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BIG CYPRESS

Back on the Loop
JEFF KLINKENBERG /St Pete Times /Feb 12
When I was a teenager, the Loop Road was the real Mister Toad's Wild Ride. It was the most untamed place I knew, the most remote, smoke-'em-if-you-got-'em, people-unfriendly byway in Florida. It was 26 hellish miles of moon-crater potholes, gape-jawed alligators, choleric cottonmouths and swamp men who would just as soon spit on your tennies as say hello. The federal government owns it now, in the 700,000 acres of the Big Cypress National Preserve. The potholes are gone and laws are now occasionally enforced, but otherwise the Loop Road remains a marathon of crushed gravel, reptiles and watch-your-back roughnecks.It begins at Monroe Station on the Tamiami Trail in Collier County, meanders south for a spell, then snakes back north toward the Tamiami Trail at the Miccosukee Indian Reservation in Miami-Dade County. Construction crews built the road in the 1920s but forgot to add civilizatio ...

Urban sprawl restricts panthers' habitat
Editorial /Miami Herald /Feb 13
The estimated 87 breeding adult Florida panthers that still roam South Florida's swamps and prairies need more protection if they are ever to be de-listed as an endangered species. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, trying to wipe the egg off its face after having used bad science to support more development in areas where panthers roam, now is emphasizing preservation of that habitat. This is good.Stop urban sprawlThe USFWS and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission must be fully committed to looking out for the panther's welfare. The two agencies should be more aggressive in fighting the push of urban sprawl into any more of the panthers' dwindling habitat. One way to do this would be for the agencies to support groups that have sued in federal court, under the Endangered Species Act, to stop a 6,000-home development on land south of Florida City.That this open space is ...

Recovery plan wants to widen Florida panther habitat
staff /Orlando Sentinel /Feb 1
MIAMI -- Florida panthers should be moved to other locations in the Southeast in an effort to increase the population of the endangered cat, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service report said.The report includes a recovery plan that presents ways to help panthers thrive as their southern Florida habitat becomes more limited because of urban sprawl, agricultural development and road building.The only breeding population is located in southern Florida, where roughly 80 panthers remain in the wild, the wildlife service said.``There is insufficient habitat in South Florida to sustain a viable panther population,'' states the report released Tuesday. ``The prospects for population expansion into south-central Florida are questionable at this time.''The wildlife service's plan includes specific recovery objectives and criteria to be met to downlist the Florida panther to threatened under the Endange ...

Birding's Holy Grail: The Ivory-billed Woodpecker
Byron Stout /News Press /Feb 18
Southwest Florida's foremost "wild things" expert believes one of our cypress swamps is a better bet than Arkansas for finding a rare woodpecker — if it's not extinct.Jerome A. Jackson is skeptical ivory-billed woodpeckers really were found in the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge, as Cornell University scientists and federal officials announced in April.Jackson, a professor at Florida Gulf Coast University, is known worldwide for his knowledge of woodpeckers. Since 1965, he has been searching for "the Holy Grail of birding" throughout the Southeast and Cuba. He is, in fact, still searching, most recently on a tour organized by The News-Press in Collier County's Fakahatchee Strand State Preserve.The man known as Dr. Jerry Jackson to listeners of his "Wild Things" segment on WGCU public radio rates the remote Fakahatchee as one of the most promising places for the great woodpeckers to ...

Florida panther to move states in survival scheme
Andrew Buncombe /UK /Feb 23
The shy and nocturnal Florida panther once inhabited a vast area of the south-eastern United States,from the Everglades to the forests of Arkansas. These days it is one of the world's rarest creatures, with fewer than 90 animals surviving in the wild. But now conservationists have announced a controversial plan to try to save the panther by taking tiny populations from its last remaining strongholds in southern Florida and re-introducing them to states where it once lived."There is insufficient habitat in South Florida to sustain a viable panther population," says a draft of the plan, drawn up by the federal Fish and Wildlife Service. "The prospects for population expansion into south-central Florida are questionable at this time."The Florida panther - Puma concolor coryi - is the only sub-species of the mountain lion or cougar that lives east of the Mississippi River. As recently as the ...

Plan to Protect Florida Panther Reopens Issue of Its Identity
Peter Whoriskey /Washington Post /Feb 21
MIAMI -- The Florida panther, the feline carnivore that roams what's left of the state's cypress swamps and other wilds, enjoys almost mythic status here.Its image adorns license plates. The National Hockey League franchise is named for the cat. And it is, officially, the Florida state animal.But now a new plan for saving the vaunted predator is reopening awkward questions for the animal's admirers: What, exactly, is a Florida panther?Scientists believe there are only about 80 left in Florida. And given the shortage of habitat in the cat's rapidly developing namesake state, the draft recovery plan for the Florida panther, issued recently by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, proposes to export some of the predators out of state -- and names potential sites in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia and Alabama.The Florida panther roamed those states long ago, wildlife biologists said, ...

Gov. Bush praises Ave Maria
Joan Laguardia /News Press /Feb 17
About 400 people, including Gov. Jeb Bush, gathered near Immokalee today to officially kick off construction of Ave Maria University and its new town.The charm of an old world village combined with the vitality of a college town is the theme of the new community. Bush, whose visit today was his first time back in east Collier County since Hurricane Wilma, said he was pleased to see the area recovering from hurricane damage.“I’m really proud of Southwest Florida and Collier County in how organized you are,” he said.Bush welcomed the new Roman Catholic university for its goals of combining academic accomplishment with reinforcing “timeless values” like humility, compassion and respect for life. He also pointed out that the development is the first project under Collier County’s Rule Land Stewardship program.The town preserved the natural and rural heritage of this part of the state, Bush s ...

SOUTHWEST COAST

Results delayed on study of rivers runoff, red tide
Charlie Whitehead /Naples Daily News /Feb 10
Long-awaited research on red tide and red drift algae that could tie the fish and manatee killing blooms to Caloosahatchee River runoff will require a little longer wait.A coalition that included the city of Bonita Springs, Sanibel and Fort Myers Beach and Lee Countys Tourist Development Council hired Professor Larry Brand of the University of Miami and Dr. Brian Lapointe of Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution to study red tide, red drift algae and its connection to nutrients carried down the Caloosahatchee into the Gulf of Mexico from Lake Okeechobee.Both experts have drawn connections between the rivers water quality and the offshore blooms that have strewn Southwest Florida beaches with dead fish, killing as many as 100 manatees in a single year and driving away tourists in droves. Officials have wanted the information to try to change the minds of state officials about the connec ...

Citizen-stewards keep track of Lemon Bay
Melynda Schneider /Sun Herald /Feb 15
Since the mid-1990s, a group of dedicated residents has participated in monitoring the health of the waters of Lemon Bay. The group that was originally organized as Three Creek Watch joined the Charlotte Harbor Estuaries Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring Network in 1996. The purpose of the network is to collect and characterize water-quality conditions throughout Lemon Bay and the adjoining estuaries. The program is coordinated locally through the Charlotte Harbor Environmental Center and regionally through the Charlotte Harbor Aquatic Preserves office of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. The data is used by resource managers and scientists to help maintain the health of each unique estuary and protect submerged resources like seagrass and oyster beds. Dedicated volunteers are the heart of this water quality-monitoring group. More than 70 volunteer water monitors sampl ...

Sanibel determined to tackle water quality
staff /News Press /Feb 15
Sanibel City Council today determined to be more proactive about water quality issues stemming from Lake Okeechobee releases into the Caloosahatchee River.Nutrient-laden freshwater discharges have caused massive algal blooms and upset the balance of fresh and salt water in the estuaries on both coasts.One idea is to contact the South Florida Water Management District to appoint a Lee County representative to the water resources advisory committee.City staff will draft a letter to the water district from all five councilmen and the letter will be discussed at Tuesday's regular council meeting. ...

High Lake ‘O’ levels cause problems
MaryAnn Morris /NewsZap /Feb 06
Local people, public officials and high school students converged on the SFWMD Governing Board meeting in Ft. Myers at Florida Gulf Coast University Wednesday, Feb 8. They came from the east, they came from the west and they came from the center — the counties and towns around Lake Okeechobee, the center of the controversy that has raged for many months and years.Placards held by irate citizens spoke to individual views of the problem: “Don’t Flood Our Town,” “Save Our River,” “Stop the Muck,” “SFWMD is Sugar Coating the Problems,” “Stop the Blame” and similar sentiments.Reports by SFWMD regional officials and engineers outlined the situation.Dr. Susan Gray, Ph.D. Director of the Lake Okeechobee District Watershed spoke of the worsening condition of the lake water and loss of aquatic plants, which deprive the lake water of needed oxygen and spawning beds for the bass and other fish in th ...

Florida's 2,000-lb Canary: Red Tide Toll Increasing for
staff /PNN /Feb 24
According to statistics released in January 2006, the year 2005 was the second deadliest on record for Florida's endangered manatee population. One of the leading causes of fatalities was the toxins produced by "red tide" blooms of the alga Karenia brevis, which appear to be growing increasingly common in Florida. A recently completed collaborative study now suggests a surprisingly tight connection between the effects of the toxins on manatees and on humans, and potential implications for human impacts. On Saturday, Feb. 18, Gregory Bossart, a marine mammal veterinarian and pathologist at the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution in Ft. Pierce, Fla., discussed the results of the study at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. "It appears that these red tide events are increasing in nature, especially on Florida's west coast," ...

Red-tide research
staff /Herald Tribune /Feb 06
Red tide seems to have retreated from its yearlong assault on local beaches. That's good news -- but it's no time to back away from much-needed research into this toxic marine alga.Though the organism, Karenia brevis, has been studied for decades, it is still not clear what sparks its devastating "blooms," which wreak havoc on marine animals, tourism and the human respiratory system. As if those impacts weren't serious enough, red tide also contributed to an anoxic "dead zone" last summer in the Gulf of Mexico, turning a vast swath of the sea into a tomb for creatures of the deep.There is a growing sense that, while lengthy blooms aren't new to Southwest Florida, they are happening with greater frequency and intensity. This poses environmental, economic and health challenges for the region.To meet those challenges, information -- gleaned from painstaking research -- is critical. Conclusi ...

Caloosahatchee River
Editorial /Naples Daily News /Feb 9
We know there’s a lot wrong with the Caloosahatchee River. We know there’s a lot the public can gain from the services of Wayne Daltry.Put the two together and you have a formula for solutions.Daltry, the longtime director of the Southwest Florida Regional Planning Council and one of the undisputed experts on regional growth, has helped draft a report outlining systematic improvements needed to restore the Caloosahatchee. It goes step by step on points such as river grasses and oyster beds and bringing them back with science and politics — monitoring river pollutants and pressing politicians to control them.Amid a lot of high-powered attention paid to the river this week at public hearings in Estero, the user-friendly report will help remind citizens and government agencies of the specific problems and ward off rhetoric and circle-talking. It can help track progress or lack of it toward ...

LAKE OKEECHOBEE

Lake Okeechobee releases may help St. Lucie Estuary
Suzanne Wentley /TCPalm /Feb 12
State scientists want to help the St. Lucie Estuary — by sending more Lake Okeechobee water into it. Under a proposal to the South Florida Water Management District's governing board, biologists monitoring the health of the river are asking for the ability to send low-level releases of fresh water from the lake to manage rising salt levels during dry times. District officials already send such releases into the Caloosahatchee River, which suffers from saltwater intrusion, but this is the first time they're considering the same to the east. "The reason we ask for it this year is that it's predicted to be dry," said Peter Doering, an estuarine biologist with the district. "We wanted to be able to respond in an environmentally friendly way if the salinity got too high." Doering said when the salt levels in the water are above 25 parts per 1,000 under the Roosevelt Bridge and 31 parts per 1, ...

Lake Okeechobee to be drained before the start of rainy season
Suzanne Wentley /Sun Sentinel /Feb 16
Freshwater releases from Lake Okeechobee will begin again this morning, as federal water managers work to drain a foot-and-a-half before the start of the rainy season.Water managers with the Army Corps of Engineers on Wednesday agreed to initiate a 10-day round of low-level, "pulse-style" discharges to the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers while continuing to design new lake management rules."There are the environmentally friendly limits of doing the releases, and that's what we're doing," said Andrew Geller, a corps engineer. "It will lessen the chance of doing higher releases in the future."St. Lucie activists have been asking for low-volume discharges for weeks, but corps officials did not approve the formal request until last week.On Wednesday, Lake Okeechobee stood at 15.51 feet above sea level. With a goal of getting the lake to 14 feet by May 1, at least 40 days of low-level rel ...

Endangered vine survives the storm
Peter Franceschina /Sun Sentinel /Feb 16
South Bay · Call it the little gourd that could -- survive Hurricane Wilma.Commonly known as the Okeechobee gourd, Cucurbita okeechobeensis is the only endangered plant species that resides on Lake Okeechobee. It has fought for its existence since its native habitat, the pond apple forests that once covered the south shore of the lake, largely was wiped out by development in the 1920s.On Wednesday, a handful of hurricane orphans got a little help in perpetuating their stay on the lake. When Wilma blew through in late October, its powerful winds pushed all kinds of plants and vegetative debris onto the south shore, inside the Herbert Hoover Dike around the lake. Maintenance workers collected the debris into big, organic piles in November. They turned out to be fertile gourd breeding grounds. Surprisingly, a handful of the plants -- a cousin to squash, cucumbers and pumpkin -- popped out o ...

Catch the bass in Lake Toho while you can
Mike Thomas /Orlando Sentinel /Feb 06
That we are here is a rare success story in the battle of development versus nature. Back in the 1980s, Toho was in the same death spiral that turned Lake Apopka into a mud hole. But the biologists brought Toho back, and in the process created a fish factory the likes of which the natural world has never seen.The payoff for Kissimmee has been huge. Weekend traffic on Lake Toho is like I-4 except the boats are faster. These people drop millions into the local economy.Such used to be the case around Lake Okeechobee. But now it is a gloppy mess, with water that could pass for green lentil soup. The fish there either are dead or are going on a hunger strike. My fishing partner Terry talks about a recent tournament there where anglers battled one another over the few small patches of clear water.What is the difference between the two lakes? Like Okeechobee, Toho is a big bowl into which pollu ...

New Lake Okeechobee management rules proposed
Suzanne Wentley /TCPalm /Feb 23
OKEECHOBEE — Pressured to change the way Lake Okeechobee is managed, federal engineers on Wednesday unveiled three proposals for new lake rules designed to improve the health of the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers as well as the lake itself. On a Web site and during a public meeting in Okeechobee, water managers from the Army Corps of Engineers presented alternative rules that would keep the lake at an overall lower level and allow for smaller, more frequent discharges into the estuaries to avoid larger, more damaging ones. Planning to implement new rules by January, the engineers are asking for public comment before they run each alternative — known as lake regulation schedules — through computer models to determine how each would have performed during 2004 and other extreme years. "The regulation schedule, in and of itself, isn't going to meet all the goals. We'll still have high l ...

Lake revision schedule offered
Pete Gawda /NewsZap /Feb 23
As part of an effort to revise the Lake Okeechobee regulation schedule, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (COE) held a public workshop Wednesday night, Feb. 22, at the Okeechobee Civic Center.This meeting was one of several community meetings that will be held around the lake in conjunction with analysis and environmental evaluations before the new regulation schedule is finalized and put into effect in Jan. 2007.“The communities that are most affected by regulations governing water levels in Lake Okeechobee are an integral part of this process,” said Colonel Robert M. Carpenter, Jacksonville District COE commander in a press release. “This is a time for the public to stay engaged. We must look for a fix to the problems plaguing Lake Okeechobee. The Corps is committed to finding a solution and implementing it by January 2007.”About 60 people attended the meeting, which was opened by Lieut ...

EVERGLADES RESTORATION

Bandages for the St. Lucie Estuary
staff /Florida Sportsman /Feb 06
Everglades and St. Lucie River advocates are watching with guarded optimism as construction begins this year on the C-44 Reservoir and two stormwater treatment areas (STAs), in rural central Martin County.In late January, the state of Florida finalized the purchase of 12,000 acres for the three projects, using funds raised through the sale of bonds. The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) hailed the purchase as part of Governor Bush's October 2004 Acceler8 initiative, aimed at fast-tracking critical Everglades restoration projects.According to Randy Smith, a spokesperson for SFWMD, the 3,400-acre reservoir will be designed to capture and store rainfall and irrigation water draining from agricultural lands into theC-23 canal. The C-23 is a tributary of the larger C-44 canal which links Lake Okeechobee to the St. Lucie Estuary in ...

Experts disagree on right path to fix canal
Curtis Morgan /Miami Herald /Feb 12
Wide and deep and clear, its isolated banks adorned by cormorant and alligator, the C-111 canal might be mistaken for a river as it cuts across the marsh off the 18-Mile Stretch between Florida City and Key Largo.Looks deceive. The C-111 is an unnatural disaster and has been since it was cut decades ago to protect South Miami-Dade County's farms from flooding.The drainage canal did its job too well. The C-111 changed the course of the River of Grass, diverting fresh water that once flowed through the southern Everglades into Florida Bay and funneling it 20 miles east into Barnes Sound.The ripple effects have been devastating. ...

Foley confident Everglades project will be approved
Suzanne Wentley /TCPalm /Feb 14
STUART — With the St. Lucie River as a backdrop, U.S. Rep. Mark Foley on Monday said he's never felt more confident that federal lawmakers will approve the local Everglades restoration project this year. "Everything is in absolutely perfect positioning to see some relief," he said, in a news conference on the riverwalk in downtown Stuart. "There is a light at the end of the tunnel." Foley's visit comes a week after 78 senators signed a letter of support for a bill known as the Water Resources and Development Act, which includes authorization of $1.2 billion in water quality projects in Martin and St. Lucie counties. While House members passed the legislation last year, it has yet to reach the Senate floor for debate. Foley said Monday he believes progress will be made soon, now that top officials from the Army Corps of Engineers sent final paperwork in support of the local project. ...

South Florida Water Management District Awards Everglades Restoration
Avineon press release /Yahoo /Feb 14
ALEXANDRIA, Va., Feb. 14 /PRNewswire/ -- Avineon, Inc., a successful provider of IT, engineering, geospatial and program management services, today announced that South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) has awarded Avineon a contract to perform a vegetation mapping project to help document the location and type of vegetation habitats within the Everglades. Working closely with SFWMD staff, the team from Avineon will use field work, Global Positioning Systems (GPS), photointerpretation, photogrammetry and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to create maps utilizing aerial imagery. The mapping completed by Avineon will be used as a primary tool to assess the system-wide performance of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) program. The mapping effort will ultimately provide the baseline information needed to address the response of the Everglades ecosystem to the ini ...

Let money flow to lagoon
Editorial /Palm Beach Poast /Feb 15
Hopes are high that Congress finally will provide the money this year for the Indian River Lagoon Plan, one of the first major Everglades restoration projects.The House has approved the Water Resources Development Act, which includes $1.2 billion in water-quality projects in Martin and St. Lucie counties. While the Senate hasn't yet scheduled a debate, 78 senators have signed a letter supporting the bill and urging Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to bring the bill to a vote soon.Surprisingly, even Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., who opposed the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan when Congress approved it five years ago, signed the letter urging Sen. Frist to schedule the WRDA legislation for a vote. Since the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and others have completed reports on restoration projects, Sen. Inhofe now supports the plan.U.S. Rep. M ...

Water managers defend plan for new reservoir along St. Lucie Canal
Suzanne Wentley /TCPalm /Feb 17
PORT SALERNO — Before a skeptical crowd, state water managers defended a plan to store and cleanse water from Martin County farms and homes Thursday, a day before construction on the $329 million project is scheduled to begin. During the public meeting at Indian River Community College's Chastain Campus, St. Lucie River advocates questioned the ability of the planned reservoir and stormwater cleansing area to hold enough water during wet times, while duck hunters sought more recreational opportunities on the 12,000-acre site. But almost everyone at the meeting also praised the scientists from the South Florida Water Management District for finally breaking ground on a project to improve the quality of water in the St. Lucie Canal, and the river into which it drains. "The water quality is as bad as it gets," said Patrick Hayes, a member of a district advisory board and the Rivers Coalitio ...

Everglades group aims to raise $2 million at Mar-a-Lago shindig
Robert King /Palm Beach Post /Feb 18
PALM BEACH — Images of herons and anhingas flashed on flat-panel screens beneath the Mar-a-Lago ballroom's 17 crystal chandeliers, near walls lined with 24-karat gold.Donald Trump, Jimmy Buffett and Miami Heat coach Pat Riley were in attendance, but one of the biggest cheers of the evening went to a proposed bridge near Everglades National Park.And before 650 people could leap to their feet as John Mellencamp took the stage and hammered the opening chords of Small Town, they first had to sit through the warm-up act: a documentary about water and saw grass, hosted by a videotaped Tom Brokaw.Only the Everglades could make this kind of splash in Palm Beach.And so it was Thursday night as eco-activists sat down with developers, lawyers who work for the sugar industry dined on filet mignon with the Army Corps engineers, and a Wall Street tycoon joined a conservative former U.S. senator in iss ...

Water overhaul to cost millions
TERE FIGUERAS /Miami Herald /Feb 19
Revamping Miami-Dade's waterworks to appease state officials likely will cost the county hundreds of millions of dollars in new technology and infrastructure -- a monumental challenge for a cash-strapped utility.Faced with recent criticism from the state Department of Environmental Protection and local water managers, Miami-Dade is under unprecedented pressure to come up with new water sources to support its booming population.Citing the threat of environmental damage to the Everglades, the state also is demanding that Miami-Dade diversify its water sources. It now mostly depends on the relatively cheap Biscayne Aquifer.If the county fails to comply, it could face state-imposed restrictions on future development.Preliminary estimates suggest the cost of modernizing the county's waterworks could be ''anywhere between $400 million and $800 million,'' said county budget director Jennifer Gl ...

Water official blames paperwork for slow Everglades restoration
Jeremy Cox /Naples Daily News /Feb 23
WEST PALM BEACH — For years, Everglades advocates have complained about the sloth-like pace of the government’s efforts to fix the ailing River of Grass.Key members of the state’s restoration team Wednesday offered this response: The $10.8 billion effort is drowning in paperwork.“Models have become bigger and more important than they should be,” said Carol Wehle, executive director of the South Florida Water Management District.Planners are spending too much time tinkering with computer models that try to predict how water might flow through proposed reservoirs, pump stations and other structures, Wehle said. Instead of generating 50 or more computer models for a project, planners should rely on “common sense,” she added.“Fifty modeling runs? C’mon, that’s absurd,” Wehle said before the influential South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Task Force, an alliance of state, federal and local of ...



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