FFCU Logo Header Photo
SWFL ENews: Aug 22, 2006 SWFL ENews:
Aug 22, 2006 / go to archive


BIG CYPRESS

Redesigned weir will give Naples Bay a breather
Eric Staats /Naples Daily News /Aug 10
Water flowing down the Golden Gate Canal takes a wide and jagged route across Collier County before it empties into the headwaters of Naples Bay — with harmful results.The journey is about to change. The South Florida Water Management District Governing Board voted Wednesday in West Palm Beach to approve a $4.2 million contract to retrofit one of the weirs in the canal to allow more environmentally friendly releases. The retrofit is part of a larger set of plans to stem the flow of water from the canal into Naples Bay, something scientists have called for since the canal was built in the 1960s. “This is just another step in trying to get Naples Bay right,” said Naples City Councilman John Sorey, who also serves as chairman of the Big Cypress Basin, the local arm of the water management district. Questions persist, though, about how much good the changes to the ca ...

'Return to nature' plan revised
Jeremy Cox /Naples Daily News /Aug 13
State and federal officials are scaling back miles of protective levees and are considering eliminating two of the three pump stations in the Southern Golden Gate Estates restoration plan. The cuts could slash millions off the project's $362 million price tag. Once envisioned as the "largest subdivision in the world," Southern Golden Gate Estates is undergoing a return to nature at the hands of the South Florida Water Management District and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The plan calls foreradicating 227 miles of roads and filling in canals to re-create natural water flows in the western Everglades. Newly updated computer models suggest that the levee system proposed two years ago to protect a massive farming operation, an isolated subdivision and a tiny rural outpost won't have to be so extensive. "The mandate from the (Comprehensive Everglades Restoration ...

Web site brings world of water management to public
Jeremy Cox /Naples Daily News /Aug 14
Nearly 60 years ago, Everglades matriarch Marjory Stoneman Douglas observed that South Florida lies at an "unseen tilt" that guides rain water from north to south across a swaying plain of saw grass. Her widely quoted name for this unique landscape — River of Grass — suggested that nature was the boss. Today, a complex system of spillways, levees, pump stations and canals controls where, when and how the water flows. As the keepers of the new order, the South Florida Water Management District and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineersmeticulously have tracked the water's journey for several decades. A few years ago, a federal scientist with no prior Web-designing experience got the idea to put the information at the public's fingertips. The result, www.fgcu.edu/bcw/hcu.htm, has evolved into a weekly peek inside the rarely seen — and even more rarely understood — world ...

Gov. Bush moves to speed up buyout of Belle Meade
Jeremy Cox /Naples Daily News /Aug 16
Gov. Jeb Bush signaled Tuesday he wants the state to accelerate its effort to buy the remaining one-third of a state forest east of Naples that lingers inprivate hands. The governor and the Cabinet voted to raise the priority level of the 13-year-old Belle Meade buyout project. The area is on the Florida Forever acquisition list, making it eligible to receive a share of the program’s annual $300 million budget. The shift to the highest priority level allows the state to buy properties on its own and for full appraised value, said Sarah Williams of the stateDepartment of Environmental Protection. Before Tuesday, the state could only pay a portion of the purchase price and had to seek outside financial help. “It gives us some more flexibility to work with the landowners,” Williams said. So far, the buyout effort has amassed more than 19,000 acres in Belle Meade at a co ...

Group applies for money to build wildlife underpass
Jeremy Cox /Naples Daily News /Aug 17
One evening in July 2004, a 4-year-old female Florida panther tried to crossU.S. 41 East near the Turner River bridge with her two kittens. State wildlife officers discovered the panther the next morning. A car collision had left her with bleeding wounds and a badly fractured right leg. After 10 months of mending, the female panther was released back into the wild about seven miles north of U.S. 41. Within 48 hours, the tawny cat returned to the same bridge where she had last seen her kittens. This time, she didn’t survive. That is a familiar story at the Turner River bridge. Since 1984, four panthers have been killed and three have been injured in the same spot. The environmental group Defenders of Wildlife asked the state Department of Transportation last June to stop the killing by constructing a $4 million wildlife underpass. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agr ...

Plan for fewer levees marks some uneasy
Jeremy Cox /Naples Daily News /Aug 18
A proposal to curtail miles of protective levees around farms and homes south of the Southern Golden Gate Estates restoration project was greeted Thursday with unease during the first public airing since the change. Jim Lepp, 55, built a home in Royal Palm Golf Estates to escape the harsh winters in Green Bay, Wis. Although computer-generated flood maps show the subdivision won’t get flooded by the restoration project even during aonce-in-a-century storm, Lepp said he still worries about staying dry.During this summer’s rainy season, a drainage pond has crept up 20 feet from its bank into his yard. That pond drains into the canal that runs along U.S. 41 East just west of County Road 92, where newly restored Southern Golden Gate Estates flows are set to travel. “If (the water) comes up another three feet, it’s in my pool,” said Lepp, who is moving into his new house in t ...

EPA warns of 'unacceptable impacts' at proposed mining site
Jeremy Cox /Naples Daily News /Aug 19
Not far from Big Cypress National Preserve, a swampy cow pasture harbors one of the last accessible limestone deposits in Collier County beneath its unassuming surface. Here, a Jacksonville-based mining company sees an opportunity to satisfy a big chunk of the fast-growing county's rock demand for 15 years. But environmental advocates and one federal agency see irreparable damage to an endangered bird species and a loss of nearly 600 acres of pollution-filtering wetlands. The Environmental Protection Agency has warned that the 1,400-acre mine might have "substantial and unacceptable adverse impacts" on wetlands that are uncomfortably close to Big Cypress. To emphasize the point, the agency has declared that the wetlands are "aquatic resources of national importance." Still, Florida Rock Industries, a company with a tarnished environmental record, is pushing a ...

Reviewer worries weir would hurt Naples Bay
Eric Staats /Naples Daily News /Aug 21
Water managers are facing questions about whether plans to retrofit a weir on the Golden Gate Canal will help or hurt Naples Bay. The South Florida Water Management District voted this month in West Palm Beach to approve a $4.2 million contract to replace Weir No. 2 near the Interstate 75 interchange at Golden Gate Parkway. A new structure, called an Obermeyer weir, at that spot will allow more carefully timed releases of water downstream toward Naples Bay and lessen the need to release big slugs of water blamed for killing the bay, water managers say.But in comments to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which has yet to issue a permit for the new weir, a reviewer with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service raises doubts about it. Wildlife Service reviewer Kim Dryden wrote in a June 23 e-mail to various state and federal agency representatives that the weir w ...

SOUTHWEST COAST

Flushing might do more harm to manatees
Opinion /Herald Tribune /Aug 8
Scientists are looking into the feasibility of releasing Lake Okeechobee water down the Caloosahatchee River if red tide is present in the river's estuaries when manatees migrate in March and April to save the lives of perhaps 100 manatees. They reason that the so-called fresh water will chase the red tideback out to sea. Guess that's as good an excuse as any to get rid of that unwanted polluted lake water -- the heck with the Gulf. I hope this idea will be shot down by the people who are already incensed bylake water being dumped down our rivers, but can we be sure? And might not the heavily contaminated fresh water from the lake be just as deadly for the manatees as red tide? Stay tuned, folks. It's a new game in which our desire to save manatees is being coupled with the desire to get rid of polluted water and to avoid having to face cleaning up the sources of cont ...

Sea Levels Already Rising along Florida Coast
Carol Goldberg /PEER /Aug 9
WASHINGTON - August 9 - Federal and state policymakers are turning a blind eye toward unmistakable evidence of rising sea levels affecting Florida coastal areas, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Within the next twenty years, predicted sea level rises will begin to inundate much of the Florida coastline, as well as low-lying open lan Sea level rises are already being recorded in Florida, about 10 inches during the last century (at a rate of 2.3 millimeters per year as measured by tide gauge data). Due to global warming, melting ice caps and thermal expansion of the oceans as they warm, the rate of sea level rise is predicted to accelerate. Based upon data developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), estimated s In the near-term, higher sea levels will lead to higher hurricane storm surges, resulting in ...

New study finds evidence Lake O releases reach Estero Bay
Jeremy Cox /Naples Daily News /Aug 10
Leaders with the city of Sanibel and Lee County have threatened water managers with lawsuits over the powerful lake releases. The nutrient-loaded discharges trigger destructive algae blooms, kill seagrass beds and upset the natural balance, they argue. The eyes of Southwest Florida turn to San Carlos Bay whenever the fragile estuary is forced to bear the brunt of Lake Okeechobee's polluted waters. A new federal study suggests another important waterway might be in danger, too. The long and shallow Estero Bay, which was the first water body in the state to be named an aquatic preserve, receives some of its water from the Caloosahatchee River, the study found. By tracking salinity patterns over more than four years, two U.S. GeologicalSurvey hydrologists traced the Caloosahatchee's flows into the northeast corner of Estero Bay. The river water reaches as far south as ...

Dog days mean slow fishing in Southwest Florida
staff /News Press /Aug 10
Fishing activity is just huffing along at a Dog Days pace. Redfish and mangrove snapper fishing is pretty good, as it should be, and Spanish mackerel are exceptionally widespread and abundant for this time of year. Panfishing in fresh water is decent for bluegill, and it’s being bolstered by a good showing of exotics including oscars and Mayan cichlids. REDFISH: Sixteen teams fishing the Collier CCA tournament out of Goodland last weekend produced two-redfish limits for six boats, where were led by Capt. Andrew Bostick and his son, Kyle, with 9.57 pounds. The Bait Box on Sanibel reports good action on slot-size reds at the Sanibel Pier. Jack and Billy Matson caught their limit of reds in Shell Creek at themouth of the Caloosahatchee, along with six mangrove snapper to 15 inches and three sheepshead to 16 inches, according to Lehr’s Economy Tackle in Nort ...

Reservoir design will worsen Caloosahatchee
Ray Judah /News Press /Aug 12
The South Florida Water Management District recently held a tour of the C-43 (Caloosahatchee River) storage reservoir test cells on an 11,000-acre tract of land west of LaBelle. The test cells were built to evaluate embankment design, seepage and water quality in preparation for construction of the west reservoir included in the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP). The C-43 west reservoir is part of the SFWMD Acceler8 program intended to expedite the construction of several additional reservoirs and specialtreatment areas to capture and store regulatory releases from Lake Okeechobee. Unfortunately, the design and construction of the C-43 reservoir will only serve to further exacerbate water quality problems in the Caloosahatchee River and coastal estuaries. Furthermore, the C-43 reservoir, in conjunction with the other plannedreservoirs and special ...

Rising sea level may put Bay area at risk
J Jones & N Azzara /Bradenton Herald /Aug 13
MANATEE - In the ancient past, Florida was a mere wisp of itself, an archipelago surrounded by seawater along what is now a ridge running through the middle of the state. Scientific maps of the prehistoric world also show no Florida atall, only a vast sea south of modern-day Georgia. And at other times, the state was twice as wide as it is today, scientists say. The shape of Florida has always depended on the level of the seawater, which sometimes falls, but has been slowly rising for the past 12,000 to 15,000 years, said Ernest D. Estevez, director of the Center for Coastal Ecology at Mote Marine Laboratory. That well documented rising sea level - Estevez estimates it at 2 millimeters a year - is increasingly attracting the attention ofgovernment officials as well as scientists. On Monday, members of the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council will receive a briefing ...

Editorial: Water pollution
Editorial /Naples Daily News /Aug 15
Good news. One known and another suspected source of pollution in local bay waters are getting the attention they need. A flexible weir or dam door is proposed for regulating the long ditch that winds from the massive Golden Gate Canal to Naples Bay, carrying fresh water and other problems with it. Meanwhile, a study shows water from Lake Okeechobee does indeed find its waywestward via the Caloosahatchee River to the northern tip of Estero Bay. The better news will come when we see studies translated into action. The best news will come when we wise up and stop doing the damage in the first place. ...

Grant will train heavy equipment operators
Laura Layden /Naples Daily News /Aug 16
The Southwest Florida Workforce Development Board saw a need. Now it’s looking to fill it.The need? Heavy equipment operators to build a massive 11,000-acre reservoir in Hendry County that will help experts regulate harmful freshwater releases from Lake Okeechobee.How to fill it? With money awarded to Florida reBuilds. Through the state program, the region’s Workforce Development Board has received a $125,000 grant to train 50 people as heavy equipment operators. The idea is to provide workers to contractors hired by the South Florida Water Management District to build the C-43 reservoir, part of the Governor’s Acceler8 program, meant to speed up the design and construction of eight Everglades restoration projects. The Southwest Florida Workforce Development Board is working with the newly created Education Center of Southwest Florida in LaBelle to provide the trai ...

Oceans being dangerously altered
staff /Hamilton Spectator /Aug 18
LITTLE GASPARILLA ISLAND, Fla. All Susan Leydon has to do is stick her head outside and take a deep breath of sea air, and she can tell if her 10-year-old son is about to get sick. The dread takes hold whenever purplish-red algae stain the crystal waters of Florida's Gulf Coast. The blooms send waves of stinking dead fish ashore and insult every nostril on the island with something worse. The algae produce an arsenal of toxins carried ashore by the sea breeze. Harmful algae blooms have occurred for ages. Yet, what was once a freak of nature has become commonplace. These outbreaks, often called "red tides," are occurring more often, showing up in new places, lasting longer and intensifying.Scientists believe that partially treated human sewage and farm runoff are generally responsible for the worldwide spread of algae blooms. But when they focus on individual bloo ...

Scientists have answered many questions about red tide
Gabrielle Vargo /Herald Tribune /Jul 28
We are writing to provide a different perspective from that offered byHerald-Tribune Science Writer Cathy Zollo in her July 21 article "Answers few at forum on red tide." Ms. Zollo was referring to a workshop and public forum held at Mote Marine Laboratory this month, attended by nearly 70 scientists and agency officials who work with red tides. We would like to clarify the remarks quoted in the article, and express our disagreement with its tone. In the latter context, contrary to the headline, a large number of questionswere answered at both the workshop and the forum. A high level of research activity over the last decade, and in particular over the past five years, has provided answers to many important questions about the Florida red tide -- questions about the nature of the toxins, their effects on humans and animals of various types, the oceanography of the West Fl ...

Think hurricane season's a dud?
Cathy Zollo /Herald Tribune /Aug 16
Conditions in the tropical Atlantic aren't in place to stoke a hurricane right now, but the storms are coming soon, says AccuWeather's Joe Bastardi. Forecasters are watching three disturbances that could develop into storms. The most ominous scenario would merge an already organized system coming from Africa with weather conditions that could produce a major storm under the right circumstances.Chief among those weather conditions is a large pulse of rising air, or low-level convergence in meteorologist speak, that is moving toward the Atlantic from the eastern Pacific. It eventually will meet a train of tropical waves -- areas of turbulent air that are the seeds of most hurricanes -- moving west from Africa. When the rising air reaches the Atlantic in seven to 10 days, it will meet sea surface temperatures that are warm enough to feed hurricanes. That warm wa ...

Answers few at forum on red tide
Cathy Zollo /Herald Tribune /Jul 21
SARASOTA -- Don Chaney hoped on Thursday night that 75 red tide researchers would give environmental activists some ammunition to take to state and federal lawmakers. Something to get the kind of local, state and federal laws that might quell the blooms, that might lead to the cleanup of coastal and river runoff. Chaney, who grew up in Sarasota and is a member of the Healthy Gulf Coalition, says he remembers eating shellfish on the beach. "And there were a lot of them," he told scientists. But over his 60-plus years in Sarasota, he says red tides have become more abundant, and shellfish more scarce. "There seem to be to me more intense blooms of red tide, and they last longer," he said.The public forum that was the stage for Chaney's comments came at the close of a red tide science conference that drew more than 200 people to locations in Sarasota, St. Petersburg and ...

LAKE OKEECHOBEE

Aging dike repairs delayed
Curtis Morgan /Miami Herald /Aug 8
Repairs to reinforce the aging dike around Lake Okeechobee -- a $300 million project hampered by construction problems and questioned by state engineering consultants -- has been put on temporary hold.The decision will ''make sure we have the right fix, not a temporary fix,'' said Nanciann Regalado, spokeswoman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Jacksonville, which manages the 143-mile-long earthen levee that rings the state's largest lake. The delay, expected to last at least a month, is intended to give the Corps' technical experts time to complete a review and issuerecommendations to better bolster a dike -- which a state consultants' report in May labeled ''a grave and imminent danger'' at high risk of collapse. The alarming report, which prompted Gov. Jeb Bush to call for immediate federal action to shore up the Herbert Hoover Dike, also recommended the ...

Lake O's low level raises specter of drought
Robert King /Palm Beach Post /Aug 9
Staff members of the South Florida Water Management District gingerly broached the "D" word Tuesday after months of expressing worries about the dangers of catastrophic flooding if high lake levels break a hole in the dike. Water managers don't plan any imminent action, noting that plenty of rain is possible as Florida enters the most active months of hurricane season. But recent history offers reason for concern about both extremes, they say. As of Tuesday, the lake was at 12.16 feet above sea level, nearly 3 feet below average for this time of year. In fact, lake levels are within 2 inches of where they were on this date in 2000, when an abnormally dry rainy season set the stage for a severe drought the following year that led to water restrictions and wildfires. On the other hand, the lake was around the same elevation in early August 2004, only to shoot up nearly 6 feet by mid-Octobe ...

Lake Okeechobee polluting our river
Suzanne Wentley /TCPalm /Aug 18
A report released Thursday on the health of the St. Lucie River pointed to massive discharges from Lake Okeechobee as the main cause of fecal coliform pollution in the waterway last summer. However, the report — commissioned by Martin County utilities officials and written by Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution scientists — also said septic tanks in North River Shores and the Rio area also were to blame for polluted waters. County Utility Director John Polley said he hired the scientists to test the water quality in the river after massive fecal coliform bacteria bloom last summer forced health officials to warn residents to avoid the St.Lucie River. The report's findings were similar to one released last month by the city of Stuart, which also commissioned a study from Harbor Branch scientists Brian Lapointe, Bradley Bedford and Cindy Cromer. On Thursda ...

Corps' plan for Lake O stirs up waves
Robert King /Palm Beach Post /Aug 19
The corps hopes to put the rules into effect in January. Then it will begin working on yet another set of rules that will take effect in 2010, when planned reservoirs will provide new places to send lake water. Corps project manager Pete Milam said the 2004 and 2005 hurricanes, which filled the lake like a tub, helped prompt the move toward the stopgap rules. "The corps decided we could not wait until 2010," he said. The details are complicated, but one thing seems certain: The plan will probably leave a lot of people unhappy. ...

If Lake Okeechobee dike fails, the plan is to be ready
Phil Long /Miami Herald /Aug 20
If the people around Lake Okeechobee are ever threatened with a dike-busting hurricane or some other disaster, Jennifer Beckman wants them to be fully prepared to evacuate. But before emergency management workers can figure out how best to accommodate more than 40,000 Palm Beach County residents who live around the state's largest inland lake, they've got to have the most current information on what those people might need.So Beckman and a couple of dozen other workers have been braving the sweltering heat, tromping through neighborhoods from Canal Point to Belle Glade, listening to people, compiling something of acommunity-wide behavioral analysis. Palm Beach County's lake region is a diverse, largely agricultural community with several languages and with poverty issues and a sizable population of elderly. Teams have surveyed about 2,500 people. Surveyors are putt ...

EVERGLADES RESTORATION

Off-road riders: Help us find a legal home
Yudy Pineiro /Miami Herald /Aug 10
A rainbow of colored posters draped from the back wall of a community room at the Palmetto Golf Course where about 100 off-road riders congregated Friday to ask state officials to help them find a legal place to ride in South Florida. Scribbled in orange and silver bubble letters: ''Commissioners please help.'' ''Go after criminals, not ATV riders,'' proclaimed one. ''Over 2,700 ATVs sold in District 11 and nowhere to ride,'' another read. Members of the Off-Highway Vehicles Advisory Committee, run by the State Division of Forestry, commended the off-road enthusiasts for doing the right thing by reaching out to officials to voice their concerns. But there was little the committee, void of governing power, could do to help. ''Go to the commissioners, do your homework, find where the landis,'' suggested John Waldron with the Division of Forestry. Ca ...

Alligators' 'ferocious' immune system could lead to new medicines for people
David Fleshler /Sun Sentinel /Aug 14
The alligator's massive jaws and powerful tail mark it as a relic of the dinosaur age, a primitive creature that would appear to have little in common with humans. Yet scientists are studying aspects of alligator biology that could lead to new medical treatments and a better understanding of threats to the environment. In the bayous of Louisiana, researchers have discovered that alligators have a ferocious immune system that can take down a vast range of viruses, bacteria and other infectious microbes, including HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. And in the lakes and marshes of Florida, they have found that the reptiles are extraordinarily sensitive to pesticides, fertilizers and other pollutants, making them a useful early-warning system of possible hazards to people. Because of the alligator's potential value to human health, scientists have proposed adding it to th ...

No Everglades victory yet
Editorial /Palm Beach Post /Aug 14
Improvement that still fails to solve a problem is just that. News that water flowing out of the Everglades Agricultural Area has showed "significant improvement" in phosphorus reductions for the 11th consecutive year doesn't mean that the state has solved the problem of making water clean enough to send to the Everglades. The water sent from Lake Okeechobee to the 500,000-acre EAA, south of the lake, contains levels of phosphorus averaging more than 170 parts per billion. After the 2004 hurricanes, levels got as high as 600. So, the water is leaving the EAA much cleaner, with a 44 percent reduction in phosphorus.Under Florida's 1994 Everglades Forever Act, growers must reduce pollution in water coming off their farms by only 25 percent, a target they again have beaten. An estimated 118 tons of phosphorus was kept out of the canal system that sends water to the Everglades. But to make t ...

Robots play role in bridging underwater exploration barriers
Suzanne Wentley /TCPalm /Aug 17
JENSEN BEACH — With his legs on land and his thumbs positioned on a joystick remote control, researcher Eric Steimle on Wednesday showed local scientists how to collect water quality and biological data in the Indian River Lagoon without getting wet. A small, robotic pontoon boat equipped with underwater microphones, a camera and thousands of dollars worth of other instruments chugged around the water off the Jensen Beach Causeway, streaming information wirelessly into a computer database on land. "This is basically you in the water without being in the water," Steimle, an engineer with the University of South Florida, told scientists fromthroughout the Treasure Coast. "But you can collect a lot more data than someone with a water bottle." Using the state-of-the-art technology, university researchers are hoping that state water managers and other scientists will be a ...

Combat-tested engineer facing new tests as corps chief for Florida
Robert King /Palm Beach Post /Aug 17
One hundred miles south of Baghdad, Paul Grosskruger was trapped in a blinding sandstorm, awaiting an attack from Saddam Hussein's militia. It was March 26, 2003, and the U.S. invasion of Iraq was stalled. Tents were collapsing in the wind. Night was falling. "I looked at my officers and they were ashen, covered with dust, exhaustion," recalled Grosskruger, who was an Army lieutenant colonel leading a 500-person battalion of bulldozer-driving engineers — and untested as a combat leader. Trying to buoy their spirits, he managed a smile, telling them: "We will get through this." Grosskruger spent the night in his Humvee until the storm passed, and the expected attack never arrived. Still, he felt he had passed a test. "Surely," he wrote later in his journal, "nothing could be worse than that night." That night near Najaf was an unusual stop along the road to Grosskruger's newe ...

Water shortage may halt housing
Curtis Morgan /Miami Herald /Aug 18
The state this week raised a significant new hurdle for a mega-development envisioned along the southern Everglades: water, or rather the lack of it.The water warning came in a letter state planners sent Tuesday to Florida City, rejecting four housing proposals that would add some 3,000 new residents. It came the same day a federal judge ruled against environmentalists in a lawsuit aimed at derailing a much larger project, Florida City Commons, that could draw six times more people. Despite that ruling, the latest water-use concerns raised by both regional water managers and state planners indicate the controversial development still faces a long road to approval. The Commons -- 6,000 homes, shops, schools, a movie theater and hotel proposed for isolated marsh and nursery land in South Miami-Dade County -- is projected to roughly double water demands in Florida City ...

Scientists: Keys road widening partly to blame for algae bloom
Jennifer Kay /Bradenton Herald /Aug 18
KEY LARGO, Fla. - Lain Goodwin eased his boat into Florida Bay, hoping for the water to clear. He looked for the holes in the bay floor where he would always catch some snook, but there was nothing to see. The only clear blue was the sky.Back east across Blackwater Sound, under the construction along U.S. 1, through Barnes Sound and 5 miles north into Biscayne Bay, thewater remained the same deep green as the mangrove stands that hug the islands of the upper Florida Keys. The shallow waters from Key Largo north to Arsenicker Keys have been clouded by a blue-green algae bloom spreading across 175 square miles of Florida and Biscayne bays since autumn. The bloom stretches into portions of Everglades and Biscayne national parks, threatening the fragile seagrass that supports the state's fishing industry,conservationists say. "I just don't see an end to it," Goodwin said Thursd ...

How does an alligator go from pond to purse?
Jamie Malernee /Sun Sentinel /Aug 20
The hunters slice through the morning silence on Lake Okeechobee, airboats whining as a helicopter follows in the distance, black insect on a pink sky. The chopper thunders closer, then zooms past. The lookout in the cockpit radios down directions. He's spotted an alligator nest in the marsh. Tracy Howell revs his airboat engine and charges into the swirling blades ofgrass and giant cane. He and his hunting partner then leap off, trudging through the muck. Their only weapon: a plastic canoe paddle covered with the bite marks of angry mother alligators. The females fight to protect what the hunters are after. Alligator eggs. The brush parts to reveal a large nest. The mama? Nowhere to be seen, thoughthat doesn't mean she isn't close, lurking in a mud cave only feet away. "I'd rather the female be present and aggressive, so you know where they are," says a wary Howell ...



© 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