Guest Author
Our church pews are filled with the hardworking men and women of the Glades farming communities, their friends, neighbors, and families. Agriculture is the heart of our economy, not only putting food on our tables but also helping support our schools, our churches, and our community organizations.
The Glades Ministerial Association represents pastors and preachers from churches of all denominations and ethnicities around the Glades farming region. Many of our pastors have been here for decades serving the good people who live and work “on the muck.” Despite false media portrayals, our congregations are friendly, family-oriented folks who know their neighbors by name and look after one another. Here, a person’s word and a handshake mean something.
That’s why we were hopeful when President Joe Biden announced his support of communities like ours through an early executive order promising environmental and economic justice. President Biden pledged, “To secure an equitable economic future, the United States must ensure that environmental and economic justice are key considerations in how we govern.” Later communications reiterated the administration’s intent to have all government agencies adhere to these environmental and economic justice promises.
While we took that to mean communities like Belle Glade, South Bay and Pahokee would receive due consideration with things like water and environmental projects in South Florida, apparently, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers did not. They basically ignored our concerns about how they’re going to manage South Florida water. The environment and economy in the rural farming communities south of Lake Okeechobee, both of which are sustained by agriculture, don’t seem to matter as much as more affluent coastal demands — whether relating to the operations schedule for Lake Okeechobee or how water supply is treated in ongoing restoration projects.
We all agree that there are water issues as dozens of projects are underway to improve water infrastructure. However, in getting consensus to pass the Congressional Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP), water for existing stakeholders — which included our Glades communities along with 6 million other South Floridians — was protected by the “savings clause” in the Water Resources Development Act of 2000.
This important part of CERP was included because it was considered critical going forward. It was considered critical to ensure that the construction and operation of new restoration projects did not take away the existing water supply from the Native American tribes, cities, businesses, and farmers already in the region. Now, the Corps of Engineers has ignored both the promise Congress made to area stakeholders in CERP and the promise of justice made to minority communities in President Biden’s own “environmental and economic justice” executive orders. Interesting how our minority status receives heavy consideration when it suits someone else’s needs, but not when it really matters to us.
We depend upon the jobs and the economic resources tied to farming, particularly sugar cane, almost every hour of every day in our communities. In Palm Beach County alone, agriculture is responsible for $2 billion in economic activity annually. Our lives move in harmony with the crop seasons. And we’re proud that our farmers help feed our South Florida neighbors and millions of Americans during the winter and spring. Glades farming provides tens of thousands of Florida jobs and billions toward the state’s economy every year as sweet corn, green beans, cabbage, leafy greens and other fresh vegetables are grown in rotation with sugar cane crops.
We’re speaking out because wealthy special interest groups are taking this opportunity to fundraise for their organizations by attacking farming. Our communities have been subjected to attacks and untruthful social media slurs for years, and we are tired of being used as a fundraising prop. Especially harmful are when these same groups try to pit neighbor against neighbor out of false concern for the Glades, even as they attack the very heart of our towns. Sadly, facts no longer seem to matter.
Reducing or eliminating the water supply to our South Florida region would have devastating consequences. Our Glades farming economy would collapse. Millions of people in coastal counties also rely on the water supply protected by the “savings clause” approved by Congress as do their water utilities and municipal services like fire protection. We pray the federal government will do the right thing and honor its promises — of water and justice.
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Reverend Willie Williams is the pastor of New Birth Deliverance Baptist Church in Belle Glade and the president of the Glades Area Ministerial Association.
