September 12, 2016 – Politico
by Bruce Ritchie
State lawyers are again allowing the public to view a 12-minute educational video about the Apalachicola River after ordering it taken off a web site in July.
Florida is preparing for an Oct. 31 trial on Gov. Rick Scott’s lawsuit filed before the U. S. Supreme Court in 2013 claiming Georgia’s water use has harmed Apalachicola Bay and its oysters.
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection paid $28,000 for the video by Live Oak Production Group describing how water use upstream from Florida on the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers affects the bay and river floodplain system.
DEP provided a link to the document on Friday after having denied a public records request for the video in August.
“The (legal) discovery process is now complete; therefore, the video is now able to be released and used by the NERR,” spokeswoman Dee Ann Miller told POLITICO Florida in an email on Monday.
The video can be viewed here: http://bit.ly/2c62Nql
Dan Tonsmeire of the Apalachicola Riverkeeper group said the more information about the river system that’s available to the public, the better that is.
“I think it (the video) is a good sort of discussion or description of the importance and functions of the Apalachicola River and Bay system,” Tonsmeire said.
In August, a link to the video was posted briefly in July on the Facebook site of the Apalachicola National Estuarine Research Reserve before being taken down the same day. [READ MORE]
