Florida’s economy rotates mainly around our tourism. This is due to our wonderful beaches. But unfortunately our hotels and specters aren’t doing a great job at maintaining them so that we can enjoy them in future years, yet tourism companies still want the cash and tourist still wants to enjoy beautiful clear beaches with white sand. Newsflash: its not going to happen if we don’t help out the environment now. I remember a couple of years ago Clearwater beach could actually be called “Clearwater” beach and now it’s just a nasty muck gulf. I only wish there was a way to keep the beachside hotels and the tourism without harming our beaches. Giving this situation a quick thought. We see that it’s just a vicious circle. We want to have a great economy; tourism-related industries want to keep up the cash flow and tourist want the Florida beach. Yet, tourists just come and go and do not contribute, major companies and hotels just pollute the bayside, we Floridians don’t do anything at all, and we all still expect to have the same gorgeous beaches we did years ago. As a result of our lack of awareness, the beach is slowly being weathered away and polluted into nothingness. And as this happens slowly but surely so will the tourism and there goes our economy, right out the window.

          All though there are other forms of pollution that are either natural or just way out of our league for the moment such as storm wash ups and corporate, I think its only fair if we do our best to minimize pollution as much as possible. I can’t only blame the tourist. We Floridians cause just as much littering or even more than the seasonal tourist.

          A study in 2010 demonstrated that pollution caused more than 3,000 beaches in Florida to shut down for clean up. This was all due to sewage pollution and storm wash ups. I understand that the Florida is the number one target for hurricanes but if there was no trash in the water there wouldn't be "storm wash ups" and as far as the sewage pollution, well, that’s just upsetting. The hotel industry is obviously a major contributor to the states economy but I'm more than positive that they can spent a small percentage of their multimillion dollar income to get rid of their waste elsewhere and not the beach. I think that if we all just gained a tad bit more compassion and thought twice before littering on the beach (and any other area for that matter) we can make a difference. 

Martha, first I want to mention some errors in your paper that you should correct.

• "specters" is a ghost or apparition. I believe you mean spectators
• delete the word "our" before tourism in first sentence. 
• Comma after Unfortunately in first paragraph
• Tourist should be plural in first paragraph 
• "All though" is actually "Although"  (second paragraph)

Other than that, I love where you are going with this. Beaches and tourism are definitely a huge deal. Maybe you can talk about The Pier closing down? What happened with the tourism there? Also, how many beaches are in Florida? You said "over 3,000 beaches in Florida closed down" - how many ARE THERE? Thats a huge number. Discuss how we should distribute our grant to help this cause. Have you researched any non profits that have the potential to do this? 

I would take a gander at the Final Draft rubric, because I feel you would score low on the "Expansive coverage" aspect. Find some videos, or music, or interviews. Link to other pages that will help your audience understand. Paint the image of a cycle so they can see HOW catastrophic the cycle really is. - Andrea Inman