Of all the anti-clean water legislation that Florida’s Gov. Rick Scott can sign into law this week, none tops the “toilet-to-tap” bill allowing treated sewage to be injected into the Biscayne aquifer–Miami-Dade’s water supply. We owe Dr. Seuss an apology for the following:

Oh, the Places Poo Will Go

For all the old flaws found in Florida’s laws, this year we saw something new:
Will Governor Scott sign a bill he was brought, to commingle our water with… poo?

If you’ve moved here this year it might come as a shock that proposals like this could be lawful,
but if you study our past you’ll get used to it fast, and in time it won’t seem quite as awful:

See, the aquifer under Miami is shrinking, and more and more people need water for drinking,
but the Everglades river that used to deliver the most
is polluting and shooting its discharges back up the coast.

To replace it, the volume would have to be huge, and of something we’ve got quite a lot of.
So the brilliant solution our lawmakers thought of,
(the kind of idea that professors thought not of)
is replacing those fluids… with sewage.

It’s the Florida way, living just for today, it’s okay if the future’s depleted–
any damage we do, any debts we accrue, make the next set of taxpayers eat it.

There’s more to this story than finding more water for future Floridians’ pools.
Our cities are looking to unload their sewage, and get around EPA rules.

It’s cheapest to dump it or pump it away, or to blend it so sources can never be traced,
and one Florida industry’s perfectly placed to help others avoid cleaning up their own waste…

The tycoons of sugar know just what to do, they mix all of this poo with the runoff they spew
into rivers and marshes and Lake Okeechobee and Everglades waters like Shark River Slough.

And when people complain that this effluent reaches marinas and houses and restaurants and beaches,
the industry blames it on septic tank leaches and natural weather and sewer main breaches.

It’s the Florida way, living just for today, it’s okay if the future’s depleted–
any damage we do, any debts we accrue, make the next set of taxpayers eat it.

Now your flushed away crap can flow back to your tap, and your fisheries smell like a toilet.
And that stuff from your faucet? You may want to toss it, or at least take precautions and boil it.

If this isn’t the setting you thought you were getting when moving here, here’s what to do:
This coming November you’ve got to remember which candidates voted to make you drink poo.