Chris Wittman | How Big Sugar Controls Florida's Water | Tom Rowland Podcast Ep. 972

Tom Rowland Podcast — Episode 972: Chris Wittman

In this episode: a “massive pea green algae bloom” that started Everglades restoration, “over a million dollars that Sugar put into Florida politics just in the last quarter,” the “over $600,000,000 a year in subsidy benefit,” the effort to “pit bass fishermen against saltwater fishermen,” and Chris’s ask: “don’t sit on the sideline. Get involved” — in the exact words spoken.

00:00 · Cold Open

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02:23 · Anglers Unite: Why Chris Wittman Is Back for Part Two

Tom Rowland: What's going on everybody? This is the Tom Roland podcast brought to you by Starbrite. And today is another installment of the Anglers Unite series brought to you by Bernouin. Bernouin is the maker of quick switch marine mounts that you can put anything on in your boat from a downrigger to a filet table. Anything you want, def definitely go check out Burnowin. They make incredible products and they are very concerned about fishing your rights to fish and habitat and conservation. That's why they are a partner on this series called Anglers Unite, about how we can unite to protect our right to fish and protect the actual habitat and the fish that we're after. Today is part two of a great conversation with my friend, Captain Chris Whitman, who is one of the founders of Captains for Clean Water. If you did not listen to the first episode and you don't know much about captains for clean water, I would definitely encourage you to go back there. We had a great conversation about the origin and history and the reasons why, Chris and Daniel Andrews started captains for clean water. And now that he brought us up to speed, we're going to go back into this conversation where we're going to learn about where we are today and and where exactly we are with the, Everglades restoration, the challenges that we are facing and what the future looks like with a new political landscape of, a new president, and all kinds of different things that we are looking at in the future. Chris weighs in on all of this and and many more things. It's a great conversation. And, it is a great example of how anglers can unite to actually move the needle, make a difference. I can think of no better example in our lifetime, maybe, than captains for clean water, possibly, getting rid of the mullet nets. That was a major, major deal also for the state of Florida. But in the last few years, Captains for Clean Water has been the shining example of how anglers can unite behind one purpose, have a laser focus, and actually make a big difference for the future. And so with that being said, here comes captain Chris Whitman. If you are interested in, learning more about Captains for Clean Water, please go to captainsforcleanwater.org. That's where it all happens. You can follow their social there. You can sign up for their email list, or you can just check them out before you offer any support. Strongly encourage you to do that. If you haven't listened to the first one and you don't know about Kuppence for Clean Water, listen to that one and, make your own judgment. But I think that you'll find that these guys are very authentic and, that it it certainly deserves my support. So maybe it will deserve yours as well. Here comes captain Chris Whitman on part two from captains for clean

05:27 · Picking Up Where Part One Left Off

Chris Wittman: water. Hey everybody. I'm captain Chris Whitman, cofounder of captains for clean water. And this is the Tom Roland podcast.

Tom Rowland: Alright. Part one is in the books. Chris gave us an update on exactly how Captains for Clean Water was born, how it came into effect, and all of the different, things that made it such a great organization to begin with. If you haven't heard that episode, and you're interested in the origins of Kevins for Clean Water, I would suggest that you go back there. But right now we're gonna get with Chris again and talk about where we are today, and where we're going. So Chris, I'm glad that, that we're able to do that recap. So the solutions that we talked about before, were basically already voted on an are and there was already money available. Can you explain that to people how how that happened?

06:26 · The Fishermen Who Watched Florida Bay Turn Pea Green Overnight

Chris Wittman: Yeah. So, really, Everglades restoration interesting part about this was one of the the first catalyst to to get to the point of there being a comprehensive Everglades restoration plan, started from fishermen. And it was, it was a couple of guys down in the Keys who were very successful businessmen. And they're you know, as we talked about in the last episode, their outlet was to go to The Keys and go bone fishing and tarpon fishing. And they went out, one day and had a great day. And literally overnight, they went out the next day, and they were running up through Florida Bay, and it was a massive pea green algae bloom.

Tom Rowland: Wow.

Chris Wittman: And they went like, what what just happened? You know? And so, started looking into it, started having scientists look into it, and turns out that was some of the first signs of Florida Bay being hypersaline, being too salty because it wasn't getting the water that it naturally got before man interrupted the flow, from Okeechobee there. And, they being business people, Wall Street folks, you know, they they had resources for one to to self fund this effort, and and they had connections. And so, that was George Barley and and Paul Tudor Jones, and and they started what is the Everglades Foundation. And their efforts along with, Nat Reid and and Franklin Adams and some of the the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas, like, some of the the legends in Everglades, those are the people that really started the movement that that led to a bipartisan Everglades restoration plan being built. And so it is important for us also to to recognize that, you know, like, we didn't really start this. We're standing on the shoulders of those people. Sure. We're just they got that ball rolling, and then it hit this political hill where it all but stopped. And so we just what we're doing is coming in and giving energy back to keep pushing that that ball up that hill. But the, you know, I I guess where I kinda lost my train of thought a little bit, but where it was going or where it started, it basically, they recognized that the system was completely out of balance. Mhmm. How do we put it back in place? And they developed this plan. And so the way Everglades restoration works is it's a fifty fifty partnership between the state of Florida and the federal government. And on the state side, you have the South Florida Water Management District is the state agency that kinda is point that oversees it. They, get funding partially through their own tax base, through ad valorem taxes, and then they also get part of their funding through the legislature and what the governor, puts in his budget for that agency, specifically for Everglades Restoration, especially. And then on the federal side, you have the army corps of engineers and their partners. And so they've got a suite of projects known as SERP that the list of those projects is called the integrated delivery schedule. It's it's the IDS. And that list is basically like if you were looking at it like building a house. It's like a workflow chart. It's like here's everything that has to be done, and here's the order in which you do them. And and like building a house, you know, you may start the house, and it requires a certain amount of money to do the site work and the foundation. And then as you get going in the middle of that project requires more money when all of a sudden you're putting the roof on and Mhmm. The furnishings and everything. And then as you get towards the end of it, it it tapers back off and requires a little bit less money. Everglades restoration is similar to that. It it it goes and it and it requires more and more money year after year until the big, huge projects like the EAA Reservoir are complete, and then that money starts to trend down on the back end of it. And so the way those funding streams work is, they have to be appropriated from the state every year. And so every year, the governors have to put certain amount of money in their budget that the legislature has to agree to and fund in order for the water management district to to have the resources they need to build those projects. And then at the federal level, appropriations come through what's known as known as the Water Resources Development Act, and it's a funding bill for, water infrastructure projects across the country, Everglades restoration included. Everglades restoration is probably the biggest bucket within Florida, but that bill gets filed every couple of years. And so the Army Corps of Engineers requires that. So the funding that's the tricky part about Everglades restoration is the funding is not into perpetuity and definite from the time that that was put into law in the year 2000. It's got a that funding has to happen every year. And if if that funding drops because of a lack of political will, lack of political pressure, anything, whatever, natural disaster, war, pandemic, I mean, all these if that funding drops, then Everglades restoration can slow down. And so, that's that's one of the big reasons why keeping people engaged on this, even when we don't have a red tide bloom or a water crisis when our waters are beautiful, that that progress still has to happen or else the threat is still there. And so, you know, where we are at is the first sixteen years of Everglades restoration, that funding was inconsistent and was insignificant. And as a result, projects weren't being built fast enough.

Tom Rowland: Or even started.

Chris Wittman: Or even started.

Tom Rowland: Right.

13:27 · Record Funding — and Why Speed Makes Restoration Cheaper

Chris Wittman: And now we've seen record funding year after year after year, a new record. I mean, I think the the governor's budget last year was $1,200,000,000, I believe. One right in that same neighborhood this year. And so we're getting we're at kind of the top of the expense of Everglades restoration over the North course of probably the next five or six years or so will be, like, where it requires the most money annually, and then we'll get on a downtrend. But something that's important to remember about that is the the more resources that the Army Corps and the, Water Management District have, the if they can build as fast as they can at capacity where dollars are not the limiting factor, but actual manpower and engineering is the limiting factor, then Everglades restoration happens faster. If that timeline gets drug out, which it has in the past be because of funding, Everything gets more expensive. I mean, if you look at what the cost of groceries are today versus five years ago. It's significantly different. And So what we know is the faster we get Everglades restoration done, the lower the cost is to the taxpayers. And the longer that it is allowed to drag out because of bureaucracy and politics and anything else that can delay it, the more cost will be incurred in completing it in the long run. And so we have to that's there's as you know, and we'll get into it, but there's there's fights along the way. Right? There's battles with bad pieces of water policy or bills or this or that. The constant in this fight that we know every year we are going to push for and ask for and get people to use their voice for is for congress and the state of Florida to fund Everglades restoration. That ask is coming every single year until it's done because it has to be funded every single year until it's done. That's that's the constant, one one constant we have in this. The others are the sneak attacks

Tom Rowland: and and

Chris Wittman: bad things that, that we have to ward off.

15:55 · The Only Entity That Wants to Keep Things the Way They Are

Tom Rowland: Well, I was gonna ask about that because you did a great job of of explaining what this political Hill is. And, and, you know, most people don't understand how how that works, and honestly don't care unless it's in in a in a situation like this, where there is something that really is riding on it that they do care about, like Everglades restoration, otherwise, why would you even know anything about that? What about other, like, certainly all the things that you mentioned are are happening. And that's a that's a regular occurrence. Every couple of years, we're going to encounter that. But what about like the sneak attacks and, and other special interest groups? I mean, I'm sure that we're talking about sugar, and maybe there's plenty of others. But what what resistance

Chris Wittman: So there, So there that's an interesting one. The the resistance really, the only entity that that says, hey. We wanna keep things the way they are is is Big Sugar. Is Mhmm. It's two, essentially, two big super powerful corporations. Some of the largest political donors, in the state of Florida and in the country, to both sides of the aisle, they they play that political game. And the resistance that you get in Everglades restoration is really that political resistance, and it's a result of of campaign finance. It's a result of Big Sugar pumping money into politics. You know, I looked just this last quarter of reporting. So you're just looking at one quarter. So this would have been q four of last year. So majority of that, you know, is is being it's after elections, so it's not this was over a million dollars that Sugar put into Florida politics just in the last quarter of reporting. And so that political resistance is is the biggest one that that's always there. Right? And that's that's one that you you overcome it with the power of people. The other resistance that you get also comes from, the sugar industry, but it's a little different. It's it's the effort to keep people, divided or confused or and sitting on the sideline. And to elaborate on that a little bit, you look at ourselves. Mhmm. We're fishing guides. We weren't involved in this. We were on the sideline. And as a result of people like us being on the sideline, nothing was happening. Status quo was being maintained. Everglades restoration was there, but they were just kicking the can down the road. And once people got involved, businesses got involved, got off the sideline, got into the fight, stuff started happening. And so what, one of the tactics, you know, you have one tactic that the Sugar Industry uses, which is campaign finance, direct influence over policymakers.

Tom Rowland: Probably to both sides.

Chris Wittman: Both sides, 100%, both sides, at both the state and federal level and. So. What they also do is they'll have proxies that are out there, and they may be in the form of, you know, pay to play journalists, news agencies, or, you know, conservation groups or group, you know, that that aren't really they're they're a faceless they're not they're not a movement with, like, real people behind them. They're just a like, organization that's formed with a person with a title, and and and then just narrative that's put out into the ether, especially with, like, social media. Oh, captains for clean water was never actually they weren't even fishing guides. They were just, you know, fabricated or

20:09 · Hit Pieces and Misinformation That Come in Waves

Tom Rowland: How how much have you seen that personally? Those things that that are are basically personal attacks against you or Daniel or things that you know 100% are factual. How often does that happen to you? Oh, daily, weekly, monthly?

Chris Wittman: Yeah. It kinda comes in waves. Whenever there's a big fight coming, then their their misinformation campaigns ramp up to try to confuse and divide. So you'll see it in waves. They'll get quiet for a while. Then if you have a big a bad bill or something big coming, they'll ramp that up, and they'll they'll start running ads on TV and newspaper saying, you know, US sugar Florida sugar farmers are feeding America, and then they'll start you'll start seeing this this narrative out there in the ether of, you know, captains for clean water hates agriculture. You know, it's like it's it's, you know, these different things. But, yeah, we've had we've had hit pieces put out on us. We've had constant misinformation campaigns, both personally,

Tom Rowland: those that world existed before, like, I don't know, a couple years ago, or, like, was it a surprise when the first one hit?

Chris Wittman: I mean, so I knew it existed in the form of politics because you see it. Right? When there's an election year, you see these hit pieces out about Sometimes

Tom Rowland: you think you see it. You're like, what what is that? Like, is is this real? Like, or Right. You think you see it.

Chris Wittman: But you know what now?

Tom Rowland: It's like you're pulling back the curtain, and it's like, no. This is happening to me. These are things that I know factually are are untrue. Yep. And it's happening to me, not not just me, but all my friends and all the people that support us. Like, what is this like that? I would think that that would have been a really big kind of unfortunate surprise. Like, yeah, it might have said, hey, this you watch out these things are coming. And you're like, yeah, sure. Right. And then there it is. You're like, woah.

Chris Wittman: It's yeah. And and I guess what politics, you see it a little different because you're like, well, they're running for office. It's a it's a nasty game. They're both firing shots at each other. But here, it's like, man, we're just people trying to save a place we love. Like we're literally just trying to do the right thing, and these same mechanisms and tools that are used to sway public opinion and politics are being leveraged against us. And yeah, it's it's it's unfortunate because you would you would hope that, like, humanity is better than that. But Yeah.

Tom Rowland: But I mean, it's it's how much does that dissuade you, or has it ever has it ever, like I mean, that's what it's designed for.

Chris Wittman: Oh, Oh, it does not just

Tom Rowland: take the wind out of your sails and and for you to be like, oh, I don't know if this is really the fight I wanna have.

Chris Wittman: Oh, no. No. No. It does the opposite.

22:56 · “It Puts Wind in Our Sails”: Why the Attacks Prove It’s Working

Tom Rowland: Okay. Great.

Chris Wittman: It puts wind in in our sails like that. That to us tells us a few things. One, it's like you ever you ever seen a couple of fishing gods, like, have a disagreement at the boat ramp? Yeah. You bow up like you're Right. So, that's kind of just part of our our nature. But the other is it means that what we're doing is working. And so the more they are doing that shows us that our very first philosophy that if if people got off the sidelines and got involved, that would induce change. What they are trying to do is interject confusion or misinformation or try to pit, you know, coastal communities against agricultural communities or try to pit bass fishermen against saltwater fishermen or the East Coast against the West Coast or Everglades restoration funding against, you know, whatever, a a river restoration or a bridge project in Nebraska. Any of these things, they're trying to pit people against each other, or confuse people enough that they just aren't willing to dive in because they're not sure, and so they sit on the sideline. And if they know from history of people sit on the sideline, they can. They can then be effective with those campaign contributions. But if people are fighting, then they can pump all the money they want into politics and it's not enough and so. It tells us when that happens that it's working. Like, honestly, the attacks themselves and the messaging, some of them are comical. Like, I've often wanted to, like, fire up social media and, like, and read them like mean tweets or something. You know? It doesn't bother me. Like, I know it's not true. So Yeah. I sleep great at night. Like, my kid is gonna have a legacy that, like, my dad fought for what was right. The the attacks don't bother me on a personal level. What they tell me is this is a challenge that we the Everglades restoration has to overcome. And that challenge, the more successful we are, the greater that challenge and resistance becomes. The more people are involved and engaged and active, the more money they'll put into those campaigns to disengage them. And so, it really what it says to me is, like, how do we how do we take this model that's really effective and continue to grow it? How do we continue to bring more people in? And that's what it that's what it tells me. One, that what we're doing is working, and two, that we have to really look at how we can continue to scale an effective model, to in order to continue to be effective into the future.

25:47 · Bass vs. Saltwater: How Big Sugar Got the Land Below Okeechobee

Tom Rowland: Right. I wanna talk, you mentioned bass fishing against salt water. And that is that is I definitely don't wanna forget about that because I think it's interesting, that you mentioned that for but I wanted to ask you if you know, like, the history of sugar in Florida. Like, when did when did they start growing sugar in Florida? And why is it, like, the place? Is it just the climate? Or was it because they drained the Everglades and then it produced this incredible land for sugar? I don't know. I don't know the history of how sugar became so ingrained in Florida.

Chris Wittman: Yeah. Well, it's kind of all of those. It is it's it's one, there's huge sugar, you know, operations in Florida and Louisiana and Texas, so it's it's climate.

Tom Rowland: Mhmm.

Chris Wittman: And you look at, you know, if if you look at a map of Florida, Lake Okeechobee, if you if you picture that before man went in and disrupted that system, Lake Okeechobee would swell in in the wet season and get much, much larger and ultimately would overflow its southern bank, and it would feed down through what we refer to as the river of grass, basically a 80 plus mile wide slow moving river through sawgrass, through apple, swamp apple orchards, and and it would it would flow in there peat, like, muck peat moss is the soil there. And so that just years of that that wetland and dropping organics and it decomposing created this soil. So when they went in and they cut off the flow of water at Lake Okeechobee and then drained the area south of the lake, what happened was this extremely fertile soil was exposed.

Tom Rowland: Probably they picked it up for nothing.

Chris Wittman: And For pennies. And so it was it was around the the I don't know exactly when they started farming, like, any sugar at all. If I had to guess, probably in the eighteen hundreds, but, it was really around, shortly after turn of the century in the early nineteen hundreds and then really picked up, like, nineteen fifties around there. And if you look at it, you've really got two big corporations, US Sugar and then Florida Crystals. And Florida Crystals, for example, that family, their sugar operations were in Cuba and The Dominican, and they were actually exiled, by Castro, and their stuff was seized. And so when they came to The United States, I think they had the mindset of we will not lose everything to the government again. We will control the government, and we will do so through this influence. And, you know, so they're they're both privately owned. They're not publicly traded companies. You can't see their financials as far as, you know, where where money's going and stuff like that. But the the the when that happened, it it kinda has been a scaled operation. And essentially, what happened is one and kind of one of those misinformation campaigns to go back to our previous point is, oh, we're farmers feeding America, and Captains for Clean Water is anti agriculture. You know? That couldn't be the farthest thing from the true truth. You know? You and I, we're hunters. You know? Farmland, cattle ranches, it's it's those are those are valuable places, not just to feed America and to ensure our domestic food supply. Mhmm. They're also great places for wildlife and great places for water, to sit and and soak into the land. And, the sugar industry tries to hitch their wagon to the rest of agriculture, to legitimate farmers. These guys, if you you look them up, they're not they're not farmers. They're wearing, you know, $5,000 suits flying around on $20,000,000 jets.

Tom Rowland: Mhmm.

Chris Wittman: And if you look at the footprint of what's called the Everglades agricultural area, It's a massive area. They say, oh, we're growing sweet corn. We grow beans, whatever. It's it's hundreds of thousands of acres, approximately 500,000 acres, and it's like 98% sugarcane. So it's it's they're producing a product. And then on top of that, little bit of a tangent here, but on top of that, they are are part of the farm bill where they get the they're part of a subsidy program, which to go back to, like, the start of sugar, you know, when we were looking at World War, the country identified that, like, one of the greatest threats to the country is being dependent on foreign food supply to feed our people.

30:59 · The Farm Bill and a $600 Million-a-Year Subsidy

Tom Rowland: Mhmm.

Chris Wittman: So you create the farm bill to ensure that in times of recession and depression, that farmers don't go out of business. Cattle farmers, wheat, corn, and, you know, whatever. We we have our own domestic food supply. Very, very important. The sugar industry has been able to latch onto that probably through political influence. And so now that sugar industry, just those two companies, they're the recipient of over $600,000,000 a year in subsidy benefit.

Tom Rowland: Wow.

Chris Wittman: And so if you think about that where you're artificially inflating the value of their product through import tariffs to where sugar grown in Costa Rica is put a tariff on it that's put that makes it so high that it artificially inflates the cost to the American taxpayer of their domestically grown sugar, that it does that. And then the government, if the market doesn't consume all of the product that they produce, they're subsidized and paid for the for the leftover to sit in the warehouse.

Tom Rowland: Currently, that's not a problem. People are eating plenty of sugar.

Chris Wittman: Yes. It's actually interesting fact. The number one, rejection for our military is obesity.

Tom Rowland: Not a surprise.

Chris Wittman: And so if you really it's the irony here is the farm bill was created to protect national security, and then we're subsidizing a product that makes people fat that is a threat to national security.

Tom Rowland: Right. Well, I wonder, like, have you thought about I'm sure that you have. I mean, this is squarely in your wheelhouse, but you know, you have Robert F. Kennedy moving in now with you have the make America healthy, movement. And I don't know if he's attacking sugar, necessarily, but certainly it's gonna be something that people are gonna be more aware of in one way, shape, or form is that, you know, what you eat is is important to your health. And, sugar is something that probably if you eat just a little bit, not a big deal. If you eat it all the time, it becomes a really big deal. And, you know, we're, we're probably at a record high of sugar or sugar like substances, high fructose corn syrup, other types of, sugar like substances that either come from corn or come from sugar themselves. And I wonder, I would imagine that I don't know that there's anything that you can do to to dissuade, And maybe sugar becomes even more, desirable, because maybe maybe the healthiest thing is getting away from high fructose corn syrup and moving towards just standard sugar like you you know, Mexican Coca Cola versus American Coca Cola, two different things. One is cane sugar, and one is high fructose corn syrup. You know, you can look at the different studies on which one is healthier if either one of them could be considered healthy. And, and and, you know, the the cane sugar one is usually going to be healthier. But I I don't know what that, if you've thought about how that could have any effect on Florida sugar?

34:25 · Why America Runs on High Fructose Corn Syrup

Chris Wittman: Or No. It it absolutely can. And and you are right. And the reason we see high fructose corn syrup used in so many products in America is because of the artificially inflated price of actual

Tom Rowland: sugar. Is that right?

Chris Wittman: So you see that they they create this tariff on import sugar. It raises the price of domestic sugar. Now candy makers, soda makers, whiskey makers, rum makers, you name it. Now they start to use a different sweetener that's even more

Tom Rowland: domestic product

Chris Wittman: because it's cheaper.

Tom Rowland: Right? I never thought about that, that it's that that high fructose corn syrup is is a domestic product and and the tariffs on sugar are causing that. So when you look at like, one of the things that, that they talk about in the make America healthy is that if in European products, same product, fruit loops, for example, or some kind of breakfast cereal.

Chris Wittman: In

Tom Rowland: European, cereal, they have a minimum number of ingredients. In ours, there's a maximum agreement ingredient that you can't even pronounce halfway where they

Chris Wittman: are. Yeah.

Tom Rowland: Right. And so why is that? But when you when you when you explain it like that, it's it's cheaper materials to get to to get the same thing. And then you have all these food scientists that make those cheaper materials taste better. I mean, you got you got no chance. I mean, they're they're, they're they're they're studying how to make you eat one of those pieces of cereal and not be able to stop. Totally. That's the whole science. Right? And it works.

Chris Wittman: Oh, yeah. It does. No. But your your point about, you know, do are we looking at, like, what that what does that consciousness in society around health, around sugar, and even and certainly with RFK, Even before that, though, I mean, you yourself were I think that we are all very aware. You see a trend in society around metabolic health, eating well, exercising, and it's it's becoming more and more mainstream. Mhmm. And RFK certainly, puts that elevates that. And and I I don't know either if he's specifically addressed, like, the sugar issue or the farm bill and sugar subsidies, but it certainly elevates, that and it and it likely could get to that because he's he's obviously very aware of metabolic health.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. I just wonder where that sits on his I mean, like, if he's going to to improve metabolic health, what is the number one first sweeping thing that he could do to re remove certain ingredients out of our food or to make, you know, to make a biggest the biggest change possible because I think that's what he's going to do.

Chris Wittman: And I

Tom Rowland: don't know where sugar sits on that.

37:16 · What Farm Bill Reform Could Change — and the Call Clinton Took

Chris Wittman: Well, I think that the sweeping thing you could do is push for reform of the farm bill and eliminate the sugar subsidy. What that would do would drop the price of sugar. It would pull the need to use high fructose corn syrup and these other things that your body cannot metabolize like you can sugar. So it would it would drop that price. Then it would also, probably take away the desire for sugar. It the reason sugar is so profitable is because of those artificial floors. I mean, imagine if, like, if if you had a if if you're a fishing guide on a river and there's a tariff on every other guide that, you know, that their trips were $2,000. They had a thousand dollar tariff, and so all of a sudden their trips are $2. Now you can raise your trip to $2. Well, if those tariffs go away and the free market comes back into play, and now those guides are $800, now you're so you're they're the reason they're profitable is because of the the artificial inflation of the value of their product. So now they're they won't do they fight as hard to maintain, you know, 500,000 acres of sugar when it's not is profitable, when they're not being subsidized for the sugar that's left over? So they're only producing what the market will consume, not as much as they can physically produce. And what that does is that brings them to the table like we talked about when the EAA Reservoir, you know, started and it's supposed to be this 60,000 acre reservoir, and it ultimately gets whittled down to 16,500 acres because there's no they're not willing to take a single acre out of production.

Tom Rowland: Right.

Chris Wittman: Well, at that point, they're much more willing to come to state and say, hey, this is the the the value of this piece of land. Let's strike a deal. This is the value of the crop we're growing on it. Let's strike a deal, and we'll we'll sell you 40,000 acres of land to build engineered wetlands to help save the Everglades. So I think the most sweeping thing food wise that RFK could do, would be to try to get some energy in Washington to take a stab at reforming the sugar bill. And if that happened, it and even if the threat of that happened, The sugar industry would come to the table very quickly, and the reason I say that is we saw this before when there was a press conference here. And. There was a proposed penny a pound tax that. I I think one of the reporters or somebody asked said, hey, would you would you, be willing to support a penny a pound, tax on sugar? And the vice president said, yeah, you know, I think I would do that. And so Bill Bill Clinton was in office and couple of things happened. Immediately, Bill Clinton's phone rang at the local office, and it was one of the owners of of Florida Crystals. And and this is in Ken Starr's report when, Clinton was deposed for, his affair with Monica Lewinsky. And they referenced in her testimony that he interrupted that breakup to take a twenty minute call from one of the found rules. And so he can call the president direct. It gives you an indication of their political, sway. But one of the things that happened through that time period was they thought, through the recession, through some of these, that there was a risk of them losing their subsidy. And so they actually struck a deal with the state to sell all of their land and their assets, their equipment, their refinery, because they thought if we lose the subsidy, we're no longer a money making operation.

Tom Rowland: Really?

Chris Wittman: We're now losing money. And so they struck a deal, but the way they structured the deal was that it gave them kind of these blocks of time where it's like the state yes. We agree to sell all everything. We agree to sell all this stuff, but you've got these times to execute on it. And so if you if you execute in the first I forget the exact details, but it's like, let's say the first five years, then you will you can just buy the 180,000 acres. If you go the full term and wait ten years, then you have to buy all of our land, plus our refinery, plus our equipment. So the price tag to the taxpayer becomes much, much greater.

Tom Rowland: Wow.

Chris Wittman: But the reason that timeline of options was weighed out was it enabled them to have a buffer that, okay, if if this prediction of downfall happens, it gets us outside of this time period to where if it happens, we get a buyout of everything. If it doesn't happen, we just we they it gives the politicians a reason to back out of the deal because it's no longer a smart purchase for the taxpayer because Right. What the taxpayer needed was the 180 acres, 180,000 acres. We don't need a refinery and all these, you know, trucks and equipment. And so if they executed that sale in the first term, it would have been a good deal. We would have got land for Everglades Restoration, and they would have had to deal with liquidating out the rest of their stuff. But that was never the intent. It was let's get through the first part. If we lose the subsidy, we become not profitable, then we'll get bailed out by just selling everything. And if we don't, then the state can just back out of the deal because it's too expensive.

Tom Rowland: Wow.

Chris Wittman: And so that has that scenario or threat of that scenario has happened, and we've seen what it resolved was, they came to the table. And so, yeah, it would it would change the whole it would change the whole conversation if something like that came out of Washington as a, you know, directive from RFK and and just the nat national support of it. I mean, I've seen, Tucker Carlson talking about this type of stuff and metabolic health with Casey and Kelly Means on his program before. It's it's a topic of conversation. And so who knows? I I I we definitely keep an eye on it, and I I can guarantee you that Sugar keeps an eye on it as well.

Tom Rowland: I'm sure they do. That, Casey and Cali means I love their book, Good Energy. Yeah. It was really fantastic. Let's, before I forget about this bass fishing versus saltwater bass fishing in Lake Okeechobee is obviously, world class. It's a it's a great place to go. If someone was going to try to pit bass fishermen against your efforts for, you know, let's just call you're you're known as kind of a saltwater group. Right? If someone was to try to pit those two groups against one another, what would be the the the way that they would do that?

44:46 · “We Don’t Want a High Lake”: The Okeechobee Narrative, Dismantled

Chris Wittman: So the narrative that they've put out is a couple. It's captains only cares about saltwater. They don't care about Lake Okeechobee. They don't care if Lake Okeechobee dies, because they just don't want the discharges. And so they want the lake to be held high, and high water in the lake kills the vegetation, therefore kills the lake, kills the bass fishing. That's the narrative that's put out. The reality is we we want a lower lake because if the lake is lower, there's more capacity for rain so that we don't have to get discharges. And the reality also is the only entity that's ever fought for a higher lake is the sugar industry because they see the lake as a reservoir. So if you have a reservoir, you want it as full as possible all the time. Where a full lake, a high lake to us, means we're staring down the barrel of a gun. Mhmm. You know, that Yeah. When are these discharges coming? It's inevitable. And so that's a narrative that's put out there that we want a high lake because we don't want discharges. We don't want a high lake. We don't want discharges, but we don't want the water held in the lake. We want the water sent to the Everglades. Right. That's why we advocate for Everglades restoration. And the other part of it is, we don't care about the lake because we're just coastal fishermen, this and that. That's BS. Daniel and I grew up hunting on the lake, fishing on the lake. I got engaged to my wife in Indian Prairie in a duck boat on Lake Okeechobee. Like, the lake is just as special and important to us as Pine Island Sound or the Keys, and we do not view these systems as individual systems. To us, native Floridians, this is one massive ecosystem. It's the it's the fragmentation of that system that caused these problems, and it's the fragmentation of those user groups that's intended to create that division. And Yeah. I think that that just that just comes from, you know, how do you fight it's like we talked about before, the misinformation, the attacks, the things like that. How do you fight that captains doesn't care about bass fisherman, doesn't care about lake? How do you fight that captains is anti agriculture, any of these other things? You fight it with facts and with education. And at the end of the day, the truth comes out. And and if people look at things objectively and see like, well, wait a minute. A high lake means a greater threat to discharges. Why would the captains advocate for that? We're advocating to just send that water to the south instead of dumping it on us. We're not saying Right. Just hold it all in the lake. And so, the way you overcome that is is through education and outreach and, and also just people being aware. I mean, look. Some of the some of the the best fishermen bass fishermen we know, you know, Bobby Lane just just won a his event, this past weekend. He's super involved with captains. He's a big supporter. Kevin Van Damme, big supporter of captains. So so it's it's certainly the reality is there is not a divide between bass fishermen and saltwater

Tom Rowland: fishermen.

Chris Wittman: We all want the same thing. We want our fisheries to be healthy and our water to be clean. There is an attempt to create division

Tom Rowland: Right.

Chris Wittman: By the sugar industry to divide those communities. And we've seen the same thing where they they'll put out a narrative to the East Coast saying, well, you're getting discharges because all the rich people on the West Coast don't want the water. And then they'll put out a similar narrative over here saying, we're getting discharges because Marlargo is on the West Coast, and they don't want the discharge.

Tom Rowland: We

Chris Wittman: try to get if the East Coast is fighting the West Coast or bass fishermen are fighting saltwater fishermen, and we're not united fighting for restoration, then we start to see people get on the sideline, get frustrated, get disengaged. And so

Tom Rowland: That's exactly what the whole when when I talked with, Tom at Barnowin, he he was interested in doing this series with me. And he was like, this was exactly what we were talking about. Like, if people get get fractured, groups get fractured, whether it's bass fishing against saltwater or fly fishing against bait or whatever. Yep. We are weak. Yep. And anglers need to unite to understand that what we really need is clean water. What we really need is habitat protection. Yep. And then, you know, we're perfectly capable. The anglers are perfectly capable of working it out amongst ourselves, but we don't need another organization coming in and saying, Well, you know what, nobody gets to fish here.

Chris Wittman: Right?

Tom Rowland: That's, that's what ultimately happens. But it is interesting to, to understand how these, misinformation campaigns can work against anguish, like, against and and doing it exactly what you said to keep people on the sidelines if if they make it out to where bass fishermen and saltwater fishermen are just not not, aligned, and then the bass fishermen are like, you know what? I I don't think I wanna support captains for clean water because of whatever reason. And then the saltwater guys, if there's a bass organization that is is advocating for for the same thing in the lake that that that we want Lower Lake. Yep. Then but they've they've set it up to where saltwater people are kind of like, I don't wanna do that because those guys, they've got their own agenda. They're after something else. But when we're really after the same thing.

Chris Wittman: Yeah.

Tom Rowland: Right? Like No.

50:36 · Spraying, Piney Point, and the Danger of Mission Creep

Chris Wittman: You're you're right. And, you know, another one would be like the spraying, the aquatic plant management in Florida. It's a huge deal. It's that's not oh, captains doesn't weigh in on this. They don't care about our lakes. It's like well, our our focus, the whole reason we were formed was Everglades restoration. We absolutely care and are aware and think that, you know, the spraying and spraying of our plants is not the best way to manage and has caused great harm. Same thing with, like, look at phosphate mining.

Tom Rowland: Mhmm.

Chris Wittman: Very, very bad. You look at Piney Point in Tampa Bay. Those are all huge issues, that we're aware of and we do care about, but we also don't have we're we're not a massive organization. We don't have the bandwidth to fight every single fight. If if the analogy that I would use is if we. If if you were fighting Connor McGregor. That's a fight you'll be. You're gonna be lucky to have some wins, right? I mean, we are. This is David versus Goliath and we're fighting a a very powerful entity. And if you're fighting that Conor McGregor, you're lucky if you can keep ahead of him and and take some blows, but but ultimately come out on top. Well, if you're fighting four other fighters at the same time, your resources and your energy is so depleted that you what happens is you lose every fight, including the fight that we started the organization on to begin with. And so that's just a narrative, and and we we there are things that we do behind the scenes to try to impact those other issues, but it's simply a a focus. And one of the reasons we have been very successful is to have laser focus on Everglades restoration. And guess what? If we can be successful in completing the largest ecosystem restoration project in the world, we can then tackle other massive issues, but you have to eat an elephant one bite at a time.

Tom Rowland: That's right.

Chris Wittman: And, you know, and and that's it's it a lot of movements, and progress has failed because of mission creep,

Tom Rowland: and

Chris Wittman: they start to play whack a mole. And then all of a sudden and so that's just a narrative that's put out there to be used. But, you know, I think the reality is if people and and some of that some of that narrative is but they're very good at making it look authentic.

Tom Rowland: Mhmm.

Chris Wittman: Right? Of, oh, I'm a you know, the people that are out there bashing the cause, they they look authentic. They sound authentic. They look like a news reporter, sound like a news reporter, look like a hunter or a fisherman, you know, whatever. But all you really have to do is look at it objectively and go, this these guys are pushing to restore the Everglades, and these guys are defending the position of sugar. Like, why would you be defending the position of a corporation that's suing the Army Corps of Engineers over one of the most key projects in Everglades restoration? Why would you defend the position of an, organiz a a company that pushed for to keep Lake Okeechobee up above 20 feet in their proposals? Like, it just it it's if you actually look at it objectively and be like, okay. You're defending sugar. That doesn't add up. Like

Tom Rowland: Right. All the Some people have have been misinformed or, or influenced in a certain way to where they really feel like, no. That's that's in their best interest to do that. So you say that there's some people out there that look like fishermen and and and look like hunters. Maybe they are.

Chris Wittman: No. Maybe they didn't write

Tom Rowland: bad information from from a different group that is like, well, we can use this person right here as a spokesperson for what we're talking about. Yep. And they are authentic.

Chris Wittman: Yeah.

Tom Rowland: They just they just got fed the wrong information. And I don't understand the overall, you know, how would this all fits into this one ecosystem? It's not a sum of parts.

Chris Wittman: You are absolutely right. And I don't fault those people at

Tom Rowland: all. Right.

54:58 · How Misinformation Works on Good People

Chris Wittman: That's the way mission information works. And we've all been, you know, victim to it. At some point in your lives, you've

Tom Rowland: Sure.

Chris Wittman: Spread a rumor, said a dang, you know, look back when you're in middle school, high school. Right? I don't fault those people. What I would encourage those people to do is to to be open minded and look at things objectively. And if and and if you do have doubts about this goes not just for captains, but about anybody's intent or whatever. Pick up the phone, give me a call, you know, shoot us an email, whatever. I don't fault those people. The the intent of that misinformation is to do exactly what it's doing.

Tom Rowland: Right.

Chris Wittman: And it is misinformed people so that they have a a inaccurate opinion, and they either are in opposition or they just sit on the sideline. The other thing it does is you you you put it very well as is it looks like it can make it look like, hey. Bass anglers and saltwater anglers aren't on the same page as each other. If that narrative is allowed to perpetuate, what else it does is is it gives policymakers who need to be funding these projects some political cover to say, well, the the fishing community is not on the same page as this, so I'm not gonna throw

Tom Rowland: That's exactly

Chris Wittman: right. It works for

Tom Rowland: them to stay on the sidelines.

Chris Wittman: Yep. Exactly.

Tom Rowland: It's the same way.

Chris Wittman: Cover to stay on the sideline.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's, that's interesting. I'm sure that was eye opening to to a lot of people. I learned a lot just in that little exchange right there. As we as we kinda draw this to a close for today, are you optimistic, pessimistic about where we stand? And and you have to you have to, factor in our current governor in Florida and our new, regime in the in the White House. Our and and, you know, as Trump moves in, RFK, you've got, DeSantis still in Florida. Are we in a good place? Are we is are are there threats from any of those people or or, like, where do you where do you see, the the fight for Everglades restoration in the new political landscape?

57:25 · Cautiously Optimistic: The Bar Has Been Set

Chris Wittman: First, there's always threats. Sure. Continuous and and scaled threats. I guarantee you the sugar industry has influenced, you know, every party that has every individual that's run for for office here. You know, I I know when when Trump was running against Hillary Clinton in the in the first, his first term, Sugar held fundraiser for each one of them within twenty four hours of each other. You know? The political climate in Tallahassee, you know, you have a the the senate and house, leadership there is taking significant amount of money from Sugar. We talked about about that, you know, just in the last reporting quarter over $1,000,000. But despite all those challenges and threats, and regardless of who is in office, I would say I wouldn't say that I'm optimistic. I would say that I'm cautiously optimistic. And the reason is the bar has been set. The stakes been put in the ground. Everglades restoration is is moving. It's being funded. There's an energy and a movement of people that has sustained the last nine years through good water, through bad water, through pandemics, through hurricanes, and that energy is not going away. That movement's not going away. And what policymakers need is that they always have to figure out how you can one up the other guy.

Tom Rowland: Right.

Chris Wittman: You know? And so the bar's been set. And and whoever is the governor in four years, in in six years, whoever that person is, whoever is the president, whoever is the senate speaker of the house or the senate president, whoever those people are, the bar's been set. And and you don't wanna be the guy that that lowers the bar and drops the ball on Everglades restoration when there's an army of people out there that are gonna shine a really bright spotlight on you for doing that. And so I would say I'm cautiously optimistic that because of the influence and the power of individual stakeholders uniting together, under you're seeing through misinformation and division campaigns and bashing of each other and putting differences aside to unite for a common good, that's happening. And I would say because of that, I'm cautiously optimistic. And, you know, it's I think it's really important. If I if I was gonna leave everybody with a thought of, like, why they should get involved, why one person listening to this podcast should get involved, it's it's your individual voice matters, and and it matters in a couple of ways. It matters because you have a sphere of influence. It might be just your family, or it might be someone like yourself who has a a massive audience or anyone in between. It might be a fishing guide who has a couple 100 people on his boat every year.

Tom Rowland: Mhmm.

Chris Wittman: You have a sphere of influence that you can bring people into this effort and get them to use their voice. And those individual collective voices are the actual power that we use and that we leverage to drive change. If you if you think about it, if if you were to go outside and scream at the top of your lungs, some people might hear it or whatever. But have you ever been in a football stadium where 20,000 people are screaming? It's deafening.

Tom Rowland: Yes.

Chris Wittman: That is the power of the collective volume of individual voices, and that's the approach that, you know, we take in driving progress here. And it's it's it's why every single people person listening should should make an effort and use their voice in some way.

1:01:36 · Fifty Million Anglers: Don’t Sit on the Sideline

Tom Rowland: K. So that being said, we have 5,700,000, I think, is what I looked at anglers in The United States. Maybe it's more than that. Maybe that I don't know if that's the

Chris Wittman: right number. I think it might even be 57.

Tom Rowland: Fifty fifty point seven, I think, is what I think that's it. So even if you just took 10% of that, 5%, 1%, if you could, encourage people to take one action, just one simple action, whatever that may be, what would it be?

Chris Wittman: Big picture, it would be don't sit on the sideline. Get involved. And that might mean get involved in Captains for Clean Water or Everglades Restoration, or it might mean get involved in a issue that's on a lake in your backyard that you care about, that you see a problem, and you haven't figured out how to plug yourself into advancing a solution on that problem. I would say don't make the mistake that I made for the first sixteen years of my career and sit on the sideline. Do something to get involved. That would be my thing. Specifically with Captains for Clean Water, I would say, you know, look. The the most important thing is for people to fully understand and fully support and take the time, you know, take the time to do your own research on us. Go to our website. Go through our social channels. Talk to people who are involved like yourself or like CA Richardson or, you know, the dozens of other fishing guides, hundreds of fishing guides, the companies that support us. Find a way to to look into captains, learn about it, and and visit our website. If I gave you one action item today, it would be just go to captainsforcleanwater.org and and click, to sign up for our newsletter to be up updated, or go to our social channels and click follow. It's as simple as that so that we can reach you with what's going on, and we can reach you with opportunities when we need your voice or threats when we need your voice. And and so that you know, specifically with captains, I would be you know, it's not not asking you to donate money. I'm not asking you to buy a hat or a membership. Right? All those things are great. I would just say one ask would be to just to get involved. Be involved. Follow us on social. Sign up for our emails. And through that process, I believe that all the other support, ultimately, the most powerful one being your voice, will will come along with it.

Tom Rowland: Powerful, man. Powerful. Alright. Captains for clean water dot org. I would encourage you to go and check these guys out, and that's exactly what I wanted to do this show about. I wanted you to get to know the people behind, Capital Clean Water a little better. And if you didn't already know, now you do. And if you didn't listen to if you did listen to this episode, but did not listen to the other one, and you were unaware of how captains got started to begin with, I would highly encourage that as well. So anyway, I felt that was great. And, again, this is a part of the anglers unite series, and I think that we did a really good job of, bringing that around full circle to to how important it is for anglers to unite because typically or or we really all want the same thing. For the most part, we want clean water, We want healthy environments, and we want the right to be able to go there and fish. And we can work out all the rest of it, but we need to unite around those things. Those are simple things. We want the fish to live there. We wanna have the right to go there, and we want it to be healthy. We want the water to be clean and clear and healthy. So that's what we're that's what we're after. Chris, I appreciate you coming. And, again, if you don't know our guest, Chris Whitman, go to captainsforcleanwater.org and check him out. Alright. That's it for today. Thank you. See you.