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SWFL ENews: Feb 10, 06 SWFL ENews:
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BIG CYPRESS

Manatee calf rescued near Everglades City dies from infection
Jeremy Cox /Naples Daily News /Feb 8
A malnourished manatee calf that was rescued last week from a canal near Everglades City has died from what veterinarians believe was an advanced bacterial infection. By the time they got to it, it was too late, said Maritza Arceo, a spokeswoman at the Miami Seaquarium. The 80-pound manatee apparently had become separated from its mother and found its way over a berm that separated the canal from another waterway that provides passage to the Gulf of Mexico. Volunteers at the Big Cypress National Preserve first spotted the calf about a month ago in the canal, which is behind the preserves headquarters off U.S. 41 East.A nearby canal gave the manatee its name Sea Grape.Last Wednesday, rescuers from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the National Park Service scooped the approximately 3-month-old and 5-foot-long calf from the chilly canal. ...

Panther falls victim to hit-and-run
CURTIS MORGAN /Miami Herald /Feb 4The odds o
the world, are long. Odds of a panther being struck by a car in Southeast Florida are longer still -- it last happened nearly 20years ago.Odds of the circumstances surrounding a female cat that was killed Thursday night along Card Sound Road make winning the 23 million-to-one lottery jackpot sound downright likely. That's because the people who witnessed the panther hit-and-run are environmentalists who two days earlier filed a federal lawsuit aimed at derailing a 6,000-home development proposed just up the road. One of their arguments is the remaining open lands south of Florida City and Homestead provide critical habitat for panthers, an animal protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. The activists acknowledged the coincidence sounds improbable, but called it fate that they crossed paths with an unfortunate panther in a place they are battling to preserve ...

When $4 million feels like a rip-off
Nicholas Springer /Miami Herald /Feb 3
Jesse James Hardy kicked the dust off his boots, did it again before he went inside the house. His house: Oh, the majesty of it. The hugeness. Those ceilings 15 feet distant, the size and sweep of pale marble countertops, the crinkling sumptuousness of the leather upholstery on the living room set.He closed on it three weeks ago. Eight hundred thousand dollars furnished, bought from a man who owns race cars. More money thanhe'd ever spent in his life, but well within a multimillionaire's means. It was true. He'd sold 160 acres of Collier County scrubland to the government and made out like a bandit. Hardy was rich. Why, then, did he feel like this? Penned-in. Ripped off. Out of place. The first thought that occurred to him -- 70 years old with unkempt white hair, standing uneasily now in camouflage pants in the eat-in kitchen next to orchids in a vase -- concerned ...

Manatee in Big Cypress finally rescued
Jeremy Cox /Naples Daily News /Feb 2
MIAMI Another week in the chilly canal near Everglades City and the manateecalf would have died, veterinarians at the Miami Seaquarium said Wednesday after a third rescue attempt proved successful. State wildlife biologists had failed twice over the past two weeks to net the 5-foot-long sea cow. The female calf was first spotted about three weeks ago in a canal behind the Big Cypress National Preserves headquarters on the south side of U.S. 41 East. Trapped by falling water levels and separated from its mother, the calf lostabout one third of its body weight as it plied the landlocked canal. The skin on its back had begun to flake away. On Wednesday, rescuers with the Florida Fish and Wildlife ConservationCommission and the National Park Service herded the manatee between a pair of nets in the canal and waited for it to surface in the shallows. When it did,they formed a ...

This way to Deep Lake
Chad Gillis /Naples Daily News /Jan 28
Brisk winds shook oak and cypress limbs along a trail through the western reaches of Big Cypress National Preserve. Branches stretched and groaned like a creaky wooden boat, grinding out an eerie wail. Gusts surged and receded, building to whistling crescendos, and then fading to whispers. Leaves rattled. Dead limbs, some hurricane casualties, fell into the swampy waters surrounding the trail. Birds strong enough to battle theturbulence buzzards mostly launched into the cobalt sky to pitch and roll like stunt planes. Nearby, a woodpecker tested the winds, banking through the canopy and erratically landing on a swaying royal palm. The bird clucked and squawked like a muffled machinegun. It stopped briefly, then belted out another string of shrill cries before disappearing into the forest. "It's a pileated (woodpecker)," says Jill Wilson, a ranger at Big Cypress Na ...

No. 79 (aka Don Juan) snagged
Jeremy Cox /Naples Daily News /Feb 10
In the dim hours before daybreak, Don Juan stalked his prey. When the time was right, he vaulted over the 6-foot chain-link fence but nothigh enough to avoid snagging his underbellys soft fur on the barbed wire. Undaunted, he snatched a pair of chickens and a turkey the size of a bowlingball and twice as heavy. He ate the fowl, shredding them to pieces. He left the way he arrived, lugging with him the leftovers. He buried what was left beneath separate piles of branches and peat about 50 yards away in a forest of cypress trees and cabbage palms. In the twilight before sunset on the same day, Don Juan reemerged from the forest inside Big Cypress National Preserve. This time, he was lying on a stretcher, barely conscious and hooked up to intravenous fluids.Don Juan is a Florida panther, one of the most endangered animals on the planet. Fearing illness or injury had pr ...

SOUTHWEST COAST

Babcock Ranch like General Development?
Opinion /Herald Tribune /Feb 9
I am concerned that Mr. Syd Kitson's idea of building a self-sustaining city in the Babcock Ranch wilderness will more than likely end up like General Development's plan, which left the Port Charlotte area with thousands of empty lots overgrown with invasive plants and streets where grass grows through the asphalt. I feel that it would be better if the state legislators and Charlotte Countycommissioners listen to the advice of their professional staffs and not allow a zoning change to accommodate dense development on Babcock Ranch. The environment, endangered wildlife and Florida taxpayers would be better served by only allowing Mr. Kitson to sell 10- or 40-acre lots for ranchettes. Also, all environmental regulations should be enforced in the development of the individual ranchettes. This would include no wetland mitigation. If we need another city in this part of Flori ...

Stop the Muck
Opinion /News Press /Feb 5
There's plenty of blame to go around for the damage that Southwest Florida's coastal environment has suffered in recent years from polluted fresh water coming down the Caloosahatchee River. The responsibility for the problem, and for solutions, lies at the federal, state and local levels. And it lies with individuals, farms and businesses whose everyday practices can contribute to the load of river nutrients that have caused, for example, the plague of green algae in J.N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel, one of America's environmental jewels. The News-Press Editorial Board's "STOP THE MUCK" campaign is focused now on getting people to turn out for Wednesday's meeting here of the governing board of the South Florida Water Management District, to show the board this community's passionate displeasure at the wrecking of our environment. ...

Lee gets latest Lake O fix advice
Jamie Page /News Press /Feb 4
While it goes against some county commissioners' ideas on how to limitlarge Lake Okeechobee water releases, a lawyer hired for his expertisesays flooding farm fields south of the lake is not the answer.Attorney John Fumero on Friday brought the Lee County Tourism Development Council up to speed on projects and funding being explored by Lee County to limit releases. Fumero is the former general legal counsel for the South Florida WaterManagement District, which manages the lake. The Lee County Visitor and Convention Bureau hired him for his knowledge on the issue to represent the county in its crusade for water quality in the Caloosahatchee River. "The reality is that flooding farm fields would not have the meaningful impact that's needed," Fumero said. Even if it did, it would be too expensive, he said. D.T. Minich, who heads the convention bureau, made it clear ...

Bush puts up $310 million to buy Babcock
Greg Martin /Sun Herald /Feb 06
Flush with cash from Florida's real estate boom, Gov. Jeb Bush proposed the biggest environmental budget in the state's history Wednesday -- and it includes $310 million to buy 81 percent of Babcock Ranch. The proposal calls for the funds to come from general revenue. That quells concerns from environmental lobbies that the Babcock acquisition would deplete the state's environmental acquisition fund, Florida Forever. The funding would also allow the state to buy the ranch with a lump sum payment, without bonding the amount or stretching payments over five years. "We're very pleased the governor decided to put the entire amount in the budget," said Eric Draper, a legislative affairs director for Florida Audubon. "We think that should lock down the deal, and we're going to work hard to make sure the Legislature supports it." "Clearly, it's a great day," said Sydney Kit ...

"Stop the Muck" protest planned over algae pollution
Doug MacGregor /News Press /Feb 2
Like many in our community, The News-Press Editorial Board has watchedwith growing anger and frustration as our environment has been used as a sewer for polluted freshwater from Lake Okeechobee. The damage done to natural resources in Southwest Florida was highlighted again Tuesday by a report in The News-Press about the catastrophic threat from explosive algae growth in J.N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel. The policies of the South Florida Water Management District have been a threat to Lee County’s economy and way of life, which are based on a healthy environment.That’s why the Editorial Board is making a special effort to “STOP THEMUCK.” We are preparing a series of Opinion page pieces leading up to Wednesday’s water management board workshop meeting at Florida Gulf Coast University. We will urge our readers to turn out in force for that meeti ...

County won't sue over Lake Okeechobee releases
Jamie Page /News Press /Jan 31
Heeding the advice of its attorney, Lee County won’t sue Lake Okeechobee managers for now but will continue to gather what’s needed for a lawsuit if water releases are considered too excessive through the wet season. Commissioners had asked County Attorney David Owen a month ago to givethem legal options for limiting freshwater discharges into the Caloosahatchee River, and Owen had asked for another month. The discharges are blamed for damaging marine life and local tourism. Today he gave the opinion that a legal case could be made against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is in charge of the releases. If the county chose to, that would mean suing the federal government. “Litigation is the last resort, and I am not advocating it, I am simply telling you what you need to know if that time comes,” Owen said. “On the other hand, there are many positive things going ...

Algae threatens Ding Darling preserve
Kevin Lollar /News Press /Jan 30
Fearing that freshwater releases from Lake Okeechobee will kill one of the nation’s top wildlife refuges, officials at the J.N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge have sent a list of water-management recommendations to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Algae are the issue: various species of blue-green microalgae and dense mats of the green macroalgae Enteromorpha that are blanketing hundreds of acres of seagrasses in the refuge — the algal bloom was triggered by nutrients in releases from Okeechobee.Ding Darling, which attracts 850,000 visitors a year, is actually fiverefuges — the Ding Darling site on Sanibel, and the Matlacha Pass, Pine Island, Caloosahatchee and Island Bay national wildlife refuges. Algae are affecting all but Island Bay. To quantify the problem, refuge manager Rob Jess said Monday that 80 percent of the 2,825-acre Congressionally designat ...

Lake O releases have damaged seagrasses
Kevin Lollar /News Press /Jan 29
In a strange ripple effect, Lake Okeechobee freshwater releases might soon leave local manatees without a nearby food source and might make them more vulnerable to watercraft collisions. The nutrient-rich releases have severely damaged seagrasses — manatee food — in the Caloosahatchee River and in lower Pine Island Sound, said Steve Bortone, director of the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation Marine Laboratory. "We've documented it: The condition of the grasses as opposed to last year has distinctly deteriorated," Bortone said. "We had a crew out (Monday), and the grasses are in terrible condition. They're also covered with green macroalgae." This could be a problem for manatees that leave the Florida Power & Light warm-water discharge looking for food.Manatees are extremely cold-sensitive and can die from what scientistscall cold stress. In the past 10 years, ...

LAKE OKEECHOBEE

We must look to science to solve Lake O problems
Trudi Williams /News Press /Feb 8
State and federal agencies, as well as the governor, have approved plans to increase the pace of new projects that will help diminish theenvironmental impact of freshwater releases from Lake Okeechobee. Components of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan will happen more quickly as a result of the South Florida Water Management District's Acceler8 timetable and the Lake Okeechobee and Estuary Recovery program. The C-43 basin included in the plans will hold excess lake water, which will provide some filtration of stormwater that will affect water quality.The provisions will ease the pressure on the Caloosahatchee River, theestuaries and the Southwest Florida ecosystems. But we need to institute measures to deal with Southwest Florida's environmental crisis more quickly. I am sponsoring a bill to establish a commission — the Caloosahatchee/St. Lucie River a ...

Debate rages over lake: Fort Myers paper heads campaign to ‘Stop the Muck’
Katrina Elsken /News Zap /Feb 06
The most heated debate at Wednesday’s South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) governing board meeting may come from a topic that was not on the board’s original agenda. The Feb. 9 meeting is the target of a “Stop the Muck” campaign by the Fort Myers News- Press. In editorials appearing every day in that newspaper since Feb. 2, the News-Press editorial board has encouraged readers to turn out in force and demand the water managers stop releasing excess water from Lake Okeechobee into the Caloosahatchee River. “Like many in our community, The News-Press Editorial Board has watched with growing anger and frustration as our coastal environment has been used as a sewer for polluted freshwater from Lake Okeechobee,” stated a Feb. 2 News-Press editorial. “A joint east-west task force has been formed to give extra clout to areas sometimes neglected by a vast district wit ...

Officials get hands on lesson in understanding ERA
Mark Young /NewsZap /Feb 06
ORTONA - The Everglades Restoration Act (ERA) is one of the single most ambitious undertakings of man attempting to correct their actions against what Mother Naturetook thousands of years to create - the Florida Everglades - a waterway system like no other in the world. Florida was once a land of amazing tales of adventure, which equaled incredible accounts of fantastic journeys coming out of the dark continent of Africa and far away lands that rivaled the best of imaginary fairy tales. Few people could comprehend the New World, and even fewer could understand the incredible descriptions of Florida with her swamps, forests, and reptilian monsters described and documented by earlyexplorers. Florida, above any other area in the country, drew the most prominent of high society, including such people as James Audubon, who in the early 1800s documented his journeys through Fl ...

Money to flow in for Lake O
Kevin Lollar /News Press /Feb 3
The agency that manages Lake Okeechobee, along with the CaloosahatcheeRiver and other water issues in Southwest Florida, is ready to go $1.8billion into debt to fix the Caloosahatchee estuary. The money would be used for projects that would lessen the harmful effects of freshwater releases from Lake Okeechobee down the river. Major releases of nutrient-laden water following the extremely wet rainy season of 2005 have been blamed for killing seagrasses and triggering huge algal blooms in the estuary and the river. "We're going to borrow every penny we can because we're committed to environmental restoration," district Executive Director Carol Wehle said. On Feb. 24, the South Florida Water Management District will go to court to prove it has the authority under state law to issue bond-likesecurities known as certificates of participation. The securities would be sold to ...

Plans to sue Lake O managers on hold
Jamie Page /News Press /Feb 1
Heeding the advice of its attorney, Lee County won't sue Lake Okeechobee managers for now but will continue to gather what is needed for a lawsuit if water releases are considered too excessive through the wet season. For nearly two months, County Attorney David Owen has been gathering information for county commissioners to provide legal options for limiting freshwater discharges into the Caloosahatchee River. The discharges are blamed for damaging marine life and local tourism.On Tuesday, Owen gave the opinion that a legal case could be made against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is in charge of the releases. If the county chose to, that would mean suing the federal government. "Litigation is the last resort, and I am not advocating it. I am simply telling you what you need to know if that time comes," Owen said. "On the other hand, there are many p ...

Bass fishing suffers on Okeechobee
Eric Sharp /Mercury News /Feb 1
OKEECHOBEE, Fla. - For 15 years, Art Ferguson guided anglers forsmallmouth bass on Lake St. Clair and Lake Erie in summer and largemouth bass on Lake Okeechobee in winter. Ferguson, from St. Clair Shores, now does his winter guiding on Lake Tohopekaliga and other lakes in the Kissimmee Chain 90 miles to the north. The reason is best explained by Don Fox's description of Okeechobee today: "It's a mess. It's a big mud hole. The water looks like a bottle of YooHoo," a chocolate drink. For 100 years, this was one of the world's top bass lakes, whereanglers could catch lots of largemouths with a real chance of landing a 10-pound wall-hanger. Now anglers complain that they can't find fish, businesses complain about losing tourists and sales, and environmentalists complain that the state and federal governments failed to avert a mess everyone knew was coming for decades. The ...

Critics set their sights on Army Corps
Will Rothschild /Herald Tribune /Jan 29
ON THE KISSIMMEE RIVER -- Cruising along a section of the ancient Kissimmee that has been unshackled and is running free again, Melissa Samet sees the signs of a nation's failing as much as those of an environmental recovery. Samet, who works for a nonprofit environmental group called American Rivers, should be happy on this portion of the restored Kissimmee. Instead, out here where Florida mallards are nesting again and the numbers of large-mouth bass are rising, Samet doesn't hide the frustration she feels for the agency that turned the meandering and rambling Kissimmee and its bountiful basin into an arrow-straight channel roped in by dams and earthen levees. "This never should have happened in the first place," Samet says of the Kissimmee,whose restoration has been studied by river experts from around the world. "It costs a ton of money to fix something that never sho ...

EVERGLADES RESTORATION

Ag reform needed to save environment
Ray Judah /News Press /Feb 8
The vast expanse of sugar-cane fields in the Everglades Agricultural Area that severs the hydrological flow-way between Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades is directly linked to the federal sugar subsidy program. For decades, sugar companies have shaped U.S. farm policy to enrich corporate profits at the expense of the South Florida ecosystem and public taxpayers. The sugar subsidy formula is insidious in that we taxpayers are enabling the sugar-cane industry in South Florida to destroy the Everglades, St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers and coastal estuaries. The sugar subsidy program allows sugar processors to qualify for loansfrom the U.S. Department of Agriculture using sugar as collateral. Theloan rate set by the federal government is 18 cents per pound for canesugar, which is two to three times higher than world market prices. The loans are to be repaid in nine ...

Legislation to restore Indian River Lagoon gets boost from senators
Amie Parnes /TCPalm /Feb 8
WASHINGTON — The long-stalled Everglades restoration legislation might be stalled no more.Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida received word Tuesday that a letter he and Sen. Bill Nelson signed urging Senate leaders to bring the Water Resources Development Act to the floor received the support of more than three-quarters of the Senate. Seventy-eight senators signed on, including one who has played a pivotal role in keeping the act and the billions it would mean to Florida fromgoing to a full vote. That means the water legislation can be expected to be seen on the floor of the Senate in the coming months, although an exact date is unclear.The letter, which has circulated around Senate offices for the past week, informed Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and Minority Leader, Harry Reid, D-Nev., that wise investment in our water resources remains an urgent need in o ...

Everglades plan Florida's big winner
Lesley Clark /Miami Herald /Feb 7
WASHINGTON - The massive effort to restore the Florida Everglades would get a boost under President Bush's proposed 2007 budget, though Florida's Medicare beneficiaries and veterans could feel a pinch in the pocketbook. Bush's budget calls for an increase in spending on Everglades restoration projects, prompting plaudits from environmental groups and members of Congress. ''It's very good to see, with all the budget cuts, that this onedidn't take a shellacking,'' said Rep. Clay Shaw, a Fort Lauderdale Republican who has championed Everglades restoration efforts, which are expected to top $8.4 billion in state and federal dollars. ``This is a partnership with the state and it's important that we keep up our obligation.'' Bush's proposal sets aside $164 million for Everglades projects in the Army Corps of Engineers budget -- a $27 million increase over ...

Retain federal oversight of Everglades cleanup
Editorial /Palm Beach Post /Feb 7
Let's see. Florida weakens Everglades cleanup rules and postpones the deadline for meeting them, at the urging of Gov. Bush and the sugar industry. The sugar industry complains and gets a tough federal judge removed from overseeing the cleanup. But as it turns out, U.S. District Judge Federico Moreno is every bit as tough. He demands that the state and the sugar growers keep their promises. What to do? If you're Gov. Bush, you lobby your brother's administration to end federal court oversight of the $1.1 billion cleanup altogether. You pressure the Justice Department and the Interior Department and regulators. In short, you try to cut the judge out of it. This tactic, which The Post reported last week, gets seamier.One of the parties in the 1988 lawsuit, out of which came the cleanup plan, is theMiccosukee Tribe of Florida. The governor, who professes to dislike increa ...

West Palm takes offensive against foul water
Thomas Collins /Palm Beach Post /Feb 6
WEST PALM BEACH — During her State of the City speech this month, Mayor Lois Frankel lifted a glass to her lips, took a sip of water andannounced proudly: "That's West Palm Beach water I'm drinking." Why would the mayor feel the need to make such a declaration in her annual address? Because the water sometimes tastes like, well, mold. Sometimes, drinkers say, like rust. But the most common description is, simply, like dirt. In fact, the mayor's office at city hall has Culligan water delivered regularly. After years of failing to fix a host of woes,water is suddenly a front-burner topic in town. Frankel declared in her Jan. 11 speech that "water is our lifeline" and said at a Jan. 17 meeting that water quality is a "critical" issue. "It's probably going to take a couple of years to get the water where we want it to be," she said. "But we will get there." ...

Western land use in limbo
Andy Reid /Sun Sentinel /Feb 5
Wellington officials want a greater say in the potential development of miles of agricultural land west of the village.But after more than a year of asking, village officials contend they have yet to get a seat at the planning table with Palm Beach County and state leaders.The village proposes holding a joint planning conference with county officials as well as other cities, property owners and environmentalists to discuss the future of the Everglades Agricultural Area. As development pressure continues to push new neighborhoods and shopping centers farther west, village officials want to help decide the future of agricultural land stretching from Wellington to Lake Okeechobee. "We would want to be a part of any decision-making process that ultimately impacts us," Councilman Carmine Priore said. "It will ultimately have some impact on what our community looks like." ...

'Study' a ruse to develop Martin's western lands
Editorial /Palm Beach Post /Feb 4
The Martin County Conservation Alliance slogan is catchy —"Stand by Our Plan" — reminiscent of the Tammy Wynette country music classic. On Tuesday, Martin commissioners will decide whether to stand by the county's growth plan or go ahead with a study that could dictate new ways to develop the county's 200,000 acres of western lands. The existing growth plan allows only developments of 20-acre ranchettes. The decision is simple: No, the $528,000 study is not needed. Residents did not ask for it. Developers and landowners want it, to open western Martin to more development and bust the urban services boundary that contains growth and services close to the coast. The state and federal governments still have not bought the land necessary for the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan and its first project, the Indian River Lagoon Plan. The public land buys are v ...

Gov. Bush urges end to U.S. oversight of Everglades cleanup
Robert King /Palm Beach Post /Feb 3
Gov. Jeb Bush is lobbying to end federal court oversight of the state's Everglades cleanup, a move that would take the $1.1 billion project out of the hands of a judge who has accused Florida of violating its promises, according to a government official and others familiar with the case. If the Justice Department and other federal agencies agree, Bush's intervention could lead to the end of the landmark 14-year-old court order that required Florida to begin cleansing the Everglades. The state also would have to persuade the judge. And it is seeking the cooperation of the Miccosukee Indians, the state's most aggressive opponent in an array of Everglades pollution cases. Bush's efforts, including a Jan. 27 meeting with federal leaders next door to the White House, have alarmed environmentalists, who don't trust the state to finish the project without supervision. Congressional budg ...

Miami-Dade panel to take up water plan
TERE FIGUERAS NEGRETE /Miami Herald /Feb 2
After warnings from state officials that Miami-Dade's long-term water plan is woefully shortsighted, the chairwoman of the committee in charge of the county-owned utility is calling a special meeting. The Infrastructure and Land Use Committee, chaired by Commissioner Natacha Seijas, will hold a special public meeting Friday at 2 p.m. in the commission chambers at 111 NW First St.The head of Florida's Department of Environmental Protection and the executive director of the South Florida Water Management District embarked on a two-day blitz of meetings last week with high-level county officials, including the mayor and commissioners, to warnthat Miami-Dade county needed to revamp its 20-year plan for water usage. Miami-Dade's plan consisted of little more than continuing to draw from the Biscayne Aquifer -- a plan water managers say threatened Everglades resto ...

Permit to fill wetlands near Glades is challenged
Curtis Morgan /Miami Herald /Feb 1
Environmentalists filed suit against federal regulators on Tuesday, charging they illegally reinstated a permit for a land owner to fill more than 500 acres of wetlands where a controversial development is envisioned at the edge of the Everglades. The problem, the lawsuit argued, is that the land owner is using a federal permit issued for ''low-impact agriculture'' while at the same time pursuing separate applications with county and state agencies to build 6,000 homes in the same place. Paul Schwiep, a Miami attorney representing the Tropical AudubonSociety of Miami-Dade and the National Parks Conservation Association, said federal law requires the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to review the impact of what is planned for the site. It's not potatoes or palm trees, he said, but rather a community of 18,000 -- double the size of Florida City, which has annexed theprop ...

Development called threat to Everglades restoration
Robert King /Palm Beach Post /Jan 29
Development proposals from the Kissimmee River valley to the fringes of Florida Bay are endangering the $10.5 billion Everglades restoration, environmentalists warned Saturday.Growth in coming decades is expected to double the population of the seven counties around Orlando, could plow up ranchland to create a city near Yeehaw Junction and may spread Miami's sprawl almost to the borders of Everglades National Park. That kind of growth threatens to flush tons more polluted runoff into the Kissimmee River, Lake Okeechobee and coastal waterways such as the St. Lucie River, activists said at the Everglades Coalition's annual conference on Hutchinson Island. That could overwhelm restoration projects for which designers had assumed that the land in question would remain agricultural, they said.Development also raises prices, making it harder to buy land for the restoration. And in several c ...

The end of South Florida's free ride on Everglades water
Opinion /Miami Herald /Jan 29
Miami-Dade County commissioners and managers got a stern messagefrom the state and the South Florida Water Management District last week: The days of business as usual are over. The message was both timely and necessary. Business as usual means siphoning more and more water from the Everglades to slake the thirst of a growing population. The message wasn't just for Miami-Dade. It applies to Broward, Monroe and Palm Beach counties, too. To their everlasting credit, Gov Jeb Bush and the Legislature last year turned off the one-way spigot with twobills that strengthen the state's water-supply policy. The bills link water supplies with permits for new development and protect the state and federal governments' $8 billion investment in Everglades restoration by ensuring that growth will not drain the Everglades. From now on, counties and cities must find alternative ...

Activists fear Everglades fix is faltering
Robert King /Palm Beach Post /Jan 28
Environmentalists complained Friday that the $10.5 billion Everglades restoration has run off its rails little more than five years after Congress approved it — beset by Washington gridlock, lack of money, out-of-control development and a seemingly endless torrent of pollution from Lake Okeechobee. State and federal leaders countered that they are fully committed to the restoration. And the feds brought President Bush's promises for money to prove it. Bush will ask Congress next month for a 15 percent increase in the Army Corps of Engineers' Everglades budget for 2006-7, boosting it to $164 million, Assistant Army Secretary James Paul Woodley Jr. told activists on Hutchinson Island at the Everglades Coalition's annual conference. Woodley called it a sign that the Everglades remains one of the president's top priorities despite the costs of war, But while applauding that news, Evergl ...

Environmentalists call Everglades restoration lacking
Robert King /Palm Beach Post /Jan 24
Environmentalists today gave the $10.5 billion Everglades restoration a barely passing grade, while federal leaders expressed only bleak hope that Congresswill finally authorize the long-stalled $1.2 billion portion aimed at saving the St. Lucie River and the Indian River Lagoon.Some activists were even more pessimistic on the opening day of the Everglades Coalition's annual conference, held on Hutchinson Island a little more than five years after the restoration won blessings from Congress and then-President Clinton. "I'm here to tell you the sky is falling," Martin County environmentalist Maggy Hurchalla told hundreds of activists, engineers, scientists, politicians andgovernment managers at the conference. "If something doesn't happen soon, it will be like Humpty Dumpty. The Indian River Lagoon will die, Lake Okeechobee will die and the Everglades will die." State and fede ...

Water supply puts crisis on tap for Dade
NEGRETE/MORGAN /Miami Herald /Jan 27
State water managers warned Miami-Dade County on Thursday to come up with a new plan for supplying water to its booming population over the next two decades -- one that doesn't blatantly ignore state conservation requirements and threaten to suck Everglades wetlands dry.Miami-Dade, they said, doesn't have more water to give, at least not from the cheap source the county's utility currently taps.The stern warning does not mean there won't be enough water to flush toilets or fill bathtubs for current Miami-Dade residents.But it does have profound implications for the coming years, from hiking water rates to derailing new development -- including a push to build thousands of new homes, shops and offices on the fringes of the Everglades. `STORM BREWING' ''We have a perfect storm brewing here,'' said Colleen Castille, the head of the state's Department of Environmental Protec ...

Friends of Everglades needed more than ever
Editorial /Palm Beach Post /Jan 26
The Everglades Coalition, an alliance of 45 local, state and national environmental groups, starts its 21st annual conference today facing tough questions. Is the $10.5 billion Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan still alive? Will the federal government, which is supposed to be the state's equal partner in restoring flows of clean water to the Everglades and supplying water for millions of future Floridians, ever do its share? Will Congress finally approve the first Everglades project, the $1.5 billion Indian River Lagoon restoration plan, this year? Those are the printable questions. Residents of the Treasure Coast, hosting the coalition at aresort on Hutchinson Island in Martin County, are so angry at politicians and bureaucrats thatmuch angrier comments seem likely. Years after Florida and the federal government agreed to work together on Everglades resto ...



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