Florida Right to Clean Water launches campaign for 2026 ballot initiative
Press release from Florida Right to Clean Water
FORT MYERS, Fla. – The Florida Right to Clean Water citizens’ initiative, driven by impassioned and dedicated volunteers and grassroots support, kicks off their campaign to qualify for the 2026 ballot, intent on amending the Florida Constitution with a fundamental, enforceable right to clean and healthy waters.
“The amendment simply restores what we had expected of the government this whole time – that decisions affecting Florida waters would be made in the public interest. Unfortunately, over the last few decades, the very definition of the public interest has been distorted to prioritize special interests over the health, safety, and wellbeing of the people of Florida.” – Karl Deigert, Florida RTCW PAC Chair
“The essence of this amendment is government accountability – ensuring the State, if it harms or threatens to harm Florida waters, ONLY does so if 1) it promotes a compelling state interest and 2) it prevents as much harm as possible. This is something we had expected of our government to begin with, but reality has been proven otherwise. Currently, the law allows special interests to profit from harming Florida waters, and worse, throwing the costs of cleanup and restoration onto taxpayer shoulders, which is wrong.” – Joseph Bonasia, Florida RTCW Director of Communications and Operations
The campaign needs to collect over 900k signed, hardcopy petitions by the end of 2025 to qualify.
What makes this campaign different from the previous one?
- The language. While the previous language would have done its job, some of the brightest minds in Florida’s world of Environmental Law and Water Protection were able to convene and review the current language, ensuring even more measures were in place to protect it from attempts to undermine it.
- The campaign. The initiative kicks off with two years of foundation laid out and an infrastructure in place, ready to go. Whether one is interested in volunteering (in petitioning, fundraising, or marketing) or supporting (as a leader / candidate, nonprofit, business, or local government body) the website enables all to click in and help.
- The support. The campaign reported raising over $15,000 in the first quarter, demonstrating a healthy grassroots response to an early call to support. There will be more transparency on the website regarding where we are and where we need to be, by county. In May, the website will also show what level and type of support each supporting organization brings. Previously, there was simply a long list of names. This year, there will be more in-depth information to show what nonprofits and businesses are actually doing to bring the right to clean and healthy waters to Florida.
- The opportunities of an election year. The initiative will be a litmus test for candidates campaigning for votes. There will be an online Candidates’ Forum on the Right to Clean Water in June, soon after qualification week, for candidates to learn all about what the right to clean and healthy waters is and does. Importantly, they will be armed with the facts to push back on the foreseeable misinformation campaign by pro-pollution interests. The website will list all candidates who publicly support the initiative, in time for August primaries.
- The current plan. Registered voters in Florida, you may be hearing from us this year, especially during the summer months when we’re shifting to indoor / evening events and outreach efforts over email, etc. As volunteers in Lee County have demonstrated, the initiative can raise funds and, with a very reasonable $1-per-household ratio, mail out envelopes containing multiple blank petitions and a prepaid return envelope to folks most likely to turn them in. While a $15-20 million drop would enable a paid petitioning effort to let volunteers relax, and while our Fundraising Team continues to make the pitch to such funding sources, the campaign has a very doable plan in place to accomplish the mission, based on the rugged determination of grassroots support.
- The leadership. While we continue to have a team of volunteers hard at work managing campaign operations, the initiative will be steered by a new Advisory Board of leaders throughout Florida with the credentials and insight to amplify the campaign’s message and call to action. This team includes:
- John Capece, Kissimmee Waterkeeper
- Kris Cunningham, Florida Sierra Club, Executive Committee member; Volusia County Soil and Water Conservation District Supervisor
- Reinaldo Diaz, Lake Worth Waterkeeper; Lake Worth City Commissioner
- Solemi Hernandez, Southeast U.S. Regional Director, Citizens’ Climate Lobby; Calusa Waterkeeper Board Member; Corkscrew Regional Ecosystem Watershed Land and Water Trust Trustee
- Joe Iannone, Co-founder, Contextually Engaged Theological Education (CETE) Foundation of South Florida
- Gil Smart, Executive Director, VoteWater.org
- Laurilee Thompson, Indian River Lagoon National Estuary Program Management Board; Save Our Indian River Lagoon Citizen Oversight Committee
If you’re registered to vote in Florida, sign the petition. If you can volunteer, volunteer. If you can’t, donate. There is something everyone can do to ensure we all succeed in qualifying for the 2026 ballot, getting this passed, and embarking on a new course for clean and healthy waters in Florida.
This should be a law passed through legislation, not an amendment to the State Constitution.
Even if one agrees with the premise of any proposed amendment to our FL Constitution, it is unwise to add regulatory language to the Constitution.
A law can be amended if there are unintended consequences, but an amendment to the Constitution does not have that flexibility.
What if a mostly good amendment has some poorly considered detail that threatens farming in the state? Or is overly burdensome on homeowners? Or contributes to forest fires accidentally?
There is no possible way that citizens like me can evaluate all the ripple effects of proposed Constitutional amendments.
I vote NO on Constitutional amendments by default, with rare exceptions. I don’t want to saddle young people with the fallout of bad law.
Who gets to define “harm” to Florida’s waters?
Does putting a boat in water “harm” it? What activities specifically constitute harm?
Are there ANY hidden agendas in this amendment? Like growing regulatory control over our lives? Or having to get permission from environmentalists to use our own land?