacuate then. Florida will become rather quiet, no turf left to fight for.

FEASIBILITIES and ACTIVISM

Picture the “activists” and you see speaches and media blitz, largely based on emotional appeals – with very little of, and largely populist, explanation of simplified problems, little facts with none or very select data. The days of effective emotional appeals are gone - says Nathaniel Reed.
But yes, ACTIVISM does have a role in a democratic system, in our collective decision-making process, in our governance. Activist thrusts are usually easy to understand and they are invariably as laud as possible to highlight their point.
Some point, sometimes even a wrong or so often unrealistic point.
In all this one can easily see how enormous government bureaucracy and turf wars, some of it and more often than not, reflecting influences of special interests often politically very powerful, spams a primitive but loud opposition drive – so called advocacy. Usually centered around all kinds of different NGOs representing (some) “people’s opinion”.
One extreme provokes another - not necessarily well founded extremes that could be respected.
The problem with advocacy often is lack of knowledge – the activists are rarely recruited from scientific backgrounds. They don’t read, let alone understand, scientific literature – yet claim science-based this and that. Unfortunately, it often boils down to parroting a couple of phrases that purport to reflect (some) science.
What is missing in knowledge, the advocacy movement replaces by emotions.
Read more, my friends, educate yourselves – and keenly understand what is behind the term “feasibility”. It means doing not only what is correct but also what is possible, what is practical, and what we can afford to pay for. The problem is that all of these are also slippery terms subject to interpretation. They also rely on trust – can we trust what the “government” is doing, what it is telling us ? And what the “science” is telling us ? Or is it all just manipulated beyond recognition ?
Be “reasonable” and think – but mainly, please, educate yourselves. Remember – read and study, comprehend and conclude with flexibility – and with a keen regard for FEASIBILITY of demands put forward.
Then go - and be active – armed with understanding what the role of periphyton is, for instance.
You can even run an ecological simulation model on your own. Or can you ?

SCIENTIFIC LITERACY

 

Click HERE for a fascinating QUIZ
and see just where you stand on 50 quick questions -

EVERGLADES SCIENCE and MEDIA

Recently, the largest and most informative scientific conference on wetlands concluded in Orlando (9th INTECOL). It was a joint meeting of International Society of Wetland Scientists (SWS) and GEER (Greater Everglades Ecosystem Restoration), the latter being the single most important meeting of scientists working on problems directly related to understanding and restoring the essential functions of Florida Everglades.
This largest wetlands conference in the world was attended by more than 2,000 leading scientists working in the field. This is where most relevant knowledge was being shared, this is where the most contemporary findings were being presented that eventually represent the basis for science-based (technical, political, financial) decision making concerning this essential and unique Florida ecosystem. Ecosystem which directly supports life of more than 7 million people in South Florida whose freshwater supply depends on the health of the Everglades.
A population which can either be deprived of water – or drowned in its floods. The point is that this was the most relevant, the most important meeting of leading minds who bring us the understanding of the behavior and function of our Everglades, the lifeblood of Florida.
Our information lifeline are the media – the TV, the radio, the internet and yes, the press. And can you imagine – there was hardly a peep about this event in the media !
No information shared or passed on, no points raised, no education conveyed, no nothing.
All this despite of a well publicized program of this huge conference, despite of available whole Book of Abstracts of all the scientific presentations, despite the speeches, the posters, the availability of leading brains in one location for a whole week.
It is beyond understanding, beyond any logical explanation -
Not a peep - media, where have you been ? Are you that much afraid of a little science – even when our lives depend on it ?
The score on this – Science 10, Media 0.
And yes, you can study the 9th INTECOL proceedings and specific results shared there - right HERE.

NUTRIENTS - CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES

So the cat is out of the bag. Only about more than a decade late. The Everglades Foundation – RTI study report. Nutrients in waters, phosphorus, etc.etc. Haven’t we known that intensive agricultural activities, the way they are practiced nowadays, pollute ? Yes, only thanks to the intensive applications of fertilizers can we hope to produce the effective acre-quantities of crops as agriculture does it now.
And this is how it comes that Phosphorus – and Nitrogen, and sulfate, and other nutrients – run off the agri-fields in soaring quantities and find their way into our surface fresh-waters and even estuaries. Throwing natural systems, and particularly the sensitive ones such as the Everglades, completely out of balance – and threatening our fresh water supplies and, indeed, our very livelihood and civilization. The situation is particularly threatening the Florida peninsula and with it more than 8 million people that live on it.
IN and OUT – a Simple Mass Balance
The recently released RTI International study for the Everglades Foundation only confirms what has been suspected, known, all along. Phosphorus and the Everglades ! Now we have the figures, numbers, tables, diagrams – the whole works to document it. The study long overdue that should have been done by the government a long time ago. But – yes, it is a “sensitive issue” – agribusiness is so important – and so powerful (a lobby) particularly in Florida.
Yet, it is all so simple: excessive phosphorus quantities IN, excessive phosphorus quantities OUT – and right into Florida canals, Florida fresh-water, the Everglades, the estuaries - -
A simple mass balance.
Accounting for Phosphorus
All that more surprising is that all that phosphorus has not been really accounted for. And where does it come from ? It is brought onto the land in truck-load quantities by the farmers – to assist growth. And to be washed off by rain – in field run-off.
What needs to be also mentioned is the “time-bomb” of phosphorus accumulated on the land and in deposits of lake bottoms over the years of using fertilizers.
From tedious long-term monitoring, we do know how much phosphorus runs off the land. Overall, and actually even down to the individual farm areas. A somewhat unknown, yet crucial, factor is just how much phosphorus gets assimilated – in the crops, by the land itself. That factor can vary a great deal, locally.
Removing Phosphorus
So, while crucially important, phosphorus on the loose poisons our water bodies, our fresh water all the way ‘down’ to estuaries. While trying hard to remove it (farmers’ BMPs, constructing STAs) spending millions of dollars, why don’t we control it better ? The RTI report also shows that is much cheaper (8 times !) to control nutrients “at the source” (BMPs) rather than trying to remove them (by the STAs) when they already escaped into the environment.
Controlled Substance ?
If it is so important, why don’t we just simply declare phosphorus something like a CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE – and monitor its purchases and field applications. That would certainly be easy to do – every farmer already knows exactly how much fertilizer he/she bought and where was it put, why and when. If we know how much phosphorus went IN and how much flows OUT in the field run-off – we can complete our calculations, do all the accurate environmental modeling and remove the gross uncertainties that plague us now.

Having a better knowledge of phosphorus quantities, we can meaningfully control it – and optimize its uses as well as its effects in the environment. Easy, effective and particularly – economically attractive.
The keyword to remember: CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE.
And handle it correspondingly.