My name is Bryan Stross. I have been a Jacksonville resident since 1991, and a Florida resident for 22 years.
I was treated to an inshore fishing trip during my first years here, and I can tell you I was the one who got hooked, and I bought my first boat shortly after that trip. Jacksonville is very unique in the fact we have off shore, inshore and fresh water recreation available to us. This uniqueness must be protected and monitored or it will be gone. It will be nothing more than tainted mud and polluted water. Instead of being a river of life it will be a highway of bile and excrement. In some ways it already is. At low tide in the shallows of the back waters you can smell the odor leeching from the silt & mud that gets deeper each passing year.
Well, we have given million dollar tax breaks to the industries and developers and yet cut the budgets of the very programs designed to offset the immediate environmental impacts they cause. Not to mention the long term consequences and added pressure on an already fragile balance of mans dispensing and natures cleansing.
This is not a natural phenomenon. It is the result of nitrates, and warm temperatures combining to explode into a freak of twisted nature. Conceived and brought to life by the waste, greed, and politics of all of us in this room, and around the state.
I’d like to take my son…. 10 years from now… and see those eagles, and fill our cooler with fresh fish. Instead of helping to pick up the latest fish kill, if there are any fish left to kill.
I love this river, and it tries to love me back. But it can only do so much to cleanse all this bile we pump into it every second of the day.
We have dominion over this water. And with it is the duty to provide it with good stewardship. Any thing less is not just a crime against man and nature, but a crime against the very principles we learned oh so long ago. The punishment of which will be felt for generations to come.
Remember these lessons, and think of what this generation’s legacy will be in the future when you make your decisions .Will it be of good stewardship or wasteful plunder. You have the power to decide, I am only one voice but I try to speak for the voiceless, and I hope and pray that their message is heard first and foremost….not mine.
Bryan Stross
Delivered verbally to the DEP, SJWMD, and River Keepers at the Nitrate Levels proposal public information and meeting in Jacksonville, Florida in 2006. I was never contacted by anyone for any additional thoughts or comments, and yes, the nitrate levels were raised. Now there’s even fewer fish to catch & the skies are being filled with vultures, instead of eagles. 🐚🐬🦅
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