Island merchant guiding solutions to Gulf health
There are few better advocates for the environmental health of southwest Florida than John Talmage.
A seasoned political player, Talmage grapples for the health of south Florida’s natural drainage system, which ultimately reaches the islands through our Calooshatchee River. He is an acknowledged leader in the effort, no secret to those concerned for Florida’s environment.
Talmage’s magic is piecing the puzzle that eliminates the billions of gallons of nutrient-rich water feeding into the Gulf. The puzzle being pollutants, the pieces the corporations, environmentalists, lawmakers, the hospitality industry, wildlife advocates, islanders and tourists with a stake in resolving the issue. River nutrients feed algae that in 2013 blanketed Sanibel beaches in green slime. Tourists complained, merchants hollered, local lawmakers turned to Washington. Sanibel Mayor Kevin Ruane became a chief advocate in finding a fix.
But behind the scenes Talmage steers the authorities that drive the movement to fix Florida’s health, he and others said.
His organizational skills, his comfort in the back-room politics of places like New York City, Detroit and New Orleans, his understanding of the issues are no secret to those in the tug-of-war of interests to the solution.
“We can’t beat (corporate interests) by out-regulating them,” said Talmage, cozied into a booth at his Island Pizza Company store in Sanibel, which is next door to his wife’s popular eatery, Sweet Melissa’s Cafe. “The economic actors have to be brought together.
Talmage’s skill at getting opponents to the table was honed in the Big Apple. He was a chief of staff for a New York City councilman, one of four dozen elected members running the city. It is a vast machine with billions of tax dollars at stake, he said. He studied at Columbia University, later in Tulane. He turned down an offer to Yale.
Talmage has stood at the center of big-city politics, helping in re-shaping the Seneca Club of Kings County in Brooklyn, the city’s oldest political club. He would work with former mayor Rudy Giuliani, former New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin, Jr., countless federal trade and community development agencies. He helped in programs to reduce crime, shape policy in public housing, provide a voice to the voiceless. The undertone of his work was environmental, he said. Poor big city neighborhoods, for instance, are dotted with landfills, garbage transfer stations, manufacturers, fuel depots and pipelines and inevitable leaks and spills, even nuclear waste storage, or a “disruption of the civic core,” he said, correlating civil to environmental rights.
Advocacy for those neighborhoods ultimately creates an activist, he said. It also creates awareness of how big business can drive policy. Southwest Florida water quality, for instance, is affected by cane sugar plantations, business and government decisions choking or draining wetland filters, east Florida versus west Florida, he said.
Talmage landed in the islands in 2005, fueled with the experience and desire to fight back, to organize the pieces of the puzzle that are helping in restoring southwest Florida’s once pristine waters.
John Talmage has worked with the San-Cap business community to fix the water issue. At a meeting in May, he and others discussed the idea of networking southwest Florida chambers of commerce. Combined strength wins wars, the committee was deciding. James Evans, Sanibel’s natural resources director and a guru in the water-quality arena, was a guest. To his left sat Talmage, asked to give an overview of the situation; that Big Agribusiness is dumping its toxins into the waters leading into the Gulf.
Talmage’s remarks were offered as view from the clouds, from on high, one of the committee members noted. It was few minutes of a remarkable grasp of the water issue. More importantly for a wonky and certified bureaucrat, solutions. He suggests a “social compact” between farmers, nonprofits, the pollutants, advocates, bringing differing sides in visits, summer camp exchanges from Lee, Hendry and east Florida counties, creating economic zones that elevate the value of land and lessen the incentives to grow sugar, to restore wetlands and return Florida to its natural shape, he said.
“Good-natured people want change,” he said. “I am very hopeful for the future.”