Spurred by Rick Scott's algae ad, Sen. Bill Nelson says he'll stop playing 'nice-nice'

Tyler Treadway | Treasure Coast Newspapers

Show Caption Hide Caption Sen. Bill Nelson's algae roundtable U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson meets with local leaders the toxic algae crisis as he campaigns against Florida Gov. Rick Scott for re-election.

STUART — U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson said Friday he's going to stop "playing nice-nice" with midterm opponent Gov. Rick Scott, especially on issues of the environment and the blue-green algae plaguing the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers.

Some of the clean-water advocates Nelson met with in the lunchroom of Florida Sportsman magazine said they were willing to get down and dirty, too.

Several people at a roundtable discussion on the algae problem voiced their ire at a television ad in which Scott blames Nelson for inaction on dealing with the blooms.

“Washington politician Bill Nelson made a pledge 30 years ago to solve this problem," the ad states as it shows images of pea-soup algae blooms on Lake O, "but Nelson’s a talker, not a doer. With Bill Nelson, we get more waiting, more talk and more algae.”

The ad, titled "More Waiting, More Talk, More Algae," also infers that fixing the Herbert Hoover Dike around the lake is the key to stopping discharges and the algae blooms they spark: "Washington controls the dike at Lake O, so they have to fix it. And so we wait for Washington.”

Scott's final words: “I don’t wait for Washington.”

'Take off kid gloves'

Scott is "trying to take credit" for the state contributing $100 million to help speed dike repairs, Nelson said. "But the Army Corps of Engineers hasn't even figured out how to take the money and how to use it."

When told after the meeting the Corps and the state had reached an agreement on using the money, Nelson said, "Still, $100 milion is a just a pittance compared to the $2 billion project."

When he saw Scott's ad, said Mike Conner, a Stuart fishing guide and longtime water activist, "I almost fell off the couch. You need to take of the kid gloves and tear that ad apart."

Grant Gilmore of Vero Beach, a marine biologist who's studied the Indian River Lagoon for five decades, told Nelson, "You need a commercial saying you've always been there, you've always been working for the environment."

In a letter he wrote Thursday night to South Florida constituents, Nelson put the blame for toxic algae blooms on the state, hinting that Scott was particularly responsible: "For the past eight years, our state leaders have repeatedly rolled back environmental standards, eased regulations and dismantled the state’s environmental agencies — all of which have allowed more and more pollutants to be dumped into our state’s waterways."

More: Read Nelson's letter about algae

Noting Scott recently made $3 million in grants available to counties to clean up small algae blooms affecting businesses and public areas, Alex Gillen of Bullsugar.org asked Nelson to make sure the federal government "keeps an eye on this."

Some cleanup efforts "only hide the problem", Gillen said, and "can make matters worse" by stirring up toxins.

Gillen also suggested the cleanup money might be meant "for election purposes, not human health purposes."

Sen. Bill Nelson roundtable in Stuart: Who's to blame for algae? Gary Goforth of Stuart blames state and federal governments for Lake Okeechobee discharges and resulting toxic algae blooms.

Health effects

That's why, Nelson said, he "begged" the National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to get involved with the algae problem.

On July 9, Nelson asked the CDC to provide "emergency assistance" to research the long-term health risks of toxic algae.

"I repeatedly heard the same message: We need trustworthy, timely information about the potential health consequences of exposure to toxic algae for prolonged periods," Nelson said in the letter to CDC Director Robert Redfield.

Nelson has visited Stuart twice in the past month to meet with community leaders about the algae blooms.

Rep. Larry Lee Jr. talks about algae crisis at Sen. Bill Nelson's roundtable Rep. Larry Lee Jr. complains about Trump administration's environmental rollbacks with Sen. Bill Nelson.

Scott has not scheduled a visit to Martin County to assess algae blooms in the St. Lucie River and Indian River Lagoon.

"I've been around the state," Scott said during a July 27 campaign event in Jupiter, about 20 miles south of Stuart. He visited the algae-ridden Caloosahatchee River in Fort Myers July 9.

Florida Sportsman Publisher Blair Wickstrom temporarily closed the magazine's offices July 24 because algae in an adjacent canal was making his staff sick.

Staffers moved back into the building Monday, said Managing Editor David Conway, but on a day-by-day basis.

"You can still feel the effects," Conway said, "but it's not as bad, not as noxious as it was. We might be taking risks with our health, but we've got to go to work to get the word out about what's happening in the water here."