How Southwest Florida's business community got woke about water | Opinion

For too long in Florida, environmental advocacy was viewed as the domain of tree-huggers and eco-nuts. 

Full-time environmentalists carried the torch for cleaner water and more open spaces, occasionally scoring a policy win — but more often losing ground as armies of industry lobbyists shaped the legislative agenda in Tallahassee. 

Then, in 2018, thousands of businesses in Southwest Florida banded together to push for clean water.

Spurred by a deadly confluence of red tide and toxic blue-green algae blooms, they educated themselves on water quality. They found a unified voice to push for stricter pollution limits. 

As the kids say, they got woke. 

And it had a tangible impact on Florida politics. 

“We spent 2019 focused solely on water,” said Tiffany Esposito, president and CEO of the Bonita Springs Area Chamber of Commerce, and one of the driving forces behind the new business alliance. 

Today, the group — known as the Southwest Florida Alliance of Chambers — is continuing to advance a water-policy agenda. They have the ear of Gov. Ron DeSantis and key lawmakers. The alliance was a partner in the Aug. 21 Save Our Water summit led by The News-Press and Naples Daily News. 

“We realized all of our members, businesses, were tied to water — whether they were in tourism or not,” said John Lai, president and CEO of the Sanibel and Captiva Chamber of Commerce, another organizer of the alliance of chambers. 

More: Researchers find strong red tide off Sanibel, fear it may intensify

"We had to, in the interest of our membership, unify," said Lai, who was in Washington D.C. with Esposito this past week, advocating for Everglades funding.

The alliance includes seven chambers of commerce, representing about 5,000 businesses in Southwest Florida. 

To be effective, they had to put egos aside. They had to rethink the core mission of a chamber of commerce. That meant being more advocacy machines than networkers. 

“If we continue to do what we’ve always done as chambers, chambers will cease to exist in our municipalities,” Lai said.

Chambers as eco-advocates

In this age of LinkedIn, Facebook and Google, chambers of commerce across the country are reexamining how they can best serve their members.

“Networking is no longer our No. 1 goal," Lai said. "Business advocacy is." 

The more savvy chambers are focusing on community sustainability, on making sure their businesses have a long-term future. 

In Florida, that means clean water — or, at the very least, non-toxic water.

The algae crisis of 2018 washed ashore millions of pounds of dead marine life and tainted rivers and canals with neon-green cyanobacteria. The blooms posed a public health crisis, prompting hoteliers to contact guests to warn them of the conditions.

“Bed taxes were down double-digits for the first time in 11 years,” said Lai, a former resort manager.

Businesses had no choice but to acknowledge the highly visible crisis. To their credit, they did more than that. Through the Southwest Florida Alliance of Chambers, they became a force for change.

“It was really eye opening for our community in a terrible way,” Esposito said.

More: Turning the Toxic Tide: Our 5-part playbook for saving Florida's water

The seven chambers worked together to quantify the economic impact of Southwest Florida's water crisis, bringing that data to state lawmakers. In addition to the Bonita and Sanibel-Capitva chambers, the alliance includes: Cape Coral Chamber of Commerce; The Chamber of Southwest Florida; Fort Myers Beach Chamber of Commerce; Greater Fort Myers Chamber of Commerce and the Greater Naples Chamber of Commerce. 

Business leaders from the chambers shared their personal stories of loss with lawmakers, too. It was a nonpartisan no-brainer.

“Once we started turning the water conversation into jobs and economic impact, the Legislature was beginning to take notice,” Lai said.

2020 water goals

The Southwest Florida Alliance of Chambers is taking a more pointed approach to water policy this year, urging state lawmakers to embrace specific reforms to reduce pollution. 

The group is asking the Florida Legislature to do the following in 2020:

• Update and strengthen stormwater standards for urban landscapes (statewide stormwater rule) and agricultural runoff, particularly for nitrogen and phosphorus pollutants that feed harmful algal blooms.
• Embrace advanced wastewater treatment to reduce nutrients in reuse/reclaimed irrigation water with monitoring of nutrient levels.
• Establish a statewide septic tank inspection and maintenance requirement.
• Provide sustained funding to accomplish the Everglades Agricultural Area projects and objective of sending clean water south from Lake Okeechobee as quickly as possible, as well as implementation of critical water infrastructures projects north and south of Lake Okeechobee.

The reforms are overdue. Florida has a history of inaction.

A statewide stormwater rule was considered in Florida a decade ago, but lawmakers never acted on it.

Similarly, a requirement for septic tank inspections was repealed in 2012 by state lawmakers and then-Gov. Rick Scott. 

DeSantis has committed to delivering $625 million a year for Everglades and other water restoration projects in Florida. That's significant, but money alone won't fix Florida's water problems.

“This is the year that I think policy has to take priority, now that the funding mechanism is in place," Lai said.

The alliance of chambers is getting positive signals from lawmakers. But the proof will come when the Florida Legislature begins its session in January.

"They all agree that is the case, at least to our face," Lai said. "We’ll see what happens in Tallahassee.”

Advice for other business leaders

The approach of the Southwest Florida Alliance of Chambers offers a model for other business groups to follow. The key to success, Lai said, is checking your ego at the door. 

“We know all too well the egos that exist in the chamber world,” he said, adding that collaboration is held up when people care too much about credit. 

Esposito echoed that sentiment and emphasized the importance of finding common ground. 

“Focus on the 90 percent that you agree on and leave the 10 percent outside the door,” she said.

That mentality has allowed the Southwest Florida Alliance of Chambers to speak with a unified voice, thereby getting more traction with lawmakers. They didn't agree on deep-well injection as a method for reducing discharges from Lake Okeechobee, so they didn't take a stance on it. 

None of this is easy. And it won't be easy to sustain, especially now that the water is looking better. 

Though red tide recently reemerged off the coast of Southwest Florida, it hasn't caused the widespread marine-life deaths we saw in 2018. 

That's a good thing for tourists and businesses. But the improved conditions will make it more challenging for the alliance of chambers to stay laser-focused on clean water.

“We were able to be so bold because our businesses were impacted so greatly last year,” Esposito said.

But if the alliance has proven anything, it's that it's not deterred by a challenge.

Florida would benefit from more chambers of commerce like these.

Eve Samples is opinion and engagement editor for the USA TODAY Network in Florida, which includes FLORIDA TODAY, the Naples Daily News, The News-Press (Fort Myers), the Pensacola News Journal, the Tallahassee Democrat, and Treasure Coast Newspapers/TCPalm. Contact her at esamples@gannett.com or @EveSamples on Twitter.