Is this a case of coastal urban residents trying to blame all the water quality problems on the rural counties and farmers?
Absolutely not! We all share in the responsibility. After all, we all eat the food produced on our farms and we all generally seek the lowest price possible for the food we buy. The current sources of the problem simply reflect who got here first, but they don’t necessarily reflect what may be the most serious long-term threats to water quality. Long before Southwest Florida’s population began to grow significantly, there were already extensive agricultural lands along the Kissimmee River, around Lake Okeechobee and in the Caloosahatchee watershed. All these contributed pollution to the Caloosahatchee. Thus, the clean-up problem in Lake Okeechobee is primarily an agricultural legacy issue from our long history of cattle ranches, dairy farms and sugarcane fields. However, at the same time we clean up after our agricultural mistakes, we must make sure that we are giving equal attention to urban & residential sources of pollution. That is why Riverwatch is insisting that all counties and
