 Welcome back, folks. Dow. Dow is down 193. We've got the Nasdaqs off 53. S&Ps are off 21. Guest today, folks, is Oscar Carell. Oscar is the award-winning journalist, photographer, documentarian. He won an Emmy for the PBS series Exotic Invaders, and I'm sure most of us saw parts of that, folks, because the bottom line, those Burmese pythons coming into the Everglades. He got into it a lot more about other exotic invaders coming in, but great film, which was on Amazon Prime as well as Netflix. Well, he has a new documentary out, and it is something you want to watch. We have the website up right now. The website is floridasmagicwaters.com, and this documentary, folks, is the Fellowship of the Springs. It originally aired on PBS in April. It is still on PBS in Florida, and Oscar visited 30 different Florida Springs, and if you have never seen Florida Springs, folks, after this interview, you are going to see them. You've got to come visit us because they are absolutely incredible. Oscar, welcome to TFNN. Thanks, Tom. It's great to be here. I'm telling you, you know, I was actually at King's Bay. King's Bay is my favorite place to hang out when I saw this come across the Bloomberg, right? And I said, oh my God, I've got to get this guy on. So first off, tell us what you're doing with the Fellowship of the Springs and inform these people just how beautiful, well, how beautiful our Springs are. The Fellowship of the Springs for television is a two-part series that we produced for PBS in Florida, and it's run in PBS stations all over Florida over the last several months. Right now, what we did is we merged the two episodes into one film, and so we are hitting film festivals all over the state of Florida right now with our documentary in two days. So on Thursday, we have a premiere at the Treasure Coast International Film Festival, and we have the Central Florida International Film Festival and several others coming up where this is also going to be running, but it's also running on PBS at the same time. It's just kind of a different packaging, so we merged the two, and really what happened was I wanted to make a film about the Springs because I love the Springs, and when I started investigating what's happening with the Springs and how they're being destroyed, I figured that I needed to put my skills as a journalist to use and to answer the question as to what's happening to these Springs and can they be saved? And you mentioned Kings Bay, Tom. Kings Bay is beautiful. It's an amazing place that is one of the biggest harbors for manatees in the entire coast of the United States. It's a place where manatees go in the winter, and if you go there kayaking in the winter, you're going to run into a bunch of manatees that go seek warmer waters in the winter. And Three Sisters Springs is part of Kings Bay. It's a beautiful place, and Kings Bay is evidently one of the places that is really impacted by what's happening with the Springs, a loss of flow at the Springs. Also the algae blooms that are destroying all the native grasses in the Springs, those can be found in Kings Bay. But beyond Kings Bay, Florida has the largest Springs and the highest concentration of freshwater Springs on Earth, and right now our regulators and our government are not doing a very good job of protecting these places. In fact, they're enabling their destruction, and so I think it's important for people to know that their government can and should save these places, but they're just not doing it because they're basically caving to corporate interests. And you know it's so cool. And folks, if you've never been to a spring, I hope that when you see this and I hope that you see Oscar's film, you'll come to a spring. And I can guarantee you, you know, we got a country that's divided. You will not be divided, okay, when you see this nature. Because, you know, the first time that I ever get turned onto this Oscar was only like seven or eight years ago. You know, my better half, Bridget, turned me on to it. I just couldn't believe it. You know, the water gushes out, folks. It's absolutely amazing. And I got to see pots of Kings Bay come back, because right now, there's pots like this year, we were just up there three weeks ago, you can see the grass is coming back. I don't know if it was a hurricane, but you know, there's a lot of people doing a lot of work like yourself, right? I mean, they're out there raking it, and it's just incredible. Once it does come back, I've got to see the difference, meaning that you're looking down, sometimes folks are dark. Then you're looking down now in pots of it, and you can see right to the bottom, you can see the manatee, you can see all the little fish running around. Really cool, man. I mean, it's really amazing. What I did, what I did, I'm sorry, good. Kings Bay's being actually actively restored by a group of engineers that are replanting the grasses that have been killed by the algae. So, let's see if that lasts, if it can make it. Right. And when you read that story, it's pretty cool, folks, because once it does grab, right, they have a shot, they have a shot. So tell us, so we have the nitrates. Nitrates are hurting the springs, right? What else is hurting the springs? Nitrates hurting the springs, people not basically throwing garbage in the springs. That's for sure. What are the biggest threats to the springs right now? There's two major threats to the springs right now. Overpumping of groundwater, which is regulated by the water management districts in the state, and pollution from nitrates. The worst pollution from nitrates comes from agriculture, and that is happening mostly in northern Florida. But there's other smaller sources of pollution for some springs, such as septic tanks and urban runoff. I see, okay. But those are the major factors. Overpumping of groundwater and pollution from nitrates. And I think the agricultural industry has a role to play here in saving the springs, and they need to innovate to figure out how to grow agriculture using less fertilizer and recycling more water so they don't pump as much water. And there's no doubt that those chemicals aren't good for our bodies, man. Those chemicals can kill you in a second, man. If you want to live for a while, folks, that's the other side of it, right? Sometimes it blows my mind that we know the science behind it, and then it's like, okay, how long do you want to live? And never mind the planet. We can see the planet. We take care of the planet, the planet will take care of us. That's what it really comes down to. So tell us the other springs. I'm only familiar with the Kings Bay in that whole area. Other springs in Florida. Are there springs that are further outside of rivers that are like... Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Florida has some amazing springs. These beautiful places that you visit, and you never forget them because the cold water is a shock to the system. And there's places like Wiki Watchy Springs, which is about an hour north of Tampa. That's an iconic place where mermaids perform in an underwater theater. But you could also kayak down the river and swim around, and there's water slides for kids. Then there's places that are more pristine, like Alexander Springs or like Glen Cove Spring, which is in Ocala National Forest. And then there's places like Silver Springs, which is one of the biggest tourist attractions in Florida until Disney World opened up in the 70s. Springs were really the first tourist attraction in the state of Florida. They're iconic places that are important, not just to our heritage, but exactly, as you said, Tom, to our drinking water supply. People don't necessarily understand that the water that's coming out of the springs is the water that we're drinking in Florida. And if we keep polluting the aquifer that feeds the springs, if we keep polluting that groundwater with nitrates and other pollutants, eventually that's going to come back to us in terms of bad health because we're drinking that water. So it's not just in the best interest of the springs to reduce pumping or to reduce pollution. It's in the best interest of everybody's health in Florida to do this. No, there's no doubt. And what Oscar's talking about, folks, this is pretty cool. I've actually seen this. I've seen when, you know, folks that, you know, really care about Crystal River, they're out there with their rakes. They're cleaning it. What ends up happening, folks, is amazing. They clean it. And then all of a sudden there's another little spring that's there. They're small. I mean, it's not as big as Crystal River, but there are springs that we don't even know about yet. But it's amazing. Listen, folks, come over to his website. And, you know, listen, I've never asked this. You are going to donate to this guy. Okay. The bottom line, he's out here working his butt off. Okay. Please come over to the website. We're going to send this out as an email. Donate now. Give 20 bucks, 30 bucks. Give something, folks. Okay. Because the bottom line is beautiful. You want your children to see it, your grandchildren to see it. And you've got to see it, man. If you haven't seen it, you're crazy. Come on down. Oscar, this was awesome, man. Appreciate you having on. Love to have you on again.