News - August 2003   

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31-August-03

Some fear change in tack in 'Glades restoration
By TRAVIS JAMES TRITTEN
© Key West Citizen
Environmental groups worry that a massive project to restore the ailing Everglades ecosystem may instead focus on supplying water to Florida's booming population. Several groups asked the federal government this month for regulations that would ensure the 30-year Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Project does not get off track. "It is not the congressional intent for the federal government to pay for the flood control and water supply needs of the state," said David Bogardus, South Florida program officer for the World Wildlife Fund. The state is under pressure to supply water to its expanding population and could attempt to influence the Everglades restoration program over the years. In cases of conflict, the environment should receive priority over water needs, he said. The CERP is one of the largest restoration projects ever undertaken.  Read more

Editorial: Everglades spin machine
© Palm Beach Post
The South Florida Water Management District and the sugar industry were jubilant last week over a study that they claimed was good news for the Everglades. Here's the good news: Cattails, invasive plants fed by polluted runoff from farms and cities, are taking over 2 acres a day, not the 6 1/2 acres they were devouring daily in the early 1990s. But a decrease in the rate of damage just means that the Everglades is dying a little slower, not that it's headed for recovery. The study underscores the sad mistake Florida made this year in delaying the cleanup deadline for the Everglades by 10 years, to 2016. It also reveals that the water district is most interested in spinning news to make itself look good.  Read more

Nature's theme park
By JEFF KLINKENBERG
© St. Petersburg Times

With an escort of bream, an alligator floats by a dock off the Tamiami Trail near the 
Miccosukee Indian Village.  Photo courtsey of Scott Keeler.

For many folks, the Everglades is something like a heaping bowl of broccoli. They know they are supposed to like broccoli, that broccoli is good for them, but they would rather eat a bowl of ice cream instead. They like their nature to come with majestic mountains and icy streams. A humid swamp and the possibility of an encounter with a water moccasin gives them the heebie-jeebies. I am what my old friend Marjory Stoneman Douglas used to call "an Everglades boy." To me, the Everglades is not steamed broccoli but an ice- cream sundae with whipped cream on top. I am fond of mountains, but I love swamps even more. I grew up in Miami, only minutes from what Mrs. Douglas called "the river of grass" in her landmark 1947 book about the place. In the Glades I have fished for bass, grabbed frogs, caught snakes, paddled canoes and ridden airboats. I even got lost a time or two. Read more

 

30-August-03

Half Circle L Ranch now a target of state conservation efforts
By LARRY HANNAN
© Naples Daily News
The Half Circle L Ranch, which straddles Collier and Hendry counties, is among a handful of state projects of environmental significance recently added to the Florida Forever list. The 11,220-acre project is located within primary habitat for the Florida panther and the Florida black bear and complements continuing regional conservation efforts. Florida Forever is a program started in 1999 to conserve environmentally sensitive land, protect water, and preserve important cultural and historical resources. Florida Wildlife Federation field representative Nancy Payton said adding the ranch to Florida Forever was important. "We are in favor of this and we have urged the state to do it," Payton said. "It helps complete a panther corridor from Big Cypress into Hendry County." Read more

Editorial: End dodges on Lake O
© Palm Beach Post
More than 50 billion gallons of fresh but dirty water from Lake Okeechobee pounding into the St. Lucie River over the next month is a "tragedy" that couldn't be avoided, South Florida Water Management District Executive Director Henry Dean told Martin County commissioners this week. Mr. Dean said he doesn't have "any good choices" for places to dump excess water from Lake Okeechobee until water storage reservoirs are built. His solution? Pray for less rain. Storage reservoirs and prayers, however, won't solve the problem, and Mr. Dean's hand-wringing apology is no defense of the district's bad decisions. It's a dodge. Since January, when public outcry stopped a plan to send more water into Lake Okeechobee from the north during what already was a very wet winter, the district has refused to release excess water.  Read more

 

29-August-03

Commentary:Water bosses ought to use common sense
By Mark Pino
 © Orlando Sentinel
I was a self-professed genius growing up. Pity my hard-working father, cursed with such a know-it-all. But when I screwed up -- which was frequently -- it was his turn. It all boiled down to common sense. And my lack of it. In my dad's opinion, all the smarts in the world were useless if you couldn't apply them to real-world situations. Thirty years later, I agree. That's why I can't believe we're almost up to our ears in storm water. Common sense says we shouldn't be. In the midst of a wet summer, you'd think officials with the South Florida Water Management District would toss all the technical, scientific techno- babble and face reality. The time to open the floodgates wide wasn't this week. In fact, it may be too late to save much of Osceola from disaster if a tropical storm -- or something worse -- dumps a bunch of water on us. Read more

Panel OKs 4 Zones For Manatees
By YVETTE C. HAMMETT
© Tampa Tribune
ST. PETERSBURG - A local committee set up to review a state proposal for more manatee protection in Tampa Bay has agreed on only four areas in which to add slow- or idle-speed zones. But it did agree to endorse more boater education on manatee protection and to designate shallow seagrass beds throughout the Bay as voluntary manatee ``caution'' areas. Most of a proposal from the state's Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission staff, however, was rejected by a majority of the group, which met over six weeks. The proposal originally called for adding some type of manatee zone along the entire shoreline on the Bay that is not already protected by a local ordinance. Read more

 

28-August-03

Letter to the editor:Trickle-up theory
By Nick Hale
© Naples Daily News
When Gov. Jeb Bush appointed WCI "supremo" Al Hoffman as his chief re-election campaign fund-raiser, we knew he was taking on an obligation. Hoffman got the money from his fellow developers; Jeb got re-elected; now it's payback time. The Florida Council of 100, headed by Hoffman, has a scheme to take charge of the public's water supply, so the developers will have first priority on it for their golf courses and PUDs. Look for the Collier County Water Symposium, run by Collier Building Industry Association's David Ellis (through a puppet), to be the local drummer for this water grab. Citizens, not elected officials, demanded Jeb do something about the crooks, in and out of office, and he responded with the special prosecutor, who indicted the worst of the bunch. Read more

 

27-August-03

Water flows trapping turtles
By KEVIN LOLLAR
© Ft. Myers News-Press
A new victim of freshwater flows down the Caloosahatchee River has surfaced — or sunk: freshwater turtles. Husband and wife veterinarians Beth and Larry Murphy of Alva said strong currents from releases are washing turtles down the river and against the W.P. Franklin Lock and Dam, where many drown. Using long-handled nets, the couple saved about 50 turtles Monday and 20 Tuesday. “It’s what you can’t see that bothers me: How many are under water drowning?” Larry Murphy said. “I don’t want to think about it. I’m sure there are just hundreds of them. “I’m not a PETA-type person, but it’s really kind of absurd that they’re releasing all that water at one time.” Read more

Commentary:
Everglades has a friend in Shaw
By Sally Swartz, Editorial Writer
© Palm Beach Post
With President Bush in the White House and Gov. Bush in Tallahassee, these aren't happy days for the environment in general or for the Everglades in particular. But a Republican congressman who consistently champions Florida's "River of Grass" is a bright spot in an otherwise gloomy landscape. I don't agree with U.S. Rep. E. Clay Shaw, R-Fort Lauderdale, on every issue, but he rates a high five for his commitment to the Everglades. Unhappy with the Legislature's new law delaying the Everglades cleanup for 10 years -- until 2016 -- Rep. Shaw said he now looks to U.S. District Judge William Hoeveler, who has called the law "clearly defective," to take action. And Rep. Shaw has a specific action in mind. Read more

Water managers defend Lake O releases
By Jennifer Sorentrue, Staff Writer
© Palm Beach Post
STUART -- South Florida's top water mangers on Tuesday defended the decision to release fresh water from Lake Okeechobee into the St. Lucie River amid criticism from Martin County commissioners who say water quality in the fragile estuary is the worst it has been in four years. Henry Dean, executive director of the South Florida Water Management District, said there is simply no place to store water flowing into the lake from Central Florida. Weather forecasters are predicting an above- average rainy season, giving water managers no choice but to dump water from the lake into the St. Lucie estuary, Dean said. Read more

Manager says he's working to eliminate lake discharges
By Suzanne Wentley
© Stuart News
STUART -- A top water manager fielded criticism Tuesday from elected officials and St. Lucie River advocates upset by economic and environmental damage caused by continuous freshwater discharges. As the largest release from Lake Okeechobee since 1999 continued to flow into the estuary, Henry Dean, executive director of the South Florida Water Management District, appeared at Tuesday's County Commission meeting. River activists and commissioners told him that the local waterway is a mucky black color, and businesses are suffering. "We've already seen negative economic impacts," said Leon Abood, chairman of the Rivers Coalition.  Read more

Federal Conservation Official Arrested on Kickback Charges
© Tampa Tribune
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) - A federal soil conservation official has been arrested for allegedly accepting a kickback from a pond-digging contractor and lying to investigators when questioned about it, the U.S. Attorney's Office said Wednesday. Guy Wayne Boykin, 52, of Lake Helen, was indicted by a federal grand jury last week on charges of accepting an illegal gratuity and making false statements. He was arrested Tuesday, pleaded innocent at a federal court hearing and released on $20,000 bond. Boykin, working at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service in Volusia County, administered a farm improvement program called the Environmental Quality Incentives Program. Read more

 

26-August-03

Cattails spur Everglades debate
By Robert P. King
© Palm Beach Post
Noxious cattails nourished by polluted runoff are invading more than 2 acres a day in the central Everglades, water managers have concluded in a study that is certain to increase controversy over the state's $1 billion cleanup program. That's slower than the 6 1/2 acres a day the central Everglades lost to cattails in the early 1990s.  But it still means that since 1995, the towering, rush-like stalks have expanded their empire in that part of the marsh by nearly 6,300 acres an area slightly smaller than Royal Palm Beach. Leaders of the South Florida Water Management District call the slowdown a sign that their cleanup, and similar efforts by the sugar industry, are already showing results. "We're excited at what we see," Deputy Executive Director Chip Merriam said Monday. But environmentalists say the results merely mean that the Everglades is dying at a gentler pace.  Read more 

 

25-August-03

Editorial: Drinking water ... governor should be wary of
privatization proposals
© Naples News
Uh-oh. Here it comes again. The notion of privatizing Florida's public drinking water supply will not go away. This time the dangerous notion is advanced to Gov. Jeb Bush by an elite statewide business group called The Council of 100, led by Al Hoffmann of WCI, one of the state's largest development companies. The last time the dangerous notion advanced to Bush it was by Azurix, an Enron subsidiary that once proposed helping bankroll Everglades restoration in return for its water. A top Bush aide, David Struhs of the Department of Environmental Protection, used to work with Kenneth Lay before Lay ran Enron, and Struhs championed the idea as well as underground storage of treated effluent to pump up the Everglades. Read more

 

24-August-03

Editorial:
Proposal plots to drain Florida's water wealth
© Palm Beach Post
North Florida has water -- and Central and South Florida developers want it to fuel more growth and development. After a year of secret meetings, an influential business group has sent Gov. Bush a proposal to create a statewide water commission with the power to drain water from rural counties and pipe it to fast-growing metropolitan areas. It's a bad idea that already has drawn thumbs-down reactions from rural counties not eager to drain rivers and wetlands to support southern sprawl. Creating such a commission would require legislative action as well as public money. The proposal came via the Council of 100, a group of business leaders from all over Florida that advises the governor on issues ranging from education to civil service. Gov. Bush approves both the council membership and the issues it studies. Read more

 

23-August-03

The Sway of Cattails and Politics
© LA Times
By John-Thor Dahlburg
From the helicopter flying at 500 feet, the intruder is soon visible: a fringe of cattails, undulating lazily in the hot breeze of a Florida summer's midday. For Gary Goforth, an environmental engineer on the chopper, the lush, densely packed plants stretching in a bright green smudge alongside the L-7 Borrow Canal are an unwelcome sight. They are a noxious force, as well as a warning that this expanse of Florida's vast, watery wilderness is ill. Cattails, Goforth says over the crackling intercom, suck up oxygen, block sunlight and hinder the growth of fish, crayfish and wading birds. In parts of the already badly shrunken Everglades, says the Texas-born official of the South Florida Water Management District, the alien vegetation has been altering the "fundamental building blocks" of nature. Read more

Editorial:Slough still can be protected
© Ft. Myers News-Press
Lee County’s cherished Six Mile Cypress Slough Preserve can still be protected from overdevelopment on its eastern edge, but it’s going to take pressure, vision and money. At issue is proposed development north of an eastern arm of the slough, a swamp that snakes northeast to southwest through about 10 miles of central Lee County (“Six Mile” refers to its distance from downtown Fort Myers). Water drains into and slowly filters through the slough on its way to Estero Bay. That, and its abundance of wildlife, are why students started a successful referendum campaign almost 30 years ago, in which county voters agreed to tax themselves to buy and save the slough. Between the county and the state, $7 million was spent to acquire this important regional flow way. Read more

22-August-03

Water inflow to lake more than outflow
© Okeechobee News
By Pete Gawda
For the first time since 1999, Lake Okeechobee is experiencing a Zone C, steady release. This means that 18,795 gallon per second will be flowing into the St. Lucie Canal, and about 34,000 gallons per second will be flowing into the Caloosahatchee River. Karen Estock of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (COE) said this rate of flow would continue for at least a week. She said that her agency would be monitoring conditions daily. Currently, the amount of water that comes into the lake from all sources is greater than the outflow. Ms. Estock said it would take a least a week for the inflow and outflow to balance out. Then, hopefully, COE would be able to reduce the flow to the estuaries. Read more

Editorial:
Merging State Agencies Would Diminish Growth Management
© Tampa Tribune
Here is a problem for you. You live in a state that adds 300,000 new residents a year and faces an assortment of growth problems that range from clogged roads to water shortages. Managing growth is essential to preserving your state's resources, quality of life and economic welfare. So what is the best strategy to achieve responsible growth? Have a separate department devoted to growth-related issues? Or merge the state's growth management into a department with a myriad of other responsibilities, including overseeing elections and historic preservation? If you believe cramming critical growth management functions into another massive bureaucracy will somehow improve efficiency or demonstrate the state's resolve to guide growth, then you will favor Gov. Jeb Bush's proposal to combine the Department of Community Affairs, the state's growth agency, with the secretary of state's office. Read more

Commentary
'Glades camp plan just double talk
© Sun-Sentinel
By Steve Waters
After looking over the lease agreement drafted by the South Florida Water Management District for the owners of camps on district-owned public land in the Everglades, you have to wonder: Are the district people who came up with the lease language that clueless or that cunning? At first glance, the lease appears to be a nice compromise that allows the relative handful of camps in the Everglades to stay there, at least for the next 17 years. But once the camp owners who attended Wednesday night's meeting on the issue at the IGFA Fishing Hall of Fame & Museum in Dania Beach started asking questions, it became obvious by the answers that the lease is ripe for exploitation by the landlord.   Read more

Farmers can apply for ’Glades project funds
© Ft. Myers News-Press
By PAMELA SMITH
State officials told Hendry County farmers and ranchers that up to $450,000 will be available in 2004 to help them meet pollution limits designed to keep the Everglades healthy. A 150,000-acre area called the C-139 Basin in central and eastern Hendry was found out of compliance last week for discharging too much phosphorus, an element found in nature and used in fertilizers. The Everglades is extremely sensitive to phosphorus and cannot tolerate much. April 2002 to March 2003 was the first year C-139 farmers had to meet a limit on phosphorus under the Everglades Forever Act. The region exceeded it by 7 tons with 77.3 tons. Steven Sentes, senior regulatory professional for the South Florida Water Management District, told farmers and ranchers that the district now is accepting applications for a piece of the $450,000. Read more

Lake release threatens river
By PAMELA SMITH
© Ft. Myers News-Press
Heavy rainfall pushed Lake Okeechobee over 16 feet Thursday, triggering the largest water release to the Caloosahatchee River this year. At 18 feet, the lake’s dike, which prevents flooding in towns south of the lake, is in danger of breaching. More than 33,600 gallons of lake water a second started flowing steadily down the Caloosahatchee on Thursday — enough to fill an Olympic-size pool in 25 seconds. The St. Lucie Canal on the east side of the lake is getting 18,700 gallons a second. The lake was at 16.08 feet above sea level Thursday morning, crossing the line between what’s called Zone D into Zone C, the start of flood control management. “It doesn’t bode well for our estuaries,” said Lee County Commissioner Ray Judah, who worries about what the release will do in Lee County. The release isn’t likely to stop until the rain does. Read more

Wetlands mitigation bank backers unveil new plan
By ERIC STAATS
© Naples News
Seeking to satisfy opponents, backers of a proposal to set up a wetlands mitigation bank in Northern Golden Gate Estates unveiled a new plan Thursday. It remains to be seen whether the new plan for a Regional Offsite Mitigation Area, or ROMA, will win favor with property rights advocates worried that the mitigation bank will run people off their land and flood their homes. "I don't know if it's going to be possible," said Cindy Kemp, president of the Property Rights Action Committee (PRAC). The Collier Soil and Water Conservation District, a state agency run by a locally elected board, is proposing the ROMA as an easier way for lot owners in Northern Golden Gate Estates to meet existing state mitigation requirements when they build homes in wetlands. Read more

 

21-August-03

Dilute to save?
By Malcolm Smith
© The Guardian UK
Taking freshwater out of the Everglades damaged Florida Bay's ecology.  So why not put it back? Malcolm Smith finds the argument is not so simple. Pouring more water into the sea sounds harmless enough. But in Florida Bay, pinioned between the sunshine state's southern tip and the island string of the Florida Keys, a plan to do just that is proving highly controversial. Hammered out over years by an alliance of federal and state water supply and conservation agencies, native American tribes and farmers, the plan - costing $8bn (£5bn) over the next 30 years - will return freshwater to the Everglades, the vast wetlands dominating the south of the state.  Read more

Barrier placed across Rim Canal
© Okeechobee News
Due to the continuing rise in the level of Lake Okeechobee, floating mats of vegetation known as tussocks have formed in Fisheating Bay and have been entering the Rim Canal. Because these tussocks are causing problems for navigation, the Moore Haven lock and spillway and other water control structures, a barrier cable will be placed across the Rim Canal at C-5A on Aug. 22 in order to prevent tussocks from blocking the Rim Canal and entering the lock and spillway. Buoys have been placed on each side of the barrier to warn boaters of the navigation hazard, and will remain in place until conditions improve. Boaters are advised to avoid the barrier by following Moore Haven Canal or McTush Cut to Lake Okeechobee.
Read more

Building moratorium blocked
BY TRAVIS JAMES TRITTEN
© Key West Citizen
A proposed building moratorium to protect Florida Keys' hammocks was defeated Wednesday after three months of county commission consideration. The 3-2 vote was due to lingering concerns that the 30-month building halt would open the county to lawsuits, and fell in line with commissioners' positions in recent months. Commissioners David Rice and George Neugent unsuccessfully pressed fellow commissioners to pass the building halt, while Commissioners Charles "Sonny" McCoy, Dixie Spehar and Murray Nelson opposed it. The moratorium would have temporarily protected the islands' most pristine forests from development. Now some residents fear the rejection could trigger a flood of applications to develop those areas. The commission made some progress during the Key Largo meeting by identifying hammock and upland areas to be protected and outlining some options to pay for the properties.  Read more

Conservationists Prowl the Swamps to Save Crocs
By Peter Standring
 © National Geographic
 

Frank Mazzotti, a wildlife ecologist at the University of Florida, holds an American crocodile in Everglades National Park. Mazzotti recently led the first comprehensive survey of American crocodiles living in South Florida. An increase in the number of the reptiles may be linked to a federal, state, local, and private partnership to protect and restore coastal habitats in the Florida Everglades.
 

A conservation success story is crawling through the swamplands of South Florida, northernmost home of the American crocodile, Crocodylus acutus. The crocodile, whose range extends to Peru, is listed as endangered by U.S. and international wildlife agencies. Thirty years ago, because of hunting and habitat loss, the crocodile population in South Florida had dwindled to less than 400. Now, though, the number is up to 1,000?enough to prompt the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to consider down-listing the crocodile's status to "threatened," according to Britta Muiznieks, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife recovery biologist who specializes in endangered South Florida wildlife. To help preserve the species, Frank Mazzotti and his colleague Mike Cherkiss, wildlife ecologists at the University of Florida in Gainesville, are conducting the longest-running research project and census ever devoted to the American crocodile. Read more

Orphaned panther kittens released in Collier County
By Andrea Stetson 
© Ft. Myers News-Press
Three orphaned panther kittens raised at a conservation center in northern Florida returned to freedom in Collier County on Wednesday evening. The 14-month-old brother and sister pair were released in the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge near the spot where their mother, known as panther No. 78, was killed by a male cat in October 2002. A young female panther was released on private property near the Big Cypress National Preserve close to where her mother was killed by a male panther in January. Kittens usually stay with their mothers until they are 12 to 15 months old, so when their mothers died, the youngsters needed human help. The brother and sister were 6 months old when they were orphaned. The single female was 7 months old. “At that age they would have starved to death, no doubt," said Larry Richardson, a wildlife biologist for the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge.
Read more

Everglades Restoration: Agriculture Affected by South Florida Program?
 © Agriculture Research Magazine

Hydrologist Reza Savabi (right) and hydrologic technician Nicholas Cockshutt monitor soil moisture fluctuations near the Everglades National Park. This investigation is part of improving water management on agricultural areas.  Photo by Ken Konomi.

In 1947, writer and conservationist Marjory Stoneman Douglas called attention to the dangers facing Florida's Everglades in a book called "The Everglades: River of Grass." At that time, many considered this unique natural ecosystem to be a vast swamp of limited value. Now, more than half a century later, the Everglades National Park and adjacent lands are undergoing a Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP). But how will the plan affect the more than 23,000 people directly involved in South Florida agriculture? "Farmers in the area have taken a key role in promoting the need for scientific investigation into the possible impact of the CERP on the sustainability of agriculture in South Florida," says M. Reza Savabi, a hydrologist with the ARS Subtropical Horticulture Research Station in Miami, Florida.  Read more

 

19-August-03

DCA-State Department merger needs Keys input
© Key West Citizen
Have you heard? The state of Florida is considering merging some of its growth management functions, currently carried out by the Department of Community Affairs, into the Department of State. This is an important decision and one that would profoundly affect us here in the Keys. The Keys have been an Area of Critical State Concern since the 1970s, meaning that the Department of Community Affairs must approve every land-use decision made by our local governments. Before taking such a step, state officials wisely decided to hold a series of public meetings, to gather input and help the public learn more about possible changes in the offing. A DCA/DOS press release says the meetings are intended "to gather comments in the areas of historic preservation, cultural arts, libraries, business, elections, economic development and more." Those are all topics of great importance and interest to us here in the Keys. Read more

 

15-August-03

Letter to the Editor:  River should be healthy, but fresh water's poisoned it!
By Edward D. Losch, Palm City
© Stuart News
Salinity in the North Fork of the St. Lucie River has been in the two parts per thousand or lower for the months of June and July thanks to the "temporary" pulse releases from Lake Okeechobee. These low levels do not stress the marine life food chain in the river, they kill it! According to my rain gauge, the rainfall this year to date is 30 inches compared with 32.25 last year and 40.35 inches in 2001. June to July total is 14 inches vs. 19.85 and 22.25. With below-normal rainfall, the North Fork should be brackish to salty this time of the year - just right for marine life and the predators that feed on it. Instead, we have a river poisoned by the polluted fresh water from Big O.  Read more

 

14-August-03

Letter to the Editor: Senators' strings would tie Everglades plan up in knots
By David B. Struhs, Secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection
© Palm Beach Post
The Post's editorial "Short Everglades leash" (July 26) is based on a false premise. Despite The Post's reports, Congress is not withholding money from Florida for restoration of the Everglades. Florida never was going to receive a check from the federal government for the project. If Florida's senators attach strings to federal financing, it only will further restrict the participation of the federal government in the historic effort to return a more natural flow of water to the famed "river of grass." Since 2000, Florida has committed more than $2 billion, including $791 million invested and $1.6 billion in bonds and cash, through the end of the decade. The federal government has contributed 14 percent of that amount, specifically to finance the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan.  Read more

Changes vowed as releases continued
By Suzanne Wentley
© Stuart News
Heavy rains mean the low-level "pulse-style" releases from Lake Okeechobee into the St. Lucie Estuary will continue for at least the next 20 to 30 days, state water managers said on Wednesday. But the governing board of the South Florida Water Management District also agreed to begin taking a broader view of Lake Okeechobee issues, analyzing the state's entire system of lakes and rivers before making future release decisions. That new emphasis pleased St. Lucie River advocates. Tommy Strowd, director of water operations with the district, told the board the lakes around Orlando have overflowed into the Kissimmee River, adding to a bloated Lake Okeechobee, which on Wednesday rose to 15.74 feet above sea level.  Read more

State rejects Palm Beach County growth projections
By Joel Engelhardt
© Palm Beach Post
The state rejected Palm Beach County's low-ball approach to projecting population growth, dealing the controversial method a potentially lethal blow. However, the state offered the county another way around its quandary of how to plan for a quarter of a million people who seemingly just won't fit. The state's decision pleased builders and the Palm Beach County League of Cities, which argued the county's model would have left the county unprepared for future growth. The state echoed many of the builders' central concerns in its July 28 report. But for the first time, a state Department of Community Affairs official said the county doesn't have to rely on population projections when it determines how much development can occur.  Read more

Families in East Bonita could be forced from their homes
Eminent domain allows government to force home- and property owners to sell because the sale is considered to be in the public interest
By Chad Gillis
© Naples Daily News
Governing board members overseeing the state's top water authority agreed Wednesday to use eminent domain if necessary to remove more than a dozen families living in rural eastern Bonita Springs. The South Florida Water Management District's board voted unanimously to file condemnation papers for the homes, though board members said they hope they don't have to use that legal power. The homes are east of Interstate 75 in what the district calls Southern CREW, or Corkscrew Regional Ecosystem Watershed, and what the residents who live in the community call East Bonita. After winning a court case in Fort Myers and later an appeal, district officials are a few steps away from legally sealing the fate of East Bonita residents. Wednesday was the first time the governing board approved the use of condemnation.  Read more

FPL looks to build fifth plant in S. Dade
Site near sensitive wetlands expected to generate debate
By Gregg Fields
© The Miami Herald
Florida Power & Light is exploring a new natural gas-powered electric plant at its Turkey Point site in South Miami-Dade, which the company says is necessary to illuminate a growing South Florida. With its proximity to two national parks, the effort is likely to generate controversy with some environmental and community groups, although officials of nearby Homestead eagerly embraced the idea. The proposed Turkey Point expansion would generate 1,100 megawatts of power, roughly enough to serve 230,000 homes and businesses. FPL is also exploring whether it would be more cost-effective to buy the power from elsewhere and is requesting proposals from potential suppliers. For that reason, it could abandon the idea altogether.  Read more

Letter to the Editor: Water managers could opt to protect estuaries, lake
By Paul Parks, Lake Okeechobee Project Director of the Florida Wildlife Federation, Crawfordville
© Stuart News
Reference your reporter Suzanne Wentley's "Crisis below the surface — Releases dangerously dilute estuary's precious salinity," published in the Aug. 3 News: With water too deep, the unthinkable could happen to the Lake Okeechobee dike. A breech would be catastrophic for those who live in its shadow. When depth threatens the dike, water managers have no choice but to dump water to the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee estuaries.  Read more

Lake O releases could imperil St. Lucie River
By Libby Wells
© Palm Beach Post
The St. Lucie River is 3 inches from déjà vu. In the winter of 1998, El Nino rains raised Lake Okeechobee to almost 18 feet, forcing water managers to make heavy discharges to the delicate estuary. The high volume of fresh water was devastating to the brackish St. Lucie. Fish broke out in lesions and died. Gobs of organic muck settled on the river bed, killing plants and robbing crabs, oysters and other bottom-dwellers of oxygen. Less than six years later, Lake Okeechobee is one hard rain away from a similar scenario. Weather forecasters predicted at least 3 inches would fall Wednesday evening south of the lake. But if fickle Mother Nature changes her mind and heads north over the Kissimmee River basin, big Lake O could rise to 16 feet and the winter of 1998 could be the summer's worst rerun.  Read more

 

13-August-03

Farm lease renewal worries activists
By Linda Kleindienst
© Sun-Sentinel
TALLAHASSEE· Without discussion, debate or public testimony, Gov. Jeb Bush and his cabinet on Tuesday gave a Belle Glade farmer a 15-year extension on his lease to grow crops on almost 6,000 acres of state land in the Everglades Agriculture Area -- even though environmentalists protested the move. David Struhs, secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection, said the state had no recourse but to approve extending the lease for vegetable grower A. Duda and Sons until 2018 because it was specifically provided for in the 1994 Everglades Forever Act. But Audubon of Florida had hoped the state could at least require tougher cleanup measures in the new lease, since that area releases some of the highest phosphorus pollution concentrations in the region. Too much phosphorus, which is discharged from the fertilizer used by agricultural interests, can threaten native vegetation and choke the Everglades' delicate ecosystem.  Read more

Florida leads country in migration for third straight decade
By Robin Benedick and John Maines
© Sun-Sentinel

Clinton James, of Brothers Moving and Storage, packs up an apartment in Fort Lauderdale for residents who are moving to Atlanta. Georgia is the No. 1 destination for people moving out of Florida. (Sun-Sentinel/Mike Stocker)

The moving vans are still heading to Florida in droves, and, for the third decade in a row, the Sunshine State is the nation's No. 1 destination. Especially for New Yorkers and foreign immigrants. Almost 1.9 million people from around the country moved to Florida between 1995 and 2000, about 300,000 fewer than the previous decade, according to newly released census data. That trend of slower domestic growth appears likely to continue as less-crowded states lure more potential residents. But Florida's population will continue swelling, demographers say, because a quarter of the state's newcomers come from other countries.  Read more

Conservancy fights slough plan
Land uses, wetlands concern area group
By Alison Kepner
© Ft. Myers News-Press
The Conservancy of Southwest Florida is challenging the city of Fort Myers’ comprehensive plan amendment that allows developers to build up to three homes per acre in the environmentally sensitive Six Mile Cypress Slough basin. The Conservancy filed a petition with the State Department of Community Affairs on Friday asking for an administrative hearing. In the eight-page petition, it argues the amendment doesn’t properly consider land uses or protect wetlands. Before the city annexed the land, the county allowed one house per acre. The city’s plan lacks environmental analysis and is inconsistent with the state’s comprehensive plan, said Conservancy Environmental Policy Director Gary Davis.  Read more

Florida soft on enforcing pollution laws
State disputes conclusions
By Curtis Morgan
© The Miami Herald
In the past decade, Florida's environmental enforcer has gone soft, according to one group's analysis of enforcement records released Tuesday. While the number of cases has remained fairly steady, the report by the Florida Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility argues that state regulators have increasingly shied away from the toughest punishments involving lawsuits to pursue resolutions more friendly, and less expensive, to big businesses and industry. ''They go after small-time operators but let the big corporations off the hook,'' said Jerry Phillips, Florida director of the environmental group, who examined all enforcement records from the Department of Environmental Protection back to 1991.  Read more

Bush's OK of farm lease angers environmentalists
By Libby Wells
© Palm Beach Post
Gov. Jeb Bush and the Cabinet on Tuesday hurriedly approved a 15-year lease extension for a farm that environmentalists say is releasing so much pollution it could hamper the restoration of the Everglades. The lease allows A. Duda & Sons to farm 5,765 publicly owned acres within the 500,000-acre Everglades Agricultural Area until 2018. The company uses the tract southeast of Lake Okeechobee in Palm Beach County to grow vegetables, which require more phosphorus than other crops, including sugar cane. Phosphorus is harmful to wildlife and native plants. Environmentalists say runoff from the Duda farm contains 200 parts per billion of the pollutant, 20 times more than the 10 parts per billion that scientists say the fragile Everglades can absorb.  Read more

 

12-August-03

Phosphorus over-polluted Hendry water
County failed limit in agricultural area
By Pamela Hayford-Smith
© Ft. Myers News-Press
A 170,000-acre agricultural region of Hendry County failed to meet pollution limits over the past year, letting 77.3 tons of phosphorus run off the land in stormwater that eventually flowed into the Everglades, according to a South Florida Water Management District report. That’s seven tons more than the historic yearly average the so-called C-139 Basin was required to meet this year. “It’s pretty significant,” said April Gromnicki, Everglades policy director for Audubon of Florida. The 2003 water year — May 1, 2002, to April 30, 2003 — was the first year the region’s agricultural lands were required to meet the limit, set by an Everglades Forever Act amendment in 2002.  Read more

170,000 acres of Hendry County farmland fail to meet Everglades cleanup requirement
By Neil Santaniello
© Sun-Sentinel
A 170,000-acre swath of cow and crop-covered land has failed to meet its first year Everglades cleanup requirement, water managers said Monday. The area in Hendry County -- west of Clewiston and known locally as Devil's Garden -- released 77.3 tons of phosphorus for the year ending April 30, the South Florida Water Management District said. That's about 7 tons, or 10 percent, above the mandated limit. The land southwest of Lake Okeechobee is dominated by cattle-grazing pasture but includes sugar cane, citrus and vegetable fields. Among the growers there are southern Palm Beach County's Thomas Produce and Pero Family Farms, a University of Florida agricultural extension agent said. Altogether, farmers and ranchers hold 24 Everglades cleanup permits issued by water managers, which require them to reduce polluted runoff from their fields. Cleanup results were better next door at the 500,000-acre Everglades Agricultural Area, which stretches through Clewiston, South Bay and Canal Point and points south.  Read more

Do better for Everglades
Editorial
© Palm Beach Post
It's been a rough year for Everglades restoration. Gov. Bush and the Cabinet can make it a little rougher or a little easier. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection has recommended that the governor and Cabinet -- Attorney General Charlie Crist, Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson and Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher -- extend for 15 years A. Duda & Sons' lease to farm nearly 6,000 acres of public land south of Belle Glade. With the vote set for today in Tallahassee, Audubon of Florida wants the state to take a second look, and the group makes a strong case.  Read more

Bush Nominates Utah Governor to Lead E.P.A.
By Katharine Q. Seelye
© New York Times
WASHINGTON, Aug. 11 - President Bush today nominated Gov. Michael O. Leavitt, the three-term Republican governor of Utah, as the new administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, tapping a veteran of the West's volatile land use debates. A person close to the administration said the selection of a Westerner - in tune philosophically with Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney - suggested the White House had "given up a little bit on the Eastern-industrial-urban-environmental base."  Read more

Big Cypress restrictions necessary
Off-road vehicles causing too much damage to land
Editorial
© Ft. Myers News-Press
It’s sad when freedom contracts, especially when it does so for people in an area they helped set aside for their recreation. But that’s the situation with the operators of swamp buggies and other off-road vehicles in the Big Cypress National Preserve east of Naples. The time has come to accept that new restrictions on swamp buggies in the Big Cypress are reasonable and inevitable, and to press ahead with their enforcement. We have waited long enough to start protecting this great natural resource.  Read more

Florida Straits a rainbow coalition
Study shows its marine life among the most diverse in Atlantic Ocean
By Michael Vasquez
© The Miami Herald
South Florida's diversity, it seems, doesn't stop at the shoreline -- or even with people. A scientific study to be released today says marine life in the Florida Straits -- which separate Miami from Cuba and the Bahamas -- is an eclectic mix all its own, a mix so rich and varied it qualifies as the most diverse in the whole Atlantic Ocean. The study, conducted by the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Applied Biodiversity Science at Conservation International, also credits the Straits with having the Atlantic's highest number of species found nowhere else in the world, more than two dozen.  Read more

Plan to restore Lake Okeechobee Ridge Park shoreline
By Suzanne Wentley
© Stuart News
PORT MAYACA — Martin County planners have begun work to restore one of the last pieces of Lake Okeechobee's original shoreline from sugar cane fields back to its native habitat. Gina Paduano, Martin County's environmental lands administrator, said a consultant will soon be on board to start restoring the historic water levels at Lake Okeechobee Ridge Park, a 245-acre county preserve stretching five miles north of Port Mayaca along the east side of U.S. 441. Then, contractors will replace the sugar cane fields -— which are found about 200 feet in from the highway — with plants found in the narrow park, such as cypress and hackberry trees.  Read more

Letter to the Editor: Grass-roots push needed to clean up Everglades
By Harry Wells
© Stuart News
Stop blaming the wrong people for the Everglades cleanup fiasco. It's not SFWMD (South Florida's Weapon of Mass Destruction) or the DEP (Don't Expect Protection) or the Army Corps of Engineers (armies are supposed to break things). They are just a collection of feckless bureaucrats looking forward to double-dipping early retirement. It's as simple as Government 101. Elected officials make the rules and hire the fools. The especially sympathetic hires are placed as liaisons, acting as does the sweet lady at the complaint window. Don't trust them! Elected officials just love it when we engage the fools instead of them.  Read more

 

11-August-03

The Urgent Need To Reform Federal Flood Insurance
Editorial
© Tampa Tribune
The nation's flood insurance policies waste tax dollars and encourage irresponsible development. They desperately needed reform. The insurance's liberal rules allow property owners in flood-prone areas to repeatedly make claims. Consider this: Owners of a Houston house received $806,591 over 18 years. The house was valued at only $114,480. Or consider the findings of the Tribune's Jo-Ann Johnston and Kirsten B. Mitchell of the Media General News Service. They report that repeatedly flooded properties account for about 1 percent of the 4.4 million policies in effect under the National Flood Insurance Program. Yet those repeat offender consume almost 40 percent of the claims paid out. Payments on claims from such flood-prone properties have averaged $250 million a year for the past decade.  Read more

Restoration of meandering Kissimmee River falls years behind schedule
By Neil Santaniello
© Sun-Sentinel

This flourishing flood plain marsh is one direct result of the Kissimmee River restoration project.
(Sun-Sentinel/Scott Fisher)

Along U.S. 98 near Basinger, you can see evidence the river is coming: On a 1.5-mile stretch about 20 miles north of Lake Okeechobee, for example, where dust-raising trucks and crews are building a squat bridge for it to slip below. And in the moss-draped oak shade of a trailer park named Hidden Acres Estates just up the road, where workers are lifting mobile homes onto concrete blocks. Two years after South Florida water managers and the Army Corps of Engineers filled 7.5 miles of canal to put some meander back into the historically circuitous Kissimmee River, work to extend that restoration is meandering itself, a key scientist says. "I'm honestly getting more and more discouraged as the days go by," Lou Toth, a chief scientist for the South Florida Water Management District said about the $600 million project. "We should be further along than we are right now."  Read more

Guess who's leading in the Great Migration Contest?
By Robert Trigaux
© St. Petersburg Times
Forget the outdated Sunshine State name. Florida should be called the Migration Magnet State. Census numbers unveiled last week show how Florida, between 1995 and 2000,
by a wide margin enjoyed the largest net population gain - 607,000 people -  from "domestic migration," or people moving from other states. Florida's net increase was almost twice the gain of No. 2 Georgia (341,000), No. 3 North Carolina (338,000) or No. 4 Arizona (316,000), and more than 21/2 times that of No. 5 Nevada (234,000).  Read more

How the 'Radicals' Can Save the Democrats
By Sam Tanenhaus
© New York Times
TARRYTOWN, N.Y. - A battle for the soul of the Democratic Party has broken out, pitting a predominantly liberal field of presidential hopefuls against moderate party leaders and political strategists. While Howard Dean and John Kerry have been stirring up crowds plainly eager to have at President Bush, Democratic officials have been trying to tamp the fervor down, warning that "extremists" will take the party back to the dark ages of 1972 and 1984.  Read more

 

10-August-03

Water manager dives into job
The new Martin-St. Lucie Water Management leader has an open-door policy in her busy job dealing with river advocates, local governments and the public.
By Suzanne Wentley
© Stuart News
Her first week on the job, Karen Smith didn't have any time to enjoy the view from her office window overlooking the St. Lucie River. Her phone was ringing off the hook. "I'm ready to jump into the thick of things, but I think I'm already there," laughed Smith, the new director of the South Florida Water Management District's Martin-St. Lucie Service Center. Not that Smith isn't prepared for the post -- the Treasure Coast's most accessible and influential connection to the water managers who control the health of local waterways as well as flood protection and water supply.  Read more

Stop the next melaleuca
Editorial
© Palm Beach Post
Florida spends more than $29 million a year to remove out-of-control exotic trees and vines that are choking out native plants and ruining wilderness areas. So a businessman's wish to plant 8,000 acres of invasive giant reed, a bamboolike grass, near Lake Okeechobee should alarm state regulators enough to stop him. The entrepreneur wants the fast-growing grass to fuel a power plant that supplies electricity to Jacksonville. He touts it as clean-burning, renewable energy. But giant reed has been an ecological disaster in California, where the woody-stemmed, 20-foot grass sucks up water, spreads fires, wipes out native habitat and costs millions of dollars to kill. Doesn't Jacksonville have another way to get power?  Read more

North has it, South wants it
Florida water flows bountifully far from its thirstiest corners. Business leaders would see it rerouted, for cash.
By Craig Pittman and Julie Hauserman
© St. Petersburg Times
Some of Florida's most influential business leaders have spent the past year meeting behind closed doors to divvy up the state's water supply. Developers, agriculture executives and sugar growers - all with their own interests to protect - have been meeting at the behest of the governor's chief fundraiser to craft new water policies for Florida.  Read more

 

09-August-03

Plan Would Put Growth To A Vote
By Mike Salinero
© Tampa Tribune
TALLAHASSEE - The Sierra Club will mobilize its 30,000 Florida members to support a proposed constitutional amendment that would require voter approval of changes to local growth plans. Sierra is the largest of a host of state environmental groups that have lined up behind the amendment. The ballot initiative is the brainchild of Sierra Club lawyer Lesley Blackner of West Palm Beach and Ross Burnaman, a Tallahassee attorney and former state employee. The state requires local governments to have comprehensive plans to guide growth and limit sprawl. But the plans are amended at the whim of developers and their allies on city and county commissions, said Bill Jones, a member of Sierra's urban sprawl committee.  Read more

What A Difference Some Rain Makes
By Neil Johnson
© Tampa Tribune
TAMPA - Like a bucket filled to the brim, the ground, rivers and lakes have no room for more rain, especially the deluge that would come with a tropical storm or hurricane. Even with July producing only about half the normal rainfall at Tampa International Airport, it's been a rainy summer so far. That's especially true in areas north of Tampa Bay, such as the Withlacoochee River in Citrus County, where flooding threatens a small subdivision and the county commission declared a state of emergency. The length of the river, which flows north from the Green Swamp in northern Polk to the Gulf in Levy County, is near or above flood stage with possibly as much as 5 inches more rain expected through today. Conditions are not as sodden for rivers in Hillsborough.  Read more

Lee seeks ways to stem Okeechobee freshwater releases
By Chad Gillis
© Naples News
More than 2.5 million gallons of water were flowing down the Caloosahatchee River very minute when Lee County commissioners decided last week to take another stab at stifling freshwater releases from Lake Okeechobee. Although about half of that flow came from run-off within the basin, commissioners want water management agencies to lower the flows coming from the east. It's been more than three years since the county tried to halt excessive water flows through a court order. They lost that battle, and the judge ruled that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and South Florida Water Management District were operating within the laws and regulations.  Read more

Griffin family ends fued with settlement
Ben Hill Griffin III to give control of Alico Inc. to sisters
By Laura Ruane
© Ft. Myers News Press
The settlement of a family feud this week in central Florida will pull Ben Hill Griffin III away from control of Alico Inc., the agribusiness and landowner closely affiliated with Florida Gulf Coast University. However, people involved with Alico in Southwest Florida don’t believe much will change here when Griffin’s sisters formally acquire controlling interest in the company. According to reports published this week in The Ledger of Lakeland, the children and heirs of citrus baron Ben Hill Griffin Jr. reached a settlement Wednesday resolving legal issues connected with his estate.  Read more

Letter to the editor: Start land-preservation push with Pond Cypress Preserve
By JoAnn Miner
© Palm Beach Post
The Palm Beach County commissioners deserve applause. According to the article "Commissioners move to protect land purchases" (July 23), some of them are beginning to share residents' worries that natural lands will not be preserved for future generations. During the past year, there has been a lot of talk about how Palm Beach County will change by 2025. While there are many unknowns, it is certain that there will be many more homes, apartments, stores, businesses, cars, trucks, traffic problems and sprawl. What will be in short supply will be natural areas. This county has a program to buy and preserve environmentally sensitive lands for all to enjoy "in perpetuity." We only need the wisdom and the laws to ensure that these priceless jewels cannot be traded for short-term fixes.  Read more

Lieberman 'troubled' by Everglades' handling
By Larry Lipman, Washington Bureau
© Palm Beach Post
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Joe Lieberman, presidential hopeful and a ranking member of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, has called on three federal agencies to respond to criticisms that they are failing to protect the western Everglades' endangered species, resources and wetlands. "I am extremely troubled by the assertions that the corps of engineers and other federal regulatory agencies have failed to fulfill their statutory mandates, thereby endangering a valuable national resource," the Connecticut Democrat said Friday.  Read more

Lieberman laments 'potentially costly' development practices in Southwest Florida
By Eric Staats
© Naples News
The big question in Southwest Florida for months has been the fate of a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers document that would put a closer eye to applications for wetlands destruction in Collier and Lee counties. Now someone is asking the same question and more — and he's a U.S. senator from Connecticut. Democrat Joseph Lieberman, ranking member of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, sent long letters Thursday, asking top officials at the Army Corps, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Environmental Protection Agency to explain their agencies' track records on permitting wetlands loss on the western side of the Everglades.  Read more

Federal magistrate upholds limits on off-road vehicles in Big Cypress
By David Fleshler
© Sun-Sentinel
A federal magistrate has upheld restrictions on swamp buggies, airboats and other off-road vehicles at Big Cypress National Preserve, angering hunters who say they need the vehicles to penetrate remote wilderness in pursuit of deer and hogs. U.S. Magistrate Douglas Frazier found that the vehicles -- often mounted on tractor tires -- had carved thousands of miles of trails into the preserve, harming habitat for panthers and other endangered species. He rejected hunters' claims that the National Park Service failed to consider sufficient alternatives or that it had shut the public out of the decision-making process.  Read more

As expected, lobster season starts slowly
Commercial divers are being targeted for illegal activity
By Kevin Wadlow
© Florida Keys Keynoter
Lobster season arrived Wednesday on a sea of high hopes and new laws. "It’s been a little slow," said veteran commercial fisherman Gary Nichols after the first two days of trap pulls. "Actually, it’s been a lot slow. "I’ve heard guys on the radio, from Marathon to Key Largo, crying the blues," said Nichols. "Who knows, by this time next week, we could be slammin’ them. After the last few years, we’re due for something good." With the recent hot weather and the August full moon not arriving until this week, lobster may be sluggish. The modest start was predictable, Nichols said. "After the traps get more time to soak, I’m pretty confident things will pick up next week," he said. "That will be the tell-tale sign for the season."  Read more

 

08-August-03

Deal with growth issues now, rather than depending on buildout
Editorial
© Key West Citizen
Buildout. For years Key West leaders have underplayed growth problems in Key West: We're practically at buildout, we don't need to worry so much about growth issues. And still they build. Next up is a 101-room hotel at the Key West Bight where Jabour's campground currently stands. The courts gave those building rights to developers based on development plans made before city law prohibited certain types of building. This "vested" concept means Key West still has transient rental and dwelling units out there to build, even if Rate Of Growth Ordinance building rights are virtually gone.  Read more

Increase the protection afforded to the endangered Florida panter
CORPS NOTICE
The Jacksonville District, Regulatory Division, has posted a public notice to our internet home page http://www.saj.usace.army.mil/permit/index.html. There are several options below, so be sure to read the whole page before clicking an option. Note:  To forward comments directly to the Project Manager, please make sure you choose option 2: Public Notice  :  Implementation of a Panther Key & Proposed Additional Regional Condition to Nationwide Permits 12, 14, 39 & 40  Expiration Date:  September 7, 2003

Construction permits sought
Developer gears up for Ave Marie University project
By Joan D. Laguardia
© Ft. Myers News Press
About $300 million in buildings, roads and water systems for Ave Maria University and its companion town will be the first major project under Collier County’s new development regulations for land east of Interstate 75. Barron Collier Companies of Naples applied Thursday for a permit for about 1 million square feet of buildings in the first phase of the new Roman Catholic university and the town. “It was an important milestone for us,” said the Rev. Joseph Fessio, Ave Maria’s chancellor. The project on 960 acres south of Immokalee includes a large church that will link the campus and town. It will be in the town core, which will function like a town square. The application also covers a commercial town center.
Read more

Experts improve plan for Everglades muck removal
By Suzanne Wentley
© Sun Sentinel
After 2 1/2 years of studying muck at the bottom of the St. Lucie River, scientists say they have found a better way to dig out the seagrass-smothering gunk in the $1 billion Everglades restoration effort. Kevin Henderson, executive director of the St. Lucie River Initiative, has proposed an alternative to current muck removal plans. Henderson's idea would cost $21.5 million less and remove 2.4 million more cubic yards of the slimy mud, he said. "If there's one thing to do in a hurry to clean up the river, it's to get the muck out," he said.  Read more

Letter to the Editor: Sugar firms trying to deflect attention from a PR disaster
By Alan Farago, Everglades Chair, Sierra Club Florida Chapter, Coral Gables
© Palm Beach Post
I never have met Robert Coker, the U.S. Sugar vice-president who wrote in The Post that environmentalists want to sabotage Everglades restoration in Congress ("Environmentalists' enemy is sugar, not lawmakers," July 29). But the idea that environmentalists can dictate policy to Republican leadership is hilarious. Sugar needs a bogeyman to deflect attention from a public relations disaster of its own making. In just the past year, sugar wrote state legislation that has thrown Congress into an uproar, embarrassed Gov. Bush and earned the enmity of every newspaper editorial board in the state; impugned the reputation of one of the most respected federal judges in Florida; and fought its own workers in court for complaining of poor pay practices.  Read more

Florida to press issues at trade conference
By Susan Salisbury
© Palm Beach Post
When negotiators from 146 nations convene at the World Trade Organization's Fifth Ministerial Conference in Cancun, Mexico, next month, Florida will be there in full force. Florida's citrus, sugar and vegetable industries, as well as Florida FTAA Inc. -- the group aiming to make Miami the headquarters for the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas pact -- will be jockeying for the time and ears of the WTO delegates. The purpose of the ministerial meeting, the first held in two years as part of the WTO's Doha Development Agenda, is to open markets to help promote growth and development, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick said July 30 in a speech in Montreal.  Read more

Everglades future
© Ft. Myers News Press
Reporter Betsy Clayton and photographer Clint Krause describe issues
surrounding Everglades restoration in award-winning project by The News-
Press.  Includes Photo gallery, Interactive maps, Sounds of the ‘Glades, Interviews with Clayton, Krause http://www.news-press.com/special_sections/everglades/body.htm
(Requires Macromedia Flash Player 6)

Sunshine State Waterfowl Areas
Throughout the Florida peninsula, there are a number of tracts of public land set aside for waterfowling hunting. Why not consider these places for your next duck hunt?
By Sally Aptel
© Florida Game and Fish Magazine
Florida is covered with vast areas of excellent waterfowl habitat, and during winter migration huge numbers of ducks flock to the state. What this means to hunters is that there are ample opportunities to hunt waterfowl all over the Sunshine State, and an excellent chance for bagging a duck or two for their efforts. Generally speaking, waterfowl hunting is permitted on any body of water that has public access - unless it's closed for some specific reason such as being in a park or in an area where shooting guns is prohibited. It's always best to check with local law enforcement agencies before setting out to hunt an area you are unsure about.  Read more

Groups challenge 'Glades phosphorus cleanup plan
By Neil Santaniello
© Sun-Sentinel
The fight for clean water in the Everglades took a significant turn Thursday with the filing of at least four legal challenges to the state's proposed phosphorus cleanup rule. The attacks came from all directions: environmental groups, the Everglades-dwelling Miccosukee tribe and the sugar industry. All expressed deep dissatisfaction with a complex -- critics say muddled -- Everglades water quality standard crafted one month ago by Florida's Environmental Regulation Commission. Environmentalists argue that the July 8 rule is vaguely written, goes beyond state legislative mandates and is open to an array of interpretations. That adds up to no real protection for the Everglades, they contend. "Clearly, the ERC was given one small task, to draw up a rule that would be protective of the flora and fauna of the Everglades, and they just couldn't do it," said Dave Reiner, president of Friends of the Everglades, which filed one of the challenges.  Read more

Washington Consensus-1 How free is free trade?
By A K N Ahmed
© The Daily Star
The so-called Washington Consensus has four key elements. They are: Free trade, free market, democracy, and development. These ideas are sponsored by G7 countries and detailed programmes are administered mainly by the IMF and the World Bank. In this series of four brief write-ups, to be published on four consecutive Fridays, starting today, these four main elements are discussed for the readers. One key element of Washington Consensus is free trade. This is being preached to other countries by successive American Presidents, including President George W Bush himself, take for example, President Bush's recent Coast Guard Academy commencement address. In it he charged that the refusal of European Union to certify import of new strains of genetically modified crops had a moratorium on such crops, thus discouraging African nations from adopting and benefiting from them. Earlier in March 2003 US trade representative Robert B Zollick was less delicate when he suggested in a speech that Mr. Bush's opponents of corporate-led globalisation might have intellectual connection with terrorists.  Read more

 

07-August-03

MICCOSUKEE TRIBE WANTS ANTI-EVERGLADES RULE DECLARED INVALID
Says ERC Rule Will Allow Everglades Pollution and Destruction to Continue
Press Release
Today, the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians, whose members have lived in the Florida Everglades for generations and struggle to protect it, filed a Petition with the state's Division of Administrative Hearings asking that the phosphorus Rule adopted by the Department of Environmental Protection's (DEP's)  Environmental Regulation Commission (ERC) on July 8th be declared invalid.  The Tribe says the ERC Rule will allow the Everglades to continue to be destroyed by phosphorous pollution and is asking for an evidentiary hearing to prove it.  Read more

Army Corps official's retirement delays Environmental Impact Statement
By Chad Gillis
© Naples News
The adoption of a federal document designed to protect wetland systems from falling prey to urban sprawl and preserve the quality of Southwest Florida waters has again been delayed. Officials with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers toured the region last month, promising to sign and release an adopted version of what's called the Environmental Impact Statement. The plan, they said at the time, was to have Col. James May sign the final version in late July and release the adopted document to the public in early August.  Read more

Ex-senators: Tax spares too many
By Michael Sandler
© St. Petersburg Times
ST. PETERSBURG - Why do people pay taxes on a movie ticket but not on an exotic dance? That's a question John McKay wants answered. The former Senate president from Bradenton, teamed with former state Sen. Jack Latvala of Palm Harbor, kicked off an effort Wednesday for a constitutional amendment to force lawmakers to publicly justify hundreds of sales tax exemptions. "Simply said, the sales tax is not in synch with our economy," McKay told the Suncoast Tiger Bay Club. The two former Republican legislators failed to persuade their colleagues to support an ambitious plan to eliminate about $1-billion in tax exemptions. Now they want an amendment on the ballot next year that would require a periodic review of every sales tax exemption. They want them looked at one by one. They want every legislator to stand up and say he supports or opposes them, from exemptions for charter fishing trips to lap dances.  Read more

The Profits of Wildlife Viewing
Editorial
© Tampa Tribune
Most people don't associate wildlife with the economy. Indeed, some interests decry the delays and costs that wildlife protections represent. But there is another side to the equation. Florida's wildlife contributes significantly to its economy. According to a study conducted for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, in 2001 more than 3.2 million wildlife watchers spent as much as $1.6 billion on food, lodging and equipment in Florida. The amount spent on wildlife watching in Florida in 2001 was five times larger than the tolls collected by the Florida Turnpike System and twice as much as the value of the state's annual orange crop harvest, which was $786 million in 2001.  Read more

State threatens St. Lucie County
By Teresa Lane
© Palm Beach Post
FORT PIERCE -- State environmental regulators have threatened St. Lucie County officials with fines up to $10,000 daily for failing to adequately monitor groundwater quality near the county landfill, citing years of tests that showed above-normal levels of elements such as sodium and iron in one section of the landfill. Because there are no public or private drinking wells near the landfill's northeast section, regulators say there is no immediate health threat from the plume, but they want to know how far it's traveling. The state wants the county to check beyond the landfill for contamination.  Read more

Groups ask judge to block new Everglades phosphorus rule
Associated Press
© St. Petersburg Times
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. The Miccosukee Tribe and environmental groups asked a judge Thursday to block a state rule that aims to limit destructive phosphorous in the Everglades, saying the guidelines instead make way for more pollution. The Miccosukees, whose members have lived in the Everglades for generations, and the environmental groups asked an administrative law judge to invalidate the rule, which was set by the state Environmental Regulation Commission last month. The rule, considered a key part of the cleanup of the massive ecosystem, spells out how much phosphorous is acceptable in the water flowing into the Everglades watershed from surrounding farms and suburbs. The chemical is commonly found in fertilizers.  Read more

 

06-August-03

Experts: Negotiate sugar-trade issues at WTO
By Susan Salisbury
© Palm Beach Post
Regional and bilateral trade agreements threaten the American sugar industry's existence, and trade issues involving the industry must be handled at the World Trade Organization level, elected officials and industry experts told attendees at the 20th International Sweetener Symposium. Florida sugar industry officials are among 350 participants gathered in Blaine, Wash., for a three-day conference sponsored by the American Sugar Alliance that ends today. Carolyn Cheney, Washington D.C.-based representative of the Belle Glade-based Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida, said Tuesday in a phone interview that the industry is worried about what could happen if the Bush administration completes the free-trade agreements currently being negotiated with a variety of countries around the world.
Read more

Reed project tangled in controversy
By Robert P. King
© Palm Beach Post
The tough, towering grass that tormented Jesus' darkest hours, helped Benny Goodman make music and devoured large parts of California is set for a big foothold in Florida. A Gulf Breeze entrepreneur says he intends to start planting 8,000 acres of the bamboo-like grass, known as giant reed, somewhere northwest of Lake Okeechobee by the end of the year. Swiftly reaching heights exceeding 20 feet, the grass would become fuel for a power plant supplying electricity to Jacksonville. That is, unless the state heeds some ecologists' calls to prevent it.  Read more

South Florida Water Management District names Smith chief of regional center
By Suzanne Wentley
© Stuart News
STUART — Top water management officials on Tuesday named Karen Smith, an
environmental scientist and planner who lives on the St. Lucie River, as permanent director of the Martin/St. Lucie Service Center. Smith, 45, has served as interim director of the local office of the South Florida Water Management District since April, when Paul Millar left the post. Millar resigned after being arrested in Brevard County on a prostitution-related charge. That charge was dropped on July 23 for lack of sufficient evidence, the Brevard State Attorney's Office said Tuesday. Smith said Tuesday she has "some big shoes to fill," but top officials at the agency said it helps that Smith has lived in the area for a year and has a variety of experience with local water management issues.  Read more

IG Investigates Whether EPA Misled Public on Water Quality
Agency Audits Suggest Reports Overstated Utilities' Record
By Guy Gugliotta
© Washington Post
The Environmental Protection Agency's inspector general is investigating whether the agency is deliberately misleading the public by overstating the purity of the nation's drinking water, according to EPA officials and agency documents. The inquiry was launched June 18, five days before then-EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman released the "Draft Report on the Environment," which stated that "94 percent of the population served by community water systems were served by systems that met all health-based standards." Internal agency documents, however, show that EPA audits for at least five years have suggested that the percentage of the population with safe drinking water is much lower -- 79 to 84 percent in 2002 -- putting an additional 30 million Americans at potential risk.  Read more

A politically connected industry devastates the Everglades
By Ted Levin
© E/ The Environmental Magazine
Staining an otherwise cerulean sky, oily black smoke billows a mile high from more than half a dozen fires south of Lake Okeechobee. You can see the smoke from West Palm Beach, like the exhalations of detonated bombs. It is eerily quiet. From the highway around the lake, from the outskirts of towns such as Canal Point, Moore Haven and Harlem, where they hold the Miss Brown Sugar Contest, sugarcane runs to the horizon, a ghostly replacement of what was once sawgrass marshes. Flames rush through patches of cane, burning off extraneous tassels and blades, leaving only the sucrose-rich stalks. You can hear the fires cackle from the streets of Clewiston, “America’s Sweetest Town.” Since 1931, it has been home to the U.S. Sugar Corporation, one of the oldest and largest players in the sugar industry, an industry that survives on our insatiable appetite for things sweet and on political largesse. It is in fact the industry that dictated the direction of the $8 billion Everglades restoration project.  Read more

 

05-August-03

Red Tide Bloom Back At Southwest Florida Beaches
Associated Press
© Tampa Tribune
LIDO KEY, Fla. (AP) - Schools of rotting fish are fouling southwest Florida beaches again, the result of the same red tide that's been plaguing the area since February. There's always some red tide in Gulf waters, usually at low concentrations. But sometimes the single-celled algae bloom massively. That has been the case most of this year, with the red tide paying beach visits from Naples to Pinellas County when the wind is right. On Longboat Key, crews picked up dead fish for five hours Tuesday. Over the weekend, workers used a machine to rake up dead fish on the public beaches in Venice, and on Siesta Key rotting fish chased snorkelers out of the water while an acrid smell hung in the air.  Read more

Sea urchins infest near-shore reefs
They move slowly, strip everything bare and make the area unattractive for fish, crabs and other species
By Suzanne Wentley
© Stuart News
BATHTUB REEF BEACH -- While studying the worm rock reefs on southern Hutchinson Island during the last year, local biologist Dan McCarthy noticed something strange. Hundreds of rock-boring sea urchins -- spiky, two-inch-long creatures -- were moving slowly across the reefs, drilling into their fragile frames and eating all the algae in sight. "They sort of strip everything bare," said McCarthy, a post-doctorate fellow at the Smithsonian Marine Station said Monday. "They can drastically change the community there." From Fort Pierce south to Bathtub Reef Beach, urchins appear to have become much more plentiful in near-shore reefs in the past 20 years.  Read more

Norton Names Rock Salt as Senior Everglades Policy Advisor and Program Coordinator, Col. Greg May as Executive Director of South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Task Force
News Release
© US Department of the Interior, Office of the Secretary
(WASHINGTON) - Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton announced today that Rock Salt, the current executive director of the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Task Force, will become her senior policy advisor and program coordinator on Everglades issues on Oct. 1. Col. Greg May, who is retiring as commander of the Jacksonville District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, will become the new executive director of the task force. "Rock Salt has done an outstanding job as executive director of the task force, and this new position formalizes the role he has been filling as the senior coordinator of the department's restoration efforts in South Florida," Norton said. "Meanwhile, Col. Greg May brings a wealth of experience and expertise to the task force, strengthening our commitment to coordination and cooperation with all the stakeholders in South Florida."  Read more

Everglades policies facilitate growth
By Alan Farago, Everglades Chair
© Key West Citizen
I have been an environmental activist for only 15 of the past 30 years I have been looking at Florida Bay, the coral reef and the Everglades. But during that time, I have worked for political change -- hoping always that the status quo could be shifted from growth at any cost toward sustainable development protective of natural resources, public health and quality of life. After these years, it is hard for me to reach any conclusion other than the one articulated by Brian Lapointe in The Citizen's article: That phenomena so visible today -- a dead coral reef, a dysfunctional Florida Bay and empty Everglades -- are the exactly the results elected officials wanted when they claimed credit for policies protecting our quality of life, natural resources, and even public health that failed.  Read more

County advancing plans to commission study on undevelopable land
By Paul Herrera
© Naples News
Lee County staff will move forward with plans to commission a study of critical undeveloped land that has been virtually undevelopable for more than a decade. On Monday, county commissioners focused on the scope of a study being outlined by development staff that may determine if parts of the roughly 90,000-acres set aside for ultra-low density uses should retain such restrictions. The land, known as the Density Reduction Groundwater Resource area, can be developed at a density no greater than one home per 10 acres. Large swaths of it are used for mining and agriculture.  Read more

Groundwater areas to be reviewed, commissioners say
By Don Ruane
© Ft. Myers News Press
The water and mineral resources of Lee County’s designated groundwater storage areas should be studied before a decision is made to allow mining in those areas, county commissioners said Monday. Once the study of present conditions and a review of earlier studies is completed, the county can consider mining and other uses in the area, Community Development Director Mary Gibbs said after the commission’s monthly management and planning meeting. Gibbs and her staff will prepare a scope of work for the study and bring that back to the commission for approval in September or October. It could be a year before the results are available. The cost could be $100,000, Gibbs estimated.
Read more

How A Little Bit Of Cold Can Kill A Very Big Manatee, And What It Might Mean For The Future Of The Species
From Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution
© Environmental News Network
While Florida may be warm enough even in the coldest winter months to attract sun-seeking tourists, when the thermometer does dip, it can prove deadly for endangered Florida manatees. Just why these plus-size animals would succumb in water cooled to just 68 degrees Fahrenheit has remained a mystery. Now, researchers from HARBOR BRANCH Oceanographic and other institutions have discovered for the first time the causes of this "cold stress syndrome" in Florida manatees. The work, described in the current edition of the journal Aquatic Mammals, could significantly improve treatment for cold-stressed manatees. It could also help decide an ongoing controversial debate regarding the manatee's state endangered species status and aid in the development of plans to minimize the effects of power plant shutdowns on the manatees who have grown to depend on the warm water they release.  Read more

 

04-August-03

Builders fearful of giving Fla. voters the power to limit development
By Robin Benedick
© Sun-Sentinel
Florida isn't the only state suffering the pain of rapid development, but it is the only one in the nation facing a statewide proposal to give voters control over planning issues. If backers of a proposed constitutional amendment collect enough signatures by next summer to get on the 2004 ballot, voters in all 67 counties would have the final say on whether builders can convert land to subdivisions or change the density of a development. Over the past decade, Florida has exploded in population, growing 24 percent -- almost twice the national average -- to 16 million people. By 2030, the state is expected to have 25 million residents, surpassing New York as the third-largest state.  Read more

Letter to the Editor:  Florida already paid for cleanup
By Nancy Heise, Parkland
© Sun-Sentinel
Your July 24 editorial, "Farms do their part in cleanup," states that it is becoming more difficult to point fingers at the farmers of the Everglades Agricultural Area. You specifically mention their many successful efforts to reduce phosphorus levels and commend them even though this pollution is still a huge problem for our Everglades. I agree that pollution from developed areas that border the Everglades bears some responsibility, but I contend that the entire population of South Florida has already borne its part of the cost to clean up the Everglades with the millions of federal tax dollars that have already been spent on cleanup and potentially will be spent if they have not been appropriated to some other part of the country due to our state Legislature's recent handling of this situation.  Read more

Water district keeps Lee projects in plan
By Pamela Smith-Hayford
© Ft. Myers News Press
Southwest Florida is expected to double its money back from the water management district in the 2004 fiscal year. The five-county region of southeast Charlotte, Lee, Collier, Hendry and Glades counties will send nearly $50 million to the South Florida Water Management District. District officials said they plan to spend $115.6 million of next year’s budget here. They’ll be in town to explain the details and get input from the public. That’s about 15 percent of the 16-county district’s $756.7 million budget for fiscal year 2004, which begins Oct. 1. Carla Palmer, Fort Myers Service Center director, said she’s most excited about keeping the smaller projects in the budget, despite having less money.  Read more

EPA Relisting Of Polluted Waters Hailed
By Mike Salinero
© Tampa Tribune
TALLAHASSEE - Environmentalists, locked in a two-year battle with state regulators over which Florida waters should be listed as polluted, say they feel somewhat vindicated by a recent federal action. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency put 80 water-body segments back on the federally approved polluted waters list. Florida's Department of Environmental Protection had removed the waters from the list this year, using a controversial system of testing and data collection. Waters on the list are to be protected from pollution so they eventually can be restored to meet state water- quality standards for fishing and swimming.  Read more

S. Fla. water district budgets $3.3M for Orange County partnerships
By Noelle Haner-Dorr
© Orlando Business Journal
For the coming year, the South Florida Water Management District has budgeted more than $3.3 million for storm water and water quality partnerships with Orange County. The money for the partnerships is part of the district's $756 million proposed budget for fiscal year 2003-2004. Among the projects funded by the partnerships is a comprehensive assessment of water quality in the Butler Chain of Lakes in Windermere.  Read more

 

03-August-03

Scientist says dumped waste flows near Keys
By Becky Iannotta
© Keys News
KEY WEST -- A scientist says wastewater being treated and dumped off the Tampa coast is being carried by currents around the Florida Keys, a concern that was raised before the dumping began two weeks ago. The highly treated wastewater from the defunct Piney Point phosphate plant in Tampa is being pumped into the ocean about 120 miles offshore and into the so-called loop current. The current follows a path south along the west coast of Florida, turns northeast just south of Key West and parallels the oceanside of the Keys before heading north along the East Coast.  Read more

Gators may play role in West Nile
The reptiles are possible transmitters
By Greg C. Bruno
© Gainesville Sun

A University of Florida researcher draws a blood sample from one
of the three alligators that tested positive for West Nile last year.
(Elliott Jacobson/University of Florida)

Be thankful alligators can't fly. Aside from the horror a winged-crocodilian would instill on the average nature lover, scientists at the University of Florida say there is another reason to credit evolution for keeping alligators grounded: new evidence that the reptile may be as effective as birds at spreading West Nile encephalitis. Since West Nile first entered the United States four years ago, the virus has infected a growing list of avian and terrestrial species, including chickens, crows, horses and humans. Four people in Florida have already tested positive for the disease this year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  Read more

Crisis below the surface
Releases dangerously dilute estuary's precious salinity
By Suzanne Wentley
© Stuart News
ROUND BAY -- Just around the corner from his Palm City house, avid fisherman Jim Harter scooped up a handful of muck-covered oysters from the shallow cove on the St. Lucie River and piled them on his boat. Washing them off with the river's brown water, Harter made a discovery that didn't surprise him at all: They were all dead. Then, Harter pointed out other signs he said indicate something isn't right with the estuary. There were no birds -- no pelicans, no egrets, no seagulls -- and there weren't any fish jumping around his flats boat. There were few other boats on the water on that hot, sunny morning.  Read more

 

02-August-03

Letter to the Editor: Don't fault restoration for lobster decline
By Henry Dean, Exec. Director of the South Florida Water Management District, West Palm Beach
© Miami Herald
In the July 7 story Glades renewal seen as threat to lobsters, scientist Mark Butler of Old Dominion University estimated that Everglades restoration could reduce the lobster population of the Florida Keys by up to 10 percent because of increased freshwater flow and the resulting decrease in salinity. Speculating off of an uncompleted feasibility study is shortsighted. Scientists currently lack the ability to predict the extent of salinity change likely to occur near the Middle Keys, where most of Florida Bay's lobsters are found. We cannot reliably predict the impact of changing freshwater flow on lobsters. We are building computer models that will enable us to make such predictions.  Read more

Protect public preserves
Editorial
© Palm Beach Post
County voters have made environmental protection a priority by spending $250 million since 1991 to buy 28,000 undeveloped acres for preservation. County commissioners should honor that intent by requiring a supermajority commission vote for any development of the preserves, including roads and electrical substations. Such a rule might save the 1,567-acre Pond Cypress Natural Area from being destroyed to extend State Road 7 or to build homes. The county had planned to cut through about 200 acres of the preserve to extend SR 7 north of Okeechobee Boulevard to Persimmon Boulevard in The Acreage. That was before Joanne Davis, who led the campaign to pass the preservation bond issue, renewed talks last week on a better alternative. Under that proposal, the county would have to condemn fewer than 20 homes along 110th Avenue North in The Acreage, would save most of the wetlands and could send traffic to Northlake Boulevard.  Read more

 

01-August-03

Collier-Seminole State Park a haven for Old Florida nature
By Deborah Wright, Special to the Insider
© Naples News

Meandering down the road, Mark Smith makes his
way from campground to campground. 
(Naples News/Erik Kellar)

Wealthy advertising entrepreneur and pioneer developer Barron Collier in the early 1940s made a plan to design a park. By 1947 he turned the land he selected for the park over to the state of Florida for management as a state facility. Named in part for Collier and for the Seminole Indians who inhabited the area, Collier-Seminole State Park opened to the public. Like other Florida state parks, it's open from 8 a.m. to sundown 365 days a year. "This park is the gateway to the Everglades on the north side," said assistant park manager Ralph Smith. "I just love this park and it's so peaceful in the summer. It's a diamond that even the locals don't know about, a jewel that out-of-staters flock to during peak season."  Read more

CEO bows out of 'Glades fight
By Neil Santaniello
© Sun-Sentinel

Stuart Strahl, president and CEO of Audubon of Florida, is leaving
today after seven years on the job.
(Sun-Sentinel/Angel Valentin)

He waded into South America's swamps in pursuit of an odd bird called the hoatzin and later converted a 400-acre family farm on Chesapeake Bay into a nature center. Landing in South Florida seven years ago, Stuart Strahl merged two Audubon cultures into one and put his organization's strong imprint on Everglades restoration. Now Strahl, 48, will bow out of his job as president and CEO of Audubon of Florida -- one of Florida's largest-staffed and most influential eco groups. He'll leave the high-intensity world of Everglades politics today to direct the prestigious Brookfield Zoo near Chicago and become president of the Chicago Zoological Society.  Read more

10 days of Lake Okeechobee pulses to start today
By Suzanne Wentley
© Stuart News
After a 10-day reprieve, water managers decided Thursday to again start freshwater discharges from Lake Okeechobee into the St. Lucie River. Due to an increasingly high lake level, a low-level "pulse-style" discharge will begin this morning and last for 10 days. The discharges stopped for 10 days to help heal the ailing estuary. "With the rain we had this past weekend, the lake is now going up a little bit," said Susan Sylvester, a water management specialist with the Army Corps of Engineers in Jacksonville. "And there's a potential for slightly above average rainfall about 12 months out."  Read more

Group pushes for changes in land use laws
Backers want the state Constitution to allow local voters to decide on community development
By Julie Hauserman
© St. Petersburg Times
TALLAHASSEE - Complaining that too many Florida politicians say yes to developers, a new citizen's group wants to let voters decide when to change a community's land use plan. "Like a lot of people, I've been upset about what's happened to Florida," said Lesley Blackner, a Palm Beach environmental attorney who started the group, Florida Hometown Democracy, to collect signatures for an amendment to Florida's Constitution. The amendment would require a local election before a city or county commission could change its local comprehensive plan.  Read more

Grassroots group targets land-use changes
By Ann Henson
© Upper Keys Reporter
Florida’s Hometown Democracy Amendment could be the constitutional change heard around he world. The purpose of the proposed constitutional amendment is to give voters the final say about land use changes. And it has the makings of a real-life version of the movie “Network” famous for its battle cry: “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.”
The amendment is the brainchild of Lesley Blackner, a Palm Beach County attorney, who said she’s seen too many people shut out of the decision-making on land use decisions.  Read more

Letter to the Editor: WMD official neglected to mention extended tax
By Juanita Green, Friends of the Everglades, Coral Gables
© Palm Beach Post
Nicholas G. Gutierrez, Jr., chairman of the South Florida Water Management District Board, said in his July 20 letter "Higher values, not taxes, raising water district revenue" that "We are proposing no increase in our tax rates." But he failed to report that the district will have to extend a special pollution cleanup tax for at lest 10 years on property owners in all or part of 16 South Florida counties, as a result of the 2003 Legislature's amendment to the Everglades Forever Act, which delays the 2006 deadline for cleaning up phosphorus. So the taxpayers will be paying more than expected.

Up to now, they have paid plenty to clean up Big Sugar's mess. For eight years ending in 2002, property owners outside of the Everglades Agricultural Area have contributed $243,3 million through a millage tax, while the EAA farmers have been charged only $100.5 million through an acreage tax. In addition,  $91.4 million was contributed to the cleanup program from other public revenue sources, bringing the total public contribution to $334.7 million, or more than two-thirds of the cost. This despite approval of a 1996 constitutional amendment requiring that polluters be primarily responsible for cleanup costs. The Legislature refuses to enact this amendment, but it quickly approved the extension that will amount to an additional take of more than $300 million form the taxpayers.

Three New Manatee Protection Areas Established in Florida
© Tampa Tribune
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) - Federal officials announced Friday that three new manatee protection areas will be established later this month, but the move was quickly criticized by advocates of the sea cows who say the new restrictions are too weak. The new refuges where watercraft will have to operate with reduced speeds will be along the Caloosahatchee River and San Carlos Bay in Lee County; along the Halifax River and other waters in Volusia County, and along portions of the St. Johns River in Duval, Clay and St. John's counties. The three waterways are considered areas of high danger for boating deaths and injuries for manatees. Traffic on a combined 115 miles of waterway would be limited to idle speed or a carefully defined "slow speed" or no more than 25 mph, depending on the season or specific section.  Read more

Phosphorus-reducing project promising
By Pete Gawda
© Okeechobee News
The first quarter report on the operation of a pilot project to reduce phosphorus levels in Lake Okeechobee has recently been released. The prototype system is located on the L-62 canal just off S.W. 87th Terrace. The system treats water from the canal and discharges it back into the canal. Mark Zivojnovich, vice president of HydroMentia, Inc., calls his company's project "farming water." Basically the aquatic plant treatment system pumps nutrient-laden water from the canal into two, 1.25-acre treatment cells where it loses some of it nutrients to the growth process of water hyacinth.  Read more

Revised:  12/05/03