I keep hearing that all politics are local. However, there is much more to that phrase than one might think. One of the prime reasons that we cannot re-establish a flow way south from Lake Okeechobee is nothing more than the political clout of the sugar cane industry. Our rivers and lagoons on the Treasure Coast are being destroyed so that a few families can continue to live in a baronial manner. Big Sugar has blocked every attempt to correct our flawed earlier ecological mistakes when their inexcusable business practices are at all threatened. Floridians’ futures are being stymied by one interest group that is impeding us from economically moving forward.

Like no other state in the U.S., our waterways are the thing that brings billions of dollars to Florida each year. Tourists won’t come if they can’t fish or are afraid to go to our beaches or just paddle a canoe on our rivers. Without clean water, new development won’t happen, commercial and sport fishing will disappear and other types of agriculture will be harder to sustain.

So how does the sugar industry manage to stand against the interests of the rest of us? Political power is the answer without a doubt. A few sugar families located in Palm Beach County receive hundreds of millions of dollars each year in tax payer subsidies, supports and grants. That enables Big Sugar lobbyists to “contribute” to the campaigns for president, senators, congresspersons, governors and state legislators.  Political party, ideology or rhetoric is never an impediment to receiving that money. A vote that is cast for corporate welfare and crony capitalism by a pol calling himself or herself a liberal, conservative, Democrat or Republican is all the same.

Yes, the sugar cane industry is local but the politics are national. Not only do we, the citizens, support the industry with our tax dollars, we also pay well above the world price for sugar in America.  If the U.S. stopped producing sugar tomorrow, each of us would be better off. We could import our sugar at cheaper prices. Tax dollars would stop flowing to multi -millionaires. Politicians would have to get over having a sweet tooth for those contributions. And our state and its waters could stop being polluted for the benefit of the chosen few.