TCPalm: SFWMD board appointee Chauncey Goss pledges to bring transparency to district

Article Posted on January 29, 2019

By: Tyler Treadway, Treasure Coast Newspapers

Chauncey Goss said he plans to bring more transparency to the South Florida Water Management District board, starting at the Feb. 14 meeting.

"I've been frustrated with the district for a while," Goss told TCPalm in a phone interview shortly after Gov. Ron DeSantis announced his appointment during a news conference in Naples. "At Sanibel, we've been on the receiving end of the Lake Okeechobee discharges to the Caloosahatchee (River) that led to algae blooms and, to some extent, red tide. I've never seen our water quality as bad as it is now."

DeSantis asked all SFWMD board members to resign immediately Jan. 10 — his third day in office — in large part because they approved a lease giving a subsidiary of sugar grower Florida Crystals the right to farm land where the EAA reservoir will be built.

The reservoir is designed to curb Lake Okeechobee discharges to the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers, which can cause toxic blue-green algae blooms and feed toxic red tide algae blooms in nearshore waters…


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