As an eleventh-generation Floridian and founder of The PET Method, I have spent my life diving, fishing, and restoring the waters that shaped our heritage. Over the years, we have built programs that restore clams, remove debris, and teach youth to care for our environment. Yet, we are now facing a greater crisis—one that no volunteer effort can fix alone.

State-sanctioned herbicide spraying is destroying the foundation of Florida’s marine life. Each application suffocates oxygen, kills seagrass, and poisons the nurseries of fish, clams, and manatees. Our waters—protected under the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Aquatic Preserve Act—are being degraded in plain sight.

This is not a political fight. It is a biological emergency. When our agencies fail to enforce the law, citizens must rise to defend it. This is why we are launching the Florida Waters Legal Defense Initiative, a citizen-funded movement to bring accountability back to our environmental governance.

With your help, we will fund a full-scale legal campaign to halt toxic herbicide discharge, compel restoration, and force compliance with state and federal law. These cases demand scientific data, expert witnesses, hydrologists, environmental lawyers, and persistence. A real case—one that can’t be ignored or dismissed—costs between $500,000 and $1,000,000 over two years.

Every contribution, from a thousand dollars to a hundred thousand, helps move this case forward. Some of you have the means to underwrite filings or sponsor entire phases of litigation. If you can, do it. Our children and grandchildren cannot wait for another election cycle. The time to act is now.

Below is a transparent outline of what this legal battle entails—an honest picture of the scale, cost, and urgency of the mission we face.

Real Costs, Real Urgency

Launching and sustaining this lawsuit requires significant investment:

– $150,000 covers the first filings and scientific groundwork.

– $400,000 sustains expert analysis, injunction motions, and hearings.

– $800,000–$1,000,000 funds full litigation, appeals, and negotiated restoration settlements.

This is what environmental accountability costs in today’s world. We have the laws, we have the science, and we have the truth on our side—but none of that matters without the funding to enforce them.

Our children will inherit either living water or lifeless bay mud. Let us make sure that inheritance is life.