It’s complicated: Septic to Sewer
And Senator Negron we’d like your input. No judginess. I want to understand the history and if there was anything that happened to you personally that affected your decision to support no inspections.
So we all went to the meeting and what did we find out?
It’s complicated. It’s not what the headlines said. There are other issues.
The item was 8C1 “Septic to Sewer Conversion.” The presenters were Dr Brian LaPointe from FAU Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute; CAPTEC’s Joseph Capra; and a Financial Specialist Group. In my opinion, Dr LaPointe was clear to state “we have to go after all of the sources,” alluding to releases from Lake Okeechobee many times during his presentation. Septic effluent of course is part of the problem killing our SLR/IRL as Dr LaPointe clearly showed and its pollution and bacteria in the rivers should be addressed. Septic conversion was even an item JP Sasser, former mayor of Pahokee, and Florida One Foundation representative, and I agree upon-/having our photo taken together with Dr La Pointe! . Getting behind septic conversation is something we can all try to agree upon as we advocate for the bigger picture—the destruction caused by area canals C-23; C-24; C25 and releases from Lake Okeechobee. As we here in Martin County continue to “get our house in order” as we did with passing local strong fertilizer ordinances, the state can continue to forcefully address issues of agricultural runoff and excess water forced into our watershed. Thank you to the Martin County Board of County Commissioners.
have to move forward in the best possible ways. We have to stay involved and we have to ask questions. What we don’t need is a bunch of buffoons throwing accusations around and someone writing headlines that will divide the citizens of Martin County. I’m not sure who wrote that original headline but they must be new here. Why? Because you just gave Rick Scott, SFWMD, and the Florida Legislator every reason to ignore us and basically stabbed a knife in the heart of all our hard work. There are people who will take that headline and ruin us because of their idiocy and this is what we do not need right now.
We need consensus. This is what Jacqui said when she spoke.
“Today I spoke in favor of moving forward with the beginnings a of comprehensive septic to sewer conversion, a definite piece of a greater SLR/IRL problem, and asked commissioners never to take their eyes off the bigger, critical picture of destructive forces of Lake Okeechobee and area canals–and lobbying Tallahassee and the federal government to move more water south.”This can be done but what is of utmost importance is the public education. Not politics. Not buffoonery. Education.
We need consensus and we need to work together. Septic Tanks are an issue. Not THE issue. Hooking people up will help the lagoon.
Ed Fielding, Sara Heard and John Haddix make some great remarks and asked some great questions telling me they know what they are talking about and what they need us to do is be supportive and promote more discourse on this subject.
Discourse. Conversation. Support. Leave your ego’s at home please.
Nathanial Reed was there and spoke.
Marty Baum our Indian RiverKeeper was there and spoke. Mark Perry was in the audience taking notes.
There are federal grants for septic to sewer. Perhaps our commissioners can look into this. Maybe they can call Indian River County and ask.
West Wabasso gets $750,000 federal grant for …
The link is not longer there. I’m not sure if it got lost with the new owners of the paper But they did get a grant.
“Newly anointed billionaire arch-conservative Florida governor Rick Scott—along with his all-GOP cabinet and tea-party-led state legislature—will get around to the state’s budget crisis, its mortgage meltdown, its educational woes, its brain drain, its disaster-preparedness services, and its corruption problems eventually. But not until they’ve finished with their crap storm over, well, crap.
Last spring, outgoing Gov. Charlie Crist signed a landmark bill into law requiring septic tanks to undergo once-every-five-year inspections—the first time in Florida history that such inspections would be instituted. In a state where more than half of its 2.6 million septic tanks are over 30 years old, and 10 percent are estimated to be failing—a state where the water table is usually just a couple of inches below your feet—this didn’t seem like such a bad idea. Not even to last session’s Republicans: The bill’s author was Lee Constantine, a GOP representative from Altamonte Springs. It was a “consensus bill on water policy which the agency involved, local government, environmentalists, business and industry support,” he said
…tea party groups and homeowners in North Florida, where much of the state’s 2.6 million septic tanks are located, have fought against the inspections as costly and unnecessary. The inspections would have included evaluations and pump-outs, with the costs borne by the owner. Septic tank owners who purchased their tank or had it serviced in the last five years would have been exempt from the inspections.”
One planning consultant reported that a tea party activist in the South told him, “We don’t need none of that smart growth communism.”
” When criticizing the original septic-tank inspections last year, State Sen. Joe Negron (R-Stuart) went for the red meat. The controlling issue, he said, wasn’t the possibility of raw sewage, sludge, and grease running off into the state’s drinkable springs and aquifers: It was property rights. “Mr. and Mrs. Jones, 78 years old, live in a house with a 30 or 40 year septic tank,” he said. “Do they have to let the government come inspect their septic tank?”
It would be great if Senator Negron would talk about his reasoning. I’m saying this in the most respectful way. I think it order to come to a good place where we can move forward we need to have all the facts.
