The Ugly Truth About Big Sugar Destroying Florida’s Coastline…
- By: Joseph Simonds
- on
- Found In: Fishing Tips, Conservation

Wow!
This is one of the best videos revealing the water quality problems in Florida.
Angler and fellow Floridian Spencer Miller knocked it out of the park.
Thank you for putting this together, Spencer.
Very eye-opening to the problems at hand.
Best quote of the film:
“You can die from eating too much sugar, but no one ever died from spending too much time fishing in Florida Bay…”
Check out this documentary below and make sure to support groups like BullSugar and Captains For Clean Water.
Sweetwater – A Film By Spencer Miller
Related Posts:
Why Florida’s Estuaries Are Under Attack (And How To Fix It): Captains For Clean Water (see it here now)
The Truth About Brown Algae (see it here now)
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Heart breaking. Ignorance breeds the death of Florida’s beautiful waters. The greedy politicians and Sugar Barons don’t care about the health of the ecosystems or the health of the people of Florida. As a child, I lived in Florida when it was still mostly a clean water place, Florida has been sold to the highest bidder, the Sugar industry and the developers with no thought whatsoever to the health of the state. People like Trump and Rick Scot only care about filling their pockets. It is the people of Florida who must educate themselves, or they will perish along with Florida. Spencer Miller has created a truly devastating and honest look at what has happened and what can be done to at least lessen the damage. It’s up to the people of Florida and their vote!
Thankyou Let’s hope these assholes in legislation suffer the way the water has!!!!\
Thank you, gov. Scott????
An outstanding presentation. The sad part is that this State just elected Rick Scott as our representatives. This is the same guy that lined his pockets with money from big sugar at the behest of clean water. Makes me wonder if anyone really cares.
Powerful stuff. Until we start caring more about the earth than money, it’s only going to get worse. I moved to Florida less than a year ago, retired, for the weather and the water. I love to fish. I hope I don’t regret it in the long run. Thanks Spenser Miller for the education. Go Bullsugar.org.
People of Florida have cared about the Earth, even before the had digging begun. Money blinded the Government to ignore people’s concerns. The Government spent our tax dollars to convince people it was a good thing. Every year since the water has flowed East and West and not to the South, the water has killed. This year it hurt many, many others. That’s why it’s a problem for everyone right now. I’m sure it will be swept under the rug until next time by these thieves. People tend have short memories unless they’re directly affected.
I am thoroughly disgusted by what I have watched, but I do believe with education, it can be corrected. It will take the effort of a lot of organizations working together, a lot of funding. But our grandchildren may hopefully enjoy what was once Florida. I grew up when Snook were considered trash fish there were so many and mullet moved through by the acre. I thought I had moved to paradise and in many ways, it still is but we need action now. Thank you for sharing this video. Residents that don’t fish, need to see what is happening to their waterways.
farming has been around for hundreds of years and did not cause this. the housing growth in Florida starting in the fifties and digging ditches so the sewage and run off flowed directly into our water ways was a major factor then add “what federal and state officials did to the Kissimmee River in Central Florida. They straightened the river in the 1960s into a canal to drain swampland and make way for the state’s explosive growth. It worked — and it created an ecological disaster” and you see what we have today. yes big sugar used to pump into the big O but that was stopped years ago and lake O has gotten worse not better. someone said this pollution causes red tide and the red tide has been going on for thousands of years. some years worse than others. big sugar due to restriction and imports want to get out of the sugar business and want us to buy their land at inflated price. they threaten to sell it to developers if the state don’t buy it. please do not fall for this corruption and instead get together and change our filling of wet land law. it now only requires a fine when the do this and that needs to be added to include restoring to previous state when caught. there is a project started to re-curve the kissimmee river and that needs to be expanded. bailing out big sugar and expanding the pollution south of lake O is not the answer. this is a fishing group and i enjoy hearing about fishing here but if we are going to discuss our water quality lets do it with input from both sides. here is one of many that realize what the true cause is and what they feel is needed. i agree with them but think we need to do more to stop this destruction of our wet lands. –https://www.npr.org/2014/10/19/356647396/the-kissimmee-a-river-recurved
Great response Roy, I also joined this club to learn how to fish, not Vote. Surprising how “Global Warming” got introduced into the equation. Also, only 1 scientist’s theory on “green algae causing red tide”? As Roy states, apparently Red Tide has been around for a lot longer that any of the big sugar farms. As any thinking person knows, it’s always about money.
Amen. We do our best to avoid ever getting political here at Salt Strong (minus my one podcast episode), and this was not a documentary that we produced.
But if we are serious about protecting our fisheries for future generations, we can’t ignore the water quality issues that are facing all states (which sadly, many times involves the government and dirty politicians…)
Thanks for the candid feedback, gents! We’ll do our best to only share things like this on very rare exceptions.
Right on, Joe. People want to ignore science though. Keep the faith.
You’re wrong. Why do the canals continue to kill nature every year? The water is poison. The everglades are a big filter. The water is only sent East and West to dry out land in the South, to be sold for tax dollars. Please do some more research.
🙂 no you need to do a little research as i have done but this is not the place to discuss it.
Truth
the point isn’t what’s been around for thousands of years, it’s about how fast and how much it’s escalating. it’s not about whether you want to keep fishing, it’s about whether or not you want your kids and grandkids and their kids to enjoy fishing. the ecosystem is like our bodies, we all consume toxins daily and we’re fine because our liver and kidneys dispose of them, but if we consume large quantities of toxins in a short time we die. it’s not politics or some far left radical opinion, it’s an observable, proven fact, so protect what you cherish
it is about what we have had for thousands of years farming and ranching being a large part of it. that said the escalating started with the rapid growth of the housing industry. they straighten the kissimmee river to drain more land and build more houses in central Florida and are still building. that river flows south and we have seen the problem caused by the canals dug to discharge this mess from the north to both coast so now they want to blame big sugar, which by the way is south of lake O, so they can release the mess they made by directing the mess to the south. well guess what there are some who realize this is not the solution and trying to clean the mess before it gets to lake O, not just dump it to the south.
Definitely an eye opener. Now a member of Captains for clean water.
I can’t believe you’ve only received four comments, including mine!
I think most people seemed to comment on Facebook for some reason (where we originally posted it). Either way, thank you for taking the time to watch and comment, Vince!
I’ve contributed to Captains for Clean Water. I can’t say I’m optimistic, but thanks so much to them, Spencer Miller and you for keeping up the fight.