As a VoteWater supporter, you’ve long known that dirty money = dirty water.

Campaign cash from polluting industries buys influence in Tallahassee, Washington, D.C., even your local county commission chambers. This results in laws that protect polluters and prevent progress on clean water.

We’ve chronicled how some of Florida’s most powerful politicians get tons of money from polluting interests. But now we’re stepping up our efforts.

Introducing the “Dirty Money Project,” an initiative designed to dig into campaign finance data at the federal, state and county level in eight key South Florida counties (St. Lucie, Martin, Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade, Monroe, Collier and Lee) so voters can see how much campaign cash elected officials are getting, from whom — and how this affects public policy on clean water.

Once we’ve compiled and analyzed the data we’ll make it available on the web. We want to create a definitive resource for voters, the media and others interested in transparency. We believe if citizens know the truth about “dirty money,” they’ll demand cleaner politicians — and that means cleaner water.

Please consider supporting the project; your funding commitment will underwrite the research, the expertise and time needed to make the Dirty Money Project a success.

It’s a complex topic, but as we say, Florida’s water crisis is a political problem; and campaign cash from polluters is a huge part of that.

So stay tuned as we work to make “dirty money” so toxic even dirty politicians won’t touch it.