It’s ironic that, on the very day the Florida Chamber announces it wants to fight limits on sewage, fertilizer and manure pollution, there’s a massive fish kill off Sarasota, Sanibel Island and Charlotte County caused by red tide—red tide that’s fueled by sewage, manure, and fertilizer pollution.

“The Florida Chamber is playing politics with our public health, and that’s really sad,” said Earthjustice attorney Monica Reimer.” The Chamber is ignoring the horrible reality in the water today. We’ve got hundreds of dead fish going belly up in a prime tourist area, off Sanibel Island. The Florida Chamber ought to be looking after all the tourism business affected by toxic algae outbreaks and fish kills like this one. Instead, they are once again doing the bidding of corporate polluters who use our public waters as their free, private sewers.”

The Chamber says it has 5,000 names on a petition. When the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency asked for public comment on proposed limits on sewage, manure and fertilizer pollution, they got 22,000 comments—and 20,000 of them were in support of the limits.