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Smith vowed to consider introducing legislation after a Tampa Bay Times investigation<\/a> last year revealed how pollution imperils hundreds of Florida waterways, including the Indian River Lagoon, where enormous seagrass losses led manatees to starve to death<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is past time for the Legislature to act on the findings of the Blue-Green Algae Task Force,\u201d Smith said in a statement to the Times. \u201cOur waterways continue to be choked by algae, killing fish and wildlife, threatening drinking water, harming public health and devastating tourism and local economies that depend on clean water.\u201d<\/p>\n Similar measures have failed to advance before.<\/p>\n Nearly 1 in 4 Florida waterways show signs of contamination from nitrogen or phosphorus, the Times showed last spring. Even places where regulators have reported progress have been getting dirtier instead of cleaner, reporters found, including parts of the Lagoon and several treasured springs.<\/p>\n Lawmakers have stymied solutions that experts say would reduce the chemical load, such as a septic inspection program to identify old, faulty tanks. Florida\u2019s approach for policing water contamination amounts to an honor system that protects polluting industries<\/a> \u2014 including agriculture and development, whose representatives lobby heavily in Tallahassee, the Times found.<\/p>\n DeSantis created<\/a> the Blue-Green Algae Task Force to help limit the damage from pollution-fueled algae blooms. The group made a round of recommendations in 2019<\/a> and met for years to discuss improvements, records show.<\/p>\n