FFCU Logo Header Photo
SWFL ENews: Jan 9, 06 SWFL ENews:
Jan 9, 06 / go to archive


BIG CYPRESS

Plan to widen U.S. 41 East sparks environmental debate
Jeremy Cox /Naples Daily News /Jan 06
A more than $54 million plan to widen U.S. 41 East to the brink of the Everglades is sparking a debate in environmental circles about the needs of humans versus wildlife. Last month, state transportation officials launched in earnest a project development and environment study, called a PD&E for short, into expanding U.S. 41 between Collier Boulevard and County Road 92. The projected widening work stretches nine miles from the outer fringe of Naples' high- end version of civilization to the swamps just outside the official border of the Everglades. Today, cars cruise at 55 mph and above with few interruptions on the rural two-lane drive. But Naples' megahomes and golf courses are fast replacing marshes and tomato fields in the area, one of Collier County's final frontiers. Planners fully expect a population greater than the city of Naples to migrate to a 5-mile radius ar ...

FWC: Endangered panther killed family's dog
Kevin Lollar /News-Press /Dec 22
A Florida panther killed a family dog in Immokalee earlier this month, but was not looking for food, investigators say.The family runs a daycare center out of the house during the day. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said in a news release that the family has taken steps to ensure the children at the daycare aren't in danger. There was no word on what those measures were. At about 8 p.m. Dec. 12, the homeowner, who could not be reached for comment, heard his Chihuahua barking. Shining a light out the window, he saw a panther attack the dog, which was tied up, and retreat with it to nearby woods. The following morning, a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officer and biologist found the fresh tracks of a male Florida panther and the dog lying dead in the woods.“The fact that the panther dropped the dog nearby means it wasn’t hunting fo ...

Marco water quality test data shows continuing increase in pollution
Billy Bruce /Naples Daily News /Jan 9
Theres a common rallying cry heard from opponents to Marco Islands mandatoryseptic tank replacement program and from some City Council members who recently questioned the need to force residents to switch to central sewers: Wheres the data thats driving the push for the citys $106 million program toreplace, in seven years, thousands of septic tanks with an expanded central sewer system? âWe just need our staff to summarize the information we already have, council member Glenn Tucker said during a Jan. 3 meeting at which program opponents said theyve been unable to procure the data from City Hall. City Manager Bill Moss and Public Works Director Rony Joel acknowledged in recent days that they havent done a good job of getting that information to the public. So they released an updated water quality report from city Environmental Specialist Nancy Richie that shows pea ...

Wood storks here, not nesting
Kevin Lollar /Naples Daily News /Jan 7
The early birds are baffling the boss.Wood stork nesting season has begun at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, the endangered species' largest breeding colony in North America, but something's a little odd. Most of this week, up to 20 wood storks have been exhibiting nesting behavior in the cypress trees at the sanctuary's so-called lettuce lake — a lake blanketed by aquatic water lettuce plants — early in the day. Then most of them fly away. None has started building a nest. Normally, when nesting behavior starts, actual nesting starts, and thecolony grows rapidly. By now, 40 to 50 pairs should be nesting at the lettuce lake, sanctuary manager Ed Carlson said. "These storks are driving me crazy," he said. "They've been here sinceTuesday, but the colony's not growing."They're doing all the courtship stuff. They playing with sticks. They're copulating. You can hear bill-clacking. Th ...

SOUTHWEST COAST

Hendry supports Corps: Lee proposes to flood parts of Hendry
Patty Brant /New Zap /Jan 06
Threatened by saber rattling by Lee County and an environmental group called Earth Justice, Hendry County commissioners are circling the wagons to protect the Lake Okeechobee region from a plan that could lead to flooding parts of Hendry and western Palm Beach counties.At their Dec. 13 meeting, Hendry leaders voted to plunk down $25,000 to help fund an attorney to defend the Corps of Engineers against a possible lawsuit. Along with the South Florida Water Management District, the Corps has been setting up areas that clean water coming from the interior of the state before it flows elsewhere. Citing concern with thequality of water discharged from Lake Okeechobee through the Caloosahatchee to Lee County estuaries, Lee authorities and Earth Justice are apparently considering litigation against the Corps. Lee’s solution to the problem of declining estuary water quality ...

The tide goes on and on and on
Gavin Off /Sun Herald /Dec 31
The algae bloom, which scientists first detected in January, lingered in theGulf of Mexico off much of Southwest Florida for 10 months and killed scores of fish, sea turtles and dolphins. Mote Marine Laboratory alone recovered more than 130 dead sea turtles and 21 dead dolphin from July through October. The average number of dead sea turtles and dolphins recovered during that time is about 24 and 10, respectively, according to Mote. Mote officials also said only a small percentage of animals killed by red tide wash ashore and are recovered. "This has been one of the more severe red tide years," Richard Pierce, senior scientist and director of Mote's Center for Ecotoxicology, said in October when the bloom began to fade. Red tide is the naturally occurring microscopic algae Karenia brevis, which forms only in the Gulf, and releases toxins deadly to fish, birds and marine mammal ...

Water quality worries Lee tourism officials
Riddhi Trivedi-St. Clair /Naples Daily News /Jan 9
Tourism officials say they're concerned that this season's winter visitors could decide not to return to Lee County if they see poor water quality in local waterways. Some might be kept away in the first place by fears of lasting damage inflicted by Hurricane Wilma. "As recently as last week, we had scumballs as big as sea turtles floating up to the beach," Sanibel City Manager Judy Zimomra told members of the Lee CountyTourist Development Council today.Earlier this year, red tide and blue-green algae carried dead fish into various parts of the county, raising complaints from tourists everywhere, said D. T.Minich, executive director of the Visitor and Convention Bureau. The situation is much improved, but another outbreak - particularly in the busy winter season - could hurt. Water quality is crucial to the county's $2 billion tourism industry. The problem, Minich said ...

Red Tide Bloom Marks Birthday
WILL ROTHSCHILD /The Ledger /Jan 8
Over the past year, one of the worst red tide blooms in the state's history has been blamed for a 2,000-square-mile dead zone and more than 600 fish kills from the Panhandle to the Keys.It has also been blamed for 81 manatee deaths and a record number of dead ordebilitated sea turtles. It has sent tourists home early from Southwest Florida vacations and has closed shellfish beds in the Panhandle. And it is increasingly bringing into focus the friction between environmentalists who think polluted runoff is to blame andscientists who have yet to pinpoint a culprit despite years of state-funded research. So no one will be celebrating the bloom's one-year anniversary today. And no one is able to predict when it will leave.In sampling this week, red tide was detected in Sarasota's New Pass, among other places off the Southwest Florida coast. The testing confirmed this as one of ...

Sierra Club to open red tide office
Will Rothschild /Herald Tribune /Jan 4
SARASOTA – In a development that reflects the region's rising angst over the Gulf of Mexico's health, several local benefactors have provided seed money for a Sierra Club office here that will focus on red tide. The Sierra Club has long trumpeted the notion of pollutant runoff as the cause of red tide blooms. It's also raising concerns that the blooms have become more intense and longer in duration in recent years. Opening an office in Sarasota, which could happen as soon as next month, signals both the importance of the issue to state Sierra Club officials and a recognition that the watersoff Sarasota County have been particularly vulnerable to the algal bloom. "Sarasota has been as hard hit as any place along the Gulf Coast, if not harder," said Frank Jackalone, senior regional representative for the Sierra Club. "It is a public health crisis, it means devastation of mari ...

LAKE OKEECHOBEE

St. Lucie River's future looks murky
Suzanne Wentley /TC Palm /Jan 3
Could the state of the St. Lucie River get even worse in 2006? Despite a number of water quality initiatives in the works for the upcoming year, activists and water managers aren't optimistic that thehealth of the estuary, Lake Okeechobee and the Caloosahatchee River on the west coast will rebound any time soon. In fact, with the lake still high, "pulse-style" releases will continue for months — dumping even more nutrients, muck and fresh water into the beleaguered estuary. If the weather is anything but bone dry in 2006, more algae blooms andmurky conditions are likely to stress the environment and the TreasureCoast businesses that rely on it. "It's probably going to be a difficult year," said Paul Gray, a biologist with Audubon of Florida. "The problems are bigger than most people appreciate, and a lot of people are impatient. But it's a huge, huge problem." The we ...

Reports of sick fish diminish in St. Lucie Estuary
Suzanne Wentley /Sun Sentinel /Dec 27
As conditions in the St. Lucie River started to deteriorate last summer, state scientists prepared for an onslaught of calls from anglers catching deformedfish. But unlike in 1998, when heavy discharges from Lake Okeechobee contributed to a massive lesion outbreak, only a few reports came in. "We were waiting, anticipating," said Jan Landsberg, a research scientist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute in St. Petersburg. "We werecertainly ready to hear about lesions. It was interesting, from that angle, why they didn't show up." Although most scientists and activists agree the estuary's water quality hasnever been worse, there has hardly been any talk of sick fish. A mobile state laboratory wasn't parked outside the Snook Nook Bait and Tackle in Jensen Beach, like it was in 1998. Posters asking people to report suspect catches weren'tprinted.But th ...

Help on way for St. Lucie River
Rachel Simmonsen /Palm Beach Post /Dec 25
To the untrained eye, it's a wasteland, nothing more than a vast plain of dirt and weedsthat once was a citrus grove. But just wait, water managers say. Within the next year, it will transform into a 550- acre reservoir and adjacent filter marsh that will reduce and cleanse freshwater flow from Ten Mile Creek to the St. Lucie River. "It's really an awesome project," said Denise Arrieta, a project manager with the South Florida Water Management District. "It's like my kid, and it's finally graduating." It has been more than a decade since water managers started talking about the project, which is located next to Ten Mile Creek about 7 miles southwest of Fort Pierce. Designs,allocation of state and federal money and a $3.9 million land buy pushed the start of construction back to 2002. Then water managers found thousands of ancient Indian artifacts on the site, adding another ...

Lake O discharges continue to reduce
staff /TCPalm /Dec 24
Water managers continue to reduce discharges from Lake Okeechobee into the St. Lucie Estuary. Transitioning from constant releases, a mid-level "pulse-style" discharge will continue at least until Dec. 31, said Andrew Geller, an engineer with the Army Corps of Engineers."The idea is to make sure we're in a downward trend in Lake Okeechobee," he said. On Friday, the lake stood at 15.93 feet above sea level — almost two feet higher than federal officials hope to see by May. Discharges out the St. Lucie Canal are about 40 percent of the releases to the Caloosahatchee River. To the east, the estuary will receive about 613 million gallons a day, staggered in volume each day to mimic runoff from a rainstorm. ...

Lake O could be fixed before judge even rules
Jamie Page /News-Press /Dec 21
If Lee County sues the federal government to stop lake water releases into the Caloosahatchee River, the case could take years to resolve, CountyAttorney David Owen warned Tuesday. "Federal cases do not move quickly," Owen told county commissioners. "It will consume some time." He was referring to commissioners' inquiries into possibly suing the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers to halt releases from Lake Okeechobee into the Caloosahatchee. Owen asked commissioners for 35 more days to talk with outside counselabout legal options. He is working with a law firm that handles publicinterest-type cases, and another firm that's involved with a similar Lake Okeechobee-related case that started in 2002 and still is in court. Heplans to come back to commissioners in late January with his legal findings. "Then you can decide, based on that information, whether to file a lawsuit agains ...

Rivers coalitions team up to improve Lake Okeechobee water management
Suzanne Wentley /TCPalm /Jan 2006
STUART — There's now another waterway on the minds of River Coalition members. At the regular meeting Friday, the St. Lucie River advocates formed a joint task force with activists from Lee and Collier counties who are battling against a similar decline in the health of the Caloosahatchee River. Members of a new, west coast-based coalition met for the first time with local activists to discuss ways residents from the two coasts can worktogether to improve the management of Lake Okeechobee and the health of both rivers. "Together, we will be united," said Leon Abood, the River Coalition chairman. "Together, at some point, maybe we'll see the restoration of the health of both of our estuaries, that will help our economies." Last week, the west coast activists formed a new coalition — based on the structure of the local group — of business, civic and environmental orga ...

City vows to be proactive on water plan
Audrey Blackwell /News Zap /Jan 06
Ever since Hurricane Wilma drenched Okeechobee and caused flooding in several parts of town, stormwater conveyance has been a top priority for city leaders. Actually, concerns about the drainage system in certain areas of the city have taken a front row seat for city council members ever since the 2004 hurricane season. Benita Whalen, director of South Florida Water Management District’s (SFWMD) Okeechobee Service Center, and Bob Howard, director of operations control at the SFWMD’s headquarters in West Palm Beach, presented an update of water collection and drainage issues at the Okeechobee City Council meeting Tuesday, Jan. 3. Of particular concern to the city council is the flooding of homes and neighborhoods in the southwest part of town. Following Hurricane Wilma, Mayor James Kirk’s residence received the highest level of water in SFWMD’s S-133 drainage basin area. ...

Trial opens in challenge to Lake Okeechobee water pumping
curt Anderson /Sun Sentinel /Jan 9
MIAMI -- Trial began Monday in a federal lawsuit filed by environmental groups and an Indian tribe challenging the decades-old practice by state water managers of pumping billions of gallons of contaminated water into Lake Okeechobee.The lawsuit contends that the South Florida Water Management District should be forced to get federal permits for the pumping under the federal Clean Water Act, which could force the district to cleanse the polluted water or divert it elsewhere. ``Lake Okeechobee is a drinking water supply and ecological treasure,'' saidDavid Guest, who is representing the Florida Wildlife Federation in the lawsuit. ``These pumping operations are ruining the water supply and threatening to kill the lake with pollution.''Since the 1970s, the water district has pumped water from nearby sugar-growing lands into the lake for flood control and to boost lake wate ...

EVERGLADES RESTORATION

Protecting air, land and water
staff /News Journal /Jan 1
Distracted by war and economic losses, Americans have barely blinked at the unprecedented assault on environmental protections at every level of government in recent years, nowhere more evident than in Florida. Disguising the assaults with promising policy titles like "Clear Skies," "Healthy Forests" and, closer to home, "Everglades Restoration," the Bush brothers, supported by anti-regulatory legislators in the Legislature and Congress, have made it easier for businesses to profit by polluting the air and water, easier for oil, mining and timber companies to plunder public lands, easier to shift water from Everglades restoration to supply South Florida farmers and developers -- but harder for the public to sue for environmentaldestruction. Their administrations have reduced enforcement and oversight ofremaining environmental protections even as they tout feel-good slogan ...

Congress is stagnant on a bill that would aid Indian River Lagoon cleanup
Amie Parnes /TCPalm /Dec 25
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate has had a busy couple of weeks, with lawmakers taking up a number of bills before they leave for the holiday recess: defense authorization, Arctic oil drilling, the Patriot Act and others. But one piece of legislation, the Water Resources Development Act — originally targeted for completion by the end of 2005 — is missing from the lineup. The legislation — also known as WRDA — contains $1.2 billion for the Indian River Lagoon project, and is considered a major part of the 30-year, $10.5 billion Everglades restoration plan. The IRL project consists of removing deposits of muck and phosphorous in lakes and canals that have polluted the lagoon's sea grasses and oyster flats. The U.S. House passed WRDA with relative ease in July. Since then, the legislation has been awaiting floor time in the Senate and many predict it still ...

Dispute over sugar land leads to $8 million payment
Neil Santaniello /Sun Sentinel /Dec 23
It's 11,000 acres of land the government already owns, bought from sugar growers in 1999 as part of a larger, $152 million real estate deal to help save the Everglades. But it could cost taxpayers, six years later, another $8 million because a major Florida sugar grower disagrees over when it must legally leave the property,which it now rents from the South Florida Water Management District at a discount price. The water district has tentatively agreed to pay Florida Crystals the $8 million to leave 4,500 acres of the 11,000 acres almost immediately and the remainder of the land by 2009. By then, the district hopes to finish a 16,700-acre reservoir slated for the site that would help ease damaging releases of Lake Okeechobee water to estuaries. Florida Crystals had resisted leaving that land prior to the current deal, arguing the water district had sped up the origina ...

Everglades, rivers and Lake Okeechobee suffer as Senate stalls on resource meas ure
Editorial /TCPalm /Dec 22
Money to clean up the Everglades, St. Lucie River and Indian River Lagoon is still tied up in the Water Resources Development Act of 2005, which is mired somewhere in the logjam of bills, resolutions and other items on the calendar of the U.S. Senate.The measure has been there since April, when Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and 16 co-sponsors placed it for consideration. The House has already passed the measure, and there is general agreement that it is necessary, not only for our area and state, but also the nation. In addition to the Florida items, the bill carries funds for port work, rivers and harbors, lock and dams, canals, beach renourishment and many environmental projects.Sens. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., and Mel Martinez, R-Fla., have pledged to work to get the bill on to the floor for a vote, where they believe it willreceive quick approval. But so far, nothing. ...

'Leaders,' not environmentalists, created whole Scripps brouhaha
David Reiner /Palm Beach Post /Dec 22
During the many months that the Scripps saga has played out on the South Florida stage, I have been alternately amused and dismayed by the failure of political "leaders" to understand the public and environmental outcry over their covert Scripps-Mecca Farms blitzkrieg. Palm Beach County Commissioners Mary McCarty's and Warren Newell's continuing to push for Scripps to be built there after every setback is just tiring. Commission Chairman Tony Masilotti's whine that the Scripps location debacle is the fault of know-it-all environmentalists is like blaming the cop who pulled you over for a drunken-driving conviction. It wasn't the environmentalists who secretly picked Mecca Farms for Scripps, rammed through comprehensive plan and regional policy plan amendments, contract zoned theproperty, carved out a portion of the Corbett Wildlife Refuge for a power substation, ...

Time to pull eminent domain on Big Sugar
guest columnist /TCPalm /Jan 7
"Here is a New Year's wish: that the agony of Florida's environment and coastal economies, increasingly threatened by polluted water gushing from Lake Okeechobee, will be relieved by the one measure no government agency has had the courage to propose — the taking by eminent domain of largetracts in the Everglades Agricultural Area, replacing sugar cane with vast storage and cleansing marshes. "It is an amazement that coastal real estate, tourism and fisheries, representing hundreds of billions of dollars in real value, are at grave risk by a crop that could not be profitable if not for immense subsidies through Big Sugar's manipulation of U.S. farm policy and internationaltrade agreements. "That Big Sugar dominates the political landscape is no excuse for silence while the state of Florida professes nothing more can be done and nothing can be done more quickly t ...

Florida sugarcane growers quickly adopting new variety
Alfredo Flores /SE Farm Press /Jan 4
Sugarcane growers in Florida are quickly adopting a new variety that has shown resistance to the major yield-limiting diseases common there. Developed by scientists with the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), the University of Florida and the sugarcane industry, the new variety is known as CP 89-2143 and has a high sugar content from October through March — roughly the entire sugarcane harvest season.ARS scientists Barry Glaz, Jimmy D. Miller, Peter Y.P. Tai and Jack C. Comstock at the agency's Sugarcane Field Station in Canal Point, Fla., collaborated with James M. Shine Jr. of the Florida Sugarcane League and Christopher W. Deren,formerly with the University of Florida, to develop the new variety. ARS is the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s chief in-house scientific research agency. As the nation’s largest producer of sugarcane and sugar, Florida fills more than 22 ...



© FGCU 2006. This is an official FGCU web page.
Florida Gulf Coast University is accredited by the
Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools
(1866 Southern lane, Decatur, Georgia 30033-4097; Telephone number 404-679-4501)
to award associate, baccalaureate, and master’s degrees.

Florida Gulf Coast University is an equal opportunity/affirmative action institution.

Florida Gulf Coast University, 10501 FGCU Blvd S., Fort Myers, FL 33965-6565
Contact the Webmaster