Page 6 - Palm City Spotlight - September '22
P. 6
Page 6, Palm City Spotlight
Good Works
Martin Artisan’s Guild, The engagement at House of Hope (HOH) and the collaboration
between the two nonprofits has flourished ever since.
HeART Of The Community The first project was supplying the Artist’s Corner, which
occupies a corner in HOH’s Enrichment Center, with a
By Jackie Holfelder cabinet and art supplies donated by guild members.
When Michaelann Following that, member Eduardo Gomez held a two-week
Bellerjeau joined workshop for HOH’s Art4Kids program. Another member,
Martin Artisan’s Brenda Leigh, has designed the plans for upcoming mural
Guild in 2021, she projects for the nonprofit’s community gardens, which are
found a willing group estimated to begin being installed this fall.
of comrades ready The murals are a long-term initiative and will encompass
to join her when HOH’s four gardens over a three-year period, allowing
she became chair of children who show serious talent to assist with the murals in
The Community and hopes of encouraging their artistic ability and fostering their
Educational Outreach skills in project planning, neatness and staying committed
Committee on the until something is completed.
guild’s board. Michaelann Bellerjeau, Stuart Police Chief Joseph
A meeting was Tumminelli and Mallo Bisset Good Works on page 7
scheduled with Lauren
Mustelier, director Eduardo Gomez with HOH art
of enrichment and students
Treasure Coast
Outdoors
Redfish Harvest Banned
By Jim Weix
The state has banned
harvesting redfish in the
156-mile-long Indian
River Lagoon that runs
through Martin, St. Lucie,
Indian River, Volusia, and
Brevard counties.
Decades of pollution,
brown tides, discharges
from Lake Okeechobee,
and algae blooms have
decimated our once beautiful fishing paradise. Gone
are the expansive seagrass beds, oyster beds, and other
important habitats. Areas where I once caught sea trout,
pompano, and redfish now resemble an underwater
wasteland.
Along with the fish, dead manatees now wash up on the
shores. What has happened to the Indian River Lagoon,
in my opinion, is both an ecological disaster and a crime.
It started when the C-44 canal was built between 1916
and 1924. This man-made canal was supposedly created to
divert flood waters from Lake Okeechobee. In reality, the
canal was built so that another foolish ecological disaster,
the Herbert Hoover Dike, would allow Lake Okeechobee
to hold more water and be a source of irrigation water for
agricultural interests.
A locally built dike, made of sand and muck, was
originally built by local interests in about 1915 to divert
water around towns that should never have existed and to
allow more land to be farmed. The so-called towns were
population centers for cheap farm labor. That ignorant
plan washed away during hurricanes in 1926 and 1928.
Over 2,500 people died as a result.
In an overly simplistic and perfect world, the towns on
the south end of Lake Okeechobee would be re-located,
the C-44 canal would be filled in, and the Herbert Hoover
Dike would be removed. You could call it the “blow it up
and start over again” approach. But of course, that will
not happen.
Short of that, there are a lot of good people working to
find less drastic solutions. Some of these will hopefully
reduce the need for discharges. Unfortunately, it won’t
eliminate them.
Given some time, the Indian River Lagoon will start to
recover. The huge amount of toxic muck won’t go away,
but seagrass will reestablish itself in areas and there may
be some oyster beds in some areas again. I’ve witnessed
it several times and get quite excited.
Then heavy rains again create the need for discharges
and it is back to an underwater wasteland. It is a perfect
example of insanity.
Editor’s note: Jim Weix is an avid hunter, angler,
conservationist, as well as an outdoor writer. Jim is
included in the Wisconsin Waterfowl Association’s Hall of
Fame, for his work in helping restore thousands of acres
of wetlands. Jim is a broker associate with The Keyes
Company. He can be reached at (772) 341-2941 or by
email: jimweix@jimweix.com. See answer in this paper.