Another week has passed. The attention that Stuart and Martin County have received from the national news media because of the algae has been incredible. Special reports, columns, cameramen and opinions have been broadcast, written and opined. But are we any closer to a solution? I am pessimistically sure that we are not.

What has fundamentally changed? Did we suddenly buy the land to our south? Have the Feds allocated the money to complete the projects that are already on the books? I fear not. Did agricultural subsidies and supports go away? Was there financial campaign reform? Has the Governor finally seen the ecological light? Has the President issued a Declaration? Sorry to report…none of the above.

This failure to correct our problem was not from a lack of trying by our local elected leaders on the Treasure Coast. But we are barely 3% of the state’s population…insignificant to the power brokers of Tallahassee and Washington. President Obama loves playing golf here but hasn’t mentioned our plight even once. If you write him a letter, you get a form one back that doesn’t even mention the reason you wrote, which is a feat of shear political magic.

Will it ever change? Maybe there is just a ray of hope. A reason we can be optimistic. We, the people, are just fed up with the status quo. We are tired of being ignored or being condescended to. Our communities are being ruined in the name of corporate and political greed. We are now the disciples of Howard Beale from the movie, Network that shouted, “We are mad as hell and we are not going to take it anymore!”

We have been treated to technology that cleans and polishes the water so that the algae either is or appears to be gone. Some elected officials and citizens are headed to Washington as they did in the now not-so-bad lost summer of 2014. But I still hear the Republicans shouting at the Democrats and Florida blaming the Feds and the inverse in all of the above. Each of these people will tell you that they are not to blame in “political-speak”…that it is really the other guy.

This week, the river isn’t green in back of my house. This week, the water is just not alive. This week, it is black, mucky, and loaded with bacteria. Is that an improvement? I don’t really know.