Dear Commissioner Fried:

I am thankful to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services for its formal recognition of the serious public health threat posed by sugarcane burning to nearby communities. However, I stand with Friends of the Everglades in imploring you to further protect the lives of Glades residents by expanding protections and moving towards an eventual ban of pre-harvest sugarcane burning.

Significant health threats face communities south of Lake Okeechobee where smoke and ash hang heavy in the skies more months of the year than not. Our neighbors in the Glades describe widespread and enduring health issues, and I fear the current burn protections fall short of safeguarding residents living in and around the Everglades Agricultural Area.

The lack of protection imposes air pollution, health risks, and economic stress on vulnerable communities. In the age of COVID-19, this threat underscores a dire need to mandate sweeping and specific changes to the current burning regulations that fail to protect and disproportionately impact minority populations.

Commissioner Fried, you have emerged as an outspoken advocate for common-sense safety measures to combat COVID-19. With that in mind, I must ask you to consider the danger of allowing the added harm of pre-harvest burning during the pandemic to continue. There are alternatives, as you know. It is a good step, but ultimately not enough, that your office continues to encourage adoption of green harvesting — a cost-effective, healthier practice vetted by major sugarcane producers in Brazil and Australia. Encouraging these practices is not enough for the Glades communities. Residents need real protection now.

Redrawn burn-zone boundaries recently announced for affected areas do not clearly ensure equal protections from county to county. To this end, I’d like to formally join the growing chorus of voices calling for an established 27-30 mile burn-ban buffer to guarantee that residents in communities south of Lake Okeechobee are afforded the same defense against the dark plumes of toxic smoke as their wealthier neighbors, until such a time that pre-harvest burning is banned entirely.

While the latest enhancements to the pre-harvest sugar field burning regulations announced by your office represent a long-overdue improvement, I stand with Friends of the Everglades in respectfully reminding FDACS that there is still a long way to go if we are to truly untwine racial inequality from the environmental crises presented by sugarcane burning. Thank you for considering bold action to implement real and lasting protection for Glades residents. Please don’t wait. Florida’s most vulnerable communities are at risk, and they’re depending on you to act.



Respectfully,