Welcome to the latest installment of the Wednesday Wake-Up Call, a weekly roundup of the most pressing conservation issues important to anglers. Working with our friends at Trout Unlimited, Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, The Everglades Foundation, Captains for Clean Water, Bullsugar.org, and Conservation Hawks (among others), we’ll make sure you’ve got the information you need to understand the issues and form solid opinions.
If you know of an important issue–whether it’s national or local–that anglers should be paying attention to, comment below, and we’ll check it out!
1. Alaskans to Vote on Salmon Habitat Initiative
Signs distributed by TU Alaska are popping up all around the Last frontier.
Photo via tu.org
This November, Alaskans will vote on Ballot Measure 1, Salmon Habitat Protections and Permits Initiative. According to Stand for Salmon, the organization behind the initiative, “The ballot measure creates real accountability, forcing foreign mining corporations to pay for the clean-up of mega development projects on or near vital wild salmon habitat – so that Alaska taxpayers won’t be left holding the bill.” Trout Unlimited Alaska is in full support, even getting out signs urging hunters and anglers to vote YES.
If you don’t live in Alaska, you can’t vote, of course. But there are other ways to help. Click the link below to learn what you can do to ensure that large mining and extraction companies don’t destroy salmon habitat forever.
2. Florida’s Toxic Algae Is National News
Toxic cyanobacteria is being discharged from Lake Okeechobee into the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie Rivers.
Photo via captainsforcleanwater.org
A remarkable story by Eric Roston on the Bloomberg website shines a light on the dual water disasters of South Florida: toxic algae and red tide. The photos are simply stunning, showing the devastation of inland waterways and hosts of dead marine animals. The causes of this disaster are myriad, but one thing that would certainly help is the plan to build a holding reservoir south of Lake Okeechobee, so the toxic water would no longer be flushed to the coasts.
Contact your senators, to ask them to authorize the EAA Reservoir. This is a chance for folks who don’t live in Florida to really help the cause.
Captains for Clean Water has made it very easy for you to make your voice heard. Please, complete the form to e-mail your Senators.