Fellow Brevard Residents, Snowbirds, Concerned Citizens,
Last week Monday, Speak Up Titusville received its first endorsement for our Right to Clean Water Charter Amendment petition from the Brevard Libertarian party. In addition, they have expressed their intent to help us collect petitions at any event they attend and make them available for Titusville voters to sign. This is key!
Look, our reality is clear: the North Indian River Lagoon (NIRL) is dying. In 2019, it witnessed an algal bloom the likes of which had never been recorded. As a result, 95% of the sea grass beds in the lagoon died. Animals of all kinds who depend on the sea grass starved. This included more than 1,100 beloved sea cows … 20% of the population – gone … in 2021. On 23rd February the FWC’s Preliminary Manatee Mortality Report counted 326 manatee deaths so far in 2022.
Its time we Citizens insist on and enforce our inherent right to a clean lagoon: by holding polluters accountable! So we are petitioning to ensure our waters “flow, exist in their natural form, are free of pollution, and which maintain a healthy ecosystem.”
Legal accountability has been the missing element in our state’s water protection effort. Our Right to Clean Water charter amendment will provide Titusville with legal recourse to protect the NIRL. And that is good for Brevard!
All of Brevard will benefit once Titusville’s best water management practices become ecologically friendly to the NIRL. That’s why it’s important for all of us to petition Titusville residents for signatures now and as soon as and often as possible – deadline 1st of June. If you live outside the city of Titusville, you cannot sign the petition yourself. You can, however, collect petitions! And for that you’ll benefit too by helping to clean your North Indian River Lagoon.
So here’s the skinny – There are just a handful of us collecting petitions right now. So you can make a difference right now – YOU can help us make the June deadline! We need 4,000 petitions signed and verified by the end of May. You can help make the difference!
Won’t you please get involved and help save our waters … and lives?
Here’s how:
First things first – download & print a handful of petitions, put them on a clip board, grab a pen and go ask your family and immediate neighbors if they are Titusville registered voters and if so, then have them sign the petition straight away.
Second, take your clipboard with you to wherever you shop and ask registered Titusville voters to sign! You yourself do not have to be a voter in the city to capture their signatures! We’ve found grocery stores to be very fruitful places to find resident voters. So come out and collect with us!
Third, attend the weekly 6pm Monday night meetings of Speak Up Titusville at the Titusville Library and turn in those petitions and we’ll provide your clipboard with refills!
So come join the effort — Lives depend on it!
Read more about it at: https://nature-tribe.org/speak-up-titusville/ and join our Facebook group SpeakUpTitusville!
Michael Myjak, Speak Up Titusville Chair
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Download: Titusville Right to Clean Water Petition Form (PDF)