Dear editor,
President Trump’s first executive order was to allow West Virginia coal companies to dump waste into the state’s rivers.
Those of us who have lived in Northwest Florida for decades remember pre-EPA days when we would not eat the oysters, shrimp or fish from the local waters due to toxic dumping from local industry and other sources. Many would not even swim in local waterways.
Corporate America acted only after clean water EPA and DEP standards forced them to — often in court. Thereafter, with the help of a local Milton fisherman, dead oyster beds were reborn locally.
Milton Mayor Clyde Gracey spoke to Gov. Lawton Chiles and the Florida Board of Trustees in Tallahassee of the great gift of our clean sunsets, waters, oysters and mullet.
While Aristotle found something of the marvelous in all nature, we in the panhandle attribute that marvelous to our Creator. We should treat it reverently.
While politicians today continue to tout our area as a great place for “sunsets and oysters,” they are working to kill the EPA/DEP and allow industry to kill our cleaner rivers and bays — Make America Toxic Again.
They welcome the return to our “great,” red, hazy, pollution-filled sunsets and toxic rivers.
And congratulations, we the American taxpayer get to bail out the great corporate river killers (for the clean-up).
Imagine if ISIS were dumping tons of toxic sludge into American rivers and air daily. There would be outrage.
Where is yours?
DAN STEWART
Pace
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This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: No taxpayer bailout for corporate river killers