The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 107: Saving the Everglades

Episode Date: March 12, 2018

Fort Lauderdale, FL- Steven Rinella talks with Kellie Ralston and Matt Cook, along with Janis Putelis of the MeatEater crew.Subjects Discussed: the American Sportfishing Association; Florida: the most fishinest state; the Magnusson-Stevens Act; the state of America's major fisheries; restoring the Everglades; Florida's access issues; how to save our coral reefs; keeping America fishing; the mechanical awesomeness of a largemouth bass's big-assed mouth; and more. Connect with Steve and MeatEaterSteve on Instagram and TwitterMeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeShop MeatEater Merch Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Go farther, stay longer. All right. Our very special guest, Kelly Ralston. Hello. My first question for you, it's like a structural question. Do you think I should ask you first to explain the ASA, or should I ask you first to explain the Everglades? Well, ASA would be a lot easier,

so maybe we'll go with that one. Okay, so within that, keep Florida fishing? Mm-hmm. Like, roll that into it. Okay. So I work for the American Sport Fishing Association. We are a trade association for the sportfishing industry. And so our members range from tackle retailers, tackle manufacturers, clothing,

eyewear, boat manufacturers, pretty much anything associated with sportfishing industry. Retailers are our members. ASA also puts on ICAST, which is the world's largest sport fishing trade show, every July here in Orlando. So we'd welcome you all back to Florida if you want to make another trip coming up this summer. Because of the importance of Florida to the sport fishing industry. It's the most fishing estate, right? It is. It's the fishing capital of the world. And so, you know, we have our industry has a huge investment in this state.

And we wanted to make sure that we ensured that for the industry moving forward. And so we started the Keep Florida Fishing Initiative, I guess, about two and a half years ago. That's about how long I've been with ASA to really focus on Florida specific issues. So our motto is abundant fisheries, clean water, and access to both for Florida anglers and our industry. How many states get a, how many states get a Keep X fishing? Well, you know, as special as Florida is, we are the only one at this point. We also have a Keep America Fishing advocacy program. But Florida was so sort of important and so complex. Yeah. You guys had to set up shop in Florida.

Yeah, it's a $9.6 billion industry in the state, 128,000 jobs, and that's just within the state. So a lot of our industry, their sales are really important here, but manufacturing takes place across the country. So from a nationwide perspective for the sport fishing industry, Florida is extremely important. You're going to hate this. Who are your enemies? Yeah, that's like, you're going to reframe the question. But you know what i'm saying like so you have you have a like and i'm not talking about on the florida sense but on the national scale not your enemies but what do you when you

look and if if the association looks and says okay we want to like promote the industry promote fishing where do you wind up having friction like where does the friction occur because i think that on the surface everyone's going to be like yeah yeah, of course. Let's go fish. Yeah, of course. I like fishing. I would say it really depends on the issue, quite frankly. Different issues, you're in agreement with different folks on. A lot of the federal fisheries management issues, which is where we have been focused primarily at the national level,

tend to involve environmental groups and commercial fishing because it's all about dividing up kind of the allocation that you're given for a particular fishery, particularly red snapper you may have heard of. So that one's probably more controversial. But there are other instances, California salmon, where we are actually working closely with environmental groups to ensure that there's enough available water for salmon in the state. And that's more of like a farmer versus fish type setup because water's in such short supply out there. So when all of the, I'm just talking like high level general, when there's a fisheries issue and all of the stakeholders, that's the term you hear all the time, find that also seated at the table would be commercial fishing

industry and the environmental movement. Yeah. And I think a lot of that goes back to how federal fisheries management was established in this country with the Magnuson-Stevens Act. And that was originally intended, well, first it was originally intended to deal with international fishing in United States waters. But after that, it morphed into addressing overfishing in the commercial industry. And so that's where a lot of the regulations that we have right now are. They're focused on commercial fishing, which if you think about it, it's really an entirely different activity than recreational fishing. I mean, yes, you want to go out and encounter a fish, which is what a commercial person wants to do. But they need to encounter a lot of them in a short period of time.

And they're trying to harvest everyone that they see. From a recreational perspective, you know, it's more about relationships with people that you're going out on the water with. It's more about the experience of being out there and fishing. And so, yes, there is harvest involved for some species more than others, but it's an entirely different approach. And so the big issue for us at the federal level has been trying to kind of modernize the way recreational fishing is managed because the commercial paradigm does not work well for saltwater recreational fishing.

So freshwater is a whole different story. That one's typically very well done. But the Magnuson-Stevens Act. Yeah, because there's not a huge commercial fishing footprint. And there's some, you know, obviously some minor mountain the great lakes and some of the mississippi drainage but generally not like when i think about that sort of that the two paradigms or the the two like the recreational commercial relationship i'd be like when we're out fishing in our skiffs in southeast alaska right and you're out fishing on a sport fishing license and you're

allowed whatever you know like a couple salmon or sometimes one salmon a particular species but you're honestly fishing where you could converse right with purse seiners who are you know using a hydraulic winch to haul out and you're like i feel very inadequate here i get it you compare like one of their halls with your lifetime of bag limits and realize that like if you if you got your limit every day all season for your lifetime you wouldn't achieve one basket full of fish and you know yeah and i'm not trying like i'm not trying to to criticize what i'm saying it winds up being like it's like this funny juxtaposition to be like sitting in a boat comparing comparing the two, you know, the footprints of each. Well, and I think that's, that's true, especially in certain fisheries where there is a

very large commercial element. And Alaska is a prime example of that. We have a lot of mixed use fisheries, particularly down here in the Southeast. And then we have some that are almost exclusively recreational. So it does skew both ways. But to kind of bring it back around to, you know, who's at the table, I think the commercial industry is very comfortable with the Magnuson-Stevens Act where it is, and rightfully so. It's done a really good job of bringing back a lot of fisheries that were in trouble. And we're in a good place as far as our fish stocks in most cases nationwide. The issue comes when you look at kind of the poster child of federal fisheries management,

which is Red Snopper, which is a mixed fishery. It's almost 50-50 split in the allocation between commercial and recreational. I didn't know that, really. So in that case, there's a significant impact from recreational fishing. Yes. case was a significant impact from from recreational fishing yes yeah um but you look at it and the recreational private recreational anglers had a initially a three-day season federal season last year now there's other factors that go into why that was a three-day season like joe blow with a fishing license had a three-day season if he wants to go out fishing in federal waters which is where the larger snapper are so what has happened is the states have tried to compensate for some of that because they have jurisdiction over their waters. So they've opened

progressively longer and longer state seasons to compensate for the increasingly shorter and shorter federal seasons. And we've actually been a victim of our own success because as red snapper have continued to rebound and increase in size and in number, we meet the quota faster because we're able to just go out and pick them out of the water. And so trying to look at ways to balance that is one thing. But anyway, so back to the issue. Real quick, what designates the state controlled water versus federal waters? So it's nine miles out is state waters, gulf-wide now. And then beyond that is the EEez out to 200 miles which is

federal jurisdiction so how does that work as like leaving florida aside just so people can understand if you just imagine sort of like the the the atlantic and pacific coasts what is like just generally there at what point does state-regulated water turn into federal-regulated water? I know, I'm not sure about Pacific. I would assume it's similar to the Atlantic, which is three miles out. Once you take your boat three miles out, you're in federal waters. Federal waters, yep, yep. So, but anyway, back to Magnuson.

So it's done a really great job on the commercial side addressing their issues. They're very comfortable with it. From a recreational side, we have some challenges, and i think there needs to be some additional flexibility in management there and so that's been one of the big issues that we have been we have brought to the table and and congress appears to be interested and poised to take action so fingers crossed so we can see some significant changes there's some other things that they're working on in the Gulf, um, that NOAA Fisheries, um, is working on with the Gulf States to actually look at state management, turning over management of that nine to 200 miles over to the States and seeing what they can do with it.

Oh, really? Mm-hmm. They've just, um, submitted, each of the States has submitted exempted fishing permits. Um. And this goes beyond just like Red Snapper, which is something... No, this is exclusively for Red Snapper, kind of as a test run, and see how they do with that. Because I think the states, especially from a recreational perspective, have a much closer relationship with anglers, and there's a lot more trust there.

And they've actually done a really great job managing their inshore fisheries so um this will kind of be a test run and there's some amendments going through the council the gulf council to see if there's there are ways to do it permanently so what are some other um and i want to i do want to get back to what we're supposed to be talking about but if you look okay so in the gulf like if you follow sort of the news around fisheries you do hear a lot about sort of the contest like a limited resource that has a lot of people wanting to make sure they're getting their fair share of it would be red sand or red snapper in the gulf in the pacific northwest people there's constant conflict around salmon resources. Okay. So tribal, commercial, recreational, like make sure everybody jockeying to get what they feel is rightfully

theirs. What are other, besides those two sort of corners of the country, what are other species that kind of like generate that same, those same kind of tensions? I quite honestly can't think of any. We've had some issues in the South Atlantic with cobia recently, mainly due to trying to come up with better estimates of recreational harvest because a lot of the commercial fisheries have reporting requirements in place and recreational fishermen are a little bit more challenging to kind of pin down how much they're bringing in how much they're actually catching yeah um and so actually the south atlantic fishery management council is uh considering an amendment that would

similar to what we're talking about in the gulf that would turn over management of cobia to the atlantic states marine fisheries commission which which is from Florida all the way up the coast. And that's primarily because cobia are a state water species, almost exclusively. I mean, they're not out far. Not typically. Gotcha. Not typically.

Okay, so that's the American Sport Fishing Association. Yes. Built into that is Keep Florida Fishing. Yes. Now, you can't talk about Florida fishing without talking about the Everglades, right? Inseparable. Well, you know, it's funny. When I started this position, I thought, oh, I'll be doing fisheries issues. And then we had the big rain event in January of 2016.

And I was like, right, we still haven't fixed the Everglades, dang it. Because it was a huge, huge deal. We had, you know, guacamole, six inch thick blue-green algae in our coastal estuaries as a result of discharges from Lake Okeechobee that affected tourism, it affected habitat. It affected fisheries, not only in the estuaries, but also in Florida Bay down in the Keys. So it is a South, it's really a central and South Florida issue when you want to get down to it.

And that's so important to our industry here in the state. So explain the rain event, and then we'll back up and talk about just like how it works in general. Yeah, but I'm aware back up and talk about just like Everglades in general. Yeah, but I'm aware of this. I remember it made national news. International news. International news. Yeah.

So a ton of rain falls. In the off season, in the typically dry season. So we've had issues with discharges from Lake Okeechobee going back to the 80s and the 70s. But it really came to a head that year because it was in January, which is typically a really dry month down here. And so all of the tourists that were down here, the snowbirds that were down here, saw what happened. And so it started out as freshwater discharges.

You know what I realized? I've got to interrupt you. Yeah, that's okay. Because I feel like people are not going to understand what we're talking about. Okay, so there's a wet season. You know what I realized? I got to interrupt you. Yeah, that's okay. Because I feel like people are not going to understand what we're talking about. So there's a wet season and a dry season. No, I want to go back. Okay, even further. Let me do another thing first. And you check me where I'm wrong on this.

So everybody can picture the Florida Peninsula. There's kind of in the middle up and down. There's a big, huge lake, which everybody's heard the word. Most everybody's heard of Lake Okeechobee. Big, huge lake. There are rivers that flow. There are a number of primary rivers, right, that flow southward into Lake Okeechobee. Historically, when that lake would fill up, it would flow southward from there and that everything southward from there where that

overfill where all that overspill would historically go is what we call the everglades right this yeah it actually really starts at mickey mouse you really want to get technical so orlando um there's a chain of lakes and the kasemi river and all of that it used to be a big floodplain but now it's been very channelized. So the water comes in pretty quickly. They're almost finished with restoring the Kissimmee River because initially the Army Corps of Engineers, who is kind of the construction lead on all of this from start to finish,

thought it would be a good idea to straighten it out because that would be a lot easier to get to and from, right? Okay. But then we found out that the water was just coming in way too quickly and causing even greater problems. So historically, it would kind of meander down this flowway of the Kissimmee River into shallow but huge Lake Okeechobee. It's over 700 square miles, but about nine feet average depth.

So it's pretty shallow. And you think of it kind of like a really shallow bowl. When it would get filled up, the southern end of it would just overflow, and it would be this huge sheet of water about six inches deep that would flow primarily south, but really it hooked historically towards the Gulf side, and then there were some that would come out Miami. Hundreds of miles wide, right? Yep.

Yeah, it was, I want to say it was 4,000 square miles originally. And right now we have about half of that, a little bit less than half of that that's remaining. So there's been this huge development, obviously along the southeast coast of Florida, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Stewart, Florida, all of that was historic Everglades as well. Okay.

But it was on a higher ridge. And then we've had agriculture south of the lake on the fertile muck grounds that are down there as a result of the flooding. But, yeah, it would take almost a year for the water to get from Lake Okeechobee to Florida Bay. It was that slow moving. Is that right? Yep. How do you measure that? Sorry.

I did not do it. I am not a hydrologist, but that's what I've been told. It would take a year. Wow. Yeah, it's like trickling its way through. It's the ultimate filter, really. And so then that freshwater would go into Florida Bay, which is so important for our marine nurseries and fisheries.

You have everything from lobster to tarpon down there that use the inshore areas of Florida Bay as nurseries. So it's a huge breeding ground and really, really important for our fisheries. So that's how the system once functioned. Hey, folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness, do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join. Whew, our northern brothers get irritated.

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Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. I realize I'm throwing you off because I'm changing how I want to do all this. That's okay. I'm following you. But I want to get to what happens now when you get a ton of rain, which is becoming more important because we just had like a couple of crazy hurricanes too. Yeah.

So what was the big, huge flood in the 20s, right? And it killed a bunch of people? Yeah. So what happened there? So maybe step back a little bit before that. So the development happened because of agriculture and because of population, right? People wanted to move to South Florida. Henry Flagler and his railroad, huge component of that.

Let's bring them all south, drain out the swamp and have a great place for people to come and visit and recreate. And so south of the lake was this fertile muck ground. I think even the Seminole Indians, when they were kind of pushed into the Everglades, realized how fertile the land was there and used it for farming. Land that would periodically flood. Yes. Yes. And so originally, the two rivers that now connect to Lake Okeechobee that go to the east and the west, the Caloosahatchee's on the west and the St. Lucie's on the east, were not originally connected to Lake Okeechobee. And so that's how you ended up with that straight southern, well, relatively straight. That's what I wasn't clear on as I look at it and read about it. I wasn't, I was always

wondering like, how could one lake head rivers that flowed in three directions, but it didn't. No, it just went south i got you yeah so those rivers were just their own minor they were their own minor drainages not connected to this primary flow exactly and so um so back to the agriculture south of the lake so people started farming there and they built a really kind of small earthen berm around the south side of the lake. And a huge hurricane, they think it was, you know, Category 5 hit in 1928 and blew out that dike. And thousands of people died south of the lake. Because they had built that berm. So they had found like a fertile, they had founded a fertile floodplain.

Right. Which was prone to periodic flooding. Set up shop there, moved in, built communities. They're like, let's protect it from any kind of, to keep it dry, we'll put this dike up. Yep. And then all of a sudden, wham, the dike failed. Yep. The berm failed.

So the Corps stepped in. And it killed thousands of people. Thousands. The Corps stepped in and built the Herbert Hoover Dike. And it's still there today. It's undergoing a rehabilitation. In fact, there are still concerns about the stability of that dike. And that's why when we had Hurricane Irma this last fall, Governor Scott ordered an evacuation of those communities south of the lake for fear because we weren't sure exactly where it was going to go.

You know, and the projections were all that it was going to go straight up the middle of the lake for fear because we weren't sure exactly where it was going to go. And the projections were all that it was going to go straight up the middle of the state. It could cause it to fail. So it's a dike, which is like a big trench full of water or like a canal. It's more like a big hill of water. Yeah, it's more like a big, huge, tall hill that they've built. And so they're going around to rehabilitate it's not it's not canal along there it's just like a it's just a big it's a earth and berm like what you'd see on the mississippi river like an earthen dam i got you okay yeah yeah just made

out of piled up dirt yeah so when they say fail just that it would have rolled away watered much like what you saw in houston um with uh i can't remember the name of it out there, but there was one that you could just watch that failed as the waters rose. It was just too much pressure. So the Corps starts to get concerned when water levels in the lake go above 15 feet because that's kind of their key cutoff for, okay, if it goes above this, we need to start watching out for the dike and how stable it is. And are we seeing any signs of failure there? So was that... above this we need to start watching out for the dike and and how stable it is and and is it are we seeing any signs of failure there yeah so is that was that herbert hoover dike was that sort

of like the first major kind of strike against the everglades was interrupting the southerly flow of water well that and tamiami trail i would say say, were the major factors to begin with. And then the connection of the St. Lucie River and the Caloosahatchee River. Which are the east-west flowing rivers. Yes. Okay, so we have this lake that would traditionally flow south as this massive, shallow six-inch sheet of water. And you block that flow. And so someone comes up with the idea,

probably over generations, I imagine, let's dig in and send that water east and west in different river systems. It's doing exactly what it was designed to do. I mean, the way the system was altered was intentionally to not send water south, and it was intentionally to send it out the two rivers, to the east and the west. That was the whole rationale.

And at the time when the decision was made, I wonder if people even back then would say, but hey, what about the Everglades? Or was, we hadn't, as a nation, we hadn't really gotten around to the idea of grappling with like finiteness. I think the perception, there's a really great book on this subject, by the way, called The Swamp. Okay.

That kind of gives a fabulous history of the Everglades. I think the mentality was more, you know, land ho, let's go develop. And I don't think there was a lot of thought to, you know, what long-term impacts there might be from all of this. And it was more about public safety, water supply, agriculture, trying to develop, you know, the swamp of Florida. And they hadn't really thought about anything like living within the ecosystem as part of safety. I don't think so. I think the perception was we're just going to make it how we want it and it'll be fine.

So what were once that flow was stopped can you quickly encapsulate what we began to lose in the ecosystem that that water was coming through yeah so areas that were historically wet um got too dry or they would be

too wet for too long at too high level so you start seeing um vegetation changes you start seeing vegetation changes. You start seeing exotics in the system. You start seeing pretty much an entire disruption of an ecosystem. I mean, you still see alligators. You still see bass. You still see deer and tree islands. But they're becoming fewer and fewer and more impacted. You know, it's really, I think on a, if it's an average day, I think things are probably not too too impacted within the system, at least to, you know, the average person's eye. It's when you have these unusual events, high water events, that you start to really see the stresses in the system and that it goes beyond the Everglades, out to the coast and down to the Keys. Okay. So now the real, the real rainy event of what was 2016 yeah so that was like the unusual super rain yeah so and then we had the hurricanes of 2017 so 2016 was really interesting because we had the rainfall event in

january which the lake rose um i want to say it was close to 17 feet so water is being discharged to the east and the west at maximum volume as quickly as possible to try and bring the lake levels down. Because any rain event can raise the lake level almost three feet. So that's why the Corps, particularly in the wet season, likes to have it lower so that they have some play in there in case we have a hurricane or we have a tropical system that sits there for a little while. So they can manage that flow of water. So in December that year, you could have been standing on dry ground. At the end of January, you could have been in 17 feet of water. Yeah, there's a huge fluctuation in the natural system there.

And what happened, because it was in an off time, we had these habitat impacts, oyster die-offs, seagrass die-offs so there's freshwater inflows to the estuaries that aren't normal so you basically have salinities dropping to zero on the coast because they're sending so much water east and west out of those rivers and you also have just the turbidity so the water's cloudy you may have seen there's some great photos out there if you google them where you can kind of see this dark cloud of water coming out of the rivers into the estuaries. And that shades the seagrass, that shades, you know, all of the sea life that's out there and really can impact fishing. That's what does it, the shading? Yeah. Well, so then there's the second part. So there's the impact from the freshwater.

You have these species that are relying on, they're sensitive to how much salt's in the water. Yes, absolutely. It can't be too much, can't be too little. Like oysters being something that was like a brackish water species. Yeah. And they can take low salinity for a certain number of days. But once you get past that threshold, then they just can't survive.

So you're pumping out so much fresh water that you're turning a saltwater body basically into a somewhat freshwater or freshwater body by just inundating it with so much river water. And then the muddiness prevents sunlight from penetrating through. And so that and the salinity impact seagrasses and those estuaries. And killed some. Yep. And so because of when the rainfall fell, we also had the algal bloom happen in the summer

once the temperatures warmed up. And that bloom happened in the lake, in Lake Okeechobee, or it happened out in the marine environment? So it was both. There was in in the lake in lake okachobee or it happened out in the marine so it was both there was an algal bloom in lake okachobee wasn't which isn't terribly uncommon um but the blue green algal bloom in the estuary and the extremeness of it was um unusual um real quick do you accept algal and algal? You do? I don't have a problem with that.

Yeah. There's certain words. Yes. Fungi, fungi. Tomato, tomato. Algal, algal. So you accept both. I'm good.

Yeah. Okay, cool. I know what you're going for. Well, no. I'm digging algal. Yeah. But I grew up saying algal, and I'm trying to think if I should switch. So I don't need to switch right now.

I don't think so. I think you're good where you are. So yeah, explain the bloom. Cause I don't think this is widely understood. Like how something like this happens or why it happens. the freshwater coming into the estuaries stressed the system that caused the algal bloom there. There's been some controversy about whether the algae came from the lake and ended up in the estuary, and that's what caused the bloom. And it may or may not be that. There's been discussion about what role septic tanks play in the situation there, too,

because then you would have within-basin runoff, basically, and the St. Lucie contributing to those algal blooms. But the most recent information that I've seen, and so this is subject to change, is that the freshwater stressed the estuary system, causing the already present algae there or nutrients there to support an algal bloom there so is there uh now i'm gonna stack two more questions up can you explain to people what an estuary is and then also is there sort of a like when you look at the bloom right and you'd be like well it could have started in the lake it It could have been influenced by septic systems that were flooded out. Is there, are there implications of who owns the problem? Well, there's definitely controversy about that. And, you know, from,

from an ASA perspective, we approach. That's American Sport Fishing Association perspective. We, we approach Everglades restoration from the philosophy that we want to get this done as quickly as possible and so we need to look at everything um like i said the research that's pointing to septic being a problem um it makes sense i mean we we see that in north florida where i'm from with our springs and septic systems that the the higher levels of nutrients lead to algal blooms in the springs and so from that perspective it makes sense but I also recognize that discharges coming out of Lake Okeechobee are a significant contributing factor and so we need to look at all of it. I remember when the lake I grew up on, you know, those companies that like True Green or companies that come and do when that caught on.

Yeah. Yeah. When I was a little kid, if you looked around our lake, it was all it looked like just summer cottages and people had houses that were set back up in the trees away from the lake and no one and there weren't yards. Right. It was just, you know, it's like kind of like a lot of white pine and oak. And people just had what looked like forest litter generally. And over time, it became more of a bedroom community. And people started, they'd take down the cabin and build a much bigger house, much closer to the water, and put in lawns.

And then lawn care services caught on. And in a microcosm level, what that did to the lake. Yeah, catastrophic. Is unbelievable. All that fertilizer. Well, they had, and so it even goes beyond septic tanks. I know in Tallahassee, they actually traced, y'all may have heard of Wakulla Springs. It's like an iconic international spring.

It's where they film Creature from the Black Lagoon. No, no, I've never heard of that. Edward Ball with St. Joe. It's kind of the big benefactor of that. But anyway, they've actually traced nutrients from the city of Tallahassee sewer spray field into Wakulla Springs. And so the city went back and reworked how they were actually dealing with their sewage, much less septic tanks that it would travel that far. I think a lot of it has to do with kind of the Florida geography. It's all very porous, limestone based. And so things move. I know. It's kind of amazing, like the sort of the flatness that you can just decide to send water that you'd even have the option right to be like oh this lake drains south we could move it to the south west or east yeah well that's why it

took a year right i think it's i want to say it's like a six inch difference in elevation i mean that's why because you're you're basically almost moving horizontal but just with a very very slight yeah it's like a whole state made out of uh marine limestone right yeah just old seashells exactly um i wanted you to we're gonna get back on track tell people what an estuary is because i think a lot of people live in a lot of people live in the middle of the country like it's just not a term yeah so it's it's basically where a river empties into a saltwater body and so you end up with this mixing of fresh and saltwater. So you have brackish areas. The one that the St. Lucie enters into is the Indian River Lagoon,

because there's kind of some outer barrier islands there that kind of provide this really protected environment. And much like Florida Bay, the brackish environment is a really important nursery area for marine life species. Oh, it's kind of amazing. Yeah. As far as, and then like bird life.

I mean, the estuaries, it's such a unique. It's where it's at. One of the things that makes this unique ecosystem, my God, it's like this melding of, it's like this melding of the land and the sea and salt and fresh. Yeah. And it seems like as far as like biomass of creatures well in north florida i mean it's where you have alligators and oysters all in the same area and sharks and i mean it's just it's it's a fascinating place now i lost track of our main thing though yes take us back to

where we were the bloom the bloom and as. And ASA. So from the Sport Fishing Association perspective, you guys aren't super interested in being like, well, it was their fault. It was their fault. Yeah, we don't want to point the finger. We just want to find the solution. And, you know, I guess sometimes that does involve finger pointing. Sure. But really trying to work together and bring people together to come up with solutions is kind of our focus. Do you ever look at the whole thing and think like, my God,

how could it be that like, we want to make sure there's a good resource of fish, right? That it would wind up being that as you, you know, you always hear like, like as you enter that, you wind up in like a rabbit hole. Right. There's a lot of rabbit holes. Yeah. No, no. I'm just talking. We want a whole bunch of fish around. So what's that going to entail? And you're like, well, let me look into it. And you wind up realizing that it winds up having a lot to do with sort of like engineering and giant earthenworks in American history. And so much of it in Florida has to do with water quality and population growth. I mean, it's not just a marine fisheries issues. We talked a little bit about springs. We've got

a huge network of lakes that are, I mean, Lake Okeechobee is internationally renowned bass fishing destination and they hold multiple tournaments there every year up in North Florida and Central Florida. I mean, it's just, think because of kind of the swiss cheese nature of the underlyings of the state um there's a huge amount of resources and that are impacted by water quality and and that that i mean our coral reefs are being dramatically impacted by water quality i just got an earful from some deer hunters Really? Is that Everglades related? No, an earful from deer hunters And it was all about Who's moving what water where

Because Because it was too high for too long Moving deer and they're drowning deer here And drying out deer there And I was kind of asking these guys Sort of like Well historically Right right if you could go back like what did the deer picture look like and it's it's been like the everglades situation

the water has been so confused for so long it's hard to remember what it doesn't seem there's not like a sort of uh like the baseline isn't well known yeah Yeah. I would say probably the forties were when, cause that was kind of when they did the central and South Florida project, which was where the core came in and installed all of the dikes and canals and water control structures and all the water conservation areas and all of that was done after the dike. So you had Tammy and me trail, then the dike,

then the C and SF project so i think if you went back there you could probably find relatively good information but there's there's not a lot of those folks around still yeah so someone like being born today and just becoming interested in the out of doors and like interested in hunting and fishing um it almost becomes like here it almost probably becomes like somewhat of an irrelevant question of like what did it used to look like because it's just not much of a chance yeah i think it's more what can we do to get it back um so that we don't have this kind of cyclical up and down um series of stressful events on the system.

So what, okay, imagine for a minute that there's no, that there's unlimited budgets and absolute public will. All right. Yes. What needs to happen? Money needs to happen. Money's no issue. Just as an exercise. As an exercise to start out. Let's say that there's money. And what do we need to do to restore? Money's no issue. And every person in Florida is like, my number one priority is fixing the system. Yeah.

So we need to have storage, extensive water storage around the lake. Around the lake, but not in the lake? Well, because the lake is storage. So we need to be able to take the water that comes in and move it around and clean it and then direct it where it needs to go. Ideally, you wouldn't have any water needing to be discharged out the St. Lucie River on the East Coast. You would want to maintain some connection to the Caloosahatchee because sometimes they do have drought situations where they actually need water put in and we have two projects that are working reservoirs that are working on those parts of the system they're

planning storage on the northern side of the lake and also water quality treatment so that we can take all of that water that's coming in from the Kissimmee River and hold back some of it and clean it before it gets to the lake. That would be a lake. Like you're making another lake. Yes. And so some of that's to make up for the fact that the water's not coming in as slowly as it used to. Right.

We have more runoff basically than we used to because of development and modifications that we've made to the system over time. And then to the south, they're working on planning a southern reservoir and treatment. Water quality treatment is really important. But these things would look like water treatment facilities? Or to the untrained eye, you would think there's a big shallow lake? Yeah, I think you would know that it's a reservoir just because it would have more of a regular shape. But the ones that are in place right now, there's stormwater treatment areas, which are a little bit different than a reservoir. They're operated at a little bit shallower level.

But recreational access is allowed to all of those. And I know with the southern reservoir project that's in the planning phases right now, they're looking at allowing fishing and hunting and those types of activities on the lake, which is great. So then once you get below that, we need to take out all of the dike and canal systems that we've put in. So undo Herbert Hoover. Well, no, the dike's going to have to stay because people live there. So unless you want to move those people out the dike has to stay okay um and so that's kind of where the reservoirs come in because you can discharge from the lake into the reservoirs instead of having to have that sheet flow in the agricultural area south of the lake okay so we remove the kind of what we would term barriers to flow the canals and the structures

we maintain protection for the southeast coast of Florida where it's developed. We bridge Tamiami Trail, which when it was constructed was a great idea because it allowed you to get from the east coast of Florida to the west coast of Florida in a straight shot.

The unfortunate thing is it's a second dike, basically, preventing water from going south into Everglades National Park. And so they're working on bridging it so that the water can move under it. Okay. And then you take it into Everglades National Park. And so they're working on bridging it so that the water can move under it. Okay. And then you take it into Everglades National Park.

So that right now, that trail, it's just a big elevated structure that functions as a... It's a road. It's a highway. Just functions as a dam, though. Yes. Well, they've finished, I think, a one-mile section. They're working on a second section. And then I think there's two other sections that have to be bridged basically to allow that. To allow more water to go through.

And then that would take water down into Florida Bay. Beyond that, there's still a couple of areas that still probably need some attention to get kind of the full force of water, fresh water that we actually need in Florida Bay to maintain the salinity since we've been sitting at east and west. We haven't been sitting a whole lot south. And beyond that, that's all you're looking at. That's it. That's only about $20 billion. No problem.

$20 billion. Yeah. And that has to be coordinated between the state and the federal government. So I want to get to that, why that won't. I want to get to the reality. Now that we explore what needs to happen with unlimited funding and public will. Right. You hear that half of the Everglades are gone.

Yep. If in this scenario you just laid out, like if it is done to completion. Does that fix some of that? Or is half the evergreens just still gone? I don't think you can recover the half that's gone. So we have to focus on the half that's left. When they say gone, they mean gone to development. That can't be regained. Okay.

You need to look at it from a glass half full. How can we fix the part that's still there? So we're not looking to regain. We're just looking to salvage and preserve and restore. The flow is what we're really talking about and that will go a long way to

restoring kind of the natural balance in that system where you have the tree islands and you have the sheet flow in certain parts of it and you have the freshwater flows into Florida Bay and not have the sheet flow in certain parts of it and you have the freshwater flows into Florida Bay and not have those traumatic discharges to the east and the west. Can I have a question?

No. I'm sorry. It's very complicated, and that's kind of the hard part about it. Oh, yeah. Well, my mind's buzzing with all these other ideas. Yeah, it's like, what if other ideas like yeah it's like you're talking about another canal here we'll go get a shovel from the home depot and get get it all fixed up this afternoon but no it seems like you're um and i understand that like kind of like the idea of what's been done has been done and you can't change certain things but that development

that causes and i'm guessing a lot of it is just like concrete and asphalt, right? That just causes fat water to get places faster. Right. Do you ever think that people will look innovatively that way and just say, you know what, maybe instead of concrete, there's going to be this other thing that we started driving on around in Florida or building houses on in Florida so that you kind of attack it at like the beginning as opposed to halfway down. Like the holistic approach. Yeah. I mean, I think that would be ideal. I don't know realistically how that would play out since there are so many people in South Florida. It would be a huge undertaking. You know, some of the steps that Martin County, which is where Stewart is in St. Lucie River, have taken to talk about fertilizer runoff, because septic tanks and fertilizers are

kind of that component that we were talking about that contributed to the algal bloom. Just trying to get folks aware of, you know, hey, my green grass is having some impacts on the system. And I mean, that retraining the public is definitely a challenge. But they're going back to revisit, you know, kind of that whole public awareness campaign. And how do we do that? So I wouldn't say that's off the table, but I don't know how significant of an impact you would have just because of the challenges and trying to implement it. I think that those public, kind of like public sacrifice,

public awareness campaigns do work over time. Because I'll talk to people who live in areas like like around the colorado you know the colorado river right so the whole other issue were very complex issue about water allocation where water goes yeah and um like i'll have friends who say like man if you water your lawn in my neighborhood you're ostracized you're ostracized from the community if you're watering on an off day in in florida you're yeah people be like it really like takes hold and people are kind of like all right let's just all agree all of our grass is brown in the summer yeah and let's just make it that the way that green grass used to be a status symbol let's accept that brown grass is now a status symbol in the summer and

when you have green grass you're the guy that used to have brown grass right you're like the outlier yeah and it's like you can like public sort of public awareness and public opinion shifts as people just if you can turn it it's powerful i agree and and when it's like willful compliance yeah then it becomes more palatable to people well if you can generate willful compliance some of that is kind of re-establishing that connection i think with with nature i mean it's so funny i i make it down here several times a year and i mean i live in tallahassee which is a pretty well-developed city um but i come down here and i'm just always amazed at the network of roads and concrete and structures and and when you go to the everglades, I mean, there's like a wall, a dividing line. And you're like, over here, Everglades, over here, obviously not Everglades.

It is remarkable. There's no bleed. Yeah. And I don't think a lot of people cross over that line. And so there's a lot of folks that just aren't aware of kind of what's going on and what the impacts are. If they don't fish, if they're not out on the water a lot, if they're just kind of living their lives, there's not really a daily awareness of what's going on. There's two forms of unawareness. One, I understand, and one's troubling to me.

There's the form of unawareness that you're just blithely unaware. That for whatever reason, who you surround yourself with or how you live your life, you just haven't heard yet. And that's the kind where you're like, okay, that's a failure.

That lack of awareness is a failure of the system or you're just speaking to just a human like human attributes there's at least an opportunity to inform yeah they're just like oh no one told me yeah thanks for the heads up i will now start taking like without overly inconvenience in myself now that i understand i will start taking some minor steps toward helping the bigger picture like there's that kind of person. Then there's the kind of person who's real aware. They know, but they're like, damned if I'm going to inconvenience myself in service of

this thing. Yeah. Because the real blame lies with. So and so. Yeah. That's the troubling version. But. Okay.

Now you don't have all the money in the world and you don't have total public support but people are still trying to accomplish the end result of what you're getting at. Where does it stand? Where does it stand what needs to happen? Well, I think it's frustrating that we're not seeing the positive benefits of all of the efforts to date. And I think a lot of that is... But we're not seeing that? Not yet. I think that we're poised to see a lot of that. There's this mind-boggling schedule of 68 projects that combined make up the comprehensive Everglades restoration

plan. And that kind of timeline is called the integrated delivery schedule. If anybody just really wants to watch their eyes cross, you can Google that and take a look at it. But we're pretty far along. When you look at all those projects, we've at least started planning almost everything in this whole 30-year timeline. So, SERP, to use the short-term version of Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, was authorized in the year 2000. So, it was initially envisioned as a 30-year plan, basically, to restore this. It took us 100 years to screw it up this bad. How can we go back and fix it? And projects are moving a lot of dirt. I mean, it's basically reconstructing South Florida. And you're talking about 2,000 square miles. That's a lot of dirt to move. And granted,

we don't have to touch every corner of that, but we have to touch a lot of it. And then you have negotiations between the state and federal government on how that's going to be done because they share the cost on those projects as an even split they're supposed to share it 50 50 they're supposed how is that decided like how how is it decided like oh some of this is your problem florida well i think the feds thought that they were doing it for us, but yet they were the ones that actually did it. And so I certainly wasn't a fly on the wall for those conversations, but that was the agreement that was reached. And Florida has really stepped up to the plate,

especially in recent years. They've appropriated over 200 million dollars annually for their portion of serp plus they've appropriated the money to pay the state's portion of the money to pay for that reservoir on the southern side of lake okachobee already that hasn't even been approved by congress yet so florida's ahead of the feds on getting the money. Very far ahead. They're agreed upon share of the money. Yeah. I heard Congressman Francis Rainey estimate that he thought that from what he'd seen that Florida was about a billion dollars ahead of the federal government in their appropriations for Everglades restoration. Well, what does it cost? I hesitate to even bring it up.

I was going to ask, when you take, what is the fixed cost, so the cost of fixing it, compared to the cost of not fixing it? Yeah. Well, and that's a hard number to pin down. Because people don't,

I know people's brains don't really work that way, though, you know what I mean? Yeah. Well, if you think that, if you look at just from a fishing perspective, and so that doesn't count tourism or real estate values or... Loss of life, potentially. Yeah.

And there actually have been some documented health conditions from the algal bloom that happened at the coast. So, you know, I don't know how you put a number on that, but it's definitely significant, particularly when you put it, not that $15 to $20 billion is chump change, but $9.6 billion a year just from sport fishing in Florida. Granted, not all of that's in South Florida, but a lot of it's focused there. Not all of it's in South Florida. Not all of it is reliant on this. Right. But just to put those numbers, and that's annually.

I mean, to put those numbers in perspective, yeah, we're suffering significantly. And that's why it's so important for us to move it, try to get it done quicker than 30 years. So really walking the halls of Congress and trying to make folks aware of how important this is from a national perspective. I mean, it's a national treasure, the Everglades is. It's actually a UNESCO World Heritage Site. There's no place else in the world like it. It's the world's largest restoration project that's ever been attempted. Oh, really?

Yes. And again, how many projects need to happen? So there's 68 total. But they all need to happen in concert. Well, they have to happen in a certain order. So for example, building a reservoir without a way to get water either to or from the reservoir doesn't really accomplish anything because the reservoir is just going to fill up. And so kind of trying to think through sequentially, okay, if I need to do this first before I do that, because from an engineering perspective and a water movement perspective, that's how it best makes sense.

But when I say they need to happen in concert, the project is the project, but there's 68 components. You would never say, I'm building a house. You'd never say, I have 120 projects underway. Right. You'd be like, i'm building a house now what that involves is like foundation framing plumb okay so is do any of the projects like as freestanding projects do they wind up being helpful or does it or does it become that these all need to come online i think some are different than others. So Kissimmee River restoration is almost complete.

That's the northern, that's north of the lake. And that just in and of itself could be beneficial. Right. Okay. Because that benefits not only the Everglades, but that benefits the Kissimmee River Basin. So you could feasibly be like, stop there, but enjoy some payoff from it. Yeah, but some of them do need to be done in concert. And so what they did, because things were moving so slowly, they kind of took a subset of the projects that were thought to be the most beneficial,

that would basically give you the biggest bang for the buck, and packaged them together, went through the planning process, which is very extensive with the Army Corps of Engineers. Oh, and probably all the environmental impact work. Yep. And then has to be authorized by Congress. So anyway, they package these together in what they call the Central Everglades Planning Project. And so this is the area between Lake Okeechobee and Everglades National Park. That would be the Central Everglades. And so we have this whole kind of mishmash of canals and levees and all of that sort of thing we need to increase conveyance how so that we can move water south instead of sending it

into a canal to shoot it out to tide and we also need storage and so anyway they package all those together we finally were able to get those authorized in 2016 as CEP is what it's called. And so it has to be authorized by Congress, but we're still waiting on federal appropriation. So the actual money to get it done. So Congress will authorize it, but not necessarily at that moment. Give you the money. Carve out the money.

Yeah, that comes in the budget to the Army Corps of Engineers at a later time. Now, the state can start on their part, and they have, of SEP and they've actually started work on that trying to do the part that's theirs. Have, has the will to tackle the problem gone up or down in the last year? I think from a state perspective, I'm talking federal. Okay. Well, but even our federal, like our congressional delegation.

So our congressmen and our senators, I think are very, um, very united in, in knowing that Everglades restoration, even statewide, that they get it. In a bipartisan way? Absolutely. Okay. Absolutely. The trouble comes when you have, well, we've seen the budget challenges at the federal level continually, but I think we're having one this week.

And so trying to focus 49 other states on one state's problem is a challenge because, again, you're talking about a pie. It's only so big. And how are we going to divide that up? And so the federal government is typically less than half of the appropriation of what Florida is on an annual basis. I think it was like 76 million was the last number. And the dike is separate from that because that's more of a flood control, public safety issue. But just for restoration projects, it's challenging. Hey, folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada.

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Who are the losers of the whole restoration thing? When you look at the current restoration plan, you say it has bipartisan support, the state likes it, your state's delegation to Washington, D.C. likes it.

Who are the people or industries or whatever who are looking at like, yeah, you know, not real keen on this plan? I think there's been some challenges. Well, so there's a lot of politics involved, as with everything. You know, it's not just about restoration. It's not just about an environmental project that needs to be taken care of. So there's politics involved. And so, um, politically, um, you know, I think the, the folks in the agricultural area have felt targeted at some times. Um, and I think that that creates a lot of conflict in how we get things done. Political leaders change and then political will changes. We saw that Governor Bush had an accelerate, what he called an accelerate plan to move projects along. And then we had a change

in administration and the new governor wanted to take a different direction. And that's certainly their prerogative. But, you know, when you're talking about the scope of a 30 year project to change, you know, kind of to change direction every eight years or so is going to is going to cause challenges, at least at the state level. And you have similar turnover at the federal level as well with the Army Corps of Engineers having changeover in who's overseeing the project. You have changeover in the committees and trying to elevate the importance of Everglades beyond the perception that it's just a Florida project. And so that was when I was talking initially, you know, yeah, it is a Florida project, but it has national significance, not only just from the fact

that it's an environmental wonder of the world, but also because of the economic impact that it has on industry that is outside of this state that relies on having access to, you know, abundant fisheries and clean water. And so, you know, you have somebody in Michigan who has a manufacturing plant who's making engine parts for a boat motor. And if folks aren't buying boats in Florida because the water is terrible, then Michigan's going to feel it. And so trying to kind of draw those correlations is what we've been trying to focus on to kind of raise the profile of everglades restoration beyond it being just a florida issue without getting yourself in trouble can you explain to me why you hear when when there's a conversation about the everglades there's always a conversation about the sugar industry can you explain like why how does the sugar how does sugar cane production find its way into every conversation around the Everglades?

Let's see. Well, that whole Everglades agricultural area, it's not just sugar. But they are probably one of the largest landowners in that area. And there are several different companies. And, I mean, when you look at a map, I mean, you see Lake Okeechobee, you see the Everglades agricultural area, and then you see the rest of the Everglades. And so I think it's a natural, um, you know, it's a natural reaction to, to see that the EAA basically and say, well, if we just got rid of that, we could make it all

work. Um, and so it's just that that area happens to foster, there's a lot of sugar production in that area. It was very fertile farmland. I mean, that was kind of, you know, that was right outside of the lake. And so you had this kind of like fertile soil from when the lake would overflow. And it was a natural agricultural area.

But there's a lot of other stuff that's growing there besides sugar. I think the conflict comes, you know, they're property owners and so they have property rights. And so the conflict comes, I think, between folks who are very passionate about restoring the Everglades and seeing that land as kind of the roadblock to it. And well, we should just be able to fix it and get rid of that. And then you have to balance that with the fact that they're property owners. They have taken significant steps to help with nutrient runoff from their properties.

And I'm not trying to defend anybody. That's just kind of my take on what I've seen in the conversations as to why it's such a conflict. Why you hear about it so much. Moving more south, just to touch on another, just to hit all the conflicts. There's a lot of them. Fishing access. Yeah. Okay.

So places where you are and are not allowed to fish is something you hear about a lot down here. Can you kind of like sketch out sort of the conversations around prohibiting recreational fishing in certain waterways and what they hope to gain from that? What's lost with those decisions? Are you talking about more from a coastal perspective? Yeah. Not so much Everglades. Okay.

Yeah, a coastal perspective. Yeah. So there's a lot of concern, I think, globally about the condition of coral reefs. And we have a really significant coral reef track off southeast Florida. It runs from Stewart and Martin County all the way down into the Florida Keys. And the Florida Keys has a National Marine Sanctuary that kind of oversees most of what's going on down there kind of as a blanket communicator. But a lot of the area north of that hasn't received as much attention. And there's been a really significant coral disease outbreak there.

They're not under, they don't really understand exactly the extent of it. They're doing surveys right now. They don't necessarily understand exactly the extent of it. They're doing surveys right now. They don't necessarily understand where it came from. Could be tied to the acidification of the... Globally, when you look at impacts to coral reefs, water quality is probably number one, which could be acidification. It could be sediment that's settling on things.

It could be that you've disturbed one area and somehow you've stirred up a disease that was kind of in the sediment and now has become waterborne and spreads, which is kind of the thought process that I've heard as to what's happened in Southeast Florida there. The thing we know for certain is coral reefs dying. Yeah. And I think worldwide there has been a push for area closures to help preserve these areas. And, you know, I think in some instances it's probably a good idea. In fact, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is talking today about the Dry Tortugas Research Natural Area,

which is off the coast of South Florida down here, past Key West. And that area is closed to fishing. And there were some really good reasons why they did it. There was a confluence of currents. It's got excellent water quality. It's somewhat remote. You have multiple important fish species that use that area as a spawning ground

and the currents are able to take the eggs in other locations. So it's, in addition to that, there's actually ongoing research in the area. So you have people actively looking at that place and looking at the impacts to make sure that what they're doing is working, also using it for research

purposes to see, okay, what kind of impacts do these closed areas have? And you have ongoing law enforcement that's engaged in making sure that the regulations are being enforced, quite frankly. You know, just because you have a rule or a law or regulation doesn't mean that people are going to abide by it. And so kind of all of those factors together, you know, have led to an area that's closed to fishing that makes sense. One of the proposals that has come up as far as the southeast Florida coral reef tract is to close 20 to 30 percent of it to fishing and boating access and the idea being that we have this stressed reef in other places around the world we've seen that when we close areas to fishing access they kind of act like a reserve basically that the fish can go to and and have some protection there and then that spills over into the surrounding areas

yeah like you might close the area but not see it but not see like a decline of the resource that is putting out yeah and i think um in other places that that could make sense um it's the jury's still out i've seen a lot of mixed research on how effective what they would call a no-take marine protected area is in achieving that goal. I think in areas, particularly with corals, where you're talking about protecting herbivores like parrotfish to keep algae down off of reefs, that can be an important component. But in Florida, we have really stringent fishing regulations and you know from a stock-wide perspective we don't see a lot we might see some localized depletions where there are you know areas of heavy effort but from a stock-wide perspective you know we don't have we don't

have issues with parrotfish populations. Um, and you know, the vast majority of our sport fish are in really, really good shape. And so, um, from our perspective, you really need a good reason, um, to justify why you're going to close it down and you need to try other stuff first. Um, because fishing is so important in Florida. I mean, if we're seeing localized depletions in a certain area, well, you know what, then let's decrease the bag limit there. We don't need to shut it down to everything as the knee jerk reaction. So I think there's been some, you know, we look at it from, like I said, a global perspective and a no-take area can make sense but I think you also need to try other things first particularly here in the states where we have you know such strong regulations already in place from

a federal and a state perspective so so the main way to help the fisheries here would be more habitat level. I think that's a lot of it. In a big general sense, more like whole picture habitat level fixes rather than stopping fishing. Yeah, because I think a lot of what you see are going back to water quality. I mean, it really is, that really is kind of the linchpin in all of it. And the challenge is that it's not easy to fix. You know, there are a lot of different sources of runoff, of pollution, of sedimentation.

You know, we're also, you know, we've got huge barge traffic and port traffic. And you have to try to balance, and I don't know that we necessarily understand all of what goes into those developments, but you've got to balance the development with the resource. Tricky. It is tricky. And it's not easy.

And I think that's why, I think when you look at closing off an area of fishing, well, that's something easy and concrete that I can do today. The problem is, is that if you don't address the real elephant in the room of water quality, you're not going to achieve the goal that you want. Yeah, you could damage that industry and still wind up with things going downhill. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. We covered a lot. An immense amount.

Y'all got it all figured out now, right? Oh, I totally get it now, man. I totally get it now. You can take my job. I'm ready to go down to the store and get me some shovels and pickaxes. That'll work. Is there anything we didn't get to that you want to get to um you know i think i hope that we've gotten the message across that um i know y'all have listeners across the nation

and the world and you know what what can they do and why should they do something yeah that's people uh we get a lot of when we're talking about issues we get a lot of people who are like but what do i do yeah and and i think that that's what I always like to leave people with because I think part of the frustration with Everglades restoration is that people feel like they can't do anything. That it's this whole bureaucratic mess. I would get that feeling. I'd be like, oh, my God. I'd rather just go work on another issue. Yeah.

It's a whole bureaucratic mess, and it's completely completely out of my hands and there's nothing I can do. And I you know, we have three million anglers that come to Florida either visiting or resident every year. That's a lot of people that come to our state to visit. And so they're obviously not from Florida. You know, they can call their congressman and their senator and their state and say, hey, you know, this isn't a Michigan or an Iowa or a Seattle specific issue, but you need to support it, and here's why, and lay it out for them, that it's the national treasure, that I go there to fish, and I want to see this preserved and restored to what it could and should be to keep this tragedy from happening again. That's the thing that I try to put forth like an idea i try to get um hunters and

anglers on board with is that like an attack against one is an attack against all exactly and and some groups do that well you know i think that when it comes to like gun rights yeah right people look at an attack against one as an attack against all. Right. But I think that when it comes to habitat issues. You're like, yeah, that's not in my yard. We're good at being like, we're really good at being really insular. Yeah.

And like provincial, you know, and just sort of viewing like, well, I'm kind of worried about my little spot. Yeah. Right. Like, you know, I'm going to go down to the County Deer Commission and give them a earful. And then we go home. But yeah, but they're not, but they, but they don't like, they're not looking at the big, huge picture. Right.

Because, but even in this case, what's interesting about Florida though, is here, everybody does. I grew up, we came down and fished Florida. We came every year to fish in Florida. Yeah. Drive down, typically we drive down in a motor home and camp on the beach, get sun sick. Yep. Fish in Florida. That's awesome. Yeah. I mean, like I said. That's the good life right there. Millions of people. down typically we drive down in a motorhome and camp on the beach get sun sick yeah fish in florida that's awesome yeah i mean like i said that's the good life right there millions of people so it's

not even like for millions of americans it's not like you're not doing this sort of generous act you can still keep it selfish well you don't even have to be a fisherman to be i mean go to the beach i mean if you just come down as a tourist, you don't want to see algae six inch thick in the water. It really makes it distasteful. I remember standing on the beach here one time a couple years ago. So my kids are three, five, and seven. And standing on the beach right before our three-year-old was born. And I see what I think is like a pot of rays maybe coming down the beach when i

realize they're just like traveling the way that rays don't right and uh and my kids are just out in angle deep water and just right within arm's reach these manatees come by oh how cool just blew their mind man very cool blew their mind you know i mean and just see that like and you're not like you know i've seen them like in in the in out in the mangroves and stuff and bleeds and elsewhere but just on this beach where as far as you look one way and far as you look the other way You know, I've seen them out in the mangroves and stuff and bleeds and elsewhere. But just on this beach where as far as you look one way and as far as you look the other way, it's hotels and sand. Yeah. But to think that… The manatees are still there.

But to build a place where that can coexist, where they're traveling from one estuary or whatever to another and have them come blowing by. I mean, it kind of makes a believer out of you to see something like that. Well, and I think you make a good point. I mean, I think as, you know, as despairing as it can seem when you look at it from this side, seeing how far we still have to go, not only can we help shorten that timeline so it's not quite so far, but we can look at the successes that we've already had. And manatees are certainly one. We were talking about American crocodiles earlier before we earlier before we started on this and i was guilty thinking that we didn't have american crocodiles anymore but it winds up being that they went from being federally listed as endangered and got upgraded yeah they're great as much as the upgrade as this got upgraded to threaten which is like a

nice move it's a move in the right direction it's better than being moved from threatened to endangered exactly and we have um you know black bear i mean we have a lot of move in the right direction. It's better than being moved from threatened to endangered. And we have, you know, Black Bear. I mean, we have a lot of things in the state that have come back through public involvement in this process. And so I think there is hope. I think the take-home news is there is hope for Everglades restoration. And I think we have a lot of projects that are going to be coming online in the next five years or so that are going to have a big impact. And we just need to finish the last few to kind of bring it to the finish line. And then look to see, you know, how is this working?

Where else can we tweak it? Because it's not going to be 100%. It was never designed to be 100% fixed. There's always going to be things that you see once you're on the ground that, you know what, we might need to tweak this a little bit. Or, you know, if we did this one little project over here, the South Florida Water Management District has already done that with several projects that they've taken on by themselves, apart from the federal government, to kind of tweak it to have a maximum benefit for a minimal cost. So the part about people getting involved in some way they want to get involved, you say, call your representatives.

Tell them we need money. Say, hey, man, I like to fish in Florida. My brother-in-law likes to fish in Florida. Yeah. You got to help that guy out. Yep. Send some money down there. Exactly.

Because when they get to the appropriations, which, you know, is divvying up the money for the Army Corps of Engineers, there's 50 other states that have significant projects. One other thing, one other funding opportunity that's kind of on, hopefully on the more immediate horizon is the disaster relief bill. So that's as a result of all the hurricanes that we had. Texas, Puerto Rico. And Florida. Yeah, all three. And that's kind of sitting in the Senate right now. The House has already voted on it, but that would give $12 billion to the Corps. And so, granted, that has to be divided between the three disaster states. But that could give some significant funding for the Corps to move forward on some Everglades projects quickly. So calling your senators and saying, we want you to take this up.

You said it was $20 billion, right? That's a fifth-year total right there. Yeah. Yep. And I guess you could probably help to come to Florida, do a little fishing. Always. Always. And to put in another plug, you know, because of the hurricanes, there were some significant impacts in the Florida Keys and the southwest coast of Florida, Everglades City. And those are some of the best fishing opportunities here in the state. And those folks, the guides especially, really need folks to come down.

You know, sometimes hotels can still be a challenge, but they're open, ready for business, and the fishing's great. So folks do need to come. I would add to that, that's provisional. When I say that come down and fish, it's provisional. Like if you're going to come down and fish, you owe it to yourself and others to take a minute to understand, what am I catching? First, you start out by saying, like, you need to force yourself to admit that you kind of love it. Right?

I think a lot of people fish, but they never go like, and I love it. Yeah. So you say like, and I love it. And. So you say like, and I love it. And I want it to stick around. Where did the fish come from? Like, where did this, what exactly went into this fish existing here on earth? Right. And when you start understanding that. How it's all connected.

Then, then hopefully advocacy is born. Well, it develops that relationship, right, between the person and the environment. It's better to do that than to be like, whatever the hell happened to that fish in 20 years? Guess I won't go to Florida now. You guys got any final things? I'm going to book my trip now for 2025.

Not that I'm not going to come back between now and then, but it sounds like the fishing is just going to get better and better. Well, I hope so. Call a hotel. I'd like to make a reservation. 2025. Well, I think, at least from a fishing perspective, a lot of the impacts that we see are temporary because it is a finite event

where we had the impacts from the discharges. But, you know, we've had two in a row. And so, you know, we're hoping that we don't continue to see that increase in frequency because that obviously would have more of a long-term effect. Yeah, it'd be nice to get a break. Matt Cook, have you said anything yet? No. He's just been taking it all in.

You're all headseted up. You know, I've been bringing people down to South Florida for a long time. And, you know, people obviously have enjoyed, you know, all of the fruits of the environment, et cetera. And, you know, I've been very overwhelmed on, you know, the overall complexity of all the issues. And we spent a lot of time with the locals. And everyone's got an opinion it's refreshing to know that there's you know the restoration plan in place and the complexity I don't think the rest of the U.S. truly understands all of the constituents and

stakeholders as you say and just appreciate your work. Well, thank you. Well, I think what your comments brought up an interesting point. So stakeholders, it's not just the state and the federal government. There's actually another nation. We have tribal nations in the Everglades that are also involved in this process, you know, the Miccosukee and the Seminoles. So that kind of adds a whole other complexity of trying to have actual international negotiations, if you will. I think from Everglades' perspective, you know, we keep talking about restoration, and I don't want folks to get the idea that it's this, like, blighted landscape, you know, not worthy of seeing until it's fixed, because it it is most awe-inspiring place that I think

I've ever been in the state of Florida for sure. To see the vastness of it, even as it exists now is truly overwhelming. And it, the, the miles of, of grass and water, I mean, it is truly a river of grass. And so even as it exists now, it's definitely worth a visit and a look to appreciate. Appreciate it as a wonder. Oh, yeah, you totally get it looking at it. It's like a fixer-upper. It's not like a burned-down structure.

Yeah, but I think when people think of, well, we got to restore it, you know, that it's just this. It's a concrete jungle or something. No, it's not. No, you come down and you're like, no, we've got to restore it, that it's just this. No, you come down. It's a concrete jungle or something. No, it's not. No, you come down and you're like, no, I get it, man. It's cool. I get it.

And we need to, yeah, it's awe-inspiring. Yeah. It's not like you're trying to say, you're not trying to get someone to sort of imagine its beauty. Its beauty still is right there, demonstrated. Yeah. We just want to make sure we can continue it and keep it long term. And depending on who you're talking to, some people describe as extremely sensitive and then others that it has a resiliency to it that has withstood, you know, all the historical impacts that you talked about. So it's kind of hard to reconcile between both. Yeah, I think as much as we've messed it up, it is amazing that it

is still there and still beautiful and still awe-inspiring all right kelly ralston oh god do you have time i still have one last question absolutely i just want to know what all right no that's fine go ahead i just like are you in a hurry no i'm not in a hurry okay i just did that i said her name like in an endy way yeah Yeah. That's why you jumped in. Yeah. You sensed that. Yeah. The impending. You call me. What species do you like to chase?

And what's your next adventure? I'm more of an inshore girl. We're hoping to, well, I will be down at Miami Boat Show coming up next week, which is put on by National Manufacturers Association. Pretty amazing thing. And then we're going to head down to the Keys and see what we can find. Depending on the weather, we may try to go a little further offshore, but probably we'll be more inshore species. So I love myself a snook.

That's what you want to catch? They're my favorite. Do you like to eat them? I have not eaten them. I just can't quite bring myself I know they taste they're amazing it's unbelievable

one of the best things in the ocean I'm not advocating that everyone runs out there and kills a snook well just follow your bag limits in season we had some real issues with snook back in 2010 when they had that really sustained cold weather event. Had a huge kill off.

Is that right? Closed season. Atlantic was less impacted than the Gulf side. But we're finally now back into a cycle of having open season for snook. But you can catch them year round. They're fun to catch. I was reading, too, you're a fifth generation Floridian. I am. So you go back to like Cabeza de Vaca. Yeah. Yeah. from year round they're fun to catch i was reading too you're a fifth generation floridian i am so

you go back to like cabeza de vaca yeah yeah we're i got i got orange grove folks back in central florida and i've got uh bristol florida which is up in the panhandle right around the apalachicola river they were farmers and used to ferry folks back and forth across the river how old were you when you caught your first fish do you remember? I think we probably went to Lake Hall in Tallahassee so I was probably under 10 okay when I caught one there and we used to get whiting down at the coast all the time that was fry them up for breakfast. The Gulf Kingfish. Absolutely. Yeah my kids my kids get after them when we go to Florida. Yeah those are those are good times but yeah so all that was when I was really young and then um kind of came back to it in graduate school. I actually worked on puffer fish of all

things. In grad school you did? Worked on, well, the technical term is functional morphology. So you'd actually figure out how they were eating. And then you could use the patterns that you saw in the muscles and the skeletal structures to kind of look at evolution of fish feeding, which is kind of a cool thing. I recently read a structural morphology paper on the hinge functions of a largemouth bass. Really? Who was the author by chance? I might know them. It was people who study like mechanical engineers looking at the kind of baffling hinge structure of a large mouth

bass mouth yeah we did that um but more from looking at muscle activity and how the the bones and the face were arranged um but yeah there's the mouth a large mouth bass's mouth can do some interesting stuff look at a sling jaw wrasse that's even more amazing they can basically take their whole mouth and shoot it out underneath yeah and then create like a ton of inward like a ton of suction yeah it's suction pressure that basically all right i'm gonna say your name in an endy way again okay ready yep ready kelly ralston no that's a beginning way no i can't even do it now can you do it in the end you threw him off i nailed it a minute ago because beginning if i was beginning i'd'd be like, Kelly Ralston. Yes.

But I want to end it some like. Kelly Ralston. No, it's beginning-ish. Okay. Can you do it in the Indy way? I did it a minute ago. Yeah, you had us all. I can't think of how to do it.

We just edit it back in and you make it sound Indy again. I'm going to clip that chunk out and pack it in here. Thank you very much for joining us. Kelly Ralston. My pleasure. American Sport Fishing Association. Keep Florida fishing. And if you keep Florida fishing, you're kind of keeping America fishing. Thank you for joining us.

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