[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 99 (Thursday, June 14, 2018)]
[House]
[Pages H5158-H5159]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS MUST STOP DISCHARGING TOXIC WATER

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Mast) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MAST. Mr. Speaker, I have a great 5-minute speech prepared here, 
but I am just going to tell you the way it is.
  For the last 2 weeks, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been using 
my community as their own personal septic tank. That is not hyperbole. 
That is the truth.
  Now, it hasn't just happened this way for the last 2 weeks. They just 
started discharging water into my community 2 weeks ago. This has 
actually been going on for decades where, year after year after year, 
the Corps of Engineers decides that it is okay to discharge water that 
they know is toxic into an epicenter of human population.
  How do they know this water is toxic? Because the Federal Government 
sued the State of Florida at one point in history, saying: Listen, we 
don't want you to send this water down south toward the Florida 
Everglades because it is killing the Florida Everglades. It is too 
toxic for what needs to go in there.
  So now the Corps of Engineers sends it to people. They send it to the 
kids who are out at fishing camp. They send it to the fishermen who are 
trying to pull fish out of the water, and they send it to the beaches 
where, instead, they have to put up signs that say: No swimming. Don't 
touch the water. Hazard to human life.
  What kind of community is this where this is sent to? This is a 
community, the treasure coast of Florida. It is an area where beautiful 
waters from the Atlantic flow in. They make the water crystal clear. It 
used to be laden with sea grass, with sea life, and with waterfowl, and 
now you can find next to none of that because the water is no longer 
blue.
  The water no longer has sea grass and thriving fish beds in it 
because the

[[Page H5159]]

water is black. It is black because the flowing waters in from the 
Atlantic Ocean can't keep up with the toxic waters that are discharged 
into that estuary, into that nationally recognized estuary, by the hand 
of the Federal Government, by the hand of the U.S. Corps of Engineers.
  Where the water isn't black, the water is green, like this, with 
toxic algae and cyanobacteria, things that no person should ever have 
to come in contact with.
  I will tell you, this body recently did a good job for what has to 
occur to fix this issue in the long term. We passed the Water Resources 
Development Act, where we went out there and put a placeholder into 
that bill for a southern reservoir, a reservoir south of our area to 
send this water so that they don't have to send this water to the 
epicenter of human population in our area.
  We did a good job of doing something known as asking for a LORS 
review, a review of the schedule at which level we can keep the Lake 
Okeechobee water in that lake so that they don't have to discharge that 
water into our community. We did a good job in making sure that we put 
resources toward how you can clean up algal blooms.
  Those were all very important things for the long term, but it 
doesn't help the people in my community today and tomorrow, the people 
who have to worry about their children coming in contact with the water 
because of the human health risks associated with it.
  It doesn't help the business owners, whom I have to see day after day 
with tears in their eyes because they are closing their doors for the 
last time because they can't survive because of the way this devastates 
our economy from top to bottom.
  When you destroy the environment in our community, you destroy us. 
You destroy every one of us in our community. This cannot continue. 
This has to stop.

  I call on the U.S. Corps of Engineers that, until the moment comes 
where you can say the water you are sending into our area is not toxic 
whatsoever, until that day comes where you would go into that water 
yourself or bring your own family members for a vacation and for a swim 
in our waterways, then don't send one more drop of that water into my 
community.
  I put on the same uniform as the members of the Corps of Engineers. 
We wore the same Army uniform, and I know that we carry the same 
passion for how we do things. We had an ethos: You always place the 
mission first; you never accept defeat; you never quit; and you never 
leave a fallen comrade. Right now my community is being left behind by 
the Corps of Engineers, and it is not right.
  I could say that not one moment during my time in the military would 
I have ever considered risking the life of one community in the name of 
something that may potentially happen in the future. It is not right; 
it can't occur in our community; and that is why I call on the U.S. 
Army Corps of Engineers to stop their discharging of toxic water 
immediately.

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