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Woefully Run Keys Marine Sanctuary Won't Restore Paradise

June 7, 2016 - 2:00pm

Your readers, in fact all the people of Florida, should know the entire Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary is an embarrassment for all of the good it hasn’t done.

And for all of the promises that weren’t fulfilled and the way the management mindset is nothing more than, “CYA, make as few waves as possible, kiss the behinds of the loudest ones who threaten our making it to retirement without controversy and otherwise ignore or discredit the rest. ...

"Start up little, meaningless programs under the guise of ‘saving the environment’ and widely promote them as ‘great successes’ to a clueless public. Make empty excuses when you’re challenged.”

I stupidly believed in the Sanctuary 25 years ago and spent my own money to travel to Washington to cheer NOAA on.

I sat for five years, at my own expense, on the Sanctuary Advisory Council and argued hard to gain the support of the skeptics, only to see that the idiots -- who at the very first meeting acted like a bunch of hooligans when in protest they rolled painted coconuts at us -- had been correct all along. 

The water is crap, the fish stocks are crap, the Sanctuary’s own managers support shallow water injection wells -- in the 21st century! -- and won’t implement closed areas over known spawning sites because they’re afraid of the small but loud, still uneducated, opposition.

“Pass the buck” is the order of the day. They are nothing more than self-serving bureaucrats, afraid to risk the heat of doing what’s right, what must be done to fullfill their stated mission. But still they give each other awards for the “good job” they’re doing and every one of them will get a nice retirement pension.

They know the majority of the public is either indifferent or ignorant, both things that these “stewards of the environment” were supposed to rise above and work to fix. Instead, they seized upon it as a way to do nothing but run their mouths and collect a paycheck.

I refuse to forget how wonderful the Keys once were in the early 20th Century when my father and our family first came down here to fish. 

I refuse to be a victim of “shifting baselines,” pretending that everything’s always been the cesspool it is now.

I know the paradise it once was is gone forever. Politics and selfishness destroyed it and there’s no going back. I know this now. Deep down I knew this was the way it would end up, even when I was in high school in the early 1970s.

I knew that someday I would be like Sol Roth [the character from the movie "Soylent Green" -- Editor], and sure as hell, I am Sol Roth.

  
Bill Parks, diver, commercial fisherman, former Florida Keys National Wildlife Sanctuary Advisory Council member, now lives in Boynton Beach.

Comments

I agree with Mark. Maybe it is time that we elect someone to office that says they will do ONE thing. Like a scientist to at least stop the bleeding in the Keys. Anyone wanting an entertaining read all wrapped around a real issue should read Carl Hiassen's "Strip Tease". A true story of Big Sugar and the Glades and Keys. While Hiassen is a storyteller,he is also an environmentalist. Most all politicians are lawyers and we should NEVER AGAIN vote for a lawyer. Most politicians are bought and paid for scumbags. We should avoid them too. GO TRUMP. (I really don't care what he says about the Mexican judge. Suspect it is the truth and everyone is aghast at hearing it)

The People's Investments are, at the very least, misspent. For years, at ALL taxpayers' "expense" we've been told how the corrupt politicians in Tallahassee & Washington would take care of everything. Unfortunately, those telling us were the CORRUPT politicians, themselves! Florida's recent amendment to preserve natural resources has become a joke in and amongst the Tallahassee crooks. Just what improvements, or preservation have we witnessed? NONE Yet, Florida's voters continue to return the very same politicians thinking....'this time their promises will be kept, but never are! IF you expect change, you MUST change out the current politicians for newer and hopefully, more honest ones than what is now available. Time for real changes in Tallahassee and Washington. Let your voices be heard! GO TRUMP!!

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