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News - November 2002
Everglades Village News
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30-November-02
Florida farmers in cyberspace
In a cooperative effort to cultivate an
understanding of the
importance of Florida agriculture among consumers, the Florida
Farm Bureau
and the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services
have joined
forces in a public awareness campaign entitled, "Safe,
Affordable, and
Abundant: Food for Thought from Florida's Farmers." Reaching into cyberspace, the team unveiled
www.Florida-Farmers.com, an
informative website to increase the public's understanding of the
importance of Florida agriculture to our individual health and to
the
economic health of our state. Most consumers are unaware that agriculture is the
second-largest industry
in the state. Florida's 44,000 commercial farmers receive nearly
$7 billion
in cash receipts for crops and other commodities annually. In
addition,
Florida agriculture and forestry products have an estimated
overall
economic impact of more than $50 billion annually to the state.
Copyright © 2002
Newszap All rights reserved.
Water management officials: Conservation always a necessity
Most of Southwest Florida has seen above-average levels of
rain so far this
year, but that's still not enough to allow you the luxury of
watering the lawn
to your heart's content. "I think at this point we're in good shape, but we have
to remember that we
are in a growing area and our seasonal friends are starting to
arrive and the
demands on the resource are going to be greater over the next
several months,"
said Kurt Harclerode, = spokesman for the South Florida Water
Management
District's Fort Myers office. "We need to keep that in mind
and not be
wasteful." Rainfall levels vary wildly from one area to another as they
always do in
Southwest Florida. But most are an inch or two above the normal
52-inch
average that usually falls during the first 11 months of the year. "Fortunately, I think those areas saw adequate
rain." Like Harclerode, Staiger says Southwest Florida residents will
always need to conserve, and he supports the water management district's efforts
to bring about permanent year-round watering restrictions.
Copyright © 2002 Naples
News All rights reserved.
FGCU, Edison to partner on environmental studies degree
"The purpose of this is to train people to
conduct biological and hydrological monitoring, which can be done with a
two-year degree. They can perform biological and water monitoring for the Everglades Restoration Project while they pursue
higher education." — Bill Wilcox
It's what state and regional agencies have wanted for a long
time. And although it's received just a fraction of its original
funding, a new environmental technology program will provide skilled workers who
can earn while they learn — and give agencies what they've been looking
for. The joint venture involves partnerships among Florida Gulf
Coast University, Edison Community College, the Lee County school
system's environmental education division, the South Florida Water
Management District and several other agencies and institutions. It's what state and regional agencies have wanted for a long
time. And although it's received just a fraction of its original
funding, a new environmental technology program will provide skilled workers who
can earn while they learn — and give agencies what they've been looking
for.
Copyright © 2002 Bonita
Daily News All rights reserved.
Water storage tests set to begin
The survival of Florida's Everglades may hinge on an
unprecedented plan to
store vast amounts of water deep underground. The plan calls for drilling more than 300 wells, each designed
to hold
millions of gallons of water in rock formations 1,000 feet below
the
earth's surface. The idea is to capture storm-water runoff, which now drains
quickly through
canals and rivers to the ocean, and save it for later use. In a key concession to environmentalists, federal and state
officials have
promised to treat the water before it's pumped underground, to
avoid
contaminating drinking water. Previously, they'd planned to save money by pumping the
surface water
underground without first cleansing it. Proponents say underground storage, known as ASR -- for
aquifer storage and
recovery -- is more efficient and economical than surface reservoirs.
Copyright © 2002 Herald
Tribune All rights reserved.
Lawmakers must start over on Everglades spending bills
Jennifer Sergent is the
Washington correspondent
for the Daily News.
This is my last column.
For six years, I've worked at the Washington bureau of Scripps
Howard News Service, serving as a correspondent for Scripps' four newspapers
in Florida: the Naples Daily News, the Stuart News, the Fort Pierce
Tribune and the Vero Beach Press Journal. The beat was never dull here, where the news of the day
could
range from Medicare to the Everglades to manatee protection to veterans'
health — all in one day. I really enjoyed interacting with readers who thought
enough of my stories (good or bad) to send me an e-mail or call. I will
miss that. But I'm not completely going away. I am moving over to the
features desk at Scripps Howard, where I will be covering homes, food and
lifestyle for the national news wire. Readers will find my byline in the feature
section of their newspapers. So, if you've got any great story ideas for me on the new
beat, you can still reach me at the old e-mail: sergentj@shns.com.
Copyright © 2002 Naples
News All rights reserved.
Design for new science center unveiled
The design is otherworldly. Not exactly a
space ship but a structure that appears to have just set down and could leave
momentarily. Either that or it's a giant microphone resting on its side in
a stand. Unmistakably, the design for the $40 million Dekelboum Science
Center says
future and science in one riveting statement as much as the
structure it
will replace, the 41-year-old South Florida Science Museum, says
tattered
cardboard box. "It's unlikely you will guess it's an office building or
an institutional
facility," museum Executive Director Jim Rollings said
drolly of the new
design. "It seeks to gain immediate recognition as a science
center." It will not go unnoticed, perched just south of Palm Beach
International
Airport on the corner of Southern Boulevard and Kirk Road, at the
west end
of Palm Beach County's Lake Lytal Park. November has been a good month for the
museum.
Copyright © 2002 Palm
Beach Post All rights reserved.
State gets $1
million to buy Collier County marsh
The state Department of
Environmental Protection is receiving $1 million to buy a 1,000-acre marsh
in Collier County. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service announced
the grant this week as one of 21 nationwide to share $15.7 million.
American crocodiles and dozens of other species of wildlife in the
110,000- acre Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve are
downstream from the McIlvane Marsh. The Florida Department of
Environmental Protection, which runs Rookery Bay, applied for the grant to
restore the marsh's historic sheetflow that roads and canals interrupted
over the last 50 years, said Gary Lytton, Rookery Bay director.
Allowing rain to wash over the land in thin sheets is important because it
allows the marshes to filter out contaminants and impurities.
Copyright © 2002
Sun-Sentinel
/ Associated Press All rights reserved.
Related Articles,
August 27, 2002
TRUSTEES
OF THE INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT TRUST FUND
November 18, 2002
U.S.
FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE GRANTS FUND WETLAND CONSERVATION PROJECTS IN 15
STATES
Editorial: Spotlight on growth
DCA chief Steve Seibert is leaving the Jeb
Bush administration. The governor's choice of a replacement will reveal
much about the future of growth management in Florida.
As Community Affairs Secretary Steve Seibert becomes the first
state agency
head to depart before Gov. Jeb Bush's second term, Bush has a
chance to
clear up some confusion about development and growth. Is the
state planning
to do more or less to control it? The signals in the first term were mixed:
In his first year, Seibert called for a multiyear review of
growth laws,
emphasizing the need to hear from citizens. But by the 2000
legislative
session, he and Bush were cooperating with a House-led assault on
growth
management. The Senate stopped it. Following that 2000 session, Bush appointed a 23-member
commission to study
how to streamline and improve growth management laws.
Copyright © 2002 St.
Petersburg Times All rights reserved.
Whooping cranes' flyover expected today at mall
If all goes according to plan, the flock of 16
cranes will land today at their winter home, Chassahowitzka National
Wildlife Refuge.
Capping a whirlwind week marked by perfect
flying conditions, 16 endangered whooping cranes cruised another 53
miles Friday and are poised to finish their migration this morning. If the
weather cooperates, the cranes will depart Levy County at sunrise and
make the 14.5-mile jaunt to Crystal River, where they will fly over the mall, trailing
ultralight aircraft. Anyone wishing to view the cranes and their odd-looking guides
is encouraged to gather outside the mall by 7 a.m. The spectacle will last only a few moments but witnesses to
last year's migration, the first ever, say it is a moment not to be
missed. "It's a marvelous thing, a real thrill," said
Dunedin resident Joan Fenton, who plans to leave her home at 5 this
morning.
Copyright © 2002 St.
Petersburg Times All rights reserved.
Editorial: President's Environmental Views Are Far Out Of The Mainstream
A recent poll shows that Americans like and trust President
George W. Bush. The New York Times/CBS News poll found he had a 65 percent job
approval rating and that Americans' confidence in him clearly helped swing voters to
Republican candidates in November's election. In contrast, the poll found voters had little confidence in
Democrats, who they felt had not offered a plan for the future. While the results were mostly favorable to the
president, on
one issue the survey showed he is clearly out of touch with the
electorate. The poll, which was based on random interviews with 996 adults
and had a 3 percent margin of error, found nearly two-thirds of respondents
felt the government should do more to protect the environment and regulate
the safety practices of businesses. By a two-to-one margin, citizens
said they thought protecting the environment was more important than
producing energy.
Copyright © 2002 Tampa
Tribune All rights reserved.
29-November-02
Gator Trappers Deal With Down Market
Some have suggested a type of subsidy provided by the state.
When outdoorsmen stepped forward more
than 20 years ago to contract with the state to trap and kill rogue
alligators, international commodity markets and the world economy probably
weren't on their minds. They are now. A combination of low
prices for hides and the fact that the current market has even made many
hides unmarketable is causing problems for the state's 38 contract
trappers. The problem is aggravated by the fact that what started
out as a sideline for many of them turned into a full-time livelihood that
now barely produces a living wage. They are asking for help from the
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the agency that
controls alligator harvests and operates the nuisance alligator program,
and the agency has agreed to try. "It's been a problem for
about 10 years," said FWC spokesman Henry Cabbage.
Copyright © 2002 The
Ledger All rights reserved.
Letter to Editor: The New Frontier, in the Heart of the City
To the Editor:
In "Wild Cities: It's a Jungle Out There" (Arts & Ideas, Nov.
23), the coordinator of Columbia University and Unesco's program on the
biosphere and society says: "The choice is no longer between cities and
wildness. It is, in the face of increasing population, between density and
sprawl." While density does indeed help preserve open space, an increasing population,
whether in single-family homes or apartment towers, will consume an increasing
amount of natural resources. Attention to urban ecology — prompted in part by the effects of global
warming — is undeniably important, but it should not be used as an excuse to
abandon efforts to preserve those wildlands and roadless areas that remain or to
stabilize population.
Copyright © 2002 NY
Times online All rights reserved.
Related Article,
November 23, 2002
Wild
Cities: It's a Jungle Out There
28-November-02
Bush to Shorten Forest Environmental Reviews
File Photo/ Rich Pedroncelli
-- AP
Logging on federal land, such
as this operation in California's
Stanislaus
National Forest in
2000, would undergo
shorter
reviews under the rule.
The Bush administration announced plans yesterday to streamline the process of conducting environmental reviews before opening national forests to logging, drilling and other activities. The proposed regulations, which closely track recommendations by the timber industry, would reduce the number of scientific and environmental reviews required when 15-year master plans are developed for the 192 million acres of the nation's 155 national forests. The plans, similar to a zoning process, specify where recreation, mining and other development can take place. The proposal, overturning regulations issued by President Bill Clinton two months before he left office, would give local forest managers more leeway in complying with a 1976 law mandating the preservation of diverse plant and animal species. The rule, now open for public comment, will not take effect for at least nine months. Copyright © 2002 Washington Post All rights reserved.
U.S. Approves Power Plant in Area Indians Hold Sacred
The Bush administration has approved construction
of a geothermal power plant in the Modoc National Forest, a remote volcanic
field near California's border with Oregon that local tribes consider sacred.
Indians and environmental groups accused the government of betrayal today and
said they would fight the decision. The project, at Telephone Flat, was blocked two years ago by the Clinton
administration because of concerns about intrusion on the lands. The plant would
be two miles from Medicine Lake, which the tribes believe has healing powers.
In reversing the Clinton administration decision, officials said "the
overall interests of the public would be best served" by allowing the
project to proceed. Specifically, the decision, released on Tuesday, cited the
need for developing renewable energy sources. Calpine
, the utility in San Jose that wants to build the 48-megawatt plant, owns
extensive leases for geothermal development in the national forest.
Copyright © 2002 NY
Times online All rights reserved.
Studies Conflict on Danger in Mercury-Laden Fish
Two studies have yielded contradictory findings about the possible heart
dangers of eating mercury-laden fish. The studies, reported in today's New England Journal of Medicine, looked at
the long-term effects of mercury exposure on the hearts of middle-aged and
elderly men. One found no clear link between mercury levels in the body and the risk of
developing heart disease; the other found that men who had suffered a heart
attack had higher mercury levels than similar men who had not. That left the researchers, Food and Drug Administration officials and other
experts agreeing on just two things: more research is needed and people should
not stop eating fish, because minerals and fatty acids in fish protect the
heart. Also, many seafoods, like salmon and shrimp, contain little or no
mercury.
Copyright © 2002 NY
Times, AP online All rights reserved.
Bush Plan Gives More Discretion to Forest Managers on Logging
The Bush administration proposed today to give
managers of the 155 national forests more discretion to approve logging and
commercial activities with less evaluation of potential damage to the
environment. The proposal would thoroughly rewrite rules issued by President Bill Clinton
in November 2000. Under the Clinton-administration rules, the government must systematically
assess the likely effects on the environment whenever it revises a 15-year plan
for management of a national forest. Under the proposal issued today by the
Forest Service, the preparation of the assessments, known as environmental
impact statements, would be left to the discretion of the forest manager. The Clinton rules require the government to protect fish and wildlife in
national forests so the species do not become threatened or endangered. One of
the two major options in today's proposal says that forest management plans
"should provide" such protections but does not require them.
Copyright © 2002 NY
Times online All rights reserved.
Related Link,
* pdf file (must have Acrobat Reader to open)
27-November-02
Editorial: Cypress Creek, yes;
waterflow, slow
We have seen good news and a cautionary emerging from the vast
domain of the South Florida Water Management District recently. The WMD is a huge political entity that monitors and governs
water resources in a 16-county area in the southern end of the state.
It is one of five such groups formed by the Legislature in 1972 to protect
and manage a natural resource that is being squeezed by growth -- our water.
This year the District operated with a $728.6 million budget, much of which
draws from property taxes the District levies. What this agency does has an impact -- large and small, direct
and indirect -- on our daily lives. Kudos go to the WMD for becoming involved in the purchase and
preservation of a critical link in the water supply for northern Palm Beach
and southern Martin counties -- the Cypress Creek tract.
Copyright © 2002
Jupiter Courier -
TC Palm All rights reserved.
Students explore wildlife in the Everglades
Senior Brooke Davidson has been a member of the Life Sciences Club for more
than four years, but last weekend was the first time she visited the Everglades.
"I think it's amazing," Davidson said. "It's good that they
preserve a part of Florida, and that it's not going to change ... well, at least
not so fast, because that's how all of Florida used to look." Members
of the USF Life Sciences Club spent last weekend at the Everglades National Park
to see what they are trying to protect. They saw endless grass areas with
islands of cypress trees and mangroves. They also saw alligators, crocodiles,
raccoons and hundreds of birds. Club members took a boat excursion during which
they listened to a lecture about the Everglades wildlife and its history. They
also walked several trails. It was the group's first trip to the park, but they
said they plan to repeat that visit at least once every year. Read
more . . .
Copyright © 2002
USF Oracle All
rights reserved.
Related Link,
University of South Florida
Life Sciences Club
FGCU instructor seeks to expedite approval for marine lab site
Florida Gulf Coast University instructor and longtime local
environmentalist
Bill Hammond told Lee County commissioners Tuesday that time
could be running
out on finding a home for the university's marine lab, and asked
them to host
a meeting with state park officials to try to get approval for
the Lover's Key site. "We need to finalize a site proposal before the Christmas
break," said
Hammond, who is co-chairman of the county's Smart Growth
Committee and whose
fingerprints are on many of the other environmental programs to
appear locally
in the past four decades. Commissioners agreed to invite state Department of
Environmental Protection
Deputy Director Robert Ballard and DEP's Parks and Recreation
Director Wendy
Spencer, as well as officials from the cities of Bonita Springs
and Fort Myers
Beach, to an early December meeting. The proposed site is within
the city of
Bonita Springs, which has expressed opposition.
Copyright © 2002 Naples
News All rights reserved.
Agency Proposes Relaxing Rules on Logging in National Forests
The Bush administration is proposing to give managers of
the nation's 155 national forests greater leeway to approve logging and
commercial activities with less examination of potential environmental
damages. The administration said Wednesday its intent was to improve the forest
management regulations issued by the Clinton administration two months before
President Bush took office. The new land management rules would affect some 190 million acres of forests
and grasslands overseen by the U.S. Forest Service. The changes are ``designed to ... better harmonize the environmental, social
and economic benefits of America's greatest natural resource - our forests and
grasslands,'' said Sally Collins, the Forest Service's associate chief. Asked whether the changes will result in more logging, Collins said,
"We
can't say it's going up or down or sideways or the same."
Copyright © 2002 NY
Times, AP online All rights reserved.
26-November-02
Flying enemies unleashed on fire ants
A venture between Florida and U.S. scientists
deploys flies that inject the ants with eggs that become killer larvae.
Scientists are using Brazilian decapitating
flies (photo) in their biological war on fire ants.
He is so intent, he barely notices the fire ants crawling on his shoes, his worn khakis and his fingers. Fred Santana swats at the insects perfunctorily, and continues squatting in the field, stirring sand with a stick. This is, after all, serious scientific work. Santana, a Sarasota County coordinator of pest management, is on the front lines of a government-backed biological war against fire ants. On this warm afternoon, Santana has released hundreds of Brazilian decapitating flies, whose mission in life is to zoom in on fire ants like smart bombs. The fire ants do not, of course, take kindly to this air raid on their world and fight back, emitting alarm pheromones and attacking the flies as best they can. Copyright © 2002 St. Petersburg Times All rights reserved.
Watershed Deal Calls for City to Act, but Saves It Billions
New York City will avoid having to spend at least $5 billion on filtering its
drinking water that comes from the Catskill/Delaware watershed under an
agreement to be announced today, the federal Environmental Protection Agency
said yesterday. In exchange, the city will have to preserve more land around the reservoirs
and reduce storm water and agricultural run-off, among other measures, said Jane
Kenny, the agency's regional administrator. "There are many actions the
city must take to hold up its end of the bargain," she said. In 1997, the E.P.A. allowed the city to avoid filtering its drinking water as
part of an agreement in which the city pledged to safeguard the quality of its
water supply for the next five years.
Copyright © 2002
NY Times online
All rights reserved.
Opinion - Editorial: A Camellia Grows in Boston
If there's one trait that gardeners have in common, it's a desire to grow plants
that experts tell them they shouldn't be able to grow. Be it bamboo in Boston,
evergreen magnolias in New York or tree ferns in Atlanta, the urge to cultivate
something that nobody else in the neighborhood has runs deep. Whether this
passion comes from a need to compete, to experiment or just to be different is
irrelevant. What counts is pushing the limits of possibility and proving the
experts wrong. But what happens when the limits of possibility are pushed not by gardeners
but by climate change? Some of the joy leaves the enterprise; ambivalence seeps
in. At least it has for me. The arboretum where I work has given me a special vantage point from which to
witness — and react to — the shift in growing patterns brought on by a world
that's getting warmer. The Arnold Arboretum was founded in 1872 for the purpose
of scientific research.
Copyright © 2002 NY
Times online All rights reserved.
Opinion-Editorial: Every Breath You Take
Last week the Bush administration announced new rules that would effectively
scrap "new source review," a crucial component of our current system
of air pollution control. This action, which not incidentally will be worth
billions to some major campaign contributors, comes as no surprise to anyone who
pays attention to which way the wind is blowing (from west to east, mainly —
that is, states that vote Democratic are conveniently downwind). But this isn't just a policy change, it's an omen. I hope I'm wrong, but it's
likely that last week's announcement marks the beginning of a new era of
environmental degradation. Some background: The origin of new source review lies in a big policy mistake
30 years ago. The original Clean Air Act imposed strict rules on new sources of
pollution, but it grandfathered existing power plants, refineries and so on. The
idea was that over time, as old facilities closed down, strict rules would
become the norm.
Copyright © 2002 NY
Times online All rights reserved.
Related Article,
November 23, 2002
E.P.A.
Says It Will Change Rules Governing Industrial Pollution
November 25, 2002
Editorial:
Environmental War Clouds
December 2, 2002
Letters: The
Environment: Fight the Tide
Editorial: President
Unwise To Relax Key Provision Of Clean Air Act
Air pollution causes problems in addition to filthy air. Emissions from
power plants directly affect people's health, especially among the young
and the elderly. It can cause breathing problems,
respiratory ailments and even death, so there is cause
to be concerned about President Bush's intent to relax a key
provision of the Clean Air Act.
The president plans to eliminate the ``new source review'' rule, which
requires power plants to install modern pollution control devices when
undergoing major renovations. He believes the rule discourages utilities
from repairing and modernizing facilities. Industry officials say there are
simple affordable steps, short of installing all new pollution control
devices, that would dramatically clean the air.
Copyright © 2002 Tampa Tribune All rights
reserved.
Related Links,
Left Behind--Emissions Increases at Power Plants and in States Across the US*
* pdf file (must have Acrobat Reader to open)
25-November-02
Editorial:
Environmental War Clouds
The environmental community,
already battered by two years of struggle with the Bush administration, is expecting the perfect storm when the 108th Congress convenes
in January. For starters, the chairmanship of two key Senate committees will pass from
two reliable conservationists to men with deplorable records on energy and the
environment, James Inhofe of Oklahoma and Pete Domenici of New Mexico. Second,
the election results are likely to encourage the administration's quiet but
lethal efforts to undermine environmental law through administrative rulemaking
and judicial negotiation. Finally, and most depressingly, it is hard to imagine
a scenario in which this group comes up with any new and imaginative initiatives
to deal with problems that badly need attention, especially global warming. Most
people who care about such things will be so busy preventing further rollbacks
that the idea of moving forward will seem hopelessly farfetched.
Copyright © 2002
NY Times
online All rights reserved.
Related Articles,
November 26, 2002
Opinion-Editorial:
Every Breath You Take
December 2, 2002
Letters:
The Environment: Fight the Tide
Wal-mart to share bald eagles' nest
Facility bends over backward to accommodate birds
Photo: A bald eagle flies across the St. Lucie
County Landfill across from Florida’s Turnpike.
Wal-Mart plans to build a 1.2 million-square-foot
distribution center just south of where a pair
of bald eagles nest.
When Wal-Mart executives started scoping out sites for a multi-million
dollar distribution center in southeast Florida, they weren't expecting a
pair of bald eagles for neighbors.
After picking a wooded section of property east of Florida's Turnpike,
that's exactly what they got.
Tucked into a canopy of pines just north of the 300-acre site -- where
Wal- Mart is planning to build a 1.2
million-square-foot warehouse -- rests a colossal bald
eagle nest.
It's more than 5 feet across and roughly 7 feet tall, and a pair of
eagles has been nesting there for at least four years,
said Tony Steffer of Tampa- based Raptor Manage-ment
Consulting. Although the federally protected birds don't show themselves
very often, they have been known to make an appearance at the St. Lucie
County Landfill just across the turnpike to pick up some fast food.
Copyright © 2002 Stuart
News - TC Palm All rights reserved.
State to consider new information on pollution in
SW Florida waters
Environmental groups are reporting progress in changing the way the state
Department of Environmental Protection measures pollution in Southwest Florida
waters. Their efforts have focused on adding rivers,
lakes and bays to the state's list of polluted waters.
Waters on the list would be subject to new pollution
control rules. A version of the list released by the DEP this summer came under fire from environmental
groups in Collier and Lee counties. The Responsible Growth
Management Coalition, the local chapter of the Sierra Club and the
Environmental Confederation of Southwest Florida challenged the list. The
Conservancy of Southwest Florida asked for more time to file its
challenge. That may not be necessary after a meeting last week in Fort
Myers between the DEP and environmental groups, said Gary Davis, environmental
policy director for the Conservancy.
Copyright © 2002 Naples
News All rights reserved.
Bush Names Rodriguez General Counsel
Gov. Jeb Bush appointed a Miami attorney to be his
top lawyer Monday.
Raquel A. Rodriguez will start Dec. 9, replacing Charles Canady, who was
named by Bush to be a judge on the 2nd District Court of Appeal.
Bush said Rodriguez showed she was "extremely suitable for this position
through her well-rounded experiences."
Rodriguez, 41, is a lawyer at the law firm Greenberg Traurig. She was
born in Miami Beach and graduated first in her class
from the University of Miami School of Law in 1985.
Rodriguez will make $115,000.
Copyright © 2002 Tampa
Tribune All rights reserved.
24-November-02
Foreign wasps failing to save residents' sago palms
RIO The sago palm saga continues. Despite the efforts of state agricultural officials earlier
this year to save the Treasure Coast's sago palms, residents continue to watch
small insects destroy their beloved sagos. "It's worse, and it's getting worse throughout the
county," said Julie Preast, a Rio resident who's been watching her 10 sago palms
slowly become covered with the snowy-looking wax of the Cycad aulacaspis scale,
a pin- point-sized bug eating away at her plants. "I was starting to panic," she said.
In February, Ken Hibbard, the area supervisor for the state
Division of Plant Industry, released more than a thousand tiny parasitic
wasps on the Treasure Coast, hoping the wasps would kill the bugs that were
killing sagos. The scale, native to Thailand, sucks away the inner juices
of the leaves, trunk and roots.
Copyright © 2002 TCPalm All
rights reserved.
With Canker, Citrus Profits Fall
More fruit would go to processors and it would depress
prices on that fruit.Few people conversant with Florida's war against
citrus canker approach the controversy with dispassionate objectivity. Florida citrus growers, fresh fruit shippers (called
"packinghouses") and juice processors view the bacterial disease as a threat to their
livelihood and speak bitterly about "ignorant" opponents of the
state and federal canker eradication program. The citrus industry generates $9 billion of direct and
indirect economic activity in Florida. Opponents, mainly residents and local politicians in South
Florida who've successfully hamstrung the eradication campaign through the
courts, often speak just as bitterly. They've used terms like "storm
troopers" to describe the government crews that come onto residential
properties to inspect trees for canker or, worse yet, cut down infected
trees.
Copyright © 2002 The
Ledger All rights reserved.
For Solar Power, Foggy City Maps Its Bright Spots
Peter
DaSilva for The New York Times
Dan
Lichtenberger
performed a maintenance check
on a section of solar panels on the roof
of the
Santa Rita County Jail in Dublin, Calif.
High above the streets on rooftops flat and wide,
nearly a dozen sun-gazing contraptions are shedding new light on this city's
foggy reputation. Resembling lunar probes on spindly legs, the machines are equipped with
sensors that measure solar energy. Readings are transmitted by radio to the San
Francisco Public Utilities Commission, where engineers plot them on a
computerized "fog map" of the city. The
Copyright © 2002 NY
Times online All rights reserved.
Breeding birds raise hope for 'Glades fauna
The Everglades' graceful wading birds, such as the white ibis and
snowy egret, are breeding at a rate unmatched since 1940, a new survey
shows. But scientists caution that this year's
increase is probably caused more by favorable weather
than by conservation efforts. And more breeding hasn't
yet translated into more birds, experts said.
Still, the scientists who produced the annual South Florida Wading Bird
Report see the increase as a sign that the Everglades' fauna can recover
from decades of unnatural water flows.
Wading birds are excellent indicators of the Everglades' overall health
because they travel over the Southeastern United States before deciding
where to breed, said John Ogden, the South Florida Water Management
District's chief representative for Everglades restoration.
Copyright © 2002 Sun-Sentinel
/ Associated Press All rights reserved.
Everglades restoration: South Estates project
could be funded next year
An environmental project in rural Collier County could be getting back on
track toward becoming one of the first initiatives in the multibillion-dollar
restoration of the Florida Everglades.
Environmental advocates hailed the renewed effort and said it could put
the focus of Everglades restoration on
Collier County. "This is a huge jump forward,"
said Mike Bauer, Southwest Florida policy director for
Audubon of Florida.
Everglades restoration planners are putting together the revised proposal
to re-establish natural water flows through Southern
Golden Gate Estates, situated south of the portion of
Interstate 75 known as Alligator Alley. The plan stalled when it was beset
by questions about whether it will worsen flooding in the rural Estates
neighborhoods north of I-75 and whether it will provide enough environmental
benefit. The questions contributed to delays in asking Congress for money
for the project and delayed the project's timetable.
Copyright © 2002 Naples
News All rights reserved.
Cape Coral rallies to 'unlock docks'
City, county unite against moratorium
State and local government officials pledged their support Saturday in the
fight over a proposed moratorium on dock building in Southwest Florida.
"We really have a fight on our hands,'' state Rep. Jeff Kottkamp, R-Cape
Coral, told the crowd attending the "Moratorium Madness'' rally in Cape
Coral. "The only way to win this is to stick together.''
Temperatures in the 50s didn't keep an estimated 1,000 real estate
agents, boat dock builders, waterfront property
owners, boaters and other residents from scurrying
into Jaycee Park. Signs were held high declaring "Docks
don't kill manatees,'' and the crowd erupted in chants of "Unlock our
docks." The rally was organized by area dock builders and
Standing Watch, a statewide boating rights coalition, in response to a set of
rules released earlier this month by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.
Copyright © 2002 News-Press
All rights reserved.
A Closer Look: The New Rules on Industrial Plants
The Bush administration announced changes yesterday to rules on industrial plants intended to
make it easier for utilities and refinery operators to change operations and expand production without installing new emission
controls. The new Environmental Protection Agency regulation will do the following:
Set higher limits for the amount of pollution that can be released by calculating emissions plantwide rather than for individual pieces of
equipment. Rely on the highest historical pollution levels during the last decade when figuring whether a facility's overall increase in pollution requires
new controls. Give plants that have installed state-of-the-art pollution control equipment a 10-year exemption from having to make further pollution
improvements.
Copyright © 2003 NY
Times online All rights reserved.
Wild Cities: It's a Jungle Out There
Joyce Dopkeen/The New York Times
Urban density is favored
over
suburban sprawl now because it
leaves wild areas like this untouched.
For most of her career, Christine Padoch did her environmental research in
distant, exotic locations like the rainforests of Amazonia and Borneo, while
Steven Handel studied evolution in the Galapagos Islands. Now Ms. Padoch, an
ecological anthropologist, takes the subway from her job at the the New York
Botanical Garden in the Bronx to count exotic vegetables at the green markets of
Queens, while Mr. Handel, a professor of evolutionary biology at Rutgers
University, is studying the vegetation that grows along the tracks of the New
Jersey transit railway — a true test, if ever there was one, of the survival
of the fittest. Their projects are examples of the new frontier of environmental studies:
urban ecology. Until recently, the only real environments thought worth studying were in
"pristine" nature, remote areas as far as possible from the footprint
of human beings.
Copyright © 2002 NY
Times online All rights reserved.
Related Article,
November 29, 2002
Letter
to Editor: The New Frontier, in the Heart of the City
FARMER GETS SPIKED
Gary Farmer is irked at the way Adaptation has turned out --
but, contrary
to some gossip, he hasn't asked that his name be scrubbed from
the credits. Adaptation is the new movie (or should that be meta-movie?)
from Spike Jonze, the creator of the astonishing Being John Malkovich,
probably the
best motion picture out of Hollywood in 1999. His latest
creation, done
with Malkovich scripter Charlie Kaufman, opens Dec. 6, and the
advance buzz
is good, phenomenal, in fact. Farmer, the Canadian-born star of Dead Man and Powwow Highway,
has a
relatively modest part in the Jonze-Kaufman enterprise. He plays
a Seminole
named Buster Baxley who, in fact, is a real person from Florida,
featured
in Susan Orlean's 1999 non-fiction bestseller The Orchid Thief,
based on an
article she prepared for The New Yorker.
Copyright © 2002 Globe
and Mail All rights reserved.
Related Links,
ADAPTATION (2002)
reviews from the nation's top critics and audiences.
Also includes movie info, trailer, poster, photos, news, articles, and forum.
"Adaptation"
Movie Trailer
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formats.
"Adaptation"
Movie Stills. Click on photos for larger view.
Adaptation Nicolas Cage is both ...
Adaptation Movie Production Photos - Nicolas Cage Meryl Streep
Adaptation movie posters and memorabilia at MovieGoods
Erosion washing away wildlife refuge in Indian River
The nation's first wildlife refuge is sinking. The tiny mangrove island has whittled to half its size 30 years ago. As the Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge approaches its centennial, the federal government is planning to spend millions of dollars to save the battered pelican getaway. "The long-term prognosis for Pelican Island, if we were to do nothing, would result in the island eroding to the point where it would disappear," said Paul Tritaik, refuge manager. The island in Indian River County is home to more than 30 species of birds, including brown pelican, wood stork, snowy egret and great blue heron. Loggerhead sea turtles also rest along its banks. At the turn of the century, German immigrant Paul Kroegel shooed pelican poachers with a double-barrel shotgun. It was about a 5 1/2-acre island during his days as America's first refuge manager.
Copyright © 2002 Palm Beach Post All rights reserved.Pahokee turns back clock for festival
Going back 80 years, Pahokee was not much more than farmland, a bank and a church. The farmland, the original church and that bank are still in town, each offering a bit of history that will be marked at this weekend's Grassy Waters Festival. This year's annual lakeside event at Pahokee's campground and marina will double as a celebration of the city's eighth decade, event Chairman Larry Wright said. The party begins at 10 a.m. and continues until 5 p.m., featuring a hot dog eating contest, chili cookoff, tricycle race, children's carnival and petting zoo. Gospel music and other live entertainment will play throughout the day. The event wraps up with a "Classic Looney Tunes" film festival at the Prince Theater, a short walk from the lake on Main Street.
Copyright © 2002 Palm Beach Post All rights reserved.County Loses Bid To Block New Mine
Charlotte County's arguments against more phosphate mining in the Peace River Basin were rejected Friday by a state arbiter. The ruling grants IMC Phosphates a permit to mine 2,800 acres in East Manatee County. Steve Seibert, secretary of the Department of Community Affairs, said opponents failed to prove that the phosphate mining would degrade the quality and quantity of water flowing into the Peace River, which drains into Charlotte Harbor. (IMC is Polk's fourth largest private employer with about 2,000 workers at the Four Corners, Fort Green and Kingsford mines and the New Wales and South Pierce chemical fertilizer plants.)
Copyright © 2002 The Ledger All rights reserved.First `Whooper' Returns To Wildlife Refuge
A yearling female whooping crane known as No. 7 on Friday became the first of the endangered birds to return to Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge. The bird's arrival generated excitement and renewed hope that a migrating colony can be established east of the Mississippi River, said Ted Ondler, deputy refuge manager. Officials say No. 7 and four other members of last year's flock still en route are coming on their own or are following a flock of sandhill cranes, their biological cousins. Sixteen cranes in this year's migrating class remained stranded Friday in Tennessee, 687 miles and 41 days into the more than 1,200-mile journey from Necedah National Wildlife Refuge. Those birds, like last year's, were trained to follow ultralight aircraft that serve as their surrogate mothers. Last year the migration took 55 days.
Copyright © 2002 Tampa Tribune All rights reserved.Hillsborough Bay To Stay Off List For Priority Cleanup
State regulators heard nothing Friday to persuade them to leave Hillsborough Bay on a scaled-back list of Florida waters dubbed ``impaired'' and targeted for new limits on pollutants. Members of Save Our Bays, Air and Canals met with Florida Department of Environmental Protection officials from Tallahassee and Tampa to discuss the group's concerns about periodic low dissolved oxygen readings in the bay. DEP officials said the data didn't meet new criteria to remain on a list that until this year included more than 700 bodies of water. The state is slashing about 600 from the list. Officials said Hillsborough Bay would have remained on the list because of high levels of chlorophyll, an indication of algae problems.
Copyright © 2002 Tampa Tribune All rights reserved.Skeptics question plan to restore river
A high-level water manager thinks by establishing minimum freshwater flow into the Loxahatchee it will protect a "wild and scenic river."
Saying his agency wants to avoid "analysis to paralysis," a high-level water manager came to Jupiter this week to sell a plan to establish minimum freshwater flow into the Loxahatchee River. However, local skeptics question the long-term effectiveness of the South Florida Water Management District's controversial proposal to protect and restore the "wild and scenic river." At a hearing Thursday in Jupiter Town Hall, Chip Merriam, the district's deputy executive director of water resource management, tried to boil down a 193-page draft proposal titled "Technical Documentation to Support Development Flows and Levels for the Northwest Fork of the Loxahatchee River."
Copyright © 2002 TCPalm All rights reserved.E.P.A. Says It Will Change Rules Governing Industrial Pollution
The Bush administration today announced the most sweeping move in a decade to loosen industrial air pollution rules. The administration said the changes would encourage plant improvements that would clean the air. But critics denounced the changes as a retreat from tougher rules now in place that require factories to make costly investments in pollution control equipment when they modernize. The announcement of the new rules triggered a storm of criticism from environmentalists, Democrats and some Republicans including Gov. George E. Pataki of New York. In addition, the attorneys general of the six New England states, New York, New Jersey and Maryland announced they would sue. They are all Democrats.
Copyright © 2002 NY Times online All rights reserved.Related Article,
November 26, 2002
Opinion-Editorial: Every Breath You TakeDialogue on Pollution Is Allowed to Trail Off
When William Bilkovich died in a car accident on a country road near his home in Tallahassee, Fla., on Dec. 30, 1999, Mr. Bilkovich, a 56-year-old chemical pollution expert, was listed by the police as the only victim. But the accident also turned out to be a crushing blow to a novel environmental program at Dow Chemical, where he had worked as an independent consultant bringing Dow engineers and managers together with some of the company's harshest critics. Dow says it has preserved what it learned from the program and does not need such extensive engagement with critics to pursue pollution prevention. But environmentalists contend that the most important lessons have been ignored both inside and outside the company.
Copyright © 2002 NY Times online All rights reserved.
22-November-02
Ship accused of crushing coral
A world-roaming cargo ship smashed more than 1,000 rare corals at one of Florida's most pristine dive spots when, officials say, it dropped its massive anchor in a prohibited area. A survey of the 6,500-square-foot damage site, completed last week, stunned researchers with the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. The 15-ton anchor flipped over corals that weigh more than 1,000 pounds and began forming their star-shaped clusters before explorer Ponce de Leon sailed over them. "This is some of the greatest destruction of living coral I've ever seen in my life," said Harold Hudson, a biologist who conducted the survey. "It was heartbreaking." For two decades, Hudson has surveyed some of the worst ship groundings along the Keys -- the world's third largest barrier reef, which was placed under federal protection in 1997.
Copyright © 2002 Palm Beach Post All rights reserved.Illnesses blamed on Florida waters
The state leads the nation in reporting disease outbreaks linked to pools and drinking water, a CDC study finds.
Hours after a group of high school cheerleaders took a dip in the pool of their Tampa hotel last year, some complained of itchy skin. Within days, 53 people who swam there, and 34 guests at a nearby hotel, reported a red bumpy rash covering their arms and legs. Hillsborough County health officials knew they had an outbreak on their hands and closed the pools. They found the pools had overloaded filtration systems and inadequate disinfection. Low chlorine and pH levels provided a breeding ground for the bacteria that caused the painful rash in the March 2001 outbreak.
Copyright © 2002 St. Petersburg Times All rights reserved.Charlotte County Looses Bid to Block New Phosphate Mine
Approval of Park Drilling Angers Environmentalists
Charlotte County's arguments against more phosphate mining in the Peace River Basin were rejected Friday by a state arbiter. The ruling grants IMC Phosphates a permit to mine 2,800 acres in East Manatee County. The order by Steve Seibert, secretary of the Department of Community Affairs, didn't stray far from a March ruling by an administrative law judge that sided strongly with IMC and state environmental regulators. Seibert said opponents failed to prove that the phosphate mining would degrade the quality and quantity of water flowing into the Peace River, which drains into Charlotte Harbor in souwestern Florida. Charlotte has 30 days to appeal to the state appeals court in Tallahsassee. Tampa attorney Ed de la Parte Jr., representing the county, said he would urge an appeal. "We're obviously disappointed in the decision," de la Parte said. "But I can't say it's unexpected.
Copyright © 2002 Tampa Tribune / Associated Press All rights reserved.
The Bush administration has approved the drilling of two new natural gas wells in this national park, which lies along the nation's longest stretch of undeveloped beach. The approval, which has not yet been publicly announced and which follows a decision last spring to permit the drilling of an exploratory gas well in the park, ratchets up an environmental quarrel about the pace and wisdom of energy development on federal land. The Interior Department, which oversees the national parks, said the drilling would be done carefully to protect the park's 80-mile-long unspoiled beach and the 11 endangered species on the island. The department points out that oil and gas exploration is not new on this barrier island. Sixty wells have been drilled here in the last 50 years, but the pace of drilling has fallen off sharply in the last two decades.
Copyright © 2002 NY Times online All rights reserved.U.S. Easing Pollution Rules to Spur Building of Power Plants
The Bush administration said today that it wanted to ease cumbersome anti-pollution rules to encourage the expansion of power plants and refineries without fouling the skies. The long-expected change in policy will actually "encourage emissions reductions" by giving plant operators more flexibility, Christie Whitman, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, said at a news conference this afternoon. Ms. Whitman said that the old rules "have deterred companies from implementing projects that would increase energy efficiency and decrease air pollution." The new rules contain language more palatable to the plant operators on what constitutes "routine maintenance," a definition that can be crucial in determining how to interpret the E.P.A.'s "new source review" rules.
Copyright © 2002 NY Times online All rights reserved.Related Article,
July 28, 2001
Whitman Begins to Consider Streamlining Pollution ChecksAlvin Jackson: Keeping our water safe
Alvin Jackson's unique role in helping to manage one of Florida's lifelines: Offering job opportunities while protecting Florida's water supply
From Central to South Florida, Alvin Jackson has left a trail of accomplishments that have impacted the lives of millions of people inside and beyond the Sunshine State. As Deputy Executive Director for Corporate Resources for the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) , he ensures that business opportunities are made available for qualifying entities throughout Florida. Presently, the restoration of the Everglades is the District's largest project. Read more . . .
Copyright © 2002 Onyx Magazine All rights reserved.Related Links,
Alvin Jackson's Biography (SFWMD biography)
Editorial: July 2001, Orlando Sentinel
Feathered friends' boom awes scientists
The number
of wading birds breeding in the Everglades
system skyrocketed this year to nearly
70,000 pairs- a level last estimated in 1941.Wading birds, the most visible and beautiful denizens of the Everglades, have been engaged in a breeding frenzy unseen in more than half a century. A survey recorded nearly 70,000 nests in the Everglades and surrounding natural areas this year -- half of them in one amazing rookery alone, a rare ''super colony'' packed onto a stand of willow trees rising from a sawgrass marsh a few miles west of Broward County suburbia. It was 1941 when scientists last estimated so many white ibis, snowy egrets and nine other wading species making whoopie in the Everglades. Marjory Stoneman Douglas had not yet begun writing River of Grass. Everglades National Park, dedicated in 1947, did not exist. Encouraged but cautious, scientists say it is too early to tell if the increase is part of a spectacular rebound or a statistical blip, perhaps an extraordinary surge of weather-driven bird sex.
Copyright © 2002 Miami Herald All rights reserved.
21-November-02
Exxon-Led Group Is Giving a Climate Grant to Stanford
Four big international companies, including the oil giantExxon Mobil , said yesterday that they would give Stanford University $225 million over 10 years for research on ways to meet growing energy needs without worsening global warming. Exxon Mobil, whose pledge of $100 million makes it the biggest of the four contributors, issued a statement saying new techniques for producing energy while reducing emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases were "vital to meeting energy needs in the industrialized and developing world." Many scientists and environment experts said the Stanford project was likely to be a valuable new assault on a serious environmental problem. But some environmental campaigners said Exxon, which has long expressed skepticism about risks posed by climate change, was mainly trying to improve its image.
Copyright © 2002 NY Times online All rights reserved.Environmentalists work to block restoration of Broward beaches
Environmental activists are urging Gov. Jeb Bush and the Florida Cabinet to halt Broward County's plans for a massive beach restoration project because of concerns that it would destroy reefs, kill sea turtles and alter much of South Florida's offshore environment. The $52 million project -- sliced into three phases in hopes of greasing its passage through regulatory agencies -- would widen 12 miles of beach using 2.5 million cubic yards of sand dredged offshore. The work would begin in south Broward and add up to 90 feet to the shoreline stretching near condominiums and hotels while burying 13.5 acres of coral beds that scuba divers and others consider a precious natural resource comparable to the redwood forests of northern California.
Copyright © 2002 Sun-Sentinel / Associated Press All rights reserved.Related Link,
Catholic school to be built here
Ave Maria University, town planned for east Collier County
OVERVIEW: This is a rendering of the planned
university and the adjacent town of Ave Maria.
Special to The News-PressThe founder of Domino’s Pizza and the chairman of Barron Collier Companies of Naples said Wednesday they will build a private, Catholic university in a town they will build in eastern Collier County. Thomas Monaghan, Domino’s founder and chairman of the Ave Maria College in Ypsilanti, Mich., envisions the university as a “Catholic Princeton of the South." Monaghan will endow the school with $200 million and build it on a 750-acre site that has been donated by Barron Collier Companies. The location is in rural eastern Collier County, about five miles southwest of Immokalee — two miles north of Oil Well Road and a mile west of Camp Keais Road. Monaghan said the campus will open as soon as possible, and no later than fall 2006.
Copyright © 2002 News Press All rights reserved.Related Articles,
November 21, 2002
Ave Maria: Catholic university coming to Collier CountyNovember 21, 2002
Ave Maria: Review process maze stretches before school, townNovember 21, 2002
Environmentalists, planners like conceptRelated Links,
Key players of Ave Maria University and the Town of Ave Maria
Site in Collier rural lands area
Environmentalists, planners like concept
A 5,000-student university surrounded by a new town to serve students and staff could be Florida’s prototype for new planning techniques, environmentalists and planners said Wednesday. If Ave Maria University and its surrounding town grows as envisioned near Immokalee “it has the potential to be just the kind of development we want in areas like this,” said Mike Bauer, Southwest Florida policy coordinator for Florida Audubon. University leaders and planners who announced the project at a news conference in Vanderbilt Beach said the town will provide retail and other services for students and staff, and housing will be provided on campus. That eliminates the need for cars and furthers a sense of community, said Thomas Monaghan, the founder of Domino’s Pizza and former Detroit Tigers owner who gave $200 million to get the university under way.
Copyright © 2002 News Press All rights reserved.Related Articles,
November 21, 2002
Ave Maria: Catholic university coming to Collier CountyNovember 21, 2002
Ave Maria: Review process maze stretches before school, townNovember 21, 2002
Catholic school to be built hereRelated Links,
Key players of Ave Maria University and the Town of Ave Maria
Site in Collier rural lands area
Ave Maria: Review process maze stretches before school, town
The founders of Ave Maria University and its new town have big ideas and big money, but they'll also need stamina. Stretching out — probably for years — is a maze of local, state and federal reviews dealing with everything from road capacity to wildlife protection that planners will have to navigate before they can turn vegetable fields south of Immokalee into a university town. The development is shaping up to be the first test of a new plan for rural growth that Collier County commissioners adopted in October after three years of study. The plan is the result of a 1999 order from Gov. Jeb Bush and the Cabinet after an administrative law judge ruled that the county was not doing a good enough job protecting the environment.
Copyright © 2002 Naples News All rights reserved.Related Articles,
November 21, 2002
Ave Maria: Catholic university coming to Collier CountyNovember 21, 2002
Environmentalists, planners like conceptNovember 21, 2002
Catholic school to be built hereRelated Links,
Key players of Ave Maria University and the Town of Ave Maria
Ave Maria: Catholic university coming to Collier County
Bernard Dobranski announces the possibility
of the Ave Maria Law School moving to the
Naples area after the Wednesday announcement
of the creation of the Ave Maria University,
the first new Catholic university in the United
States in 40 years, to be established in Collier
County. Dobranski held a press conference
at the La Playa Beach and Golf Resort on
Wednesday. Erik Kellar/StaffThe official announcement finally was made after eight months of wondering and waiting: Ave Maria University is coming to Collier County. Not only will a university be built, but a town to go with it, Ave Maria officials said Wednesday at the La Playa Beach and Golf Resort in North Naples. The venture, first mentioned as a possibility in the Naples area in March, is headed by Tom Monaghan, whose name became famous as the founder of Domino's Pizza and former owner of the Detroit Tigers baseball franchise. "Our goal is to have the finest Catholic university we can possibly build," Monaghan said. "We want to be the best Catholic university, not the biggest."
Copyright © 2002 Naples News All rights reserved.Related Articles,
November 21, 2002
Ave Maria: Review process maze stretches before school, townNovember 21, 2002
Environmentalists, planners like conceptNovember 21, 2002
Catholic school to be built hereRelated Links,
Key players of Ave Maria University and the Town of Ave Maria
Site in Collier rural lands area
NSU seeks academic village in Davie
Nova Southeastern University, along with the University of Florida and Florida Atlantic University, is looking to bring a $350 million academic village with research laboratories, a 300-room hotel and 500 residential units to Davie. On Wednesday, George Hanbury II, NSU's executive vice president for administration, presented the concept to Davie Town Council members, who said they were impressed. ''We do need to move forward in a very positive fashion,'' said Councilwoman Judy Paul. "I think this is a marvelous addition." The project is far from a reality. First, the town would need to establish a mixed-use ordinance that would allow residential, retail and office uses on the same property. A key component would also be getting the United States Geological Survey to establish a science center at the complex to work on the Everglades restoration project.
Copyright © 2002 Miami Herald All rights reserved.Developer presses to add 28 acres to project east of FGCU
Would 28 more acres of gated golf course community "support and enhance" Florida Gulf Coast University? So far local agencies say it would not, but the developer of Miromar Lakes is still asking the question. Miromar Development has been trying to add the property to its sprawling project east of the university for more than a year. The request is scheduled to be presented to the Lee County Local Planning Agency on Monday. The Estero Bay Agency on Bay Management weighed in on the proposed change to the already-permitted Miromar Lakes project this week. The agency, an advisory body comprised of various civic and environmental groups, regulatory agencies and developers, sent off a letter to Lee County commissioners saying the change would amount to more of the same inappropriate development around the university.
Copyright © 2002 Naples News All rights reserved.People are lapping up groundwater
Lake County's unquenchable thirst for groundwater is expected to jump by 150 percent in coming years as rural landscape is replaced by rooftops. Huge demands could have a heavy impact on the area's water supplies, drawing down the aquifer and tainting it with pollution, according to a report to be presented today by the U.S. Geological Survey. Public water demand for growing residential areas is expected to increase by more than 185 percent - from 35 million gallons a day in 1998 to 100 million gallons a day with 20 years. Add agricultural interests and other water uses, and additional pumping could deplete groundwater levels by several feet in some areas. "The largest simulated drawdown will be in the southeastern part of Lake County as well as Mount Dora and Eustis," said USGS hydrologist Leel Knowles.
Copyright © 2002 Orlando Sentinel All Rights Reserved.Related Links,
USGS Orlando Subdistrict Office
Leel Knowles, Jr., Hydrologist (Env. Engr)
lknowles@usgs.gov
(407) 865-6725 X168New county for Estates
After plans for a new city in the Northern Belle Meade area fell through, Property Rights Action Committee (PRAC) President Bill Lhota says he has a better idea. "I think the county route is the thing to do," he says. On Nov. 13, PRAC members voted to propose a new county be established for all property east of Collier Boulevard with north and south boundaries to be decided. Established in the 1960's, the 57,000-acre Golden Gate Estates became the largest subdivision in America. Today, a state buy-out of 53,000 acres of the Southern Estates to form Picayune State Strand Forest is 90 percent complete. PRAC members say growing federal, state, and county control of their community has diluted their property rights and its time to have more say.
Copyright © 2002 Golden Gate Gazette All rights reserved.
20-November-02
Manatee County Bans Phosphate Mining On Thousands Of Acres
Manatee County has designated more than 12,000 rural acres that drain into tributaries of the Peace River as off-limits to any new phosphate mining proposals. In it's decision Tuesday, the Manatee County Commission said it wanted to better protect a drinking water supply shared by Sarasota, Charlotte and DeSoto counties. Manatee County is a member of the Peace River-Manasota Regional Water Supply Authority, which operates a reservoir on a stretch of the Peace River in DeSoto County. The authority supplies drinking water to Charlotte, Sarasota and DeSoto counties. Although Manatee County doesn't rely on the Peace River for potable water, its county commissioners say they have an obligation to help protect the resource for other counties downstream.
Copyright © 2002 Tampa Tribune / Associated Press All rights reserved.Village wants to develop park
In another effort to expand its recreational offerings, the village wants to develop about 320 acres of land into a park -- only this time it doesn't own the property and doesn't have the money budgeted right now to pay for it. The village is seeking proposals to develop a wetlands recreation area on land west of Flying Cow Ranch and south of Norris Road. It's owned by the South Florida Water Management District. Village Manager Charlie Lynn said he is hoping engineers can work with the water district to reach an arrangement to put the land to use. "My vision is that it would be a kind of partnership, some kind of interlocal agreement," Lynn said. "We would like to use either half of the land or any portion they would agree to work with us on."
Copyright © 2002 Palm Beach Post All rights reserved.Rock mine OK'd near Everglades
A new rock mine on the fringe of the Everglades won approval from the Miami-Dade County Commission on Tuesday, despite concerns about the project's environmental impact. The commission voted 12-1 to approve a 110-acre limestone mine in northwest Miami-Dade County proposed by Rinker Materials Corp., a branch of an Australian company that operates one of the largest mining operations in Florida. The limestone will go into cement, asphalt and other building materials. Environmentalists oppose the mine, as well as several others in western Miami-Dade County that recently won approval from the state and Army Corps of Engineers. They say the mines will destroy wetlands, ruin habitat for endangered wood storks, and interfere with the massive state and federal project to restore the Everglades.
Copyright © 2002 Sun-Sentinel / Associated Press All rights reserved.Land buy protects river system
A plan to buy almost 4,000 acres of environmentally sensitive land in Palm Beach and Martin counties was praised on Tuesday as a major step toward preserving part of Florida's past and ensuring clean water and a healthy environment for the future. "It gives all those animals and plants a place to live that otherwise would be bulldozed," said Joanne Davis, community planner for 1000 Friends of Florida. "It's beautiful [and] pristine. It's breathtaking." The tracts of land will be bought by several government entities, including the state, Palm Beach County, Martin County and the South Florida Water Management District. If all the pieces come together, the governments will own 3,996 acres. Agreements among the different levels of government are designed to prevent development on that land, said Richard Walesky, county director of environmental resources management.
Copyright © 2002 Sun-Sentinel / Associated Press All rights reserved.Editorial: Seibert's Commendable Job At DCA
We hope the resignation of Steve Seibert as chief of the Florida Department of Community Affairs does not signal any retreat from growth management by Gov. Jeb Bush. Seibert, an attorney and former Pinellas County commissioner, was the first major appointee of the Bush administration to announce he would not return for Bush's second term. Seibert performed admirably in a difficult job. Community Affairs oversees the state growth laws and also coordinates emergency preparedness. Since Bush had been critical of heavy-handed state oversight of local governments, many feared he would be less than zealous in enforcing growth management laws. These regulations were designed to ensure new development did not create costly problems for taxpayers, destroy the environment and harm existing neighborhoods.
Copyright © 2002 Tampa Tribune All rights reserved.Plan to obtain Cypress Creek praised
The water district will provide funds for preservation instead of the state.
Stuart Water managers on Tuesday announced a new plan to speed the purchase of about 5,000 acres in Martin and Palm Beach counties to restore and preserve the Loxahatchee River. The $41 million purchase would be completed more quickly and smoothly with the district buying the Cypress Creek property instead of using a more restrictive state funding source, said officials with the South Florida Water Management District. "It's wonderful news for the citizens," Martin County Commission Chairman Michael DiTerlizzi said of the announcement. "This is the most fast-tracked environmental land purchase we've ever had in Martin County.
Copyright © 2002 Stuart News - TC Palm All rights reserved.Clam farming plans stalled as few quahogs found for study
Quahog farming is still on hold in Collier County as researchers scramble to find enough clams for study and state officials survey potential parcels of underwater farmland in the Ten Thousand Islands. In September, a group of local fishermen pooled their resources with state and local environmental agencies to track down at least 50 clams to determine which species populates county waters. The findings would help avoid introducing an exotic species into the Ten Thousand Islands if clam farming is resurrected in Collier County. But only 21 clams have been found after diving for two months into turbid waters off Cape Romano, south of Marco Island, said William Arnold, head of the Mollusk Fishery Program at the Florida Marine Research Institute in St. Peters burg. Arnold is studying the collected clams' genetic make-up.
Copyright © 2002 Marco News All rights reserved.Environmentalists want study on impact of CR 951 in Lee
Individual commissioners have expressed support for hiring a consultant to specifically review the growth management issues connected to the road.
There seems to be little doubt among area environmentalists that the construction of County Road 951-Collier Boulevard east of Interstate 75 could act as a magnet for development, pushing urban uses farther inland than they should be allowed. That's the sentiment of the Estero Bay Agency on Bay Management, which this week approved a letter to Lee County commissioners urging them to study the potential cumulative impacts of the road and the development they say it would attract. The road, which runs from Marco Island to Immokalee Road in northern Collier County, would be extended on the east side of Interstate 75 through most of Lee County, through some of the largest tracts of wetlands left in the area.
Copyright © 2002 Bonita Daily News All rights reserved.Lee hopes local contribution tips state in favor of buying Estero 60 plot
Lee County commissioners are hoping a $200,000 contribution from county coffers will encourage Gov. Jeb Bush and the state Cabinet to fork over $2 million for 60 environmentally valuable acres in Estero. The governor and Cabinet deferred action on the parcel, owned by a trust headed by local real estate agent Andy DeSalvo, when they met Nov. 13. Though the agreed selling price was less than the state's own appraisals say the land is worth, Bush wondered how local land use decisions might have driven up that price. He has reason to wonder. Estero 60, as it's called, is nestled against the 1,300 acre Estero Scrub Preserve, which is west of U.S. 41 and near Estero Bay. The preserve was still owned by Houston-based Sahdev Inc. when the state was negotiating a price of around $16 million.
Copyright © 2002 Bonita Daily News All rights reserved.
19-November-02
Letter to the editor: Save the Everglades
As a third-generation Florida Keys fishing guide, I was pleased to read the Oct. 8 column Congress must restart Everglades restoration. Florida Bay is a South Florida treasure but from what I've seen out on the water every day, our treasure is disappearing. If we don't act now to restore the flow of clean, fresh water to the Everglades and Florida Bay, we may soon lose them. I wish I could take the people who are delaying the fixing of the Everglades out on my boat. They could see the creatures that need that water. I would also introduce them to the commercial fishermen, flats guides, charter-boat captains and dive-boat operators who make their living from the sea. It's time to take the bull by the horns. We should authorize the ''6D" compromise and buy out the small number of properties in the 8 ½ Square Mile Area that will be flooded.
Copyright © 2002 Miami Herald All rights reserved.Limited fishing zones headed for Florida, Southeast
A wave of new fishing restrictions is heading for Florida and other Southeastern states, as federal fishery managers try to create safe havens for grouper, snapper and other declining reef fish. The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council has proposed nine restricted fishing zones in deep waters off the coasts of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. The sites form squares and rectangles of up to 50 square miles over wrecks, coral reefs, hard bottoms and other features that tend to draw the big, long-lived fish. In a separate initiative, Biscayne National Park is drawing up a management plan that could ban fishing from portions of the park. Many fishermen bitterly oppose the proposals, but they are both moving forward. Known as marine protected areas, these zones have become a popular tool for protecting fish from high-tech, industrial-scale fishing.
Copyright © 2002 Sun-Sentinel / Associated Press All rights reserved.Tensions high in challenge of county's new rural growth plan
Tensions between the two sides in a challenge of the county's new plan for rural growth reached a peak Monday. Administrative Law Judge J. Lawrence Johnston, in Tallahassee, convened a telephone hearing Monday afternoon on a request by the state Department of Community Affairs to punish challengers by limiting what they can bring up at a hearing set for Dec. 3-5 in Naples. Hours earlier, representatives of Collier County and representatives of a landowner backing the county plan were turned away by sheriff's deputies as they tried to make a prearranged site visit to land caught up in the challenge. Johnston said he would take the DCA request under advisement and then left attorneys on the telephone conference call to arrange times to take depositions of each others' expert witnesses — something that has been left unresolved for weeks.
Copyright © 2002 Naples News All rights reserved.Studies Conflict on Common Herbicide's Effects on Frog
Aaron Vonk
The leopard frog.Despite the release of a flurry of new results in what is becoming an increasingly intense debate, scientists still have not reached a consensus as to whether the nation's most commonly used herbicide is harming amphibians in the wild. The new studies raise questions about whether atrazine, used primarily for killing weeds in cornfields, is acting as an endocrine disrupter in amphibians, interfering with normal hormonal functions, and causing males to become hermaphrodites, producing eggs in their testes. Some 60 million to 70 million pounds of atrazine are applied each year in the United States, and it has been found in rivers, ponds, snowmelt and rainwater. Scientists have taken a particular interest in the new studies because such a widespread endocrine disrupter could help explain worldwide declines of amphibians. The studies could also affect continued use of atrazine.
Copyright © 2002 NY Times, AP online All rights reserved.On the Taxonomy of the Naturalist (Amateur or Official)
Susan Greenwood for The New York
Times
Dr. Martin B. Main leads student naturalists
through the Fakahatchee Strand preserve
in southwest Florida.With the decline of nature comes the rise of naturalists. There may be fewer songbirds and swamps, fewer forests and meadows. But naturalists are everywhere, at parks small and large, at nature centers, leading bird walks and teaching children about the habits of squirrels and frogs. Like plants that put forth more seeds in hard times, nature itself is spawning its own tour guides, it seems, as a form of self-defense. Many naturalists wear badges, so they are relatively easy to spot in the field. They are not, however, well categorized. There is no commonly accepted taxonomy of naturalists, no field guide to the writers of field guides. If there were, it might include some of these figures: The common naturalist, similar to the long-necked docent, most often sighted at a park or museum.
Copyright © 2002 NY Times, AP online All rights reserved.Shady Platform for Denouncing Suburban Sprawl
J. Emilio Flores for The New
York Times John Quigley
has camped in the tree
since Nov. 1.The dirt bed for a new road that runs along the fringe of neatly lined suburban homes stops abruptly at oak tree No. 419, which is now surrounded by a chain-link fence. After 400 years of existence, a near-death experience has put 419, a California oak that is dubbed Old Glory by some locals, on the map. Plans by a developer to expand a local road called for cutting down Old Glory, one of the last of a savannah of oaks that had grown along a river that ran through the area. Environmentalists mobilized: For the time being, John Quigley, 42, a environmental educator who normally lives in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Pacific Palisades, is calling Old Glory home.
Copyright © 2002 NY Times, AP online All rights reserved.A Group Links Fuel Economy to Religion
An ad in Christianity Today
magazine shows a plaintive
Jesus next to a clogged superhighway.A broad coalition of religious groups is preparing a grass-roots campaign linking fuel efficiency to morality, with some ads going so far as to ask: "What Would Jesus Drive?" Leaders of the effort are coming to Detroit on Wednesday to meet with William Clay Ford Jr., the chairman and chief executive of the Ford Motor Company. They will also meet with executives at General Motors. "We are under a commandment to be faithful stewards of God's creation," said Paul Gorman, executive director of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment, an umbrella organization of Christian and Jewish groups. "This is a crisis in God's creation at the hands of God's children." Leaders of many groups within the partnership have signed a letter to the Big Three's chief executives asking for improvements in fuel economy.
Copyright © 2002 NY Times, AP online All rights reserved.
18-November-02
U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE GRANTS FUND WETLAND CONSERVATION PROJECTS IN 15 STATES
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will award more than $15.7 million in grants to 15 states to conserve, restore and protect coastal wetlands. States awarded grants for fiscal year 2003 under the National Coastal Wetlands Conservation Grant Program are Alabama, Alaska, California, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Virginia and Washington State. The grants, which will help fund 21 projects, will be awarded through the National Coastal Wetlands Conservation Grant program and will be supplemented by $33 million from state and private partners. The Service makes yearly matching grants to coastal states and U.S. territories for projects involving the acquisition, restoration or enhancement of coastal wetlands. Read more . . .
Copyright © 2002 USFWS News Release All rights reserved.Related Articles,
August 27, 2002
TRUSTEES OF THE INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT TRUST FUNDNovember 30, 2002
State gets $1 million to buy Collier County marshEditorial: Protecting coral jewels
The beauty and fragility of the Florida Keys coral reefs won worldwide attention last week when the state's great treasure became the first internationally protected nautical zone in the United States, and the fifth in the world. Joining such global natural wonders as Australia's Great Barrier Reef and Cuba's Sabana-Camaguey Archipelago, the Keys' protected area includes a 3,000-square-mile nautical zone that extends from Biscayne National Park on
the east to the Dry Tortugas on the west. It includes all of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, which covers 2,500 square nautical miles. The International Maritime Organization, an agency affiliated with the United Nations that sets shipping rules, made the designation.
Copyright © 2002 Palm Beach Post All rights reserved.
Editorial: Father Leo's false case
During last week's chaotic meeting, Palm Beach County commissioners lost their quorum and didn't vote on Renaissance Village's request to bypass a step in its quest to build a center for troubled teens. The project should get a vote -- this week or later, if the matter is delayed -- but not an approval. County staff and an advisory panel unanimously agree that the high school/golf course project is not allowed under the existing comprehensive plan, which is the county's fundamental planning document. If the commission upholds the staff, Renaissance first would have to take the time to get the comprehensive plan amended. Father Leo Armbrust, the project's founder, wants the commission to overturn the staff's finding and let Renaissance Village jump ahead.
Copyright © 2002 Palm Beach Post All rights reserved.Editorial: Byrd's 48-hour rule
The Florida Legislature passed only 219 of the 2,427 bills, resolutions and memorials it considered during its regular session last spring. Do such numbers imply that members were careful and deliberate in doing the public's work? Alas, no. Nearly every important action was put off until the last week, leaving the House to deal with 90 bills on the last day. Among them was the vitally important Everglades Restoration Act, HB 813, which had been corrupted earlier in the day with a Senate amendment seriously eroding the public's right to object to development projects that might harm the environment. The House should have rejected the amendment and returned the bill to the Senate. But with time running out, the House voted to pass the bill, just as the lobbyists knew it would.
Copyright © 2002 St. Petersburg Times All rights reserved.Related Link,
Idiocy
("Perfect for...disoriented Palm Beach voters...")Advisory group offers idea of exchanging density for green space
A Naples advisory group wants developers to pay for green space. The Heart of Naples Committee wants green space to dot the U.S. 41-10th Street area, which covers Seventh Avenue North to Fifth Avenue South, and the east side of Goodlette-Frank Road to the west side of Eighth Street. Naples City Councilman and Heart of Naples Chairman Bill MacIlvaine figures that's where the developers can help. Developers are only allowed to build 14 units per acre, MacIlvaine said. But the city could make a deal with the developer who wants to build more than that. For each additional unit, the developer could pay the city $20,000. That money would be set aside and used to purchase green space, he said. MacIlvaine said he expects developers to agree with the plan. "The developer will make more money if he can put more units in," he said.
Copyright © 2002 Naples News All rights reserved.Letters to the editor: Florida must control its growth better
Readers respond to "Florida's Ponzi Scheme" column
I thoroughly appreciated Kathleen Krog's Nov. 14 Otherviews column, Florida's great big Ponzi scheme, on land use in Florida. I've lived here more than 30 years, and for the last three, I have been a member of the Key West Planning Board. It has been quite an education. While in other cities developers depend, as Krog noted, on the ''right lobbyists,'' here in Key West, someone seems to have taken the process to a new extreme: the wholesale gutting of the land-development regulations under the guise of a ``publisher's error." The local press has been heavily lobbied by city officials, who are saying that there is no story here and that the omissions are insignificant.
Copyright © 2002 Miami Herald All rights reserved.Related Article,
November 14, 2002
Florida's great big Ponzi schemeElection Day Brings Rise in Donations for Greens
No sooner did the headlines announce on Nov. 6 that the Republicans had gained control of the Senate and tightened their grip on the House than the phones started ringing at the headquarters of major environmental groups. Donors, including many who had been cutting back contributions as their stock portfolios shrank, were calling to refresh pledges. Environmental groups are certainly going to need more money to fight the defensive battle they see coming in Congress. "Without any question, major donors to environmental groups across the board are going to be just as deeply concerned about the new Congress and the Bush administration as they were in 1994 and 1995, when the Gingrich Republicans took over the House of Representatives," said Philip Clapp, president of the National Environmental Trust, a nonprofit group in Washington with a budget of about $11 million.
Copyright © 2002 NY Times online All rights reserved.Looking for Messes That Are Easy to Fix
Children scavenging near an abandoned
lead mine in Zambia. The Blacksmith
Institute helped arrange for its cleanup.ENVIRONMENTAL threats often have an overwhelming sweep that can paralyze people eager to help. When considering toxic waste in Asia, fouled water in Africa, radioactive landscapes in Russia, where do you start? In the face of such vast issues, Richard Fuller, a successful recycling and energy-use consultant to American companies, decided a few years ago to start small, very small. He sought grants and diverted some assets of his business, Great Forest, into creating the Blacksmith Institute, a vest-pocket nonprofit that scours the world's toxic spots for clearly defined and fixable pollution problems. Mr. Fuller says he is unapologetic about looking for the simpler kinds of challenges, mainly because there are so many, and because many hide in plain sight with no one doing anything to clean them up.
Copyright © 2002 NY Times online All rights reserved.
17-November-02
Device takes search out of wild rescues
Getting lost in the Everglades used to mean waiting up to several days for help to arrive. But starting in July, hikers in the Everglades and other remote areas of the United States will be able to buy personal emergency beacons that summon help quickly. Last month, the Federal Communications Commission approved a request by NOAA to make the small, handheld units available to the public. They are expected to be priced between $300 and $800. According to NOAA administrator and retired Admiral Conrad Lautenbacher, the personal emergency beacons work by flipping them open to transmit a signal to passing NOAA satellites. The signal gives the bearer's position in Global Positioning System (or GPS) coordinates, which are beamed to a ground station in Suitland, Md.
Copyright © 2002 Montana Billings Gazette All rights reserved.Counting red eyes in alligator alley
Just a night's work, it's part of protecting the Florida Everglades
The beam of light swung left and right across the dusk-covered water. In the 200,000-candlepower throw of her spotlight, Laura Brandt was looking for something. Here and there she found it: small sets of eyes that flashed back in quick semaphore, glinting like tiny red bicycle reflectors from the sides of the L-40 canal. Alligator eye-shine. Brandt, a senior wildlife biologist, was counting alligators Wednesday evening inside the eastern rim canal of the Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has counted alligators for years in the preserve, which stretches from suburban Boca Raton to suburban West Palm Beach.
Copyright © 2002 NC: The Charlotte Observer All rights reserved.West Nile Virus Spread To Alligators, Researchers Say
University of Florida researchers have identified the West Nile virus in three Florida alligators, the first time the disease has been observed in the North American species. State public health veterinarian Lisa Conti confirmed Tuesday that three farm-raised alligators tested positive for the illness last month. Officials at Clabrook Farm Inc., in Orange County, said hundreds of alligators being raised there have died suddenly in the past four years and now the officials suspect West Nile was at least partially to blame.
Copyright © 2002 Tampa Tribune All rights reserved.
Readers: It's time to fix problems
More than 350 people wrote letters or e-mailed the Orlando Sentinel during the eight months that Florida's Water Crisis was published. Letter writers hailed from across Central Florida and ranged from elderly people who have lived here all their lives to newcomers to high-school students. A majority of writers seethed at politicians and developers and blamed them for Florida's water troubles. Many offered concrete ideas about how to solve the crisis and conserve water. These letters were chosen for publication as representative of the ideas expressed in many of the submissions. No faith in leaders: The same "leaders" that told us growth equaled progress are telling us that there is a water shortage at the same time that they are approving golf courses and subdivisions at an alarming rate.
Copyright © 2002 Orlando Sentinel All Rights Reserved.Related Article,
November 17, 2002
Florida's Water Crisis
Down to the RiverFLORIDA'S WATER CRISIS
Down to the river
A majority of Floridians believe their political leaders are doing a poor job of managing the state's booming growth in the face of a water-supply crisis that threatens the environment. Most politicians agree that water shortage has grown into one of the state's biggest worries and insist that protecting the environment and conserving water are paramount. But, as voters suspect, most elected officials show little appetite for slowing the development that is straining the state's underground aquifers. Those are the key findings of a telephone poll of more than 600 registered voters and a mail survey of 173 state legislators and local elected officials. The two surveys were conducted by the Orlando Sentinel for today's 12th and final chapter of a yearlong series on Florida's water crisis.
Copyright © 2002 Orlando Sentinel All Rights Reserved.Related Article,
November 17, 2002
Readers: It's Time to Fix ProblemsAlgae mystery fuels Lake Butler probe
In the 40 years since she moved to Orange County as a child from Georgia, Thellie Roper has rarely strayed far from Lake Butler. Now, with the lake's biggest algae bloom on record lapping against her dock, she is afraid to take a dip in the waters behind her home. "I don't let my grandchildren swim in it now," Roper said, her soft Georgia accent as pure as the day she arrived in Central Florida. "I am just sick about it." Across the lake from her Windermere home, where software tycoon Kevin Azzouz dredged four acres of muck out of a cove a few months ago, Roper thinks she sees the culprit. Roper and about a dozen others blame Azzouz's dredging -- to clear space in front of fiveparcels he plans to sell to home builders -- for the release of nutrients that feed algae blooms. She and the others have lodged complaints against Azzouz with county and state environmental agencies.
Copyright © 2002 Orlando Sentinel All Rights Reserved.Letter: Manatees protection sham goal
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has just issued a proposed federal manatee protection plan that would ban all new boat docks, ramps and marinas for five years. They originated the problem by pandering to radical green groups and their lawsuits and even flipped the boat speed zones in the river, as if the manatees decided overnight to change their residence. Now the radicals are going after the property owner himself. Wake up, people. Laura Combs, the southwest regional representative for Save the Manatee Club, said, “We’re at a point in Southwest Florida that very serious efforts need to be made to protect the manatee.” What exactly does this mean? Do any of you honestly believe the radicals will stop at speed zones?
Copyright © 2002 News-Press All rights reserved.Growth czar out after 4 years
Steve Seibert, a former Pinellas commissioner, says he will stay in Tallahassee but not in Jeb Bush's administration.
When Gov. Jeb Bush asked his top staffers to think about whether they wanted to work for him for a second term, Steve Seibert did. And he decided his answer was no. On Friday, the growth management czar became the first high-ranking state official to announce his plans to part company with Bush. Seibert, a former Pinellas County commissioner, has served as Department of Community Affairs secretary for four years. Seibert's decision came days after Bush asked for the resignations of all his top staffers as he prepares the transition to his second term. But Seibert said the choice was his own and was inspired by his desire to try something new.
Copyright © 2002 St. Petersburg Times All rights reserved.Environmental fights come with territory, developer says
Robby Ginn’s business plan for the last 10 years has been simple: Follow the baby boomers to Florida. That means the Ginn Co. buys and develops big chunks of previously untouched land in the Sunshine State, which Ginn believes to be the boomers’ Mecca for the foreseeable future. But that strategy has resulted in conflicts with environmentalists and local officials — some of them in Lee County, where he plans his latest project. This doesn’t bother Ginn, who considers the political and regulatory roadblocks just part of doing business as demographic changes bring retirees to Florida. “We’re going to move to warmer climates,” said Ginn, 53, a self-described boomer based in Celebration. “We’re still active, a very active older generation today. When you put that all together, Florida has it all: great beaches, great government climate, good tax treatment for retirees."
Copyright © 2002 News Press All rights reserved.
16-November-02
State Growth Chief Steve Seibert Resigns
The top official overseeing state growth has announced his resignation, days after Gov. Jeb Bush ordered a formal review of hundreds of staffers following his re-election. Steve Seibert, chosen by Bush in 1998 to head the Department of Community Affairs, becomes the first high-level appointee to confirm he will not serve in the governor's second term. In announcing the resignation Friday, Seibert said it was his decision to leave the post and that he has no immediate plans for the future. Seibert, 46, a land-use lawyer by trade, said he would stay on during the final seven weeks of Bush's first term. Seibert's departure came three days after Bush created a transition team to evaluate agency directors and other top level appointments. In all, the governor requested, and got, resignations from 393 people from his first administration.
Copyright © 2002 Tampa Tribune All rights reserved.Activist honored for conviction to protect river
Jensen Beach in the battle to save the St. Lucie River from the polluting effects of massive freshwater discharges from Lake Okeechobee, Donald Benedict was the general. Benedict, a former Martin County resident who died two years ago at age 91, was one of the first local activists to lobby water managers to improve the way they dumped water from the lake. Members of the Environmental Studies Council will honor him today by inducting him into the Environmental Hall of Fame. Max Quakenbos, a member of the St. Lucie River Initiative, nominated Benedict for the recognition after working closely with him in the late 1980s, particularly for his role in opening lines of communication between river activists and the Army Corps of Engineers. "I credit Benedict with really opening the corps in Florida to public participation," he said.
Copyright © 2002 Stuart News - TC Palm All rights reserved.Related Links,
Martin County Schools:
Environmental Studies CenterEnvironmental Studies Council, Inc.
$4 million allotted to preserve land
State grants will keep hundreds of acres pristine.
St. Lucie and Indian River county planners will get more than $4 million in state grants to preserve hundreds of acres of pristine land along the Indian River Lagoon, state officials announced Friday. The Florida Communities Trust governing board, which met Thursday and Friday to rank 136 projects from municipalities throughout the state, agreed to fund two St. Lucie County land acquisition projects and one from Indian River County. In St. Lucie County, a 105-acre property called Indrio Blueway Buffer on the lagoon just north of Wilcox Road will be conserved with the $1.1025 million state grant. County officials were relying heavily on the grant in the tight negotiations with officials with the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution, which owns the land.
Copyright © 2002 Stuart News - TC Palm All rights reserved.Under siege: Florida trees face tough new enemy
Blackened tree canopies tell a scary story. The leaves of ficuses in Coral Gables, cocoplums in Weston and carambolas in Fort Lauderdale are encrusted with mold. Once again, the South Florida landscape is under siege. An insect from India and Sri Lanka has found its way here, probably on imported plants, and in the last six months it has exploded into ''potentially one of the most devastating pests of trees and shrubs in the state's history,'' says USDA research entomologist Bob Pemberton. Called the lobate lac scale, the insect first was found on a single hibiscus in Davie in 1999. In three years since, the scale has multiplied so dramatically it has infested trees and shrubs from Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge in Palm Beach to Homestead, from the Big Cypress National Preserve to Coral Gables.
Copyright © 2002 Miami Herald All rights reserved.Cargill deal to stay secret
The Davis administration on Friday said it will not release copies of contracts, toxic studies and other key documents surrounding its proposed $100 million purchase of industrial salt ponds ringing the South Bay from Cargill Salt to create wetlands. The announcement, made at a public hearing in Palo Alto, brought immediate criticism from environmentalists, taxpayer groups and open government advocates. They said the high level of secrecy threatens to erode public support for the deal, which, if successful, could rank as the nation's largest wetlands restoration outside the Florida Everglades. ``This is the biggest wetlands acquisition ever to take place in California,'' said Marc Holmes, a spokesman for the Bay Institute, an environmental group that has backed the sale. ``It has enormous importance. The public has a right to scrutinize the details."
Copyright © 2002 BayArea - Mercury News All rights reserved.
15-November-02
Sewall's Point raises stink over plan
Sewall's Point commissioners have unanimously opposed a proposal to improve the water quality and sea grass habitat in the Indian River Lagoon under the new Ernest F. Lyons Bridge, in part because they feared more sea grass would be too smelly. At the commission's most recent meeting, Gary Roderick, director of Martin County's office of water quality, presented the proposal to remove about 3.5 acres of material from one of the spoil islands and the connecting spits of land to allow the tides from the inlet to flow better. But Sewall's Point commissioners decided there were too many questions to support the plan and agreed to fight it at Monday's meeting of the Metropolitan Planning Organization. "If we remove part of the island and we have more water, will that cause more grass to stink?" asked Town Commissioner Marc Teplitz.
Copyright © 2002 Stuart News - TC Palm All rights reserved.Catholic university could land in Collier County
Farm fields around Immokalee might become a new community anchored by the first new Catholic university to be built in the nation in almost 50 years. A joint announcement of a "major initiative in Catholic higher education and a new rural community" is planned Wednesday at the La Playa Beach and Golf Club by Ave Maria University and landowner Barron Collier Cos., according to invitations to the event. Domino's pizza founder Tom Monaghan, chairman of Ave Maria University, and Ave Maria College President Nicholas J. Healy Jr. announced in March that they were looking at land in Collier County as part of a nationwide search to find a place to expand Ave Maria College, of Ypsilanti, Mich., to a university.
Copyright © 2002 Naples News All rights reserved.SW Florida outlook good, economists say
Florida Gulf Coast University and the expansion of Southwest International Airport are two big reasons for the area's economic growth, one economist says
Southwest Florida has fared quite well through the economic downturn hitting America, and its future is as rosy as ever, said several economists who were featured speakers at the 16th annual Regional Economic Outlook Conference in Fort Myers on Thursday. "I think that the area is extremely strong. The structural changes that have occurred in Southwest Florida are really quite beneficial (to future economic growth)," said Hank Fish kind, a former University of Florida economist and professor. He spoke to several hundred people who attended the event at the Barbara B. Mann Performing Arts Hall. The event was sponsored by The Chamber of Southwest Florida.
Copyright © 2002 Naples News All rights reserved.State endorses Cypress trail plan
Buggy owners were opposed
State water managers signed off on a controversial gravel trail winding through Big Cypress National Preserve -- but not without expressing support for the concerns of swamp buggy owners and hunters fighting what they derisively call ``the yellow brick road." ''It's really distressing to have mixed feelings about this,'' said Lennart Lindahl, vice chairman of the South Florida Water Management District board, which approved a permit for construction of 216 miles of trail. Preserve managers began constructing the trail two years ago as part of what eventually is supposed to be a 400-mile permanent trail for once free-ranging swamp buggies, which have left thousands of miles of tracks across the sprawling Southwest Florida preserve.
Copyright © 2002 Miami Herald All rights reserved.Water district adds local post
Appointee is MIT-educated civil engineer
The South Florida Water Management District on Thursday established a position that will give Southwest Florida more authority over its water management. The position gives the region more control for issuing water permits and allocating resources for projects in Lee, Hendry, Glades, Okeechobee and parts of Collier and Charlotte counties, said district chairwoman Trudi Williams. Carol Wehle, a civil engineer, was appointed by district executive director Henry Dean. Wehle was director of the district’s service center in Fort Myers. “It’s a huge thing for Southwest Florida because most of the decisions have been made in West Palm Beach,” Williams said.
Copyright © 2002 News-Press All rights reserved.Fowl becomes fare for walking hunters
After a couple of so-so seasons, South Florida's land-bound duck hunters might finally have something to look forward to when the first phase of Florida's 2002-03 waterfowl season opens Nov. 23. Two public walk-in areas have the potential to provide some of the best duck hunting in the state this season, which runs from Nov. 23 - Dec. 1 and Dec. 7 - Jan. 26. The long-awaited opening of a Stormwater Treatment Area for duck hunting is Nov. 24. STA 5, which is adjacent to the Rotenberger Wildlife Management Area, consists of 5,120 acres of flooded farmland. STAs were first built several years ago by the South Florida Water Management District to filter phosphorus from agricultural runoff before it enters the Everglades.
Copyright © 2002 Sun-Sentinel / Associated Press All rights reserved.State seeking ways to weaken pollution standard for Glades
Nearly a year after touting a tough pollution standard for the Everglades, Florida's environmental regulators are exploring ways to water it down. The standard is for a long-problematic pollutant called phosphorus, which even in incredibly low levels can poison the fabled River of Grass, slowly changing it into something else -- a marsh choked with cattails. Last December, after a decade of debate and a long-running lawsuit in federal court, the Department of Environmental Protection proposed a super-low number urged by environmentalists, many scientists and the Miccosukee Tribe -- 10 parts per billion in water flowing into the system, a proportion that equates to 10 seconds in 32 years.
Copyright © 2002 Miami Herald All rights reserved.State seeks way out on pollution rule
Gov. Jeb Bush's environmental staff is looking for an escape hatch before enacting an ultra-strict limit on pollution in the Everglades. The Bush administration is sticking with its proposal for a tough, 10-parts-per-billion limit on phosphorus, a fertilizing pollutant blamed for wrecking the Everglades' food chain, a lawyer for the state told South Florida water managers. But Mary Smallwood said the state also is considering legal steps that could delay enforcement in parts of the Everglades for years after the cleanup's December 2006 deadline. The cleanup of farm and suburban runoff is scheduled to cost at least $867 million but could reach $1.6 billion. Regulators have acknowledged for some time that the state probably can't meet the deadline, short of building sludge-producing chemical treatment plants that would cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
Copyright © 2002 Palm Beach Post All rights reserved.Hunters attack preserve plan
Hunters called it unnatural and environmentally damaging, but a plan to stabilize more than 216 miles of trails in Big Cypress National Preserve with crushed rock won approval from water managers Thursday. The trails are part of a plan by the National Park Service to confine ground-rutting off-road vehicles to 400 miles of pathways in the 729,000- acre preserve. Vehicles including tractor-tire swamp buggies have carved more than 20,000 miles of visible tracks in spaghetti-like patterns across the federal nature preserve. The South Florida Water Management District board's approval came with the condition that the work not impede water flow and drainage in the preserve.
Copyright © 2002 Sun-Sentinel / Associated Press All rights reserved.Summit anticipates environment challenges
Florida's next attorney general -- Charlie Crist -- will be confronted with critical environmental issues as he takes office, says the current officeholder Richard E. Doran. The chief issue is the state's water supply, said Doran, recently appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush to fill out Bob Butterworth's unexpired term. Crist was elected on Nov. 5 and will take office in January. Doran was Thursday's keynote speaker at The Environmental Summit 2002 sponsored by the Florida Coastal School of Law. He is a former Jacksonville resident and was Butterworth's deputy attorney general. Doran said the expanding use of ground water will lead to salt water intrusion and lower water tables. If people do not plan for their future water supply, the state's economy, natural environment and population will suffer for decades, he said. "The guideline is to do what is in the best interest of all the people," Doran said.
Copyright © 2002 St. Augustine Record All rights reserved.Related links,
Conference home page
Florida Coastal Law School
14-November-02
Conference told development threatening Panhandle's character
A columnist and radio commentator said
during a conference on planning the Florida's Panhandle's future that she's worried
that development will forever change the region's unique character. Diane Roberts, who writes for
the St. Petersburg Times and
provides commentary on National Public Radio, was the featured speaker Wednesday at
a planning workshop sponsored by the environmental group 1000
Friends of Florida. Roberts said she has no doubt Jacksonville-based St. Joe Co.,
the state's largest private landowner and the Panhandle's biggest developer,
will build "pretty things." "At least they don't build Destin," she said, taking
a dig at the Panhandle city which has been transformed from a quaint fishing village
into a canyon of high-rise condominiums. Roberts, however, said she feared St. Joe's development would
work other changes by attracting a new breed of affluent people.
Copyright © 2002 Miami
Herald All rights reserved.
Related Link,
Planning for the Future of the Florida Panhandle
November 13, 2002, 8:30 - 4:00pm
Panama City Civic Center
Federal agencies take
issue with Everglades criticisms
Two federal agencies disagreed this week
with a recent report that says they are permitting the destruction of the
western Everglades. The National Wildlife Federation report, “Road to
Ruin: How the U.S. Government is Permitting the Destruction of the Western
Everglades,” insists that thousands of acres of wetlands and Florida panther
habitat have been destroyed in the past four years. The report blames the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency. EPA officials refused to comment on the report.
At issue is that the Corps has not acted on the Southwest Florida Environmental
Impact Statement, which was completed two years ago. Many thought the EIS
would slow development in wetlands areas because it calls for the Corps to
consider the cumulative impact of proposed developments when it reviews
permits.
Copyright © 2002 News
Press All rights reserved.
Opinion:
Water district land buys on time, under budget
Recognizing and respecting property
rights of landowners while stemming escalating real estate costs, the South
Florida Water Management District is aggressively moving forward with acquiring
needed lands for ecosystem restoration throughout our 16-county region.
That strategy is paying off. We are both on schedule and under budget with
bringing identified lands into public ownership. Recent districtwide
acquisitions include the 20,500-acre Allapattah ranch in western Martin County
to benefit the Indian River Lagoon; the 4,000-acre Cypress Creek property in
Palm Beach and Martin counties needed for Loxahatchee River environmental
enhancements; and the 5,830-acre Rolling Meadow land identified for Kissimmee
River restoration. A significant priority is acquiring the lands needed
for implementing the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan — the joint
federal-state initiative to capture and store more water in order to revitalize
the Everglades.
Copyright © 2002 News
Press All rights reserved.
Florida's great big
Ponzi scheme
My favorite place in Florida is . . .
well, make that was. My favorite Florida place no longer exists in the form that
I first saw it 20 years ago. What was once a hamlet with two seafood shacks on
stilts jutting out into the water, a small fishing fleet and a dinky lighthouse
nestled between the Intracoastal Waterway and the Atlantic Ocean is gone. Gated
communities with hollow if elegant names now dominate the area. I suppose
that what I was admiring 20 years ago was simultaneously being lamented by
someone who had fond memories of what it was like two decades before that. Such
are the effects of what could be called the state of Florida's official
philosophy. A land-use expert recently described it this way: "Florida was
created as the ultimate Ponzi scheme, as in: Well it didn't work with two
million people so let's bring in three million this time."
Copyright © 2002
Miami Herald All
rights reserved.
Related Link,
November 18, 2002
Letters to the editor: Florida must control its growth better
Respond to "Florida's Ponzi Scheme" column
Florida Keys 'sensitive' zone now off limits to large ships
It is not hard to picture how a large anchor
chain such as this could do extensive
damage to the reef.
The U.S. Department
of Commerce has put the Florida Keys on the map, so to speak. The
Commerce Department announced Wednesday that the Florida Keys have joined
four other locations on the planet that are designated on marine charts as
special protected areas. The newly designated zone surrounding the
islands, aptly called the "Florida Keys' Particularly Sensitive Sea Area,"
was announced at a press conference in Washington, D.C., conducted by
Deputy Commerce Secretary Sam Bodman and shipping industry officials.
The rules of the new zone, intended to protect coral from anchors,
groundings and collisions, go into effect Dec. 1. The zone protects 3,000
square nautical miles -- an area just slightly larger than the National
Marine Sanctuary -- and affect ships larger than 164 feet. "This is
the first 'sensitive' area in the United States," said Billy Causey,
superintendent of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.
Copyright © 2002
Keys News All
rights reserved.
Keys' coral
reefs gain protection
The delicate coral reefs around the
Florida Keys have become the first internationally protected nautical zone
in the United States and only the fifth worldwide. The designation
by the International Maritime Organization was announced Wednesday.
The 3,000-square-nautical-mile zone is designed to protect the fragile
coral from anchors, groundings and collisions from large international
ships. The zone stretches from Biscayne National Park to the Dry Tortugas
and encompasses all of the 2,500-square-nautical-mile Florida Keys
National Marine Sanctuary, which was created a dozen years ago. Gov.
Jeb Bush called the zone's designation "yet another step to ensure that
our international shipping community is aware of the protections we have
put in place for this unique ecosystem. Florida has an important
natural resource that must be protected."
Copyright © 2002
Palm
Beach Post All rights reserved.
Congress won't hold up water projects:
Area efforts will continue even though congressional approval won't come until
next year.
Nearly $1 billion in projects designed to clean up the St. Lucie River will
continue on schedule despite congressional hold-ups this year, water managers
announced Wednesday. Meeting with Treasure
Coast elected officials and river activists in St. Lucie West, members of the
South Florida Water Management District governing board also praised the
willingness of Martin and St. Lucie counties to do their part by raising money
and buying land. The governing board, made up
of nine officials appointed by the governor to oversee water issues in 16
counties, heard updates of local water-quality improvements at the all-day
meeting at Indian River Community College. Starting off the day was the
good news that the stormwater cleanup part of the Indian River Feasibility Study
will not be held up by Congress, which will most likely not authorize the
project until next year.
Copyright © 2002 TCPalm All rights reserved.
Coral reef area off
Keys draws protection of international law
The reefs bordering the Florida Keys, periodically pulverized by wayward ships
and their huge anchors, will soon be an international marine protected area --
one of five in the world and the first in American waters. The zone, covering
3,000 square miles from Key Biscayne to the Dry Tortugas, includes four
especially vulnerable areas where large ships will be prohibited from passage
and another three where anchoring will be forbidden.
While those restrictions have been domestic
law for years, the new designation, announced Wednesday in Washington, D.C.,
strengthens them with a critical seal of approval from the International
Maritime Organization, a United Nations-affiliated agency that sets shipping
regulations on the high seas. ''This designation is a milestone in
protecting the coastal environment in Florida and particularly the coral
reefs,'' said Billy Causey, superintendent of the Florida Keys National
Marine Sanctuary.
Copyright © 2002 Miami
Herald All rights reserved.
Editorial: The
Fish Story
Not long ago the California Fish and Game Commission permanently banned
fishing from 175 square miles of ocean around the Channel Islands off
Santa Barbara, creating one of the largest fully protected marine reserves
in United States waters. Though the announcement received little notice
outside California, it signaled an important step forward in the uncertain
campaign to arrest the decline of commercial fish populations here and
abroad. Marine biologists are increasingly coming to believe that short of taking boats out of the water - a step that may in
time become necessary - the only way to rebuild fish stocks and guarantee food for a growing global population is to
create "no take" zones to give fish a chance to reproduce.
California's decision gives that idea a big boost.
Copyright © 2002 NY
Times online All rights reserved.
Coral Reefs off
the Florida Keys Get Protection From Large Ships
Coral reefs off the Florida Keys, part of the
world's third-largest barrier reef ecosystem, will be protected from
damage by large ships under a new international agreement, the Bush
administration said today. The body of water stretching from Biscayne
National Park to
the Tortugas, 3,000 square nautical miles, is the first area designated in
the United States to protect the reefs from anchoring, grounding and
collisions from passing ships, officials from the Commerce Department
said. The protected region, in the Florida Straits, includes the
Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, which Congress and President
George Bush created in 1990. Starting on Dec. 1, captains of ships
longer than 164 feet will have to avoid certain areas in the protected
zone and will be prohibited from anchoring in some other places.
Copyright © 2002 NY
Times online All rights reserved.
13-November-02
Editorial: Army Corps of Engineers
Too busy to finish study, corps lets us down again
Back in 1997 we welcomed the prospect of the U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers directing special attention to the development hotbed of southern
Lee County, and perhaps as far south as the Ten Thousand Islands. Although the corps had a dubious and
destructive past in the
Everglades and elsewhere, our region needed relief — regardless of the source
— from anything-goes, locally approved growth that was making a shambles
of the environment. If local elected policymakers could not muster the stamina to
get the job done in the public interest, maybe the Army Corps of Engineers can, we
said. In our dreams.
Copyright © 2002 Naples
News All rights reserved.
Orbitals: Fighting Over Treasure
'The voice of the people has been heard," said Ray Green.
"A monumental mistake," is how Naples land-planning attorney Tim Ferguson
described it.Green and Ferguson were talking about a Nov. 5
referendum approved by 66 percent of Treasure Island voters in a record
turnout for the Pinellas County city. With 1,700 signatures, the Concerned Citizens of Treasure
Island placed on the ballot a referendum that would require 51 percent of registered
city voters to approve new height or density changes to the
municipal development code, one of the strongest environmental protection
measures in Florida. Pending the outcome of lawsuits, city officials might
have to
let voters decide whether to ease height and density regulations so
developers can build 10-story hotels along Gulf Boulevard. The issue had sharply divided the
community.
Copyright © 2002 The
Weekly Planet All rights reserved.
Related Article,
October 16, 2002
Shore Subject
Planning for the
Future of the Florida Panhandle
This workshop was funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation
This workshop brought together a mix of
planners, planning commissioners, commissioners and interested individuals
to hear from a mix of presenters on tools to better manage development and
perspectives on the ever-growing development pressures that are facing the
Florida Panhandle. The presentations were as follows. Effective
Planning Partnerships - Former Tallahassee-Leon County Planning Director
Wendy Grey and current Planning Commission Chairman Burt Davy, a prominent
Tallahassee builder, will discuss the many complex issues facing planning
boards and staff, and resources available to address those issue.
Conservation Planning - Randall Arendt, the nationally-recognized planner,
author and lecturer, will discuss how to design new development in a more
environmentally-sensitive manner. Read
more . . .
Copyright © 2002 1000
Friends of Florida All rights reserved.
Related Article,
November 14, 2002
Conference
told development threatening Panhandle's character
Environmentalists, Timber Firms Sign Win-win Contracts
NCPA - Daily Policy Digest
Logging companies are selling
conservation groups development rights to forestlands near populated
areas. In return, the companies retain the right to keep harvesting timber
on those lands -- thereby preserving jobs and mills. Such
arrangements represent a creative triumph for free enterprise, observers
believe. Two million acres of U.S. forest and farmland are converted
each year into housing subdivisions and other development; so-called
conservation easements keeps forestlands intact and out of the hands of
developers. Some 2.6 million acres have been protected through
conservation easements -- a nearly five-fold increase from a decade ago,
estimates the Land Trust Alliance, a conservation group.
Read more . . .
Copyright © 2002 NCPA
All rights reserved.
Related Links,
For text (WSJ subscribers)
http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB1037138405590111108.djm
For more on Property Rights
http://www.ncpa.org/iss/env
Wildlands: salvation through decentralization
.... Saving wildlands by dipping deeper into the US Treasury is doomed to
frustration and ...
University of Florida holding 3rd Annual Restoration Update Forum
Highlighting the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP)
On December 5th and 6th the University of Florida, South Florida Water
Management District, the US Army Corps of Engineers and the Florida Earth
Foundation will offer the public its Restoration Update Forum, one of five
modules in the Florida Earth Project Series.
Held at the newly built facilities of the Grassy Waters Preserve on North
Lake Boulevard, North Palm Beach, Thursday's sessions will bring
participants up to date on the science of restoration and the basis for
the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP).
On Friday, December 6, the course will go into the details of CERP, with
sessions on what has been done in 2002 and what are the goals for 2003.
Participants will study the South Florida region's efforts in restoring a
national treasure, the Florida Everglades.
Read more...
Copyright © 2002 UF
News All rights reserved.
12-November-02
Exotic Egyptian geese patrol the links
The foreign fowl also dine at the county's
golf courses, eating the plentiful seeds.
Under the shade of a magnolia tree near the
green of the third hole on the Hutchinson Island Marriott's golf course, a
pair of Egyptian geese scavenged for seeds. The geese, honking loudly from deep in the back of their
scratchy-sounding throats, waddled slowly around the grass just as the moorhens,
ibis and herons did on the sunny Monday afternoon. But unlike the native species, the geese found originally in
sub-Saharan Africa were a surprise to local wildlife experts. The estimated dozen Egyptian geese living lazily on the golf
courses of the Treasure Coast are the only birds of the species that have nested
successfully in Florida. Greg Braun, executive director of the Martin County Audubon
Society, said his report on the nesting will be published in the upcoming issue
of the Florida Ornithological Society journal.
Copyright © 2002 TCPalm All
rights reserved.
Manatee lookout
warning in effect
Along with waves of cooler weather
in the months ahead will come waves of warmth-seeking manatees. As
temperatures drop with the season, the endangered marine mammals will
cluster around the hot tub-like outflows of South Florida's power plants.
They'll share deep-water boating channels and finger canals with 80-foot
yachts and smaller powerboats and sailboats. That mingling of
manatees and mariners is prompting the usual warning to boaters to keep a
lookout for the slow-moving creatures and heed manatee-protection zones.
Speed limits in some of the zones will change Friday and remain in effect
through March 31 -- South Florida's manatee season -- to slow vessel
traffic that can be lethal to manatees. The boating reminder comes
during a record year for watercraft-caused manatee mortality. Of 264
statewide manatee deaths through Oct. 31, 87 were in collisions with
boats, state figures show.
Copyright © 2002 Sun-Sentinel
All rights reserved.
Editorial:
Better site the answer
The Rev. Leo Armbrust will ask the
Palm Beach County Commission today to ignore the recommendations of county
staff and approve his appeal to build a golf course development and youth
center for troubled teen boys. Unfortunately, he wants to build it
on environmentally sensitive land in the Loxahatchee River watershed.
Father Leo's project has from the start been a good idea in the wrong
place. County commissioners are helping him search for a better place to
put it than on almost 600 acres that serve as headwaters of Cypress Creek,
which provides more than 30 percent of the water flowing into the
Loxahatchee River. While the priest has indicated he is willing to
consider other sites, he also has gone forward with his appeal, which is
what the commission considers at a workshop today.
Copyright © 2002 Palm
Beach Post All rights reserved.
Letter to the
Editor:
Let's set the record straight about
manatees
Re: Manatee advocates say Bush let
them down, Oct. 18.
We believe your article reporting on the manatee groups' criticism of Gov. Jeb
Bush did not fairly present the facts and relied too much on the misinformation
provided by the manatee and animal rights groups. The bottom line is that
there are more manatees in Florida's coastal waters today than there were four
years ago. In 2001, statewide aerial surveys counted an all-time record of 3,276
manatees -- more than double the number counted 10 years ago. For years,
the manatee groups have been falsely claiming that manatees were declining and
on the verge of extinction. However, the most comprehensive biological
evaluation of manatees ever done was just released by the Florida Fish and
Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Copyright © 2002
St. Petersburg
Times All rights reserved.
Letter to
Editor: Manatee interests being obstructed
Re: Manatee refuge list dismays
both sides, Nov. 2.
As a Floridian, I'm outraged by Interior Secretary Gale Norton's actions
involving the manatee settlement signed in 2001. The rule released on Nov.
1 failed to provide adequate protection for manatees in counties like Lee,
where 36 have died from watercraft since the settlement was signed. Adding
insult to injury, Norton failed also to publish the list in the Federal
Register, as required by court order. From my experience, when I
sign a contract, it becomes a binding agreement. I am required by
law to uphold my end of the settlement. Is she above the law, or does the
law not apply to her because the president's brother, Gov. Jeb Bush, sent
a letter to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service urging that the federal
settlement be vacated.
Copyright © 2002
St. Petersburg Times
All rights reserved.
Related Article,
November 2, 2002
Manatee Refuge List Dismays Both Sides
Report alleges ’Glades
destruction
Government blamed in ‘Road to Ruin’
Southwest Florida is quickly traveling
down the “road to ruin’’ as federal officials ignore rules designed to protect
the environment from poorly planned development. That’s according to a
report released Monday by the National Wildlife Federation. The report,
“Road to Ruin: How the U.S. Government is Permitting the Destruction of the
Western Everglades,’’ claims thousands of acres of wetlands and panther habitat
have been destroyed in the last four years. “The same kind of misguided
development that decimated the Eastern Everglades and left American taxpayers
with an $8 billion restoration bill is happening again in the Western
Everglades,’’ it states. At issue is the delay over the implementation of
the long-awaited Environmental Impact Statement for 1,556 square miles in Lee
and Collier counties.
Copyright ©
2002
News-Press All rights reserved.
Related Article,
November 11, 2002
U.S.
Government Permits Destroying Western Everglades
Related Link,
* pdf file (must have Acrobat Reader to open)
Lee’s sludge problem
building
Utilities weighs new options for waste
Lee County soon could be in a bind.
The county sends about 7,000 tons of human waste a year to farmland in Hendry
County. But as controversy over the sludge mounts nationwide, Hendry may not
take it much longer. “This is a humongous problem that we need to solve,”
said Rick Diaz, director of Lee County Utilities. One option is to make
bricks with the sludge. Lee County Utilities did a study on biosolids in
concrete and found it just as strong as ordinary concrete. More likely
solutions that clean up the sludge to a higher level could cost upward of $25
million. Utilities basically turn sewage into three types of sludge: B, A
and AA, the latter being the cleanest with no detectable pathogens. Lee
County produces Class B. The utility extracts usable water for irrigation and
cleans up the remaining solids to state and federal standards.
Copyright © 2002
News-Press. All rights
reserved.
EIS stalls while
wetlands fall, wildlife group reports
EIS had been among the most feared
strings of letters in the alphabet to Southwest Florida developers.
It stands for Environmental Impact Statement, and the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers advertised it in 1998 as a blueprint for a new way of reviewing
development permits in parts of Collier and Lee counties by taking into
account their cumulative environmental impact. Four years later, the
EIS is a stalled work in progress. Instead, the corps has been busier
permitting wetlands destruction in the EIS study area than before the
study began, according to a report by the National Wildlife Federation,
the Florida Wildlife Federation and the Council of Civic Associations in
Lee County. Bob Barron, the Jacksonville-based project manager that
led the EIS effort for the corps, said last week that the agency is too
busy to finalize the EIS. He didn't say when that might happen. The
report doesn't stop at the Corps of Engineers.
Copyright © 2002 Naples
News All rights reserved.
Tiny, nearly extinct butterfly caught in web of controversy
The Miami Blue butterfly loves to frolic among the Nickerbean plants and vines
in the state park here, but it also flutters at the edge of extinction.
Fewer than 50 pairs of wings are the last holdouts of a subspecies that once
covered half of Florida.
The tiny cornflower-colored insect, whose finery is accented by two orange dots,
now makes its home near a symbol of the development that caused its demise --
one of Henry Flagler's crumbling railroad bridges.
''The insect is down to its last known colony; it's one of the rarest animals on
earth right now,'' said Thomas Emmel, director of the McGuire Center for
Lepidoptera Research at the University of Florida.
Ten months ago, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service said the insects may need
federal protection. But any hope of awarding protection status by the end of the
year has dimmed.
Copyright © 2002
Miami Herald
All rights reserved.
Related Article,
December 11, 2002
STATE OF
FLORIDA EMERGENCY LISTS MIAMI BLUE (a butterfly) AS AN ENDANGERED SPECIES
December 12, 2002
Endangered
butterfly gets instant protection
December 12, 2002
New
status gives Miami Blue butterfly a safety net
Out of Control, Deer Send Ecosystem Into Chaos
Allen Rutberg
The deer population on New York's
Fire Island has been effectively
reduced by contraception. A dart is
used to vaccinate does.
In Posey Hollow, tucked into the
Blue Ridge Mountains, Dr. William J. McShea was inspecting a
forest primeval - 10 acres of oaks, wild yam vines, seedlings and shrubs
that made an ideal home for nesting songbirds and scurrying small mammals.
But he had to look through an eight-foot deer fence to see it. Where he
stood, the forest was trimmed from eye level to earth as if by an army of
obsessive landscapers. Mature trees stood unharmed, but oak seedlings were
nipped in the
bud. The only things thriving were Japanese barberry and other nonnative
flora, plants that deer cannot digest. In the last decade, from the Rockies to New England and
the Deep South, rural and suburban areas have been beset by white-tailed deer gnawing shrubbery and crops,
spreading disease and causing hundreds of thousands of auto wrecks.
Copyright © 2002
NY Times
online All rights reserved.
Related Articles,
December 2, 2002
Editorial:
Bambi's Mother in the Cross Hairs
December 2, 2002
Deer
Diseases
December 2, 2002
Killing
With Kindness?
Editorial: Wetlands
projects must stop
Corps of Engineers should OK rules, then give permits
If the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is
too busy to implement its plan to protect Southwest Florida wetlands, it should
stop issuing permits for their destruction. The Corps virtually finished
its much-debated “programmatic” environmental impact statement two years ago.
It’s a unique process designed to take the cumulative regionwide environmental
effect when considering permits for projects that destroy or damage wetlands.
Corps officials say their limited staff is swamped with permit applications and
other work, which has delayed making the EIS into official policy. They also say
the EIS is already having a positive influence on regulation, despite not being
finished.
Copyright © 2002 News
Press All rights reserved.
11-November-02
Electing More Public
Lands
For the third straight year, voters in Florida counties have approved every
land conservation measure put before them: three were on the ballot this
year and each passed by an impressive margin. Public land advocates say
Florida is a prime example of a nationwide trend in which voters elect to
pay additional taxes to preserve land for a variety of public uses.
Read more...
Copyright © 2002 Florida
Environment All rights reserved.
Candidates for Collier
hearing examiner post set for interviews this week
Six candidates to fill the new post of
Collier County hearing examiner are set for interviews with a citizen selection
committee this week. The committee will conduct the interviews in public
at an all-day session set to start at 8 a.m. Tuesday in the county manager's
conference room at the Collier County Government Center, at the intersection of
U.S. 41 East and Airport-Pulling Road. County commissioners would take
recommendations from the selection committee and could vote as early as December
on whom to hire. Commissioners created the hearing examiner job in 2001 as
a way to build confidence in the way the county grants development approvals,
but opponents said rules for how the hearing examiner would operate would stymie
public input. The hearing examiner, typically an attorney, would hold public
hearings on development proposals and determine whether they meet county
codes.
Copyright © 2002 Naples
News All rights reserved.
EIS outlines areas of concern
Complexity, accuracy of maps raise questions
The Southwest Florida Environmental
Impact Study listed several criteria for reviewing permits in the
1,556-square-mile area of the study. Residents of Golden Gate and Lehigh,
both areas singled out in a July 1999 draft of the report, had expressed concern
that the numerous single-family home lots in those communities could be
impossible to develop under the new rules. But with the 2000 plan came a
possible shortcut, called general permits, that don’t require public notices or
hearings. Larger developments may be subject to maps depicting 16 areas of
concern. The more areas of concern a project falls into, the more rigorously it
would be reviewed. However, a project being in
those areas does not equal rejection.
Copyright © 2002
News Press All rights reserved.
Related Article,
November 11, 2002
Corps
says it’s too busy to finish EIS
Corps says it’s too busy to finish EIS
Wetlands permits still being issued
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers finished a plan to protect Southwest Florida
wetlands more than two years ago, but the plan is still not official policy.
Meanwhile, more than two square miles of wetlands have been developed in Lee and
Collier counties. Many people thought the plan, called the Environmental
Impact Statement, would slow development of wetlands because it calls for the
Corps to consider cumulative impacts when the Corps reviews permits. The
impact statement is one document and one signature away from becoming official.
Corps officials said the agency is too busy, swamped with permit applications
and lawsuits. The plan was supposed to be ready to sign in early 2001. “It
should have moved faster. It’s priority. We just get pulled in different ways,”
said Bob Barron, the Jacksonville-based project manager for the Corps who wrote
the plan.
Copyright © 2002
News Press
All rights reserved.
Related Article,
November 11, 2002
EIS outlines areas of concern
Concerns over
environment may delay residential project
Miami-Dade
County environmental officials could hold up a controversial 300-acre Shoma
Homes project in South Miami-Dade because they say the developer isn't complying
with rules spelled out in a construction permit. Among the complaints:
that workers hacked away some protected mangroves and that developers haven't
yet provided all the water samples to be tested for saltwater intrusion.
The property on Biscayne Bay between Southwest 185th Terrace and 196th Street is
slated for a residential development with 525 single-family homes. It also
sits at the edge of Biscayne National Park and is bordered by mangroves that
have sparked a number of environmental battles since a developer proposed
building a golf course there in the late 1980s.
Copyright © 2002 Miami
Herald All rights reserved.
Federal agency taking
stock of Puget Sound
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is
undertaking the most ambitious effort ever to rehabilitate the tideflats,
marshes, bluffs and deltas of Puget Sound and Washington’s inland waters.
The corps is studying the sound’s troubled nearshore habitats with the goal of
restoring one of the world’s richest fresh- and saltwater environments, parts of
which scientists fear are verging on collapse. The agency is looking at
the 2,354 miles of coastline that stretch from Cape Flattery at the tip of the
Olympic Peninsula to the mudflats of Olympia and north to Canada. Saving
those waters will cost billions of dollars, akin to the scale of the corps’ $8
billion attempt to replumb the Everglades. About 70 percent of the inland
waters’ wetlands and estuaries are gone, drained or filled for cities, farms and
ports. Millions of gallons of human waste empty into the waters annually.
Beaches suffer contaminated runoff.
Copyright © 2002 Tamcoma
News Tribune / Associated Press All rights reserved.
U.S. Government
Permits Destroying Western Everglades
The same kind of poorly-planned
development that devastated the Eastern Everglades and will cost American
taxpayers billions to repair is now being allowed to ravage the Western
Everglades, with dire consequences for people and wildlife, according to a new
report by the National Wildlife Federation (NWF), the Florida Wildlife
Federation and the Council of Civic Associations. Titled Road to Ruin,
the report exposes the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' failure to restrain
environmental destruction in the Western Everglades and reveals how the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS)
have fallen short of their legal responsibilities to protect this prized public
resource. "Incredibly, the misguided wetland draining and filling that
spelled disaster for the Eastern Everglades and cost taxpayers billions to
repair is now being repeated in the Western Everglades," said Andrew Schock,
director of NWF's Southeastern Natural Resource Center in Atlanta, GA.
Read more . . .
Copyright © 2002
National Wildlife
Federation All rights reserved.
Related links,
November 12, 2002
Report alleges ’Glades destruction
Learn more about NWF's
Everglades program.
* pdf file (must have Acrobat Reader to open)
Key Environmental
Biologist Dies
Raymond F. Dasmann, a field biologist who
helped shape the modern environmental movement with more than a dozen books, has
died. He was 83. Dasmann, who received his bachelor's, master's and
doctorate degrees from the University of California, Berkeley, and taught there,
died of pneumonia Tuesday in Santa Cruz. Dasmann began emphasizing the
need for environmental conservation in the 1950s, and his 1965 book ``The
Destruction of California,'' became a staple of ecology courses in universities
in the 1970s. His 1959 book ``Environmental Conservation,'' became highly
regarded and is currently in its fifth edition. Dasmann promoted the idea
of ecodevelopment -- that a community's growth is not dependent on exploitation
of natural resources. He also insisted indigenous people have a central
role in ecological solutions.
Copyright © 2002 NY
Times, AP online All rights reserved.
Road to Ruin
The same kind of misguided development that
decimated the Eastern Everglades and left American taxpayers with an $8 billion
restoration bill is happening again in the Western Everglades. The U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers (Corps), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) are failing to protect the Western
Everglades and its water resource treasures from poorly planned development.
Most egregiously, the Corps is ignoring its own rules and violating federal law
by delaying formal action on the Southwest Florida Environmental Impact
Statement (EIS). The more than two-year delay has allowed a grossly ineffective
permitting process to seriously jeopardize Americaís Western Everglades, its
communities and its wildlife through over-development.
10-November-02
Positive
interaction paves way for water workshop
Issues from land acquisition to water-quality rules are on tap as
officials travel to the Treasure Coast.
When water management officials travel to St. Lucie West this week for a
workshop on Treasure Coast issues, elected officials and St. Lucie River
advocates say they'll most likely receive more cheers than jeers.
Pats on the back will go further toward securing the South Florida Water
Management District's continued support of the almost $1 billion in local
Everglades restoration projects. It has been more than a year since
the district's governing board agreed to meet on the Treasure Coast, and
Vice Chairman Lennart Lindahl last week personally invited both the St.
Lucie and Martin commissions to the meeting. Many river advocates
say the meeting, scheduled for Wednesday at Indian River Community
College's St. Lucie West campus, shows a drastic change in the level of
communication between residents and district officials.
Copyright © 2002 Stuart
News - TC Palm All rights reserved.
Related Links,
October 29, 2002
Public Workshops Scheduled on Everglades Restoration
November 13, 2002
Governing Board
Workshop Meeting*
* pdf file (must have Acrobat Reader to open)
Tiny Bird vs.
Ski Slopes, With the State in the Middle
Associated Press
A Bicknell's thrush, which would like to
continue summering on Whiteface Mountain.
Across most of the big-business, big-resort ski industry, from the
Tiffany-tinged aeries of Aspen to the sunny slopes of Stowe, the tale of
the Bicknell's thrush would likely have a familiar ring to it.
Environmentalists and resort owners would stake out the usual positions
and say the usual things about bottom lines versus biodiversity, and
private gain versus public good. Here at Whiteface Mountain, not far
from Lake Placid, the environmental clichés do not work. This ski resort
is owned by the people of New York and operated by a state-chartered
agency called the Olympic Regional Development Authority. It is one of
only a handful of government-owned ski resorts in the nation. The goal is
not profit, but economic development, in a remote and snowy corner of the
Adirondacks where livelihoods rise and fall on the vagaries of the tourist
dollar.
Copyright © 2002
NY Times online
All rights reserved.
9-November-02
Upcoming Family
Events!
Native American storytelling and song will be featured from 2 to 3 p.m.
Saturday at the Bonita Springs Public Library on Pine Avenue and West
Terry Street. The program will be presented by Capt. Oshaneh Miller, a
Native American, and is a dramatic presentation that re-creates the
sensory experience of an Everglades campfire scene, through the use of
recorded sounds of the Big Cypress, full Seminole costume, special
lighting, an electric campfire, campfire scenes and artifacts.
Copyright © 2002 Bonita
Daily News All rights reserved.
Editorial: End
stalling on manatees
Despite the efforts of a federal judge,
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service still is trying to avoid doing anything
meaningful to protect manatees in Florida. Last week, the agency missed a
court deadline to produce a new list of slow-speed zones and safe areas for the
state's endangered sea cow. When the Fish and Wildlife Service produced the
list, the sites were nearly identical to areas the state already had designated.
The federal list also fails to include areas where the most manatees have been
killed or injured, such as the Caloosahatchee River in Lee County, the St. Johns
River in Duval County and the Halifax River in Volusia County. Also
notably missing was the 5-mile zone surrounding Florida Power & Light Co.'s
Riviera Beach generating plant. Manatees often gather at and around the
plant during winter cold snaps to enjoy the discharges of warm water from the
cooling system.
Copyright © 2002 Palm
Beach Post All rights reserved.
Property rights
group seeks positives after election defeats
Picking through the pieces of this week's
election, Bill Lhota says he has found signs of life for property rights
advocates. Lhota, president of the Property Rights Action Committee,
was among a slate of three losing candidates for the Collier Soil and
Water Conservation District that ran on a platform of killing the agency's
proposal for a mitigation bank in Golden Gate Estates. And a
greenspace tax that had attracted opposition from property rights
advocates went on to victory, passing with almost 60 percent of the vote.
Lhota, a construction consultant, said Friday he had hoped for better but
that precinct results from rural parts of the county prove that a property
rights movement has taken root in Golden Gate Estates. "I don't
think that when you consider this was a countywide race that we did that
badly," Lhota said.
Copyright © 2002
Naples News
All rights reserved.
Water rules backed,
but changes asked
Irrigating with reuse water, Cape’s own city restrictions are weighed
Region-wide, year-round water
restrictions received support Friday at a Fort Myers workshop held for public
input — but not without suggestions for change. For example, Cape Coral voiced
concern about keeping its tougher city law. Officials with some utilities
and businesses that use recycled waste water, called reuse, also asked that the
water source be exempt from the ban. “This is one of our big conundrums of
this whole process,” said Bruce Adams, water conservation officer for the South
Florida Water Management District. The district is developing a rule that
would limit all landscape watering — including reuse — to three days a week and
would ban watering between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. in Lee and Collier counties, plus
southeastern Charlotte County.
Copyright © 2002 News
Press All rights reserved.
Water monitoring group
gets historical data from communities
A local water monitoring group is helping
fund a study that will gauge pollutants going into and leaving Southwest Florida
developments, and some south Lee County communities are leading the way by
providing years of water quality data. Much of the data being collected
for the study is coming from Bonita Springs developers such as The Bonita Bay
Group and WCI Communities. The Water Enhancement & Restoration Coalition,
a private-public group dedicated to improving local water quality and other
water issues, is co-funding the $40,000 study with Lee County and the South
Florida Water Management District. Harvey Harper, a water quality expert and
professor at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, is performing the
study, which should take about three months to complete once all the data has
been collected.
Copyright © 2002 Naples
News All rights reserved.
Judge Reverses Plan
for a Huge Habitat for Threatened Frogs
A federal judge has formally reversed the
federal Fish and Wildlife Service's plan to designate more than four million
acres as critical habitat for the threatened California red-legged frog.
The service must re-evaluate the plan, which developers challenged as flawed.
The frog, once widespread, is believed to have inspired Mark Twain's short story
"The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County." In March 2001, the
service designated the four million acres as frog habitat, but developers
attacked the restrictions that the designation imposed on parts of 28 of the
California's 58 counties. Judge Richard Leon of Federal District Court in
Washington, approved a proposed settlement in July reversing the habitat
decision, but Judge Leon left the protection in place temporarily after
conservation groups said they had been left out of negotiations between
developers and the service. Copyright © 2002 NY
Times online All rights reserved.
8-November-02
Florida Everglades
Image taken 2/5/2000
The Everglades can be found on Landsat
7 WRS Path 15 Row 42, center: 26.00,
-80.43.
Spanning the southern tip of the Florida Peninsula and most of
Florida Bay, Everglades National Park is the only subtropical preserve in
North America. It contains both temperate and tropical plant communities,
including sawgrass prairie, mangrove and cypress swamps, pinelands, and
hardwood hammocks, as well as marine and estuarine environments. The park
is known for its rich bird life, particularly large wading birds, such as
the roseate spoonbill, wood stork, great blue heron, and a variety of egrets.
It is also the only place in the world where alligators and crocodiles exist
side by side. Read
more . . .
Copyright © 2002 Landsat
7 Gateway All rights reserved.
Related Article,
November 8, 2002
Satellite Images Show Artistic Side of Earth
Related Link,
New! South Florida Satellite Image Map
by John Jones, Jean-Claude Thomas, and Gregory
Desmond
Satellite Images Show Artistic Side of Earth
The tongue of the Malaspina Glacier, the largest
glacier in Alaska, fills
most of this image taken in
August 2000. (Photo courtesy Earth as Art)
A new online exhibit of satellite imagery
explores how natural landscapes create abstract art. The website displays some of the astonishing patterns, vivid
abstractions, and fantastic shapes now being exhibited in the collection of
satellite imagery being displayed as "Landsat: Earth as Art." The
collection is currently on display at the Library of Congress in Washington,
D.C., but anyone can take a virtual tour through a web version of the
exhibit at: http://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/earthasart/
The exhibit is a joint project by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)
and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Satellite images
from the collections of both agencies show 41 images of Earth taken by the
Landsat 7 satellite from more than 400 miles above the Earth's surface.
The only human intervention in creating these portraits of Earth was the
color processing - the rest is nature in its most beautiful, intriguing
and illuminating aspect.
Copyright © 2002 Environment
News Service (ENS) All Rights Reserved.
Related Article,
November 8, 2002
Florida
Everglades
Related Link,
Welcome to the Landsat-7 Earth as Art Gallery. Here you can view our
planet
through the beautiful images taken by the Landsat-7 satellite. These
images
created by the USGS EROS Data Center, introduces the general public to the
Landsat Program administered jointly by USGS and NASA. The Landsat:
Earth
as Art exhibit highlights images that were selected on the basis of
aesthetic appeal. These images use the visceral avenue of art to convey
the
thrilling perspective of the Earth that Landsat provides to the viewer.
Prints of the "Earth as Art" images are available from the USGS/EROS
Data
Center. The image size is 26" x 27" and cost is $30. Call to
order from EDC
Customer Services at 1-800-252-4547. (Please note: the images available
for
purchase from the EROS Data Center have a black border, not the
decorative/color border as shown on this web site.)
Film society
holds CreatureFest at springs used in horror movie
One might think Julia Adams would
avoid black lagoons. The last time she went poking around one,
nearly 50 years ago, she was kidnapped by a creepy half-man, half-fish
creature. But here she is, visiting the moss-draped swamp where so
many years ago she met the Creature from the Black Lagoon. The
lagoon was actually Wakulla Springs, near Tallahassee, and Adams was
actually an actress playing a scientist. And she was never at the springs
-- 1950s movie magic put her there even though she never left a set in
CaliforniaBut she'll be present for real this weekend at the Tallahassee
Film Society's second annual Creaturefest at the Wakulla Springs State
Park and Lodge. "I'm really looking forward to visiting," Adams
said. "After all, it's the place where I was abducted." Adams is as surprised as anyone that the 1954 movie became
such a cult classic.
Copyright © 2002
Sun-Sentinel
/ Associated Press All rights reserved.
Related Links,
Creaturefest
http://www.creaturefest.com/
Edward Ball Wakulla Springs State Park & The Friends of Wakulla Springs,
will be presenting our second
annual
"Creature From The Black Lagoon Weekend"
Complete Information for Creaturefest 2002
The official home page of Ben Chapman, the Gillman from the Creature From the Black Lagoon.
CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON WEBSITE
Creature From the
Black Lagoon
In 1954 Universal unleashed "Creature From the Black Lagoon," on an
unsuspecting public. ...
Creature From The Black Lagoon movie posters
Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954)
Creature from the Black
Lagoon (1954) Starring: Richard Carlson, Julie Adams Director:Jack
Arnold Synopsis:
Classic, much-imitated sci-fi/horror date movie ...
Creature From The Black Lagoon prints and posters gallery
CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON
Creature from the Black Lagoon - Science Fiction and Fantasy
Editorial:
Vote for land tax revealing
Unimpeded growth spurs desire to save undeveloped land
What a difference a few years of
rampant development can make. In 1996, almost 60 percent of Collier
County voters rejected a proposed sales tax increase to buy and save
undeveloped land for conservation and public use. Tuesday, almost 60
percent of Collier voters approved a tax with a similar goal — and a
property tax at that. Drive — or try to drive — around parts of
Collier County, especially in the north, and you’ll see one reason people
are ready to tax themselves to preserve open land. Large areas have been
transformed from relatively bucolic to very urban in a flash, with
resulting congestion and a powerful sense that the county is being
overwhelmed by unrestrained devotion to building.
Copyright © 2002 News Press All rights reserved.
News Release: UF gets
$3-million gift for biodiversity institute
The University of Florida has received a
$3-million gift to create an institute to study the diversity of animals and
plants plus the environment. The gift, from the Minnesota-based William W.
McGuire and Nadine M. McGuire Family Foundation, will establish a program to be
named the McGuire Institute for Biodiversity and the Environment. It will
be located in a new 46,000-square-foot center to be named McGuire Hall, which is
expected to open next fall. In 2000, the McGuires' gift of $4.2-million
established the McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Environmental Research, which
will house one of the world's largest collections of butterflies and moths.
William McGuire currently is chairman and chief executive officer of
UnitedHealth Group. Read more . . .
Copyright © 2002 UF
News All rights reserved.
Related Link,
November 7, 2002
NEWS RELEASE: UF GETS $3 MILLION GIFT TO CREATE INSTITUTE FOR BIODIVERSITY,
ENVIRONMENT
Study: Highlands,
Hardee, Polk Lack Water For Future
What three counties in West Central
Florida aren't expected to have enough water to satisfy their future needs?
They are Highlands, Hardee and Polk, according to a long-range study last year
by the Southwest Florida Water Management District. Highlands
commissioners were made aware of the study Tuesday and agreed to meet with a
newly created water alliance to discuss the problem. The alliance consists of
Highlands, Hardee and Polk counties. Jeff Spence, Polk's water resources
coordinator, said Tuesday that the district study does not project a water
supply deficit throughout its 10-county area by 2020. The study gets into
such new sources of water as desalination, which is not applicable to the
interior counties. A Polk study, he said, projects Highlands to be short
3.8 million gallons of water a day by 2020, with Hardee short by 2.3 million
gallons. Polk is forecast to be short 21.9 million gallons of water per day.
Copyright © 2002 Tampa
Tribune All rights reserved.
County may build
boardwalk across Tigertail Beach lagoon
The long, hot trudge through the sand
could soon be a thing of the past. Collier County officials are looking at
building a boardwalk across Tigertail Beach lagoon to provide easy access to the
Gulf of Mexico on Sand Dollar Island. Tigertail is one of two county-owned
beaches on Marco Island. Marla Ramsey, county parks and recreation
director, and Ron Hovell, who administers the coastal projects division of the
county's public utilities and engineering department, are working together with
contracted engineers on scope-of-work studies. About 50 Marco Island,
Isles of Capri and Goodland residents, local and county officials gathered at
Mackle Park on Thursday night for a town hall meeting, at which Ramsey said
she'd just received the proposal from Taylor Engineering in Jacksonville.
Copyright © 2002 Naples
News All rights reserved.
Judge rejects request
to delay hearing on Collier growth plan challenge
An administrative law judge has rejected
a proposal to further delay the hearing on a challenge to Collier County's plan
for rural growth. The 15,000 Coalition, a nonprofit group of landowners,
and Century Development of Collier County asked for a delay until the week of
Jan. 27 to give their attorneys more time to prepare for the case.
Coalition Executive Director Don Lester, also president of Century Development,
already had agreed to one delay until Dec. 3, 4 and 5. Administrative Law
Judge J. Lawrence Johnston convened a telephone conference Thursday morning to
hear legal arguments about a further delay and ruled in the afternoon.
After the ruling, Lester said in a prepared statement that the Coalition and
Century Development intends to "seek all remedies available to protect their
legal rights." "We are disappointed in the ruling today and will be
evaluating our options," Lester said.
Copyright © 2002 Naples
News All rights reserved.
7-November-02
Sap-Sucking Psyllid Pesters Pushy Plant
An industrious, sap-sucking insect may help halt the unwanted
spread of
melaleuca trees in South Florida's famed Everglades. Melaleuca, a
fast-
growing invader from Australia, is taking over some 14 to 15
acres a day,
displacing native plants and animals, drying up wetlands, and
creating a
fire hazard. All this makes melaleuca a significant threat to the
stability
of the fragile Everglades ecosystem. The gnat-sized psyllid (pronounced SILL-id) is a natural enemy
of melaleuca. Both adults and young feed on the tree's clear sap.
Their
favorite sap is inside soft, fleshy tips of melaleuca's newest
stems and
branches. Young seedlings are the most vulnerable and can be
severely
damaged by hungry psyllids. But the little insects can also stunt
the
growth of bigger trees. Known to scientists as Boreioglycaspis melaleucae, the petite
insects
thwart seed production by damaging tips that would otherwise form
branches. Read
more . . .
Copyright © 2002 Agriculture
Research Service All rights reserved.
Related Article,
November 7, 2002
Insect
Pair Stalls Everglades Invader
Related Link,
This research is part of Crop Protection and Quarantine, an ARS National
Program (#304) described on
the World Wide Web at http://www.nps.ars.usda.gov.
Insect Pair Stalls Everglades Invader
An adult melaleuca psyllid female, Boreioglycaspis
melaleucae, rests on a melaleuca leaf in
quarantine.
Photo by Sue Wineriter.
For years, melaleuca--a fast-growing invasive tree from
Australia--has been
taking over 14 to 15 acres a day of south Florida's Everglades,
making it a
significant threat to the stability of this fragile ecosystem. Now, to the rescue has come a gnat-sized
psyllid,
Boreioglycaspis melaleucae. This tiny insect is a natural enemy of melaleuca in
its native
country, and both adults and their offspring feed on the tree's
clear sap.
Their favorite sap is inside the tips of a melaleuca's newest
stems and
branches. Young melaleuca seedlings are the most vulnerable to
the psyllids' attack, but the pests can also stunt the growth of
bigger trees.
Their feeding slows down melaleuca seed production by damaging
tips that
would otherwise form seed capsules. Some 100,000 psyllids have been
released at a variety of south Florida sites, ranging from a cluster of
melaleuca trees standing in water to an unusually dry pasture dotted with
melaleuca stumps. Read
more . . .
Copyright © 2002 Agriculture
Research Service All rights reserved.
Related Article,
November 7, 2002
Sap-Sucking
Psyllid Pesters Pushy Plant
TOC Members and
Interested Parties:
The next TOC meeting will be held on Thursday, November 7, 2002 from 10:00
a.m. to 3:00p.m. at District Headquarters. The agenda is quite lengthy
with presentations on many action items, so
expect the meeting to last well into the
afternoon. [Agenda included below.]
We have important TOC attachments for your consideration and
comment: 1. Please look over draft TOC agenda for our 11/7 meeting and
provide any additional agenda items or modifications to Linda
Davis or me by Tuesday, November 5, 2002. Please add this
meeting to your calendar. 2. Please review the draft minutes from both the April and August
TOC meetings and provide me with any changes by Tuesday,
November 5, 2002 so that we can approve these minutes at the November
meeting. Read more...
Copyright © 2002 South
Florida Water Management District All rights reserved.
GreenSweep cleans up
the ‘evil trees’
Nature Conservancy volunteers target non-native species
If a little bit of labor while getting
earthy with the planet and its creatures — even some unpleasant ones — is your
idea of an interesting Saturday morning, then The Nature Conservancy has a
proposition for you. The organization’s GreenSweep program begins its
fourth season this morning by uprooting invasive exotic plants from Garden Cove
Park in North Key Largo. While the main mission of GreenSweep is habitat
restoration, that "mostly revolves around killing the evil trees," said Alison
Higgins, land stewardship coordinator for The Nature Conservancy of the Florida
Keys. The program mobilizes volunteers for its scheduled Saturday work
days and targeted neighborhoods, even has specialized teams of advanced
volunteers and an outreach education program to help eradicate invasive exotics
such as Brazilian pepper, Australian pines and lead trees.
Copyright © 2002
Florida Keys Keynoter All rights reserved.
New federal manatee
rules to curtail docks and ramps
Federal officials will clamp down on permits from Tampa Bay south. A
boaters spokesman calls the policy ''voodoo'' science.
Permits for new docks, marinas and boat ramps
are likely to be severely restricted as federal officials undertake a manatee
protection program aimed at limiting waterfront development from Tampa Bay to
the southern end of the Everglades. Boaters, business interests and
waterfront property owners already are reacting angrily to the new plan, set to
take effect next spring. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will hold six
hearings next month, including one Dec. 3 in Tampa. "Those hearings are
going to be a hoot, I can tell you that," warned Jim Kalvin, president of the
boating rights group, Standing Watch. He said he hoped they would "expose this
voodoo environmental science for what it is."
Copyright © 2002 St.
Petersburg Times All rights reserved.
NEWS RELEASE: UF
GETS $3 MILLION GIFT TO CREATE INSTITUTE FOR BIODIVERSITY, ENVIRONMENT
The University of Florida has
received a $3 million gift aimed at making it an international leader in
the study of biodiversity and the environment, a field that will play an
increasingly important role in agriculture and other areas as Earth
becomes more crowded and people continue to deplete its natural resources.
The gift, from the Minnesota-based William W. McGuire and Nadine M.
McGuire Family Foundation, will establish a new program to be named the
McGuire Institute for Biodiversity and the Environment. Located within the
Florida Museum of Natural History on the UF campus, the first-of-its-kind
institute will focus on the ecological importance of biodiversity and
keeping use of the natural environment in balance with human needs by
establishing an endowment to support this field of study.
Read more . . .
Copyright © 2002 UF
News All rights reserved.
Related Link,
November 8, 2002
UF gets $3-million gift for biodiversity institute
Water use restrictions
for farmers a possibility
Three weeks ago, water managers were
considering whether to drain 6 billion gallons of water from Lake Okeechobee
into the St. Lucie Estuary and the ocean. However, after a month of
extremely dry weather, officials on Wednesday watched the irrigation canals in
St. Lucie County drop so dramatically that they were beginning to consider water
restrictions for farmers. "Three weeks ago, we saw discharges out of those
canals," said Paul Millar, director of the South Florida Water Management
District's Stuart office. "It underlines the shortcomings of the existing
system." Without any way to store water locally, officials in charge of
flood control, irrigation and the health of area waterways find their worries
changing within days as the wet season turns dry. And, despite showers
Wednesday, it is still dry.
Copyright © 2002 Stuart
News - TC Palm All rights reserved.
$14.4 million
earmarked for lake protection plan
The much publicized $7.8 billion cost for
Everglades restoration is only a piece of the total cost to ensure the health of
the Kissimmee/Okeechobee/Everglades ecosystem. In addition to the
Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP), there is the Kissimmee River
restoration project currently underway, the Surface Water Improvement and
Management (SWIM) Plan, the Lake Okeechobee Protection Act and other federal and
state agency projects relating to the ecosystem. A recent publication from
the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) claims at least $14.8
billion has been dedicated to the entire 16-county region of central and
southern Florida. That additional $7 billion names several projects, but
does not earmark the millions of dollars that are anticipated for the nutrient
removal in Lake Okeechobee.
Copyright © 2002
News Zap -
Okeechobee News All rights reserved.
Related Link,
SFWMD Water Matters newsletter
Keys must get
involved in Everglades clean-up
Some heavy-hitting Florida industries –
development and agriculture – will benefit from a less-than-total clean-up of
the Everglades. People in the Keys, according to Dave J. White, regional
director for The Ocean Conservancy, are the only ones who will benefit totally.
“The avocado growers want drainage, the homeowners in the 8.5 square mile area
want drainage, municipalities all want more water,” which is not what the
clean-up is all about, White said. White said the heavy hitters all have
lobbyists and lawyers who show up at Everglades meetings. Yet, for the topic is only in the
peripheral vision of Keys stakeholders, who have the most to gain. “People here need to pay
attention and get involved in the
program, or they will get whatever happens to them,” he said. Copyright © 2003
Upper
Keys Reporter All rights reserved.
6-November-02
Election 2002: Collier voters support greenspace acquisition program
Ellin Goetz, leader of the Conservation
Collier
political action committee, left, enjoys her son's,
Rhys Watkins, 11, right, prediction with his
friend, Danny Summers, 11, center, that their
effort will win approval after 86 percent of
Collier County precincts reported for the
referendum approving a greenspace tax during
an election party at The Beach Hotel and Golf
Club on Tuesday. Erik Kellar/Staff
Collier County
voters said Tuesday that they wanted more green space among the county's
gated subdivisions and shopping centers — and that they're willing to tax
themselves to pay for it. A greenspace acquisition program, called
Conservation Collier, received almost 60 percent of the vote, authorizing
county commissioners to issue up to $75 million in bonds to buy and
for preservation and public access. The bonds would be paid back
with an annual property tax of up to one-quarter mill. That amounts to $25
per $100,000 of taxable property value. The tax will end after 10 years
unless voters reauthorize it. "They all said Collier County wouldn't
tax themselves, but by God, when the case is made clearly, they're
obviously willing to do that," said Ellin Goetz, chairwoman of the
Conservation Collier political action committee.
Copyright © 2002
Naples News
All rights reserved.
Related Article,
November 6, 2002
Residents approve tax for environmental land buys
Residents
approve tax for environmental land buys
Collier County voters Tuesday voted
to tax themselves for the next 10 years to buy land for environmental
conservation. The green tax was overwhelmingly approved by 75
percent of the voters. The victory reversed the defeat of a
half-penny green space sales tax six years ago. The tax is (was)
intended to help the county preserve and manage environmentally sensitive
areas, such as wetlands and wildlife habitats, said Jacqueline Hubbard
Robinson, assistant county attorney. “But it won’t be submitted to
the board (of county commissioners) for approval unless the referendum is
passed by voters,” she said. Robinson said the referendum for the
tax came about when concerned county residents requested a resolution from
the board. According to the referendum, the board could issue bonds
of up to $75 million in property taxes, as long as it does not exceed
one-fourth of one mill over 10 years. The proposed tax equals $50 on
a $200,000 house.
Copyright © 2002
News Press All rights reserved.
Related Article,
November 6, 2002
Election 2002: Collier voters support greenspace acquisition program
Election 2002:
Property rights advocates fail in Soil and Water District takeover bid
John Cochrane, Michael Urbanik and
Michael Ramsey win seats on Collier Soil and Water Conservation District.
Unofficial final results had a trio of local property rights advocates
failing in their efforts to take over the Collier Soil and Water
Conservation District. Property Rights Action Committee (PRAC)
President William "Bill" Lhota and Treasurer Lynda Hittinger and taxpayer
watchdog Ty Agoston were unable to get elected to the five-member
conservation district. All three were defeated in Tuesday's
election, losing to John Cochrane, Michael Urbanik and Michael Ramsey. The
election results mean the district will probably go forward with forming a
Regional Offsite Mitigation Area in 7,000 acres of Golden Gate Estates
north of Interstate 75. The defeated trio had vowed to stop the
mitigation if elected. Cochrane, Urbanik and Ramsey say they lean
toward favoring the wetland mitigation area, yet still have plenty= of
questions about the project.
Copyright © 2002
Naples News
All rights reserved.
FWC traps nuisance
bear
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation
Commission are confident that the bear officers trapped is one that has been
causing quite a stir in the area. At least one, possibly two, bears have sighted
in the past several months. In just the last couple weeks, the lumbering animals
have been sighted inside the city limits as well. Sometimes just ambling through
a neighborhood, even taking a swim in one resident's pool, the bears have got
residents concerned. Most sightings are in evening or early morning hours.
City and county officials and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission are also
quite concerned. At a recent meeting, the parties were able to develop a closer
relationship that should benefit both humans and bears. Mark Robson,
Regional Director for Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission, assured
the group that "we understand your frustration."
Copyright © 2002 News
Zap - Okeechobee News All rights reserved.
New GOP chair of environmental panel called Everglades project `a waste of
money'
The new Republican chairman of the Senate Environment Committee, James
Inhofe of Oklahoma, is a former land developer who earned a ''zero'' rating from
the League of Conservation Voters and called the Everglades restoration project
two months ago ``a waste of money.''
Environmentalists Wednesday said they were very concerned about the
ascension of Inhofe, as part of the GOP takeover of the Senate, to head the
committee that oversees the Everglades.
Congressional scholars saw a major shift in policy from Sen. James
Jeffords, the Vermont independent who chaired the committee under the Democrats,
to Inhofe.
''Holy smokes, what a change,'' said Ross
Baker, a Rutgers University political scientist and longtime student of the
Senate. "For example, you will see a lot more support for drilling in the
Alaska National Wildlife Reserve." Inhofe was the only senator to
vote against the $8 billion Everglades plan in 2000, criticizing its
"open-ended funding."
Copyright © 2002 Miami
Herald All rights reserved.
Government seeks immunity from liability in unintended manatee deaths
WASHINGTON
The Bush administration wants to immunize the government from
lawsuits for the next five years when endangered Florida manatees are
unintentionally injured or killed from collisions with government
watercraft, docks, boat ramps and marinas.
Sam Hamilton, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service's Southeast regional director, said Wednesday that current
regulations under the Marine Mammal Protection Act ''expose government
agencies to potential liability'' when manatees are
inadvertently harmed. The agency says the proposed regulatory change
would apply to northwest Florida counties along the Gulf of Mexico,
the upper St. Johns River and the Atlantic coast. Six hearings on the
proposal will be held next month in affected communities.
In the proposal,
the Fish and Wildlife Service said it also intends stricter
enforcement of speed zones in the Atlantic. Copyright © 2002 Miami
Herald All rights reserved.
Interior officials
face contempt charges over manatee zones
A federal judge has ordered the U.S. Interior Department to say why its
officials should not be held in contempt for failing to meet a deadline on the
protection of manatees. Last week the
government announced the creation of 13 protected zones in coastal parts of
Florida to reduce the number of manatees killed by boats. But that was too late
to comply with the exact terms of the judge's order, which required the
government to publish the list of protected areas in the Federal Register by
Nov. 1. The list still has not been published.
U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday gave the
government 10 days to show why officials should not be held in contempt.
Eric Glitzenstein, attorney for a coalition of groups that sued to force the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to create the protected zones, said the list
duplicates several zones already set up by the state and fails to set up
protected areas in the counties with the highest number of manatees killed by
boats.
Copyright © 2002
Sun-Sentinel
All rights reserved.
5-November-02
Museum's Goal: Save the World's Wild Places
Steve Kagan for The New York
Times
Collecting isn't enough
anymore: stuffed African elephants
at the Field Museum in Chicago,
which turned an expedition to
Peru's wetlands into a study
that led to the creation of one
of the world's largest national parks.
The verdant mountains and high-altitude wetlands of northern Peru nurture a
dazzling variety of
plants and animals. Few humans live there, so nature has been allowed to flower.
That seemed about to change two years ago. Lumber companies developed plans for
large-scale logging in the area. Conservationists feared it would be cut by new
roads and settled by laborers.
Researchers from the Field Museum in Chicago, which has a century-old
tradition of research in Latin America,
traveled to the area in August 2000 for a three-week inventory of its natural
resources. They found a
"staggering diversity of habitat types" and 28 species apparently unknown to
science. The researchers might have followed academic tradition by
spending years painstakingly studying their specimens and then reporting
their findings in a scholarly journal. The Field Museum, however, has
adopted a much more aggressive approach.
Copyright © 2002 NY
Times online All rights reserved.
Editorial: Jeb Right But President Errs On Air Emissions Controls
Because of the long campaign season, you may well wonder if
air quality hasn't been degraded by politicians' gritty, sometimes toxic,
oratorical attacks. But such thoughts aside, there is actually good news on
the clean air front. Florida Department of
Environmental Protection Secretary David Struhs says
that in the past three years there has been the largest reduction in air emissions in the state's history - largely because of pollution control
agreements with power companies. Struhs is justly proud that Florida is now one of only two
states east of the Mississippi that meet all federal public health standards.
DEP recently completed an agreement with the Florida Power & Light Co.
that will reduce nitrogen oxide at its Parrish plant in Manatee County by 40
percent. This should significantly improve air quality and contribute to the
health of Tampa Bay, which is polluted by nitrogen that is emitted from
plants and
ultimately ends up in the water.
Copyright © 2002 Tampa
Tribune All rights reserved.
Polluters paying
fewer, smaller fines
Polluters have paid 64 percent less in fines for breaking federal
environmental rules under the Bush administration than they did in the final two
years of the Clinton administration, according to federal records analyzed by
Knight Ridder. The Bush administration is
forcing fewer polluters to pay fines, and the penalties are much smaller than
they were under Clinton, according to
records obtained by a former top environmental-enforcement official under
President Bush. ''There's a tremendous
problem with environmental policy in general and enforcement in particular in
this administration,'' said Sylvia Lowrance, who was the Environmental
Protection Agency's acting assistant administrator in charge of enforcement from
Jan. 20, 2001, to May 2002. A 28-year civil
servant, she retired in August. "The data don't lie.''
Copyright © 2002 Miami
Herald All rights reserved.
New building can't link to water
The Suncoast Schools Federal
Credit Union on Mariner Boulevard is built and ready to become a financial
services center for county residents. There
is one service, however, the building can't offer: running water. So, its doors
have been kept shut by state regulators. The Department of Environmental
Protection, citing severe water pressure problems in the Florida Water Services
system that supplies the area, has denied the credit union's application to
connect to the utility. According to a letter
the DEP sent the credit union on Oct. 21, Florida Water was unable April through
June to maintain minimum water pressure requirements set by state law. Florida
Water, the letter states, has indicated to the DEP that new wells are needed to
correct the deficiency. The company has long sought to build three wells in
Spring Hill that they say will fix the problem.
Copyright © 2002 St.
Petersburg Times All rights reserved.
Editorial: More
Fish and Wildlife officers long overdue
It’s high time the state sent some more wildlife officers to Lee County,
given the high toll we have among both boaters and manatees, and the huge
increase in boating activity here. We have had an enormous amount of debate about new
laws regarding manatees and other resources protection issues. Meanwhile,
existing laws are at best poorly enforced because of low manpower. Generally, we oppose putting new laws on the book
until existing ones are being enforced seriously. New laws may not even be
necessary if existing ones are enforced, and won’t make any difference anyway if
enforcement remains inadequate. Four new officers were to report to work
this week to fill new positions at the Fort Myers office of the Florida
Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. That’s the first staff
increase in 12 years. A stronger law enforcement presence on the
water is essential to saving human lives and protecting natural resources.
Copyright © 2002 News
Press All rights reserved.
ABM may support FGCU
marine lab on Lovers Key
Win Everham went to an Estero Bay Agency on Bay Management meeting Monday
seeking support for a university marine lab on Lovers Key/Carl E. Johnson State
Park. He left with at least a chance to secure the board's approval within the
next two weeks. An ABM subcommittee voted 4-3 Monday to write a letter of
support for a Florida Gulf Coast University marine lab. The letter, which will
be up for final approval at ABM's full meeting on Nov. 18, says the group could
support a marine lab somewhere within Lovers Key if concerns over public access,
increased traffic on the Bonita Beach Causeway and potential environmental
impacts are addressed. ABM is a group of environmentalists, developers,
researchers and citizens that oversees developments around Estero Bay and within
the Estero Bay watershed. FGCU officials have tried for months to get an ABM
endorsement for the lab. Copyright © 2002 Naples
News All rights reserved.
4-November-02
Eco-friendly turf
winning on golf courses
At renovated Bayshore Golf Course, the
new grass really is greener -- and not just the deep emerald hue of the
fairways. It's greener as in environmentally friendlier.
It uses only about half the fertilizer that was used
for the Bermuda grass that once covered the historic Miami Beach courses. A
sprinkle of salt, instead of a spray of herbicide, kills most weeds.
But still more important in a state where regular droughts and rampant
development make freshwater increasingly scarce and expensive, this lush carpet
slurps water that is unfit to drink. The grass thrives on brackish and recycled
wastewater and can even survive, for a time at least, on seawater. New varieties of an old
grass called seashore paspalum are
spreading across the state and could be one of the most promising innovations in grounds-keeping since the spikeless golf
shoe.
Copyright © 2002
Miami Herald All
rights reserved.
Native vegetation can
pay on farms
Southwest Florida farmers may qualify for a new program that pays growers to
return their land to native vegetation to offset impacts to the environment.
Although the program has $153 million set aside to conserve 30,000 acres from
Jacksonville to Florida Bay, some farmers here may not find the deal very
lucrative because many farmers make more from the crops than what the government
plans to pay. Lehigh Acres cucumber producer
Steve Jamerson laughed when he heard the payment options.
“We’re picking $20 cukes. That definitely wouldn’t work,” Jamerson said. “If it
(the offer from the agencies) was up in the millions we could sit and talk."
The Conservation Reserve
Enhancement Program offers four ways farmers can get paid for planting
native vegetation: A one-time upfront payment of $140 to $150 per acre for
land used as a waterside buffer or a filter strip;
Copyright © 2002 Fort
Meyers News Press All rights reserved.
Editorial: Clean water threat
No group understands the importance of clean water better than Floridians.
Our beaches and coastal waters are vital to our economy and way of life. Our
lakes and rivers provide drinking water and recreation. We are striving to save
the world's most recognizable wetlands -- the Everglades.
So it is troubling that on the 30th anniversary of the Clean Water Act, rather
than celebrating its successes, we have to be concerned about its future. Before
the job of cleaning up the nation's waterways is done, the Bush administration
is attempting to weaken the act. In a report titled "Clean Water At Risk," the
Natural Resources Defense Council details half a dozen ways the administration
has put new limits on the act and created loopholes for polluters.
The act was born amid alarming environmental disasters, most notably in 1969
when the polluted Cuyahoga River in Cleveland caught fire.
Copyright © 2002 St.
Petersburg Times All rights reserved.
Teacher's insect
safaris engage students
Saundra Rohn's gifted students are scouring
the trees, grasses and bushes at Rivers Edge Elementary with all the
giggles and squeals of an Easter egg hunt.
Their loot? Lizards. Spiders. Ladybugs. Ants.
Edible treasures they are not, but none of the
children seems to care. With Rohn as their nature guide and magnifying
glasses in hand, they study the squiggly and the squirmy with awe and
wonder.
This insect safari is just a sampling of Rohn's imaginative
curriculum that transports learning beyond the boundaries of books and
classrooms. Her knack for nurturing young minds has won several
awards, including St. Lucie Elementary's Teacher of the Year (1993) and
Wal-Mart's Teacher of the Year 2002. Rohn's latest honor came last
month and ranks the highest of her career as the 2002 Florida Association
for Gifted Teacher of the Year.
Copyright © 2002 Palm
Beach Post All rights reserved.
Searching For New Digs
An electric-powered drag line uncovers a
15-foot seam of raw phosphate rock at the
Cargill South Fort Meade phosphate mine in
Polk County. By drawing back the soil, a
bucket uncovers the raw material.
Florida's
century-old phosphate industry has unearthed some new challenges as it
attempts to find more of the rock. Mining companies are close to
exhausting the rich phosphate deposits in Polk County and eastern
Hillsborough County. They want to expand south into Hardee, Manatee and
DeSoto counties. The public, however, isn't granting the state's
third-largest industry a free pass. Two counties, the state's largest
phosphate company, environmentalists and a water utility remain locked in
permitting battle already five years old. Antiphosphate mining
forces fear that churning up soil with the 55-foot, 3-million-pound
draglines will pollute the Peace River, an important tributary which
supplies drinking water to 100,000 people and feeds the pristine estuary
of Charlotte Harbor.
Copyright © 2002
Tampa Tribune
All rights reserved.
3-November-02
Expert calls bug `looming disaster'
Scientists are sounding the alarm over a new exotic bug with
an appetite for a startlingly broad range of South Florida plants and the
potential to seriously invade Everglades tree islands and other natural areas. The tiny creature causing such a stir is the lobate lac scale,
a sap- sucking insect native to India and Sri Lanka that can kill shrubs
and small trees. Mushrooming in number since it was first found in Davie in
1999, the insect has latched onto more than 120 species of host plants in
South Florida -- 39 of them native to the state, according to Bill
Howard, a University of Florida entomology professor. The insect attacks a long list, among them fruit trees, such
as mango and star fruit, landscape staples such as ficus, buttonwood and coco
plum and the vegetation that knits the shady hammocks of the Everglades:
willow, pond apple, fig and red bay trees, among others.
Copyright © 2002 Sun-Sentinel
/ Associated Press All rights reserved.
U.S. Creates
13 Sanctuaries for Manatees
The Bush administration has
designated 13 new areas to protect Florida's endangered manatees from
boaters, including four sanctuaries that are off limits to all but
adjoining property owners. The designations, issued on Thursday by
the Fish and Wildlife Service, are meant to comply with a order by Judge
Emmet G. Sullivan of Federal District Court in the District of Columbia
to prepare plans for protected areas by Nov. 1. The protected
areas are in Brevard, Charlotte, Citrus, De Soto, Hillsborough, Lee,
Pinellas and Sarasota counties, the agency said. Besides the
sanctuaries, nine more manatee refuges are being created where some
boating is banned. Environmental groups issued a statement on
Friday saying the list of federal manatee refuges and sanctuaries was
"woefully substandard" and would not protect manatees in areas boating
threatens them most.
Copyright © 2002 NY
Times online All rights reserved.
Proposed
Conceptual Framework:
The USGS Florida Integrated Science Center
Concept: A virtual Science Center in Florida. Leadership: Board of
Directors consisting of the Florida Discipline Chiefs: Carl Goodwin, Chief
USGS Florida Water Resources District Lisa Robbins, Chief
Scientist USGS Center for Coastal and Regional Marine Studies
Russ Hall, Director
USGS Florida Caribbean Science Center Responsibility: Delivery of USGS
expertise and integrated science throughout the region. Specialized
Assets: Expertise in hydrology, geology, biology, and geography, and a
unified structure capable of mobilizing the best combinations of
scientific expertise to address priority problems. Components of the
Florida Virtual Science Center: Three science hubs and regional
administrative centers:
Read more...
Copyright © 2003 USGS
- Center for Aquatic Resource Studies All rights reserved.
Voters asked to pass
tax to buy green space: Referendum would have levy expire after 10 years
Collier County residents worried about
the constant collision of old Florida and new Florida can do something about it
at this year’s election. Tuesday’s ballot includes a referendum for a green
space tax, which would help the county preserve and manage environmentally
sensitive areas, such as wetlands and wildlife habitats, said Jacqueline Hubbard
Robinson, assistant county attorney. “But it won’t be submitted to the board (of
county commissioners) for approval unless the referendum is passed by voters,”
she said. She said the referendum came about when concerned county residents
requested a resolution from the board. According to the referendum, the board could issue bonds of up
to $75 million in property taxes, as long as it does not exceed one-fourth of
one mil over 10 years.
Copyright © 2002
News
Press All rights reserved.
Election 2002:
Greenspace tax would set aside millions to buy qualified land
from willing sellers
The greenspace tax question tucked away
at the end of Tuesday's ballot is only one sentence long, but it carries a
20-page punch.
That's the length of a draft law that Collier County
commissioners would be poised to adopt to establish the Conservation Collier
land-buying program if voters give the go-ahead.
The ballot question authorizes county commissioners to issue up to $75 million
in bonds to acquire land to save wildlife habitat, protect water resources and
provide public open space. The bonds would be paid back with an annual property
tax of up to ¼ mill for 10 years. Opponents argue they don't trust county commissioners to spend
the money and that they're taxed too much already. Supporters have pitched the
tax as a way to slow growth and maintain Collier County's quality of life. Copyright © 2002 Naples
News All rights reserved.
Election 2002: Will
greenspace tax hurt or help economy? Debate brews in Collier
A debate is brewing about whether buying green space in Collier County would
help or hurt taxpayers' bottom line. Voters
go to the polls Tuesday to decide whether to authorize county commissioners to
issue up to $75 million in bonds to buy natural land in Collier County. The
bonds would be paid back with an annual property tax of up to ¼ mill. That
amounts to $25 per $100,000 of taxable value. The tax would end after 10 years
unless reauthorized by voters. Opponents
contend that taking land out of development will mean higher taxes on land that
is left, but supporters say the ripple effect will run to taxpayers' benefit.
Each side has its experts. A pair of 1998 studies by The Trust for Public
Land looked at how land conservation affects property taxes in Massachusetts.
The studies found that land conservation costs money in the short-term but that
towns that protected the most land had, on average, the lowest tax rates.
Copyright © 2002
Naples News All
rights reserved.
Election 2002: Lee
Conservation 2020 considered popular, successful
Taxing residents to pay for government
land purchases wasn't readily accepted by many Lee County
citizens until six years ago. But since the tax was approved in 1996,
Conservation 2020 has turned
into one of the county's most popular programs.
Collier County voters get a chance to vote Tuesday
on a similar tax. The proposed greenspace referendum would authorize Collier
County to issue up to
$75 million in bonds to be paid back from proceeds of a property tax of up to
$25 per year for each
$100,000 of taxable property value. The tax would be in effect for 10
years. Lee County purchases are paid for by landowners, who pay 50
cents per $1,000 of taxable property. With a homestead exemption, a homeowner with
a $100,000 house is liable for $37.50 a year.
Copyright © 2002
Naples News All
rights reserved.
Experts: Ocean-to-sea exchange flawed
They say Salton Sea proposal counterproductive,
too costly.
From a distance it’s easy to envision a
return to the heyday of the Salton Sea. On maps and satellite photos all that lies between the
troubled sea and the saving waters of the Gulf of California are a couple inches of
farmland and barren desert. The solution to the sea’s problem -- lack of an outlet to
carry away salts and excessive nutrients -- is obvious: Exchange the life-giving
water of the gulf with the salt and algae-choked water in the sea. At sea level, however, the solution gets a lot more
complicated. The environmental, political and economic cost of carrying
water across pristine desert and active farmland and dumping it in an
international wildlife refuge in a foreign land are too much to overcome before
the sea’s biological clock runs out, most experts say. "On the surface of it, it
seems like such a natural,
simple idea," said Tom Kirk, executive director of the Salton Sea
Authority. Copyright © 2002 The
Desert Sun
All rights reserved.
2-November-02
Report: OUT OF CONTROL: The Impacts of Off-Road Vehicles and Roads on Wildlife and Habitat in Florida's National Forests
Off-road vehicles
are destroying our public lands everywhere, and no where is the damage any
more widespread than in Florida. Growing hoards of off-road vehicles are
rampaging throughout Florida's national forests, ruining wildlife habitat
and polluting our air and water. Irresponsible drivers of fat-tired swamp
buggies, off-road motorcycles, and other all-terrain vehicles have ripped
thousands of miles of outlaw trails through these public lands. They jump off banks and sling mud off their tires,
intentionally and illegally operating their vehicles in the most damaging ways
in the most sensitive places. They run over and crush birds, salamanders and
other creatures in their path and tear up the habitat of bears. They roar around
the nests of bald eagles and harass osprey by shining floodlights into their
nests at night. Read more . . .
Copyright © 2002
Defenders
All rights reserved.
Related Article,
October 22, 2002
News
Release: Conservationists Applaud Forest Service Action to Control
ORV Damage
Related Links,
Appendix *
* pdf file (must have Acrobat Reader to open)
Editorial: Under
the Political Radar
Environmental issues are not
resonating with voters in this midterm election the way they usually do.
This is as much a rebuke to the Democrats as it is a tribute to the
administration's ability to hide its assault on the rules protecting the
nation's natural resources under the political radar. According to
the polls, the environment commands voter interest about on a par with
taxes, above crime and corporate malfeasance but below the economy,
education and health care. Environmental issues could yet make the
difference in several tight races, Colorado and New Hampshire among them.
But its national impact is not nearly what it was in 1996, when voters
hammered Newt Gingrich and his Contract With America Republicans for
similar transgressions — even though Mr. Bush's indifference to the
environment is every bit as worrisome as Mr. Gingrich's.
Copyright © 2002 NY
Times online All rights reserved.
Manatee deaths spur
restrictions
With a record number of manatees dying in
boat collisions, the federal government on Friday designated 13 coastal areas in
Florida where boating and other activities would be restricted or banned.
The announcement, which came in response to a court order, was immediately
denounced by boating groups for going too far and by environmentalists for not
going far enough. Manatee refuges and sanctuaries were designated in
Citrus, Pinellas, Hillsborough, Sarasota, Charlotte, DeSoto, Lee and Brevard
counties. The largest refuge will be on 4,196 acres in southwest Florida, where
boat speeds will be restricted along the mouth of the Peace River and adjacent
creeks to protect the gentle, slow-moving mammals. Ted Forsgren, executive
director of the Coastal Conservation Association, a fishing group, said the
Peace River restrictions will enrage boaters while doing little to help
manatees.
Copyright © 2002 Sun-Sentinel
All rights reserved.
Manatee refuge list
dismays both sides
Manatee advocates say the new U.S. list
won't satisfy a judge. Boaters complain that it further crimps their
activities. Infuriating boaters and manatee advocates alike, federal
officials Friday issued a new list of areas around Florida where human
activities will be limited or prohibited to protect the endangered mammal.
The list, which includes areas around Tampa Bay and Citrus County, was produced
by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under orders from a federal judge who had
threatened to hold Interior Secretary Gale Norton in contempt. Manatee
advocates predicted the list probably won't satisfy the judge, who is scheduled
to review the case at a hearing Tuesday, because it fails to include locations
where the most manatees have been killed or maimed by speeding boats: the
Caloosahatchee River in Lee County; the St. Johns River in Duval County; and the
Halifax River in Volusia County.
Copyright © 2002 St.
Petersburg Times All rights reserved.
Related Article,
November 12, 2002
Letter to Editor: Manatee interests being obstructed
News encouraging for
Keys sea floor
Lobster traps not as damaging as was suspected
Commercial lobster fishermen expect to hear generally good news at a Nov. 11 to
14 session on preserving the sea floor.
Initial reports from a federal study into how
lobster traps affect seagrass beds near the Middle Keys are encouraging for the
local industry, said Greg DiDomenico of the Monroe County Commercial Fishermen
Inc. group. If traps are pulled at least once
every five to six weeks during lobster season, the gear "should not result in a
significant injury to seagrass beds in the Florida Keys," DiDomenico quoted a
draft of the report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s
Center for Coastal Fisheries and Habitat Research.
"That is tremendous news for the Keys commercial industry," he
said. The report is scheduled to be presented as part of the federally sponsored
"Symposium on the Effects of Fishing Activities on Benthic
Habitats: Linking Geology, Biology, Socioeconomics, and Management," to be
held in Tampa.
Copyright © 2003 Keynoter
All rights reserved.
1-November-02
Bush Administration
Designates Florida Manatee Protection Areas
The Bush administration designated 13 new areas
to protect Florida's endangered manatees from boaters, including four
sanctuaries off-limits to all but adjoining property owners. The new
designations, issued Thursday as a final rule by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service, are meant to comply with U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan's ruling in
Washington ordering the plans for protected areas to be readied by Nov. 1.
They are to be established in Brevard, Charlotte, Citrus, De Soto, Hillsborough,
Lee, Pinellas and Sarasota counties, the agency said in formal notices. In
addition to the sanctuaries, nine more manatee refuges are being created where
some boating is banned. Environmental groups issued a statement Friday
characterizing the list of federal manatee refuges and sanctuaries as "woefully
substandard" by failing to protect manatees in areas with a high number of
watercraft-related deaths.
Copyright © 2002
Tampa Tribune
All rights reserved.
Related Links,
Florida Manatee
Fatalities Hit All Time High
Florida manatees are dying in record
numbers, and many of this year's 85 fatalities are due to collisions with
watercraft, state manatee conservationists said today. Manatees are a
federally listed endangered species. Researchers at the Florida
Marine Research Institute say the latest death occurred on October 3, when
a manatee died at Orlando's Sea World of Florida rehabilitation facility
after undergoing treatment for watercraft related injuries sustained in
Brevard County. This death ties an all-time record high of 14 watercraft
deaths in Brevard County, which leads the state in total manatee
mortalities. "Human related threats to manatees continue to increase
and show no sign of abatement," said Patti Thompson, director of science
and conservation at Save the Manatee Club. "So far this year, 33 percent of
manatee deaths are from collisions with boats, and there are still two months
left.
Copyright © 2002 Environment
News Service (ENS) 2002. All Rights Reserved.
Related Links,
Florida Marine Research Institute Center
State Researchers Release Preliminary Biological
Status Review of
Florida Manatee (10/09/2002)
VOLUNTEERS NEEDED FOR IMPORTANT MANATEE
RESEARCH!!!
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation
Commission (FWC) and
Tampa BayWatch are looking for volunteers and
interns during
our upcoming sampling session to participate in a
study designed to
protect manatees and promote stewardship of Tampa
Bay.
State officials
target Palm Beach, Broward waterways for cleanup
State environmental regulators Thursday unveiled
a list of lakes, canals and other waterways in eastern Palm Beach and
northeastern Broward counties that may require pollution limits and a
cleanup plan. The list of 16 "potentially impaired waters" includes
stormwater canals such as the C-51 along Southern Boulevard; lakes Ida,
Osborne and Clarke near Interstate 95; the E-4 canal that ties those lakes
together; the Hillsboro Canal and a segment of the Intracoastal Waterway
north of Pompano Beach. "I think this is a good starting point,"
said Richard Hicks of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection,
which compiled the list. The waters
were singled out as part of an effort to address pollution in surface
waters around Florida by setting limits on the amounts of a particular
pollutant that a waterway can absorb and still be safe for its particular
use, such as drinking, swimming or fishing, the DEP said.
Copyright © 2002 Sun-Sentinel All rights reserved.
Related article,
November 1, 2002
Total Maximum Daily Loads Program
Total Maximum Daily Loads Program
Florida’s rivers, streams and lakes are spectacularly beautiful. More than that, they are essential natural resources, supplying the water
necessary for public consumption, recreation, industry, agriculture and aquatic
life. The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is responsible for
preserving and maintaining the quality of Florida’s waters. This is a
challenging task due to the damage caused by past practices and the increasing
demands placed on our water resources by rapid growth and new uses. The
Division of Water Resource Management is working on a more comprehensive
approach to protecting Florida water quality involving basin-wide assessments
and the application of a full range of regulatory and non-regulatory strategies
to reduce pollution.
Read more...
Copyright © 2002
DEP All rights reserved.
Related Article,
November 1, 2002
State officials target Palm Beach, Broward waterways for cleanup
Toxic-chemical
tests planned for park area
The state will start testing for toxic chemicals early next year around
Fort Lauderdale's Lincoln Park. Officials from the state Department
of Environmental Protection are trying to determine whether any part of
the area should be placed on the federal Environmental Protection Agency's
Superfund list, which has some of the the country's most contaminated
properties. If the site lands on the Superfund list, it will be
eligible for federal dollars for cleanup efforts. State DEP
officials met with residents and Fort Lauderdale officials Wednesday to
discuss the site at 600 NW 19th Ave., in the Durrs neighborhood north of
Sistrunk Boulevard. "We're doing the right thing for the
neighborhood,'' said Walter ''Mickey'' Hinton, president of the Durrs
Homeowners Association. "It's something that should have been done a long
time ago.''
Copyright © 2002
Miami Herald
All rights reserved.
Novice waging a
Cinderella campaign
David Nelson's coat
doesn't match his pants. His 1987 Nissan pickup broke down, so he rented a
compact car from Budget. The back seat is jammed with campaign signs. In
the front seat is his lunch: a fruit cup and a bag of plantain chips. He
drove four hours Wednesday morning to talk for 15 minutes to about 100
people. Nelson is the Democratic nominee for agriculture commissioner but
can't afford television ads or a campaign bus. He folds his own fliers. He
has raised about $20,000. The 39-year-old political novice ought to be
getting creamed by incumbent Charles Bronson, 52, a veteran Republican
politician with more than $1-million at his disposal, TV ads galore and
well-heeled friends, such as citrus magnate Ben Hill Griffin III, willing
to lend him a corporate jet. Instead, polls show they are in a dead
heat. To Nelson, a Miami middle school librarian who used to drive
tractors and pick avocadoes in South Florida, his success vindicates his
grass-roots style.
Copyright © 2002
St. Petersburg Times
All rights reserved.
11/11/2003
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