Why is DEP still so inept, years after DeSantis took office?
https://treasurecoast-fl-app.newsmemory.com/?publink=2abbb1082_13485b4
In January 2019, two days after being sworn into the state’s highest office, De-Santis wanted to make one thing clear: He would be the clean-water governor. He hopscotched around the state making announcements and creating entities to do what the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) no longer was — protecting Florida’s waterways.
In March 20 19 at the Nathaniel P. Reed National Wildlife Refuge in Hobe Sound, DeSantis appointed the Blue Green Algae Task Force, a board of five of the state’s most esteemed clean-water scientists. It took them barely seven months to draft a plan of how to undo the damage wrought to waterways by former Gov. Rick Scott and others.
DeSantis and the Florida Legislature chucked about 87% of the task force’s recommendations in the circular file.
So here we sit, three years and one pandemic later, with a blueprint from our brightest minds on how to fix Florida’s complicated water quality problems and no one in a position of leadership seems to care.