Blog Action Day

Today is Blog Action Day, where bloggers around the world can participate in posting, in their own unique way, on one subject; The Environment.

As I’ve ranted in the past, I live in an area of Florida where growth is, in my opinion, totally out of control. I read a statistic just yesterday that says we have the fastest growing school district in the entire state…the entire state! While that makes for overcrowded classrooms, this is nothing that can’t be worked around by adding portables and building new schools. But what’s really alarming is the rate in which we’re going through our natural water resources and the solutions proposed; first being to siphon 262 million gallons of water per day from the St. Johns River, in order to ease the water crisis in central Florida, where water wars are currently underway.

The St. Johns River Water Management District has performed computer models and predicts that the river can, in fact, sustain such withdrawals, while others believe the outcome could be catastrophic in not only increasing the salinity, as the fresh water is drained and more salt water comes in, but the devastating affect this will have on the local shrimp and crab industry.

And why this great need for water from the St. Johns? Quite simply…to sustain developments that have been, and are being built, in unsustainable areas. Why would someone build a community in an area they knew was unsustainable you ask? Well, it seems that developers have come to realize that with enough green to line the right pockets, just about anything is possible, even having billions of gallons of water hand delivered, regardless of how it affects the environment and the people who make their living from the rivers natural resources.

It seems to be everyone’s dream to live in a “family friendly” neighborhood with good schools, big houses and convenient locations to the mini-malls, but while most are burying their heads in the sand, determined to get in that new house at whatever cost, we need to stop and take a look at just what kind of mess we’re creating and what the future holds for our children that we work so hard to provide for.

It’s not too late to make a difference…This is your wake up call, folks. It’s time take a stand, protect our natural resources and say Enough is Enough!

~ by Jill Terry on October 15, 2007.