Our coastal marine estuaries are in serious trouble and we have to find an alternative to pumping billions of gallons of often polluted water into our estuarine environments from Lake Okeechobee. This petition is to let the Governor and State Legislators know that we can not kill off this valuable resource by pumping fresh water out of Lake Okeechobee year after year. This fresh water is harmful enough in these huge quantities, but is made even more toxic due to its carrying chemicals such as fertilizers and pesticides. This waste water kills off valuable seagrass beds as well as the organisms that call them home, often leaving a nasty scum caused by out of control algae blooms. These areas attract lots of tourist dollars, as normally they are havens for wildlife and have great fishing. It takes many years for these waters to flush themselves under the best conditions, and the seasonal pumping does not provide that chance. There are many jobs at depend on these waters and the varied life they harbor, We are already seeing a decline in tourism in these areas, and we all know that job loss is the result of that lost tourism. Our State can not afford any of this, instead we should be putting people to work building more settlement marshes, and other means of filtering this water before looking into shallow aquifer storage, or other means of avoiding this massacre of our environment. So PLEASE take a few seconds more and sign our petition, and lets start being responsible stewards of our coastal environments. Thank You.