Is Sustainability Possible in the Keys?

There’s been a good deal of discussion lately about what people are calling “sustainability.” Five or six years ago, all the environmental chatter centered on “being green” but as that term has lost any real meaning, many in the environmental movement have moved to emphasizing becoming sustainable.

Key West has launched a sustainability advisory committee and hired a sustainability coordinator, filling it with former GLEE president Alison Higgins. Rhonda Haag works as the county’s sustainability program manager. And Marathon received a large grant to develop a Sustainability and Climate Plan, which was prepared by an outside vendor.

But the question becomes: can the Keys actually become sustainable? Or is all of this just more talk?

The now accepted definition of sustainable development is that which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

Is our water supply sustainable?

Water provides a good example. In one sense water is a sustainable resource because rain replenishes our supply. If Southeast Florida continues to receive its regular inundation of summer rains, then that water supply will sustain those of us in the Keys who rely upon it and also future generations.

But that “sustainability” comes with a very large caveat. The water we now use in the Keys travels 120 miles down a pipe from pumping stations in Florida City, all the way to Key West. It’s brought to us by enormous pumps that consume very non-sustainable energy. And, as we know, the Aqueduct Authority also uses even more energy to desalinate brackish water and seawater because the Keys are using more water than the South Florida Water Management District allows.

However, I have not heard of any coordinated efforts by any city or the county to strongly encourage or require the construction or installation of cisterns in homes and businesses, something the Keys relied upon until the pipeline was constructed. If everyone living in the Keys had a cistern, life here would be more sustainable because we’d rely on our regular supply of rainwater. Rain barrels, which have been promoted for several years, are fine for small gardens but that’s about it. They hold 80 gallons at most and the average consumption of Keys households is 100 gallons…a day.

Would solar help?

The same applies to electricity. Currently (sorry), every household relies upon electric power for lights, air conditioning, entertainment and running electronics. Once again, all that power is generated 120 miles or more away, traveling down huge lines for distribution to our homes. Even though the Keys receive over 300 days of sunshine every year, only 53 homes out of a total of approximately 50,000 housing units (other than those on No Name Key) have installed solar panels.

Yes, there are a few small arrays that the Electric Coop and KEYS have erected, more as demonstration projects than anything, but there is no strong effort to enable local homeowners to install solar power on their houses. While California, for example, has firms that lease solar panels to households, the Sunshine State does not. Nor does the Sunshine State provide rebates or other incentives for investments in solar energy. Solar panels are still rather expensive to install and the only way we will become more electrically “sustainable” is to have strong financial incentives and government grants as Germany—a country with far fewer sunny days than Florida—has done. I’m not aware of a strong local push for dramatically increasing solar power in the Keys, either photovoltaic or solar hot water.

Sustainable food?

And the final primary element necessary to make the Keys sustainable would be food. It is safe to say that 99 percent of the food consumed in the Keys is shipped in by anything but sustainable 18-wheelers traveling down the Overseas Highway. Some people have small gardens and a group in Key West has done a wonderful job with its community garden. However, for the Keys “to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” in terms of food a massive effort would be needed to create large vegetable farms, to establish fruit and nut tree plantations, and to raise our own fish. Sustainably.

While it’s laudable that the county, Key West and Marathon have finally gotten around to thinking about reducing our collective energy consumption and taking some small steps in that direction, let’s not kid ourselves. It’s not sustainability.

Most scientists now believe that it’s too late to halt climate change anyway. Even if the world stopped using fossil fuels today, it would be decades before carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere would begin to fall. Instead, these committees should start helping us prepare for the consequences of climate change and all that implies. How about Resilience Committees? Or Survival Committees?