Don’t go in the water? What is this shit?
July 6, 2009 at 5:32 pm by Kelly CorneliusBy Kelly Cornelius
PoHo contributor & R-LAND; activist
Stay out of the water! That was the warning just prior to the start of this year’s 4th of July holiday about the Courtney Campbell Beach. Was it because of a bull shark attack? Nope. Maybe an invasion of rogue lionfish? Nope. Maybe a jellyfish convention then?
No, silly, there was just too much shit in the water. Course they said the high bacteria count could be due to several things including animal feces, stormwater runoff, and lastly they mention sewage. Uh-huh. Don’t forget there is a 14-mile-long algae bloom going on right now that’s also attributed to contaminated run-off. Oh goodie, let’s make it easier to build more houses!
Photo Credit: James Laurence Stewart at Flickr.com
When I was a kid the 4th of July meant going to the beach without a care in the world. Guess maybe I am showing my age, but I don’t remember any of my favorite beaches getting closed down because of excess shit, but then again I did grow up south of here where I don’t recall any of our County Commissioners being hauled off in handcuffs for taking bribes in exchange for approving land deals either.
On what planet does it make sense to encourage practices that contaminate our environment, destroy the very reason people make Florida a travel destination and degrade our quality of life? Yet that is what local and state politicians have done by gutting growth management laws, wetland and water permitting while promoting “economic development.” Let’s be honest; at least in Hillsborough when you hear the phrase economic development from a politician, think campaign fund development and do a little checking.
Take a look at this article that describes how the Little Harbor developers lost a land use vote when wanting to build in environmentally sensitive areas. They later contributed heavily to two of the NO votes and when their appeal came up for review those two commissioners changed their votes, handing the developers a win and dealing a blow to the citizens fighting them. Shows just how hard it is to argue with bribes oops, I mean campaign contributions.
Remember, we don’t have enough water as it is (and people scaled back due to restrictions that in turn caused water rates to go up). And now we often can’t even swim in the bodies of water surrounding our communities because of pollution. Yet our politicians think we need to make it easier to build. Anybody else think maybe it is time to re-think things? Stop swallowing the shit many of our elected officials and their staff are feeding you about growth paying for itself (it doesn’t ) before you really could have to drink shit.
What can you do? Well, if you don’t like the way elected officials pass out land use changes like candy to their shuga daddies then vote YES to Hometown Democracy (Amendment 4) now officially on the 2010 ballot. It doesn’t allow us to vote on everything (like re-zonings) but it does give us the final say in Comprehensive Plan amendments which are often the route that developers use to get bigass subdivisions approved. Do your homework on current elected officials and candidates seeking office. When they claim to be fiscal conservatives, ask them just whose pocketbooks they are looking out for — yours or developers’? If they say they support “sustainable” communities, which seems to be the politically correct buzzword right now, ask them to define sustainable and see if their definition includes so much shit in the water that we can’t go swimming.
July 6th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
I heard a rumor that the Tampa Bay Builders Assn has secured a patent on a new water conversion technology that will extract shit from bays, oceans, rivers etc, add a dab of crazy glue, and turn it into building bricks. These bricks can then be used to constuct new houses. The new homes will bring in more people which will produce more shit, and then we’ll have more bricks to build more homes with. We’ll save more trees and the methane gas that the bricks produce will enable each shit-brick home to produce most of its own energy.
The ecosystem will just have to change slightly, that’s all.
Now that’s progress!!! We owe those developers a hearty handshake!!!
July 6th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
Florida Hometown Democracy — Florida’s last great hope.
People..if you have ever griped about how FL is changing for the worse…vote FOR FL Hometown Democracy. Why would you not?
It would put YOU and ME and every voter in the driver’s seat instead of the County Commissioners who are prone to favor developers due to their fat campaign contributions. So who do you want driving the growth bus…us or THEM? You choose.
July 6th, 2009 at 9:37 pm
Fix, wouldn’t that be a brick shithouse?
Cracker Gal – I hope you are driving the bus!
July 6th, 2009 at 11:30 pm
Hey FIX..! That was a brilliant, albeit self-serving idea from TBBA -Since Ralph “I Paved Paradise and Put Up a Parking Lot” Hughes isn’t with us anymore, TBBA was in a strap with the loss of his concrete.
SO glad to hear that even without his help, the wheels of “progress” roll forward. Shit still happens.
July 7th, 2009 at 12:53 am
Great article, Kelly. And thanks for that selection of archived articles from our recent history that you refer back to in the blog. Hope everyone went back and read them. It’s good to remind ourselves often of what goes on right under our noses.
Reliving the Little Harbor issue sickens me. I talked with the idiots they had bused in from North County, lured by “candy” while they got time off work from their developer bosses. I haven’t forgiven Sharpe yet for that vote change—and just don’t buy his excuses. It was a duck that walked, and I saw it. Development money is ingrained in our political culture. We don’t scare some them a whit by reminding them we’re watching. Jim Norman doesn’t give a hoot what we think of him—Pompous-ass political animal! God, I hope people aren’t dumb enough to send him up to Tallahassee. But he’s where he is now from voter apathy and his sprawl machine-wallet-kissing. And advertisement money paid by developers. Higginbotham has pretty signs, and they’re just EVERYWHERE during an election. People are so ignorant. But, it’ll get me down if I dwell on it further.
Just shine the light frequently, Kelly. Thank you.
July 7th, 2009 at 1:49 am
To any of you who are going into the links supplied above, NOTE that the “hauled off in handcuffs” link’s Charlie Bean, is yep, our County Administrator Pat Bean’s former husband.
One would think she’d be a nicer person than she is with that albacore hanging around her neck. (The ‘albacore’ line is appropriately, from “The Sopranos”..)
July 7th, 2009 at 1:59 am
FLORIDA HOMETOWN DEMOCRACY – on ballot 2010!!! Campaign for it.
FLORIDA HOMETOWN DEMOCRACY – on ballot 2010!!!
FLORIDA HOMETOWN DEMOCRACY – on ballot 2010!!! Campaign for it.
FLORIDA HOMETOWN DEMOCRACY – on ballot 2010!!!
July 7th, 2009 at 5:09 am
Very informative. I think due to increasing water pollution everyone should aware of the importance of water treatment. Weather it is on a local level or Industrial level. If industries properly handle their waste water, we can solve many water pollution problems. Industrial water treatment consultant like waterstsolutions should be helpful in this regard.
July 7th, 2009 at 7:29 am
Great article, Kelly. Gutting our growth management laws (such as they are), was a huge mistake. They’re going to find out just how huge in 2010 when we all vote for FHD, and vote out the sprawlemiesters. The citizens are tired of bidness as usual.
July 7th, 2009 at 10:12 am
The fecal matter (shit) in the bay can lead to many serious illnesses.
Too much of our tax money has been spent on urban sprawl infrastructure instead of paying to replace aging sewer pipes.
This is serious. It impacts the health of the bay and its marine life, the health of humans and can hurt our reputation as a tourist destination.
We’ve got to ‘get our shit together’.
July 17th, 2009 at 10:53 am
As a 3rd generation Tampa Native I can tell you that NO ONE GIVES A SHIT ABOUT THE BAY anymore and HASN’T for…well EVER. As a kid in the 60’s and 70’s the Bay WAS CLEAN AND TEEMING with multi species of fish,crabs,shrimp and ABOVE ALL…CLEAN WATER!! To me the BAY in it.s PRESENT STATE is “DEAD” or AT THE LEAST ON LIFE SUPPORT. It’s SHAME and DISGRACE that OUR NAME-SAKE has been REDUCED to NOTHING MORE THAN A BIG FREAKIN TOILET!! We can POINT fingers ALL DAY but WE ARE ALL TO BLAME for the POLLUTING,OVER-FISHING and WORST OF ALL ALLOWING DEVELOPERS TO BUILD AND DESTROY HABITAT that will NEVER BE REPLACED!! We have ALLOWED the DESTRUCTION of OUR NAME-SAKE and LIFE’s BLOOD!! I don’t EVER see a POSSIBLE RECOVERY EVEN IF WE STARTED TODAY!! I only thank GOD that I grew up in the time when it was the BEST FISHING SPOT I EVER FISHED HAVING the HONOR to CATCH and RELEASE AT LEAST some 3,500 SNOOK IN MY LIFE. But the last 4-5 Years have proven to me that those days will NEVER RETURN. And we are rightly Damned for it!!!