Shannon Estenoz and Captain Josh Greer - The Future of the Everglades | Tom Rowland Podcast

Full transcript of the Tom Rowland Podcast, Episode 76 with Shannon Estenoz and Captain Josh Greer.

Introductions at the Everglades Coalition

Tom Rowland: Okay. So we are live. I want to thank you all for doing this. This is really exciting. We are sitting here at Hawks Cay right now, and I'm going to let Daniel Andrews of Captains for Clean Water make some introductions for everyone that we have sitting around the table. But really big news for the state of Florida and all the work that you've been doing with Captains for Clean Water. So who all do we have here?

Daniel Andrews: So we have Captain Josh Greer, who's been a friend of mine for quite some time now. We work together and ran charters in the same area. Josh grew up in Homestead and has fished all over the Everglades, hunted all over the Everglades, so he really brings a great perspective. We also have Shannon Estenoz. Shannon has dedicated her career to Everglades advocacy. Shannon is now the COO at the Everglades Foundation, which is one of the largest organizations working on this, one of our partners at Captains for Clean Water. She really brings a great perspective from governmental and advocacy, and we're happy to have her here.

Shannon Estenoz: Thanks for having me. Great to be here.

Tom Rowland: Thank you for sitting down with us. So let's talk about what just happened and why everybody is kind of stationed here at Hawks Cay, because it seems like it's a pretty exciting time.

Shannon Estenoz: Right. So we're here at Hawks Cay in Duck Key in the Florida Keys. It's been a beautiful weekend. This is the thirty-fourth, I think, annual meeting of the Everglades Coalition. The Everglades Coalition is a group of now over 60 organizations who have come together with a single purpose of restoring America's Everglades, and they've been getting together here for, like I said, more than thirty years. They usually travel around the state. We're lucky enough that it's here in the Keys this weekend. And the timing is always in January. It's always about this weekend, but the timing this year has been particularly fantastic because just last week, we had a new governor inaugurated here in Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis. And after forty-eight hours on the job, he did a whirlwind tour through the coastal side of the Everglades and made some pretty exciting announcements. It's just got everyone here buzzing because we're excited.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. And so let's talk about what the announcement was.

The Governor's Announcements

Daniel Andrews: So we had a fair amount of news come out when he traveled around the state. First of all, he committed two and a half billion dollars over his four years going to the Everglades and water quality, which is great news. We need funding to work on all these projects. He has created a new position up in Tallahassee as a chief scientist to make sure we're working on all the right science and it's aimed in the right direction. One of the biggest things for us, the most exciting parts, was the call that Governor DeSantis made for the resignation of the South Florida Water Management District governing board. It's nine members that have really upset a lot of Floridians and haven't put the interest of Floridians above special interests. And they've been a huge roadblock. So to hear the governor come out and ask for their resignations, ask for a fresh start, that, in my opinion, was a very bold move that needed to happen. We can't wait years for these agencies to turn around. They're heading in the wrong direction now, and they're wasting a lot of taxpayer dollars on projects that we don't have faith in, the scientists don't have faith in, and we need a fresh set of eyes. We need strong leaders that can get this on track, and that's how we do it.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. That's going to be really super exciting. With all of your time that you've been working on this project, Shannon, are we seeing more progress right now than we have in quite some time? That's what it seems like.

Shannon Estenoz: Yeah. So Everglades restoration has moved in fits and starts. We've never enjoyed really long periods of the same level of progress, because it's the kind of program that really requires it's not an exaggeration to say that literally the President of the United States, the Governor of Florida, the United States Congress, and the Florida legislature all have to not just be supportive rhetorically, but they actually have to make this program a priority. And think about our country, how big it is, how many priorities the federal government has. So the notion that one program has to stay a priority after every election cycle, no matter which political party is in charge. And this coalition has been very, very successful in keeping the Everglades at the forefront. But even then, it's a struggle. It's a struggle to keep those really important leaders engaged. I think over the last few years, to Daniel's point, we've hit one of those lulls where we've kind of lost traction. It's almost like we're driving and we've hit a mud puddle. And I feel like this week, the wheels grabbed again. The wheels have hit the pavement, and we're moving again. And that's exciting.

Tom Rowland: Now that's partly because of a transfer of leadership, but it's also, unfortunately, because there have been water issues this year and last year that have come to the forefront. And Captains for Clean Water has really been the one for anglers and people that are in my world that has really brought this to their attention. And, unfortunately, sometimes it takes that to really gain traction again. But what I'm interested in is you have this great outlook. So what happens now? This 2.5 billion and then the new water board that's going to come on and all of this change, how does this happen? What's the timeline we're looking at? When does somebody that is looking from the outside actually see progress, like bulldozers and whatever it takes to start making some real progress?

What Happens Next: Timeline and Funding

Shannon Estenoz: Yeah. So what has to happen now is Mr. DeSantis needs to get settled, move into the Governor's Mansion, get all settled, get his team in place, which, by all accounts, he's going to do pretty quickly. As Daniel said, he needs to get a leadership team in the key agencies that are in charge of implementing this program. And then the Florida legislature, the session starts March 5, and so they're the ones that appropriate the dollars. Right? So the governor says, here's what I think we ought to spend, but it's really the legislature that has to say, okay, yeah, that's what we're going to spend. So those investments have to get made. At the same time, we need the United States Congress and we need the president to do the exact same thing. President's got to ask for a lot of money. Congress has got to give it to him. And then we get rolling. Look, Everglades restoration has a plan. There's a plan. There is a whole list of projects. All we've got to do is just keep building them, and we're building some. I mean, we've got a lot underway. It just needs to move faster. And I think the reason folks are feeling really good this weekend is that Governor DeSantis is not only saying, here are all the things that we're going to do, but the key thing that he's been saying is we're going to move faster. And that's what we've been wanting to hear for my entire career, frankly.

Daniel Andrews: Yeah. And that's what our job is at Captains for Clean Water. He made a bold set of promises on his second full day in office.

Tom Rowland: Pull that right up to your mouth there. It bends.

Daniel Andrews: That's what our job is as Captains for Clean Water. We stood next to Governor DeSantis on his second day in office when he made these bold promises, and our job is to make sure that he sees that through the next four years. For us, this is something a lot more real than a political game, and I think he understands that. I made that point to him very clear, that we're not doing this for any other reason than to see our waters get fixed. And all these numbers we talk about, funding and timelines, they're all really arbitrary numbers because it all needs to happen right now. And that's the kind of leadership we need. We need to be looking at ways that we can accelerate projects as much as we possibly can. If the federal government's not going to help, maybe there's more that the state can do. I'm not sure. I'm not an expert in government, but we need a leader that can really look at this from an outside perspective and just get it done and get it done right.

Tom Rowland: And then, Josh, from your perspective, as a fishing guide kind of in the epicenter of where all the water issues have been happening this year, what kind of outlook are you seeing? And let's pull that mic right up to your mouth.

Josh Greer: I think the outlook is very good right now. What happened two days ago was a big boost for morale for me. Just seeing that, again, to echo Daniel, those promises that he made on the campaign, day two, he's already fulfilling some of them and starting the long road that he's got, or that we have. But to see that happen was very, very encouraging.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. That's great, because politics is a world of often empty promises, you know, where everybody makes all these big promises to get elected and then you don't really see much after that. But is it safe to say that when someone comes in and in their first forty-eight hours they really make sweeping changes like this, that that's to be expected for his whole term?

Holding Leaders Accountable

Shannon Estenoz: Well, what I would say in my experience is that it's a really good sign. But it's everybody's job, as Daniel said, to hold all of our elected officials accountable. So when you get in the saddle and you start governing — and I've served in government both at the federal level and at the state level — I had great ideas when I was appointed, and I took my seat, and I was full of, I'm going to get all of this stuff done. And then you get in the saddle and you realize, well, it's actually kind of hard. It's hard to govern. And I'm sure Governor DeSantis will experience that. It's our job as citizens, and as businessmen and women, and as activists, as parents, to help the governor make good decisions, to give the governor the reasons for why he should invest in this program and not all or more in the programs that other folks are knocking on his door about. I mean, we've got to remember that a governor of a large state has people knocking at his door every day asking for his attention, asking for his time, asking for his sense of urgency. And groups like Captains have done a tremendous service to the state of Florida over the last three years by not only bringing a larger audience and a larger set of voices to this issue, but really doing a good job of explaining to elected officials why this is not just about the environment. It's about their livelihoods. It's about the quality of life at the whole in Florida. We just have to keep that up. And if we do, we will make his job easier. If we don't, if we argue with each other, if we lose focus, if we lose enthusiasm, then our elected officials will lose enthusiasm and lose focus.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. One of the things that I thought was incredibly effective was first the positivity that I've seen from Captains, because it's a very emotional issue. And people have a tendency to get very upset, and it's us against them. And there's a lot of finger-pointing and name-calling. I almost consider myself an outsider in the Keys rather than where Josh is or Daniel is, where you're just right in the middle of this. And then years later, we see all the effects coming into the Keys. But it becomes a very emotional issue, and what Daniel and Captains have done that really caught my attention was to remain incredibly positive and then also to bring in this whole aspect of what the financial ramifications of a healthy Everglades are versus the ramifications of what it means if the Everglades is suffering, and how that affects restaurants and real estate and tourism and Disney World and everything. I mean, everything in Florida revolves in some way, shape, or form around the water. And without healthy water, I believe that so many of these other projects that you're talking about that people are knocking on the door about may be irrelevant. Even though right now, they're telling the governor that this is the most important thing, we have to have this. Well, yeah, I'm sure it's very important, but this seems to be the baseline foundation of everything that's the most important to the state of Florida — it's just the health of the Everglades. It's like the heart that supplies life to the whole state, in my opinion. So I guess now it's kind of like beyond just cheerleading and remaining positive and constantly reminding the governor that this is super important. Are there challenges? When I saw this post that you did yesterday, Daniel, it was saying that one of the things in here was that the Corps of Engineers will approve the project to align with the state's timing. So what does that mean, and how is that — that seems like that could be a major challenge that the governor has thought ahead enough to include that into this executive order.

Cutting Through Government Red Tape

Shannon Estenoz: Oh, Daniel, you want me to respond to that? So in a program this big, billions of dollars over many years, and it's basically being implemented by the government, that's a recipe for complication. It's going to get complicated. You get the federal government involved, and there's a bunch of process. Right? And that is one of the challenges that we have struggled against for decades, is kind of getting bogged down in government process. And the latest phase of Everglades restoration is no exception. There is always the risk that the government red tape, to use an old-fashioned phrase, will just tangle us up and strangle us to death. And that's a little bit harder to explain to people. It's boring. It's complicated. People immediately shut you down when you start talking about documents and analysis and all that stuff. So the commitment that we are looking at from our political leaders is really important for our political leaders to say to these government agencies: cut the red tape. Don't tell us you're going to take three years to study something which is essentially a hole in the ground. Just go build it, check your boxes off, and get it done. And I think Governor DeSantis really understands that, because the timing of this is fantastic. He witnessed firsthand — he was campaigning, going around the state — he witnessed firsthand an environmental crisis which became an economic crisis over the summer. There's no bigger sense of urgency than what he witnessed. It's like a hurricane, a long, slow, miserable hurricane that came through the East and West Coast. So he's got this tremendous sense of urgency, and then, of course, what does he do? He runs up against just the wall of process. And he sent a clear message. Not just him, but Senator Rubio has also been working really hard to clear the process. Congressman Mast has been doing it. I think our new leadership in the house, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, will help us do it. We've got a great Florida delegation, and they'll help us cut through all that red tape. Daniel, I don't know if you want to add anything to that.

Daniel Andrews: Yeah. So I sat in meetings yesterday with the Army Corps and a lot of other nonprofit organizations that get very involved with the technical details. They're talking about canal heights, levee heights, where water gets moved. And from the perspective of an angler, my message was, I don't really care. Just fix it. Find a way to make it work. Keep these people happy. The scientists and experts from all these organizations, they know what they're talking about. They understand it. But just do it. Find a way to make it happen. This is like a hurricane or an earthquake. When we experience a natural disaster, or in this case a man-made disaster, we need to treat it the same way we would a hurricane. There's people that need help, and we need to do everything we can to get that help. And that help is a solution to the problem. So when there's a hurricane, the governor, the president, they can release funding. They can do all kinds of things. They might not want to, but it's something that we've seen in the past. The National Guard comes down when there's a hurricane, and the whole landscape and the land changes, and everybody is working towards that fix, towards getting the community back together. With these businesses, like in my hometown, there's a barrier island, Sanibel Island, on the West Coast of Florida. There are business owners that have been on the island since the late eighteen hundreds that have told us they've went through hurricanes that wiped their place of business off to where there was just pilings remaining, and they rebuilt. There's been hurricanes that have totally changed the landscape of that island, and they rebuilt. But this scares them more than any of those hurricanes because there is no end date for it. You have a ribbon cutting once the roads are cleared for the island. They're open for business. A week, two weeks, three weeks after even a category four hurricane hitting that island, they were open three weeks later. This crisis that we had in 2018 impacted the area in so many different ways. People were coming down and not wanting to stay their full term of their trip. That's going to linger on for a long time. And it's really unfortunate because a lot of this is preventable. And if we would have been making progress on Everglades restoration for the last twenty years, we could've probably alleviated a lot of what we saw this past summer.

Emergency Declarations and FEMA

Tom Rowland: Yeah. So how does FEMA work into this situation? Because you have a bad hurricane. That's going to be FEMA. It comes rushing in immediately, and funds are released or whatever happens there. And this is such a long and slow process that it's easy, I think, for FEMA to say — or I don't know anything about government or how these decisions are made, but it seems like, well, there's more immediate threats over here with the wildfires of California, or there's a hurricane here, or there were tornadoes here, or there's an earthquake here. These are the places that we go, not the month-long fish kills. I mean, does FEMA play a part in this?

Shannon Estenoz: FEMA has not played a part in it. However, the state has gone through a number of emergency declarations. So we have not had a federal emergency declaration due to algae blooms or due to sort of what's wrong with the Everglades. The symptoms — I like to think of an algae bloom. The Everglades is sick, and an algae bloom is a symptom of a sick patient. And so none of the symptoms that we've experienced over the last thirty years have generated a FEMA declaration. However, the state has declared a number of states of emergency, and we were in a state of emergency all summer at the state level. And what that does — Daniel's right. It frees up. It cuts through a lot of the process. It frees up dollars that wouldn't have already been available. The problem has been that even those emergency declarations at the state level — and they happen in 2013; I mean, this happens all the time — they haven't produced a sustained, a long-term speeding up. So it's a little burst of, oh, we're able to move water around differently. It's almost like giving a kid with a fever a couple of Motrin. You get the fever to break. But that's not going to cure what's causing the fever. What's causing the fever needs to be cured by Everglades restoration. And so we need a sustained sense of emergency, if not state of emergency. We need a sense of emergency. And the problem, to Daniel's point, is that this emergency unfolds over years, and so it bumps up against what we think of as an emergency, which is a hurricane coming through for seventy-two hours. Right? So it's really about changing the mindset, and I do believe that Governor DeSantis gets it. I think he gets it. I mean, I don't know. What do you think, Josh?

Josh Greer: I would definitely echo that. I was involved, I guess, with Mr. DeSantis kind of from the beginning of his campaign. He showed up in Punta Gorda to a convoy that I led from Punta Gorda to Clewiston to try to unite our communities, the Glades communities and the coastal communities, to get together on this issue. And I've got to be honest with you. I never heard of the guy until he showed up. He shows up, and I was like, oh, Ron DeSantis is running for governor. I was like, oh, okay, cool. So I talked to him then. I've talked to him multiple times on his campaign, and I got the feeling that he did understand. He was able to come into Englewood and see red tide and how it affects the businesses there and down in Fort Myers and on the East Coast. And he went out of his way to come and talk to everyday guys like myself and people all around the state and get to hear our story and how it affects us directly. And I feel that he does get it. He understands it, and I feel he is treating it as more of an emergency than just this process that we've been doing in Florida for fifty years. He's making it a priority, and I think that's going to, hopefully, knock on wood, get some real stuff done in the future.

Acknowledging the Problem: Red Tide and Lake Okeechobee

Daniel Andrews: And I think one of the biggest indicators for us that he gets it was, for the past three years that we've been involved with this, and it's really escalated even more so in the last year, every state agency, when they refer to red tide, they prefaced it by saying "naturally occurring." Press releases, social media, anytime the words red tide were used, it was prefaced by "naturally occurring." And red tide is naturally occurring, but almost every scientist that I've spoken to on this has said that they have very little doubt that the Lake Okeechobee discharges and pollution are making this problem a lot worse, tenfold worse or more. We're dumping all these nutrients into estuaries where this red tide is blowing up. So Governor DeSantis, right before he was inaugurated, put an op-ed in several papers across the state where he acknowledged that not only was red tide exacerbated, but across the state. Because we had this red tide that actually circled all the way through the Florida Keys and blew up the East Coast. And I'm a firm believer that you can't fix a problem if you won't acknowledge it, and he acknowledged it right off the get-go. And that's not an easy thing to do. When we started Captains for Clean Water, the biggest problem was that none of our elected officials, especially on the West Coast of Florida, even wanted to admit there's a problem. We spent our first year trying to explain to them that we have a crisis that's about to get a lot worse, and we had very few lawmakers that wanted to acknowledge that.

Tom Rowland: Is that just because as soon as you acknowledge it, you run the risk of affecting tourism today? Like, soon as you acknowledge that, people are canceling trips — oh, there's something wrong with Florida water, then we're not going. Or is it just that?

Daniel Andrews: I really wish that were the case, and I think in some instances, it might be. But, unfortunately, a lot of those same policymakers — I'm not going to mention any names — that were saying there isn't a problem or trying to underplay the problem, have also proposed a lot of very inadequate to potentially harmful, quote-unquote, solutions to the problem. And I think it's pretty obvious — special interests that put tens of millions of dollars into the political cycle, and I think that's a result of that.

Water Management and the Balance of Power

Shannon Estenoz: If I might add, I want to underscore what Daniel is saying. Everglades restoration, when you think about what it is — the Everglades is twice the size of New Jersey. So we are replumbing an area twice the size of New Jersey that's a subtropical wetland. A lot of water. And water management in Florida, water management everywhere in the world — what Mark Twain used to say, whiskey's for drinking and water's for fighting over. Water management is important all over the world. But in a place like this, where being able to manage water determines whether you can have a city or not, it becomes very important. And folks who have influence over how water gets managed, those become the most powerful people in the state. And it doesn't matter — they can come from a number of economic sectors. They can come from tourism or recreation or real estate or agriculture. But it's the people who can pull the levers of how water gets managed that are the most powerful people. And Everglades restoration is trying to change the way water gets managed. Right? So many times, it's not just changing the way water is managed on the landscape. It's changing our politics. It's changing the balance of power in the state. We're trying to take a win-win approach. We're not trying to hurt people. We're not trying to take water away from people who have benefits now. We're not trying to make things worse. But change makes people nervous, particularly if it means that other folks are starting to influence the way water gets managed in the state, that means groups like Captains now have power. Right? And that's really what this is about.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. It's — I've never thought about it like that. That's very interesting, that there are probably plenty of groups and organizations and individuals that hold a lot of power that do have concerns with the water, but relinquishing some of this power to other groups means that they don't have it anymore. Which doesn't mean that they don't care about the Everglades. It means that they have other agendas — that this is super important, and then you start to prioritize it, and it's like, well, that's going to have to wait because I'm not willing to give up this power right now. I've never thought about it like that. That's very, very interesting.

Shannon Estenoz: And that, at the end of the day, is — people always ask, what are your biggest challenges? And at the end of the day, that's probably the biggest challenge, is just this. The other thing to think about that a lot of folks don't think about is, in the nineteen fifties, the state of Arkansas and the state of Florida had the same population, if you can imagine. The system that we're trying to replumb, it was designed to serve 2 million people. It's serving 8 million people. The economy of the nineteen fifties that this system was designed to serve was an entirely different economy than the twenty-first century economy. So we need infrastructure that's serving the modern economy, not the old economy. But with an old economy comes kind of a twentieth-century power structure. And it's the power structure that gets defensive and tries to keep our elected officials — well, no, don't look at the man behind the curtain, there's no problem here. And I think we are seeing it has been changing slowly. I think Governor DeSantis represents — change can come slowly, and then there's kind of a burst of change. And I think the reason all our ears are perked up is that Governor DeSantis feels like a burst of change that could propel us forward, I think.

Inside the Water Management District Board Meetings

Daniel Andrews: That's great, Shannon. And I want to kind of segue off the last topic about the power struggle, and that's why I wanted Josh here with us this morning. Now Josh has had very little involvement with the government in the past. He spent some time in Big Cypress and worked on some issues here and there with his family. But what is it like, Josh? I'm completely consumed in this now, and sometimes it doesn't hit me as hard because I see it every day. But what is it like going to these governing board meetings at the Water Management District? As an outsider to this issue, when you walk in there, were you surprised by the stuff you saw and heard? And how did it make you feel?

Josh Greer: Going to a couple of them, nothing surprises me anymore. But yes.

Tom Rowland: But when you say that after nothing surprises you anymore — what kind of things have you seen go on at these?

Josh Greer: So the power struggle that was just brought up, I think it made me think of what's happening now after DeSantis has called for the resignation of that board, and the majority of that board is saying, I'm not resigning. To me, that's a prime example that that power is true. They don't want to — they know that they are powerful where they're at.

Tom Rowland: Yeah.

Josh Greer: And they don't want to give up that power.

Tom Rowland: Well, nobody really wants to just — oh, well, I've had a great run, and here you go.

Josh Greer: If I had a boss, which thank god I don't — that's why I became a fishing guide, because I don't make a real good employee — but if I had a boss that asked me to resign, I think you should probably resign, because if he's asking you to resign, that means you're probably not going to have that job much longer. There's a reason he asked you to resign, so it's time to go. But I think the thing that surprised me the most about going to these governing board meetings was the blatant disregard, disrespect, the arrogance that these people that sit on that board think that power gives them. I saw people that indirectly work for taxpayers. They're not elected officials, but they're appointed by an elected official. So in a way, you do work for me because I'm a taxpayer. I saw those people not care about what taxpayers wanted. I saw those people put their own interest and special interest in front of the interest of taxpayers with no regard for what happens to them or what happens to the taxpayers. It was mind-blowing, really, the first couple times I went there and saw that. And like I said, after you go do a couple of them and it's the same thing every time, you get kind of numb to it. It's like, okay, well, this again. So I'm excited to see that hopefully change real soon.

Shannon Estenoz: So can I add something to that? Because I actually sat on that board from 2007 to 2011, and it doesn't have to be that way. And it hasn't always been that way. It's mostly been that way, but there have been these little windows where the public has actually been welcomed into the government process. But I think what Josh is describing, and I've seen for twenty-two years, is you show up at a government meeting — that agency, which I would argue is the most powerful government agency in the state of Florida, is the South Florida Water Management District. It's run, as these guys have been saying, by nine political appointees. Very powerful. It's got taxing authority. It can levy its own taxes. That's how powerful it is. You have the public show up, and you get the sense — because I was the public. Before I served on that board, I was right where Josh and Daniel were. I would sit in that audience. And after a while, you get the feeling that there must be some invisible people in this audience, because the whole audience is saying, please, government, will you do A? And the board listens, and then the board does B. And you wonder, no one else stood up here and asked them to do B. There's 500 of us that have asked to do A, and yet the board — first of all, we get fussed at.

Josh Greer: These gentlemen called the peanut gallery.

Shannon Estenoz: The peanut gallery. Right? They'll call you names. They'll give you a hard time, and then they'll vote and do the opposite of what you're asking them. And when that happens in a democracy, it makes people scratch their heads. Who else is in the room that I don't know about? And the answer is there's no one else in the room. They're behind the scenes. They're behind the room. And all the decisions are made ahead of time. And it doesn't have to be that way. It hasn't always been that way. It shouldn't be that way. And the fact that Governor DeSantis has asked for the resignations of these nine board members is unusual. It doesn't usually happen. When a new governor is elected, he doesn't ask for resignations. Typically, he sort of waits till those folks rotate off and he replaces them, to have a little continuity. The fact that he has asked for all nine resignations means that what he has seen with this particular board and how they've treated the public, he doesn't like it. And he also doesn't believe, I think, that they're going to act with the sense of urgency that he has.

Shannon's Path to Everglades Advocacy

Tom Rowland: Yeah. So I'm interested. You said something quite interesting to me — you said you used to be in their shoes. I've just met you right now, but you have twenty-two years of experience. So could you just bring me up to speed on how you were in their shoes to how you sit on a board like that, and how you get this twenty-two years of experience?

Shannon Estenoz: Sure. So my background is in civil engineering. I'm a civil engineer. I started as an engineer, but I didn't like it very much. So I moved into the nonprofit world, and I became an activist largely because my husband was an activist.

Tom Rowland: Okay. And so what perked that interest — what made you want to be an activist?

Shannon Estenoz: Mainly because I was married to one, and he got to go to work and change the world, and I got to go to work and build clients, which is kind of a drag.

Tom Rowland: Was there an issue that was particularly important?

Shannon Estenoz: So I was born and raised in Key West. I'm a fifth generation — I'm a fifth generation Key West conch. And, well, because you live down here, this is it. You don't sit in your living room. You're outside. You're in the natural world. I grew up on boats. I grew up on the water. And I was not raised by a family of environmentalists so much, but I was raised by fishermen, and I was raised by people who made their living on the water. And it just seeped into my brain. And then when I met my husband, who was a public interest lawyer — so he was fighting. He was a litigator. He was suing people. And he did a lot of work in the Keys to establish a carrying capacity in the Keys, for example, for development. And I just figured out there's a lot of injustice in what was happening to Florida, that there were winners, but most of us were losers because the environment was being destroyed. And he and I just talked one day and said, well, maybe we don't need your salary. We did need my salary. But we had this brilliant idea that I would quit my job, and we had no money or anything else. But I went to work for his law firm, so there were two employees, me and him. And we just started — I just started trying to help him fight, and it feels good to fight. It feels good to not just sit back and watch bad things happen around you. So from there, I just started bouncing through nonprofit organizations — World Wildlife Fund, and then I worked for the National Parks Conservation Association. And I got involved with the Everglades Foundation. I was on the board for a while. And then the stars aligned, and I got appointed. It was very rare that an environmental sort of activist type would get appointed to this board. I'm hoping we see some real — not necessarily nonprofit folks, but some of the folks that have been working on the coasts. I'm really hoping that we see some of those folks make it onto the board under Mr. DeSantis. Anyway, I got appointed to the board, and so I suddenly found myself in government. And that's really where you can make a difference if you have a commitment to making things better. But I was sort of one of four on a nine-member board, or five on a nine-member board. So the change had started to happen, and then I worked for the federal government after that. I went to work for the Department of the Interior, and now I'm back.

Tom Rowland: That's interesting. So when you look at this situation and everything that's going on, it's like you have a different pair of glasses on. In a fisherman's perspective, you're out there just looking around, and then you put polarized sunglasses on, and you can see all this other stuff that nobody else can see. That's what your story kind of reminds me of. Like, you can see that there's this hidden force behind these meetings, and you can see that there's all of these things going on that are disguised for most people that have never had your experience.

Shannon Estenoz: Yeah. No, that's right. And a lot of the folks that are new to this process, when they say, I don't understand, why is the government doing what it's doing? Somebody like me says, well, you want to go get a cup of coffee? You got three hours? Let me explain it, because this is what's happening behind the scenes. And like I said, I think that cracking that open and understanding the power structure is critical to influencing it and changing it and becoming part of it. That's what you really want to become. There's always a power structure. I mean, that's the way our world works. What you want to become is part of it. You don't want to become subject to it.

The EAA Reservoir Lease Vote

Tom Rowland: Right. So do you think with this new board coming on — if you were to just blue sky, are some of these people like career people, or are they complete outsiders like Daniel or Josh, somebody that just comes onto this and has no experience in government whatsoever and sees that, look, these are the problems, and this is how to fix it, and we need to do that? Or could a career politician be effective in that situation?

Daniel Andrews: So first of all, I think that's a great question, Tom. But before we answer that, I want to point out something that Josh said earlier. I want to get back to the importance of it, and honestly, it terrifies me. We have multiple of these governing board members that have refused to resign so far. And you have to think about how much power these people have and how closely they're guarding it. They've consistently said, we're doing this as volunteers. We don't make any money off this. We're trying to help the environment — which no governing agency gets in that capacity. They shouldn't get paid. They've never been paid positions. They actually made large political contributions, many if not all of them, to get those seats. And that's how it worked. This current governing board, they're very politically active individuals, and they understand the power of it. But this agency — they get $750 million from taxpayers every year that they get to spend. So you have these individuals, and part of that is taxes that they're levying on their own. And there is zero accountability. Zero. They are not responding to the governor. They were not elected, and they can essentially do anything they want, and nobody can hold them accountable, they think. And that is absolutely not what our founding fathers fought for. Taxation without representation is why the United States of America is what it is.

Tom Rowland: And that's exactly what — you said they have the power to levy taxes. Right?

Daniel Andrews: Yes. So they're taxing us in seats that they bought, and they're refusing to get out of them at the request of the governor. So that's a problem. That shouldn't happen anywhere in America. We shouldn't be having these discussions. So just to be clear, he's asked for the resignation. Has anyone resigned?

Shannon Estenoz: We had one member resign last week before he asked for the resignations, but we all felt that the writing was on the wall. They took an action back in November, two days after he was elected — so there's something about two days. But anyway, two days after he was elected, they took a very controversial action. It was a secret, covert action that could really seriously delay Everglades restoration. And we found out about it with twelve hours notice. It was very dramatic, and we all drove down to Miami to try to influence the decision and ask them to delay.

Tom Rowland: Can we say what this is?

Shannon Estenoz: Yeah. No, absolutely. So one of our biggest Everglades restoration projects is a big reservoir that we're trying to build south of — the EAA Reservoir. Exactly. And we've owned the land that the reservoir is going to get built on. We, the public, we the people, have owned it since 1997. Alright? So for twenty-one years, we've owned it. And it's been leased in agriculture for that whole time. And the 16,000 acres that we need to build this reservoir, the lease is expiring on March 31, 2019. So timing is perfect. Right? We just got the reservoir approved. Lease is about to expire. Let's get rolling. Unbeknownst to the public — and we had to go actually through a public records request. We had to get our lawyers to get this information. Unbeknownst to us, for four months, they were behind the scenes negotiating with the lessee to extend the lease. Not a word to the public that they were doing that. And then twelve hours before their meeting, 9 o'clock at night, an agenda item appears on the agenda. And we watch these agendas. We watch that they're going to vote on this lease. So Captains drove from Fort Myers down to Miami. And interestingly, the board was not meeting at their headquarters, which is pretty accessible. The headquarters is pretty easy to get to. Sometimes they'll take their meetings around the district. It just so happened this meeting, they chose to vote on this down in Coral Gables, which may be the most inaccessible place to get to at 9 o'clock in the morning. I can tell you that right now. And Captains drove down. I drove from Broward. Congressman Mast drove from Stuart. I don't know what time he must have left in the morning to get down there, but he drove all the way from Stuart. He got up at the podium, and he said, I'm asking you to delay this vote until you can brief me, but more importantly, I'm here speaking on behalf of Governor-elect DeSantis who was just elected forty-eight hours ago, and he is asking you to delay the vote until you can brief him and assure us that what you're doing is not going to delay construction of the reservoir. And their response was, thank you for your comments. Call the question. All in favor, aye. And they approved it. They just ignored him.

Tom Rowland: Wow.

Shannon Estenoz: And I told these guys, in my career, I'd never seen anything like that in my life. Never. And it felt like a coup d'etat. It just felt like, to Daniel's point, this isn't how a democracy works. The people have spoken. So that act of disrespect and defiance and power grab — I don't know how y'all would explain it, but that's how it felt to me. I think that in part is what Governor DeSantis is reacting to.

Daniel Andrews: Yeah. And again, just to put that in perspective, that land was purchased when I was in kindergarten. And since then, I made it through elementary school, middle school, high school, started college, started a business as a fishing guide, and then for the last three years have been working with Captains for Clean Water. So for all that stuff to happen, that's a lot of time, and then they're tacking another eight-year lease onto this piece of land. So if you look at all the things that have happened since I was in kindergarten, and I'm 27 now, going to be 28 next month, that's government not working, period. There's absolutely no reason for that. It's incredibly disappointing that we haven't made progress on that specific piece of land to date. But the fact that they now want to add another eight years to it is just completely ludicrous.

Tom Rowland: Yeah.

Daniel Andrews: Especially with all the offices.

Tom Rowland: That lease was passed — so they have a lease. Is there anything that the governor can do now?

Shannon Estenoz: So it's been challenged. One lawsuit has been filed. It may not be the last one that gets filed to try to undo that.

Daniel Andrews: Yeah. And that passed unanimously without even any question. And there was a lot of misinformation thrown around by their general counsel and chief of staff, who also resigned after this before the new governor took office. And I think that sums it up. If you have the vice chair of this organization and your lawyer, who is the one making this recommendation to the board, resign before the new governor took office, that's all that needs to be said. It's very clear to see what's going on there.

Tom Rowland: Sounds like a Carl Hiaasen book.

Shannon Estenoz: I think it is.

Tom Rowland: I think he's written a whole series on this type of thing.

A Positive Outlook: Restoration Moving Forward

Tom Rowland: So, as much as I would love to dive down that hole of all the conspiracy and things that are going on, I think that what drew me to wanting to be a part of what you're doing and try to help in any way I could was really the positive outlook. And so if we think about that — there's a change of leadership, he's asking for this board to resign. I'm sure that they'll probably figure out a way to get some new people in there. Maybe not all of them, but some of them.

Shannon Estenoz: They will.

Tom Rowland: Yeah. So what's the positive outlook? And for somebody that's in the middle of the country and loves to come down here and tarpon fish and loves to go to the Caloosahatchee River area, loves the Florida Keys — what's the outlook right now?

Daniel Andrews: So I think the outlook is actually a great transition into the last question that I kind of interrupted you on, which is what do we need to see on this governing board to make that change? And that's exactly what we need. We need people that are advocates that care about this issue and that are fair people with integrity to make these decisions. And if Governor DeSantis can get those people on that board, then it will open endless possibilities for the Everglades.

Shannon Estenoz: And what I would say is — again, I've been doing this a long time. And if I didn't feel positive about it, I probably would have quit a long time ago, because things like what happened, that we just told you, that happens occasionally. And it can really bring you down if that's all that ever happens. But the good news is that's not all that ever happens. In fact, Everglades restoration is quietly moving forward, because we're building these massive projects. But because we're building reservoirs in places that people don't live, a lot of folks don't see the construction that we're doing. And what's interesting about the Everglades is that we're building these projects, and every time we build a project, things get a little bit better. And it's almost like people don't notice. So for example, we built a bridge on Tamiami Trail. In the February that we had that was very similar to the crisis we had in 2016, the only difference was it was raining a little bit farther south, so we had a lot of water in the center of the Everglades. And the big crisis was we couldn't move water under Tamiami Trail because the bridge wasn't finished. And oh my goodness gracious, that was the most frustrating. People were frustrated, screaming at us in the government. And then the bridge opened. We celebrated. And now everybody takes the bridge for granted. Now we can move water, and it's almost like you forgot that that bridge hasn't always been there. And so I think that's the way this is going to go. It's going to take fighting. We're going to fight these battles, and we're going to win, because we always do. And these projects are going to get built, and things are going to get better and better. And there will come a time where we'll all be sitting around the table going, remember 2016? And it will have been six or seven years since the last algae crisis, instead of three. And things will be getting better, and then you'll have new folks coming to Florida, and they won't even know. They'll go back to — this will be their thing that they do every single summer, every single winter. So that's what keeps me going, because I know we're going to win. We're going to win.

Tom Rowland: Right. Well, that's awesome, because I love that positive outlook, and I love that winning for anglers, for bird watchers, for people that like the Everglades — it's a win for the state. And people that can't see that, it'd be like a doctor understanding how the heart works and how the blood circulates through the whole body, and other people may not understand that. But that is definitely the heartbeat of the state of Florida.

Water Quality Versus Plumbing

Tom Rowland: In your opinion — anyone's opinion — when we first did our first podcast, Daniel, you told me that there were two problems in the Everglades. There's a water quality issue, and then there's a plumbing issue. If we were to use this $2.5 billion in some way, shape, or form to make the biggest change in the shortest amount of time — this is maybe a suggestion to the board or whatever — would that be plumbing? Would it be water quality? Or is it a mix of all of them?

Daniel Andrews: So it's a mix. The Central Everglades Plan, which was all the design for that — that one was before I got involved with this, but through the post-authorization change report that we got passed with the WRDA bill, that combined the EAA Reservoir into that Central Everglades Plan. And that project actually does three things. It provides storage, so you have storage when there's a drought. It provides a conveyance feature, which is the plumbing. There's all these barriers to flow. There's dams, ditches, dikes, all kinds of stuff that stops that water from getting down to Florida Bay. So it opens that up, and it also has a treatment component to it, a stormwater treatment area, and that takes the pollution out of the water. And that, I think, in our next ten years or so, the treatment part is going to be the most challenging. You can never have too much water treatment. With so much pollution going into the water, with so many people in the state of Florida, that needs to be at the top of the list. How can we maximize treatment throughout this whole system? So we're looking forward to seeing that money spent building those projects that we already have planned and finding ways to optimize them to where they take more nutrients out of the water. So we don't want to pass the problem of the estuaries onto the Everglades. And at the same time, we don't want to shortchange the Everglades for the estuaries. So there's another really bad thing that this district has been pushing, which is the deep injection wells, and we've talked about this in the past. Florida Bay needs this water. That's why this whole process was started, to get water down to Florida Bay. Now they're trying to talk about taking this water and pumping it down 3,000 feet underground, causing unknown geological issues at this point. That's how they're talking about spending resources that need to be spent on restoration. Injection wells are the opposite of restoration.

Tom Rowland: Why in the world does anybody think that's a good idea? Is there some reason?

Daniel Andrews: Nobody thinks it's a good idea, and it's evident — they were calling it deep injection wells and had massive public opposition to this. Nobody liked it, so they put lipstick on the pig and rebranded it, calling it now emergency estuary relief protection wells.

Deep Injection Wells and Throwing Water Away

Shannon Estenoz: Yeah. So let me share a perspective on it. The way the system is designed today, the way our predecessors designed it in the forties, mainly for a lack of imagination on their part — the system is designed to get rid of water. That's what it does. When there's too much water in the system, we dump it. And it's a very convenient design. I'm an engineer, I have to admit. Pretty brilliant design. You've got an infinitely large receiving body in the Gulf and an infinitely large receiving body in the Atlantic. It's never going to reject water. You can put as much as you want. Well, obviously, we've learned now it doesn't work for the twenty-first century economy. These deep injection wells are just a modern version of throwing water away. So because redirecting water and moving it south to Florida Bay challenges the power structure, they think it's expensive. They've come up with this newfangled way of throwing away water. We're going to inject it 3,000 feet down. But what they're not telling the public is that's just as expensive as moving the water south. And it's throwing water away. So you throw it away. It doesn't get to Florida Bay. So can I just add something really quickly to your question that you asked about plumbing versus water quality? Let me say that we have such a desperately bad water quality problem, particularly north of the lake, that there's a lot of work that needs to be done just reducing the amount of pollution that's currently flowing into our waterways, like the Kissimmee River, for example, or Taylor Creek and Nubbin Slough or Fisheating Creek. And so there's a lot of work that needs to be done in the regulatory department. We need to get those discharges of pollution. We need to clean that up. A lot of it is agriculture. A little bit of it is septic tanks. There's a lot of work that can be done there. The plumbing piece of it is $2.5 billion. That's where the big infrastructure is, and that's where those big investments need to come. The Captains call it plumbing. I don't know if it's because I'm a mom. I call it reflux. I think that the Everglades has a case of reflux. And when a human has a case of reflux, it means things can't flow south, so they come back up. Right? And that's what's happening — the water can't flow south, so it comes back up and it gets dumped out to the estuaries. When you add the pollution, it becomes acid reflux. So even if the water was clean, this reflux problem would still be a problem. So you've got to do them both, but there's a lot that can be done north of Lake Okeechobee to clean water up by pollution prevention and just getting folks to hold water on their land. When you build a development in South Florida, if you're a developer and you build a planned community, you have to keep a certain amount of your water on your own property, which means you can't put the number of houses you'd like to put because you've got to build a lake. You know, we have waterfront property — it's not water. It's stormwater treatment in front property. And we don't require that really of, say, agriculture. We don't require that they hold their land. They just flush it all out with all of its — same thing with septic tanks. You're not required to hold that on. It all goes into water bodies. So a lot of work can be done there too.

Tom Rowland: As a pessimistic point of view, I now see that possibly somebody thinks it's a good idea to inject 3,000 feet deep because when they inject water 3,000 feet deep, there are no effects. There's no dead manatees on the beach. There's no tarpon. There's no problem — that we know of. Well, exactly. That we know of. There's no problem that is evidently on your beach. Right? And so, you know, just push it under the rug. I mean, that's the ultimate pushing it under the rug. 3,000 feet deep, only to discover that now the aquifer's poison, and that causes problems that no one could even begin to understand.

Shannon Estenoz: Oh my gosh. That's such a good point, because over fifty years, if you were to put these wells in the ground, over fifty years they would be pumping the equivalent of Lake Okeechobee 3,000 feet down a couple of times over. If you can imagine that. The Lake Okeechobee is such a massive body of water. What could possibly go wrong? Well, for Pete's sake, that's what the engineers who designed this system thought. We'll just get rid of water in the Gulf and the Atlantic. What could possibly go wrong? Well, we see what — and then the other place you'd see it first, in my view, is you'd see it in Florida Bay. Because that water that they want to inject is the water that needs to come to us down here.

Daniel Andrews: The big concern that I go back to with that is we have no idea what the possible geological effects of this could be. Earthquakes, sinkholes — we have no idea. If you ask 10 scientists, you'll get 10 different answers. And it's because it's never been done before, and it's not the way God intended it. The rain falls on the land. It goes into wetlands. It slowly flows into the estuaries. That's the way it's supposed to go. And back to the plumbing thing, Florida Bay needs the water. Think about your plumbing in your house. If you're on a septic system, if your toilets are backing up, your showers are backing up, you don't fix the problem by shutting the faucet off. You fix the problem by upgrading your septic tank and putting a leach system in and it's properly working. And you need the water in your house. We need the water in Florida. More often than not, we're in a drought. The city of West Palm has had severe drought issues within the last five or ten years. And with more and more people coming to Florida, we're going to need more and more water. Why are they $8 million a piece for these wells, and the capacity of them is about 23 cubic feet per second? That's how much water each one of these wells can pump down. And we get oftentimes over 10,000 cubic feet per second of discharges to the Caloosahatchee River. That's just the Caloosahatchee. So if that makes sense to anybody, it's because they're not paying attention. And the fact that the district is even considering this — it's really an embarrassment to the state of Florida.

Shannon Estenoz: Let me underscore a point you just made that a lot of folks don't know, and that is this idea of dumping water out to tide or dumping water 3,000 feet down. Even though high water events are the most visible events that we have — those are the ones that make the news — drought and drier-than-average conditions are far more common in South Florida than high water conditions. So one of our biggest issues is our system's designed to throw water away, and then when it stops raining, we never know if this is going to be a drought year. Is it going to start raining again? A month ago, we were faced with a drought. We went from the 2016, and then the rain just stopped and the lake started to fall. And water managers started to struggle and panic about, oh my god, we're not going to have enough. If it doesn't start raining — it better start raining on time. And I served, I was a water manager. I served on the board during the worst drought in recorded history at the time, 2007, 2008. And I can tell you, as terrible as high water is, drought, real drought is in a lot of ways worse because it never ends. It doesn't end. Ours went on for more than a year, and the lake dropped to eight feet. And we were worried that there just wasn't going to be enough. The Everglades was on fire, raging fires. So that notion that we would develop new ways of throwing water away is insanity. And I'm confident that Governor DeSantis will understand that.

Daniel Andrews: I wouldn't take these wells if they were free. But the fact that they want to spend our money on them is really crazy. And it gets back to the point I made earlier. There's zero accountability here. This organization, they've gone completely rogue, and they can, in their minds, do whatever they want. They think they know better than everybody else. That's the big problem we have here. That's not American government.

What Citizens Can Do

Tom Rowland: Wow. So many things, and this will be one of many podcasts. I'm sure that we will continue to talk about these issues, but I guess we'll leave it at this. We've gone about as long as we had time budgeted. As far as anglers, as far as people that are concerned about the Everglades and putting power into an individual's hands like myself or Josh — what are the steps that people can take now? What do we need to be doing? Do we need to be reading and being aware of all this stuff, or just continuing to support groups like we have been, Captains and other things? Or are there other things that we could be doing as just individual citizens concerned about the Everglades?

Daniel Andrews: Well, I think what we need to be doing is what we have been doing, because it's working. The reason that Governor DeSantis made this his primary issue is not because he had a personal connection to the Everglades. He identified that this was the greatest threat to the state of Florida and that this is what people wanted to see. If there's one thing that he could do to make Floridians unite, it's around the Everglades. And the reason that happened is partially because of the crisis we had this year, but I'd say more so because people were educated, aware. They saw through the BS that's coming from several different areas in the government, and they got on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and shared these stories. They listened to your podcast. They watched TV shows that we put together, and they're smarter than that. They're not going to be misled by propaganda. And people are together on this, and they need to keep posted on Facebook. They need to keep waiting for opportunities to contact their lawmakers when any of these organizations — Everglades Foundation, Captains for Clean Water — we work real close with Bonefish & Tarpon Trust. When these organizations ask you to do something, do it with everything you've got. Call all your friends, call all your family, bug your neighbors about it, people at the gas station, people at the grocery stores. Everybody you run into needs to hear about this, and that is what's going to drive this ultimately to a solution.

Shannon Estenoz: Yeah. I couldn't agree more. I think the phenomenon — it's really a phenomenon for me, since the 2015, 2014, and now 2016 crisis — it's not an exaggeration. Even though, you know, Josh's experience at the water management district where the public was not counted, I just have a feeling that that is on its way out and that they're not going to be able to ignore the public for much longer. The power structure is real. The key is that citizens need to be in a position to influence it. And the way you do it is you hook up with a group you trust. You let them tell you what's going on, and then when they ask you to do something, you do it.

Josh Greer: That would be my suggestion. You ask what can everyday people — I mean, that's what I am. I'm an everyday guy. I'm a fishing guide. I'm a fly shop owner. I don't do these things for a living or all day long. But my recommendation would be for people to continue to stay educated through groups like Captains and Everglades Foundation and BTT, and get involved. It's crazy — until this year, I was never involved in politics. I voted when I was supposed to vote. I was educated enough, I think, to make a decision in the voting booth. But until this year, when these issues hit home, it was hard for me to take that first step and to get involved in politics, because it's not an arena that I want to play in. I don't necessarily like politicians or politics. So, but in doing that, I learned a lot. I got more educated, and I felt, when it was all said and done, that I was actually able to do something. And I saw real change, real progress. That's kind of the reward that you're fighting for. You're laying awake at night and going crazy, walking circles in my fly shop every day going, oh god, what are we going to do? What are we going to do? What's going to happen next? To see things like Mr. DeSantis coming in and doing some of these things is like a breath of fresh air. And it's like, okay, what I did was worth it. So I would encourage people to get involved. And sometimes I think it's sad that everyday citizens have to go to some of these meetings and watch what governments do. You feel like a babysitter. You're like, okay, so I have to take a day out of my busy schedule to go be a babysitter. But that's the world that we live in, and that's what we're going to have to continue to do. So I encourage people to come to those district meetings, come see what happens. Get involved.

Shannon Estenoz: Yeah. Can I add something to that? It's a good point. But I think the way to look at it for folks is that it's their government. It's your government. And when you think about the existing power structure in any state — I'm sure this exact same thing exists in Kansas, in Iowa, in Ohio — there's an existing power structure. They invest the time. They go to behind-closed-doors meetings. They spend their hard-earned money influencing the power structure, and it's through groups like Captains that everyday citizens can be powerful. Most of us don't have millions of dollars we can give to political campaigns. But there's a better way. Democracy means you shouldn't have to have millions of dollars to be powerful. And by gathering together and engaging, that's where our power comes from.

Three Years of Change: A Closing Reflection

Daniel Andrews: Yep. And I want to end this by saying — I was just scrolling back through my phone here. It gives you dates from when all your pictures are taken. This picture was taken three years ago today. And at that time, I actually went duck hunting that morning. I specifically remember this day. I went duck hunting that morning, and I ran a charter that afternoon. And at that time, I didn't really have any understanding of all these issues we had in the Everglades. I got the big picture concept, but I wasn't at all involved. And a few days after that, we got a massive rain event in South Florida that covered the whole state. And that's when Chris Whitman and I got together and decided this is something we need to learn more about, and we need to get a lot more people involved. And the fact that three years ago today, I wasn't involved with this fight, Chris wasn't involved with the fight, Josh wasn't involved in the fight — we just had Shannon fighting for us, and we were trucking along, but we didn't have enough people that got involved. And since that event three years ago today, I didn't think — that was not even something that ever went through my mind, that I'd be involved with this to where we are now. I'm not at all ashamed to get in people's face and want to get them involved, because once somebody takes up this fight, they never quit. We see people that were not at all supportive of this a couple years ago that now have taken up the fight, and that trend is continuing. Tom, you and I, Josh, we were not involved with this. Now we are, and we're recruiting a lot more people to get involved. That's the recipe to fix this. The only problem that we actually have is that not enough people have cared about this, and that's a fixable problem. And once we fix that, which we're working on, everything else falls into place. Because if people care, if people open their eyes, problems fix themselves. This is a corruption issue. This is an issue of government overstepping their role and picking winners and losers. And by bringing that to light, Americans are going to stand up for what they believe in, and they're not going to tolerate that anymore.

Tom Rowland: Man, that's the American story. There's been so many things through our history that people have stood up for and made big changes. So that's your marching orders to all the listeners. That's what we need to do to continue to make progress in this. And I just want to thank each one of you for all of the work that you've done on this, because there's a lot of people that care about this issue, and not a lot of people have the time or the money or even the interest beyond just caring to read and do all of these other things. So thanks for carrying the torch, and we'll look forward to this time next year probably having another discussion about all the progress that we've made. And hopefully we'll be looking back at a picture on our phone like this saying, can you believe all that happened in one year? That would be my hope. But thank you very much for that. And if I could leave one thing for the new governor, if he listens to this: I believe that this is your chance — this is your legacy. This is your chance to leave a legacy that will live on far beyond, I believe, any other thing that you could do. This is the most important thing, and lead it. Lead the fight and make significant change. So, anyway, thank you all for being part of this, and I really appreciate it.

Daniel Andrews: Yep. Thank you. Thank you, Tom.

Tom Rowland: Can't thank Shannon, Josh, and Daniel enough for their work on this issue. They have worked tirelessly, and they have all been great leaders to get us to where we're going. So let's hope that we are on this road to recovery, and Governor DeSantis can lead us all and leave a great legacy for protecting the water in the state of Florida.