This week Politico has a piece (in which VoteWater Executive Director Gil Smart is quoted) on the environmental legacy of Gov. DeSantis, and what Florida’s next Governor will inherit.

The story proceeds from the assumption that everyone generally agrees DeSantis has a fairly impressive track record.

No, that’s not the case at all.

We’ll give him his due: He has indeed helped secure billions for Everglades projects, and this has given a crucial boost to restoration efforts.

VoteWater, then as Bullsugar.org, actually endorsed DeSantis over Adam Putnam in the 2018 GOP primary. Upon being elected, he roared out of the gate — replacing the governing board of the South Florida Water Management District with less sugar-friendly members; appointing the Blue-Green Algae and Harmful Algal Bloom (red tide) task forces; and ramping up spending on Everglades restoration.

But much of this “progress” fell by the wayside. Both task forces produced reports which were largely ignored. The most outspoken SFWMD Governing Board members were shown the door and replaced with developers.

Restoration spending has remained high, something for which DeSantis legitimately deserves credit. But this is the same Governor who championed “Alligator Alcatraz” in the Everglades he was supposedly trying to protect.

And in a broader sense, Florida’s water quality crisis has not abated; nutrients in key water bodies like Lake Okeechobee and the Indian River Lagoon continue to accumulate. If we get the “Super” El Niño that’s being predicted, this crisis will again rear its ugly head.

Pumps and pipes in the Everglades are important but they’re hardly the entirety of the cause. But here we will agree with Politico: Florida’s next governor will have his work cut out for him on clean water.

The question for voters is, who might actually crack down on the root causes of the problem, rather than preserving the polluters’ privileges while throwing more money at pumps and pipes and declaring “victory?”