Protecting our environment the right way isn’t just good for our health. It’s good for our economy, too.
Despite what politicians tell us, restoring the Everglades and protecting our rivers, estuaries and other waters does not need to be a huge cost to taxpayers. The solutions have been known for years, and this mess could be a memory by now. Instead, it’s getting worse and little is being done, thanks to government-as-usual in Tallahassee.
Here’s how we can turn it into a paying proposition instead of a big expense, and a pragmatic approach to getting this done. Here is how we can break the political deadlock and JUST DO THIS.
The central issue is cleaning up the runoff water from the Lake Okeechobee area and sending it south to the Everglades rather than dumping dirty water into the rivers and estuaries as we do now. Large areas of land are already available to filter the water. All that’s stopping us is politics and a lack of leadership.
We have three things in abundance: sunshine, land and fertilizer-rich water. This is everything we need to pay for the project, because it is a recipe for algae. We can grow algae on part of the filtration lands. It’s easy! Algae removes the nutrients and clean the water. The clean water goes to the Everglades. We process the algae into oil and other bio-fuels. We sell the carbon-neutral biofuels cheaper than petroleum products, and we make a fortune, ultimately billions of dollars per year.
An enterprise owned by the people of Florida can organize the production and marketing of these products in partnership with private companies who already have the technologies. I call this business model Public Capitalism. Our share of the revenue will be used to repay the costs of the Everglades restoration and water projects. After this project is paid for, we will have continuous and growing revenue which can fund any environmental project, or simply reduce taxes.
Within a year we can start sending clean water to the Everglades and stop dumping dirty water into our rivers and estuaries. We can finish the Everglades restoration within five years.
Once we make all the cheap biofuel we can use in Florida, we can export Florida Sunshine heating oil to some of the 8,000,000 homes up north that use heating oil.
We don’t know exactly what all of these water projects will cost. Estimates range to $8 billion or more over a period of years. We will have a better idea before we start, but we will never know the total cost until the project is finished. The cost does not matter. Florida’s annual budget is around $75 billion. We can finance the project for less than 0.5% of the budget—let’s say $350 million per year—and eventually we will get all of the money back. Then we start earning money forever.
If the legislature doesn’t act to make that small amount of money available, then we will turn to direct democracy. I will personally lead the petition drive to get this on the next ballot in Florida.
Much of the money we need is to purchase land, which can be financed over a period of years—and using algae we won’t need as much land as we thought. Construction money can be financed as necessary. There are plenty of banks in Florida that would benefit from some of the state’s deposits and help us out with low rates.
It may take five years before our algae enterprise brings in significant revenue, but once it starts it will continue to grow and never end. In the worst case, it might take 15 years to pay back the cost of the project, probably less. In any case, the net cost to the taxpayers will be zero.
Beyond the priceless benefits of a pristine environment and clean water forever, there are economic benefits to consider. First there are the consequences of not doing the project, estimated in the billions over time to marine industries, tourism, and so on. That alone is enough to justify any cost to do this project.
Now consider what happens when $350 million per year is spent into Florida’s economy to do the project. If you have read the other parts of my Economic Plan, you know that money will circulate and recirculate, amounting to $2 billion per year in economic activity. That is enough to support 20,000 good new jobs per year. Eventually 20,000 jobs will create 20,000 more, and so on. If only half of that money generates sales tax, the state would receive $60million per year, per $2 billion in activity. That means that by the sixth year, we would have at least 100,000 more jobs in Florida and the additional sales tax revenue alone would pay the $350 million per year budgeted for the project.
Combined with savings on social costs, the project will be revenue-neutral within four years, and then start paying us back.
If this plan sounds simple and practical, that’s because it is. It’s not politics, its simple economics and creative thinking—two things that are lacking in Tallahassee and Washington.
If you want to exterminate manatees, dolphins, oysters and everything else in our lagoon, vote for Charlie Crist or Rick Scott. Probably all those critters pooping in the water is what’s causing the problems, anyway! Crist says he doesn’t have an environmental policy—but remember, when he was governor his policy was to pay billions to Big Sugar for their surplus land. Rick Scott’s environmental policy features fracking, dirty drilling around the Everglades, more nukes for FPL (who can’t even properly cool the nukes they already have) and spending more money on ALL ABOARD FLORIDA than on our lagoons. (While collecting millions from FPL,Big Sugar and many others—money that ultimately comes out of our own pockets.)
If you want to restore the Everglades, clean up our rivers and estuaries at no cost taxpayers, vote for Farid Khavari. Elect an independent governor who doesn’t take millions of dollars from FPL and Big Sugar, who does have a plan to solve this and many other problems for the people of Florida. Every problem is an opportunity to create jobs and reduce costs—and that means we have plenty of opportunities!
If elected, I will have proposed agreements with algae technology companies in hand before inauguration day, and a 5-page bill worked out with legislators by March 1.
Otherwise, we will still be talking about this when the last dead manatee floats away and the Everglades is a swamp full of fracking chemicals.
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Farid A. Khavari, Ph.D. is a noted economist and independent candidate for Florida governor. He is the author of 10 books, including the 1993 classic Environomics: the Economics of Environmentally Safe Prosperity and Toward a Zero-Cost Economy (2009). His Economic Plan for Florida includes job creation, cleaning up our water, improving health care quality and availability for everyone while reducing costs by 30% or more, reducing college costs, interest costs on mortgages and student loans, and more, all at no cost to taxpayers.