Indian Riverkeeper
As we seek to develop more of our natural resources’ potential, can we separate human health and safety protections from environmental laws and impact review? There is abundant evidence that human health and a healthy environment are inextricably linked. We are fundamentally biological. It is not enough to declare, “We want clean air and water.” We must legislate and regulate appropriately to assure healthy water and atmosphere.
The current administration has issued hundreds of executive orders, and more than 20% that have explicitly degraded environmental protections for clean water, coastal zone protections, marine protected areas, endangered species, natural and wildlands, marine mammals and historic preservations. Some of these executive orders simply exempt particular industries from environmental regulation that has been in place for decades. As a state and nation, we are disengaging from scientifically-supported safeguards and practices that will have long term effects on our ecosystems.
Hamilton Disston purchased 4 million acres of land in central Florida in 1881 for 25 cents an acre. He proposed to drain thousands of acres of wetlands and create a connection between Central Florida and the Gulf of Mexico. His dredges connected lakes, straightened the Kissimmee and linked Lake Okeechobee to the Caloosahatchee River. This scheme was probably the beginning of South Florida’s water problems, and crazy land speculation. The relics of this unregulated gambit haunt us today and have cost billions.
The space industry has brought billions worth of investments to Florida. But what will it cost? Executive Order 14335 of August 13, 2025, lifted all National Environmental Protection Act
(NEPA) environmental impact review standards for all commercial (not federal) space industry infrastructure. And recently the FAA has proposed a waiver of statutory requirements for commercial space launch and reentry actions. This would waive requirements for 13 federal environmental statutes, only enforcing those that the Secretary deems necessary to protect public safety, property and national security. It should be noted that NASA has already identified contamination at Kennedy Space Center of perchlorate, mercury, arsenic and per- and polyflouralkyl substances (PFAS PFOS), other heavy metals and black carbon associated with previous rocket launches. This is a partial list and doesn’t include the nutrient pollution from millions of pounds of nitrates emitted each launch. An estimated increase of launch cadence will be something like 520 launches a year by 2030. The industrial scale of assembly and construction of each vehicle has its own potential pollution. The issue of what damage explosion, fire, noise and low frequency vibration have on structures and wildlife are not
considered either.
Space junk is already causing problems with orbiting satellites. Only rockets can take trails of black carbon directly into the stratosphere. Black carbon in the atmosphere will lead to depletion of the ozone layer; UV radiation is a cancer risk. There are many causes for concern about accelerating climate change, not least of which will be our increased dependance on petroleum products including 65 billion barrels of high sulfur crude from Venezuela.
Port Canaveral has proposed a massive expansion into the Mosquito Lagoon using exemptions from environmental impact review. Fort Pierce has proposed a port expansion to allow the docking and maintenance of rocket recovery barges in combination with a mega yacht center. Fernandina is also using rocket barge handling as rational for port enlargement, exempting them from NEPA review.
We are now in the first decades of the 21st century. What have we failed to learn from the track record of unregulated industrialists of the late 19th century? Technology, experience and accumulated science with a broader world view should have taught us to be more cautious and somewhat skeptical of profit centered, deregulated and federally protected industries that do not care about what their environmental impact will be.
To learn about the benefits of supporting Indian Riverkeeper and its efforts:
visit www.theindianriverkeeper.org
call (772) 341-4953
