Club Spearheads Clean-Water Rally in Sixteen Florida Cities
The Sierra Club Slime Crimes Campaign team played the leading role in a historic statewide rally on January 22 to make a stand for clean water in the Sunshine State.
Concerned Floridians from more than 100 different organizations gathered in 16 cities at risk from water pollution and unrestrained over-consumption of water resources.
"We were joined by local and state-level officials we engaged over the last month who want to join the fight to save Florida from the threat of lost jobs, lost quality of life, and lost natural environments that we now face due to the degradation of our state waters," says Sierra Club organizer Cris Costello.
"Civic and environmental groups from every corner of the state have come together to launch a historic endeavor -- a collaborative campaign to harness the resources of energy and organizations and individuals from throughout our state to demand and win the protection of Florida's springs, rivers, lakes, and estuaries."
More than 30 media outlets around the state covered the rallies.
The goal of the campaign is to build a movement to demonstrate Floridians' overwhelming support for protecting state waters and create a framework for achieving meaningful policy changes in the future. "We focus only on common ground between organizations and not what divides us," Costello says.
The Slime Crimes Campaign's genesis was only two months ago in November 2013, when the Slime Crimes team gathered water-quality activists from across the state at a Citizens' Summit to begin to explore ways to collaborate at a higher level. A first draft of the Declaration was presented to the attendees there and a final draft was completed the first week of December.
Sierra Club volunteers and staff and partner organizations held events in Boynton Beach, Brandenton, Ft. Meyers, Ft. Pierce, Gainesville, Interlachen, Jacksonville, Key West, Palm Bay, Orlando, Naples, Ocala, Stuart, Tallahassee, Tampa, and Vero Beach.
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