A town hall sponsored by clean water activists will be held in Fort Myers next Saturday.

“A Floridian’s Right to Clean Water – Impacts of Phosphate Mining & Failed Governmental Stewardship” will be held from 1-4 p.m. on Jan. 11 at Hobart Hall at Unitarian Universalist Congregation. Doors will open at 12:30 p.m.

Sponsors SWFL R.E.S.E.T Center and UUCFM will host The Florida Rights of Nature Network of Southwest Florida and Florida’s Right to Clean & Healthy Waters political action committee for a showing of the documentary “PhosFate,” which “investigated and exposed the environmental impacts of industrial phosphate mining on Florida’s waters, ecosystems, and community health,” organizers said.

In attendance will be environmental cancer survivor and filmmaker Erik E. Crown.

“With environmental cancer on the rise 80% with 1 in 2 people projected for diagnosis, it’s imperative environmental pollution and cancers stay in the public discourse,” Crown said in a prepared statement. “When industry watchdogs become the industry’s guard dogs through revolving door politics, the system itself must be addressed. The Right to Clean Water amendment will give Floridians a constitutional legal & human right to clean waters that currently does not exist. One needn’t be an environmental cancer survivor angered by seeing children playing in piles of radioactive rocks. My documentary’s purpose was to reveal impacts of phosphate mining on Florida’s ecosystems resulting in environmental cancers, and the need for solution-based thinking at different levels of government that can include a constitutional amendment for systemic change.”

Other attendees will include emcee Joseph Bonasia, education coordinator and lead for FRONN’s statewide 2026 constitutional amendment ballot campaign to create the legal right to clean water for future generations of Floridians. Bonasia will explain how this new law can end harm to Florida waters from municipal and corporate polluters at all levels.

Also speaking will be Dan Carney, one of the Three Fishermen in Cape Coral who litigated to protect water quality by fighting Chiquita Lock removal and is now being threatened with paying the city’s over $2 million legal fees.

Additionally, Stel Bailey, film cast member, globally recognized activist and forever chemical expert will speak to her work and experiences.

The public is welcome to attend this event at no cost.

Donations to RESET will be accepted.

“Special attention will be paid to how recent state and local municipal activities have worked to undermine the desire of Floridians to create rights-based protection laws for their towns, counties, and the state,” organizers said. “The state legislature and local commissioners have recently chosen to side with special interests that enjoy the current paradigm of polluting for profit. The political & judiciary framework has failed to protect our waters from harm. It is time that the citizens of Florida to break this framework with a law hold Tallahassee accountable for decades of failure. Floridians that desire protections that a fundamental right to clean water can provide are urged to attend this event. It is critical to create a state constitutional amendment that works beyond the legislature’s grasp to nullify environmental laws in favor of polluters. The Right to Clean Water amendment is the best hope for statewide waters.”

UUCFM is at 13411 Shire Lane.

More information about the ballot petition campaign may be found at floridarighttocleanwater.org.