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SWFL ENews: Oct 3, 2006 SWFL ENews:
Oct 3, 2006 / go to archive


BIG CYPRESS

Committee writes rules to protect endangered bird
Eric Staats /Naples Daily News /Sep 17
An endangered woodpecker would get more protection in Collier County under rules headed to county commissioners. A citizens committee appointed by commissioners in 2005 wrote the rules as afirst step while the committee continues to study the feasibility of alarger-scale overhaul of the way Collier County protects its endangered and threatened species. The rules are aimed at making sure property owners, mostly in the North Belle Meade section of rural Collier County, preserve the pine trees where red-cockaded woodpeckers carve out nesting cavities and the pine forests where the birds look for food. County commissioners could weigh in on the rules Sept. 26. The rules wouldn’t become effective until the rules are written into law sometime in 2007. Members of the committee that wrote the rules cast them, not as additional regulation, but as a way to help property ow ...

Commission exempts county from state ATV law
staff /Naples Daily News /Sep 26
Collier County joined a growing list of Florida counties today that have exempted themselves from a new state law allowing all-terrain vehicles to traverse unpaved public roads. The law, passed by the Florida Legislature earlier this year, is set to go into effect Oct. 1, but it won't apply in Collier. Commissioners expressed concern that an influx of ATVs, particularly in Golden Gate Estates, would further degrade roads, kick up clouds of dust and generate complaints among residents. Commissioner Jim Coletta tried to create an exception for roads along the western fringe of Big Cypress National Preserve, such as Turner River and Wagon Wheel roads. But county attorneys worried whether the exception could be overturned in court if anyone ever objected. The new law applies to unpaved roads with speed limits under 35 mph. Other counties that have opted out of the ...

Coletta calls for elections rather than appointment of water management officia ls
Andrea Galabinski /Naples Sun Times /Sep 27
Which is best: protecting the people or protecting resources? Those are just two sides of a complex coin in a debate over whether or not officials on the Southwest Florida Water Management District's (SFWMD) Big Cypress Board should be elected, rather than appointed by the governor.Several vocal and angry citizens, along with a Collier County Commissioner, say there has been a severe lack of communication between water management officials and the public. "They are not as accessible on a level that they should be," said Collier County Commission Vice-Chair Jim Coletta. "I've felt that way for some time." he is also Vice-Chair of the Policy Committee for the Florida Association of Counties. If the board members were elected, he feels, they would be more responsive. "When citizens call, they'd respond differently," Coletta said. "What it means is they have allegiance to the ...

Collier Enterprises commits to Lely canal widening despite Sabal Bay setback
Eric Staats /Naples Daily News /Sep 28
A key part of a $61 million drainage project in East Naples is inching forward despite a setback for the Sabal Bay project. The job of widening the Lely main canal, which cuts through the proposed Sabal Bay project, was going to fall to luxury community builder WCI as part of the company’s development of Sabal Bay on some 2,400 acres south of the intersection of Thomasson Drive and U.S. 41 East. That deal went up in smoke when the Bonita Springs-based company dropped plans to build Sabal Bay amid a softening real estate market, company layoffs and a dropping bottom line. That leaves the Sabal Bay landowner, an arm of Collier Enterprises, to take the project from the drawing board to reality under a 2003 agreement with Collier County. “The obligation is still ours and we still plan on fulfilling our obligation,” said Patrick Utter, vice president of commer ...

Proposal would overhaul rule on runoff
Eric Staats /Naples Daily News /Sep 7
Buried deep in Collier County’s land development code are rules about how developers must set aside land for preserves. This summer, though, those preserves have been front and center in a debate about whether developers should be able to use them to hold runoff. Allowing developers to use their preserves to hold runoff means they don’t have to set aside other land for runoff. That means they have more room forbuildings.But, critics say, what started out as a proposal to allow the county to approve plans to put water back into wetland preserves grew into a proposal that threatened to drown increasingly rare upland habitats and animals that live there, especially gopher tortoises. “It raised a lot of red flags,” said The Conservancy of Southwest Florida Governmental Relations Manager Nicole Ryan. Last week, the county’s Planning Commission shot down a version of the pro ...

Meeting seeks to solve panther versus civilization
Jeremy Cox /Naples Daily News /Sep 28
Pamela Mesce shouted and shook her screen door in vain as a male Florida panther walked into the late-afternoon shadows with her 11-year-old house cat in hisjaws. “It was the most horrific thing in my 51 years I’ve ever seen,” said Mesce, who lives in Copeland on the edge of Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park. “He just looked at me with my cat’s head in his mouth ... and he just walked(away) like he was moseying through.” A state wildlife biologist confirmed Tuesday’s attack after hearing Mesce’s story and snapping pictures of slash marks in her screen door and a paw print in the muck nearby.Copeland, an easily missed dot on Collier County’s map, was established longbefore the Endangered Species Act and modern zoning regulations took effect. But even existing development rules might not be enough in coming years to protect people from panthers and vice versa, wildlif ...

Big plans, big questions
Eric Staats /Naples Daily News /Sep 27
In the 1920s, New York advertising magnate Barron Gift Collier began carvingcivilization out of a wilderness that would become Collier County. Some 80 years later, the company that traces its roots to that pioneer is at it again, with plans to found a new town, dubbed Big Cypress, east of Golden Gate Estates. Collier Enterprises wants to build some 25,000 homes in a new town and in a scattering of smaller villages and hamlets on 8,000 acres of farmland surrounded by 14,000 acres of preserve. The project would take 25 to 30 years to build.Work won’t get started until at least 2010, Collier Enterprises CEO Tom Flood said. Big Cypress, along with its neighbor, Ave Maria University and its companiontown, are products of a landmark 2002 growth plan that requires landowners to preserve and restore land to earn credits for development.The 22,000-acre Big Cypress district i ...

Development presses panthers
Kate Spinner /Herald Tribune /Sep 21
Under pressure from developers devouring Florida's wilderness, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plans to redraw the boundary it uses to protect Florida panthers from people, roads, homes and mining. Wildlife officials expect the boundary to move east, away from growth hot spots in Lee and Collier counties. It also could expand into rural lands north of Charlotte and Glades counties. The anticipated change would lift some development restraints in parts of Collier and Lee and put more restrictions on counties north of the Caloosahatchee River, where pioneering male panthers recently have been spotted.The boundary changes could take place within the next year, said Allen Webb, a supervisory biologist in the service's Vero Beach office. The panthers' migration north points to the recent rebound of the endangeredspecies, which came within a wink of extinction in 1995. ...

Fish and Wildlife Service considers relocation of panther consulation line
Jeremy Cox /Naples Daily News /Sep 21
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials are having “internal discussions” about whether the Florida panther consultation line should be relocated to better represent the movements of big cats, an agency official said Wednesday. Allen Webb, Fish and Wildlife’s project planning supervisor in Vero Beach, said pressure from the Collier County Commission and other groups prompted the preliminary review. “Whether we would relocate (the line), we don’t have an answer yet,” Webb said. Commissioners asked the acting head of the Vero Beach office Tuesday to move the line to reflect the changing face of Collier County.Proposals that fall in the consultation area’s boundaries must be reviewed for impacts to panthers, one of the most endangered species on the planet. The line follows Interstate 75 through most of the county but reaches as far west as the heavily commercialized s ...

Rare woodpecker gets the bird from developers
Fred Grimm /Miami Herald /Sep 28
Heaven knows, Geoffrey Hill was braced for controversy. Professor Hill had witnessed the outburst last year, after Cornell University ornithologists proffered evidence that the supposedlyextinct Lord God Bird, aka the Ivory-billed woodpecker, was surviving in the woods of east Arkansas.And, Lord God, a mighty ruckus shook the birding community. Ivory-billed believers and ivory-billed skeptics went at each other like fighting cocks. Bird blogs roiled with charges of lying and deception and fraud -- nasty accusations that jolted the image of folks given to long hours of quiet, contemplative observation. ''I knew it would be controversial,'' Hill said Wednesday, the day after Avian Conservation and Ecology published his evidence that the Lord God Bird, last spotted in Florida in 1924, was alive and nesting in the North Florida woods along the Choctawhatchee Rive ...

"Extinct" Woodpecker May Be Living In Florida
Patricia Shehan /All Headline News /Sep 27
(AHN) - According to the National Geographic and new evidence, it is now believed that the elusive ivory-billed woodpecker may be living in the panhandle of the state of Florida.The birds, once believed to be extinct, may actually still be living in Florida, surviving along the Choctawhatchee River. The report was made available from scientists on Tuesday in the scientific journal, "Avian Conservation and Ecology." A biologist from an Alabama university reported seeing an ivory-bill woodpecker back in May 2005 on a kayaking trip in Florida. The biologist's report was made shortly after another report from Arkansas, in which a researcher had reported seeing the bird in the state's eastern Big Woods area. ...

Scientists "Cautiously Optimistic" About Ivory-Bill Evidence in Florida
staff /Wakulla /Sep 26
There is not enough evidence to confirm the birds’ presence yet,” FWC Executive Director Ken Haddad said, “but the indications are promising, and we will work closely with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Auburn University and the Northwest Florida Water Management District to see if we can confirm the reports.” Auburn University ornithologist Dr. Geoff Hill, who recently completed a year-long search for the endangered woodpecker, unveiled his findings Monday, indicating there are signs ivory-bills might exist on land owned by the water management district. He produced audio recordings that appear similar to historical recordings of ivory-billed woodpeckers. However, he has not collected clear photogra“The water management district owns, manages and protects over 200,000 acres in Northwest Florida, the majority of which are along its major river systems,” said Douglas E. Barr, ...

Expert: Collier rural land plan puts panthers at risk
Jeremy Cox /Naples Daily News /Sep 29
Collier County’s plan to preserve habitat for creatures on the brink of extinction might not offer much help to the most endangered animal of them all. A Florida panther expert’s presentation Thursday before a county advisory committee cast doubt on whether a habitat conservation plan, as proposed, would save the best natural areas.That’s because county commissioners in their marching orders to the 11-member committee forbade the panel from administering the habitat plan in the RuralLands Stewardship Area. The stewardship area encompasses almost 200,000 acres of wilderness, farm fields and pastures in northeast Collier, excluding Immokalee. The area is big enough to squeeze Atlanta, Philadelphia and San Francisco within its boundaries. But Collier planners have something a little less congested in mind. Written by a consultant hired by eastern Collier landowners, ...

County looks to increase rock mining areas
Larry Hannan /Naples Daily News /Sep 30
Collier County officials will look into increasing the areas that allow rockmining within the county despite strong opposition from environmentalists. County officials are growing concerned that they may be running out of rock in areas that are permitted for rock mining. "All of our existing (rock mining) pits are nearing completion," County Engineer Stan Chrzanowski said. "We feel with more areas to mine, we could hold costsdown." As a result, the cost of road construction has been increasing because companies have to ship rock in from other parts of the state, adding the expense of transporting it.Rock is used for the construction of roads, driveways and some buildings. InSouthwest Florida, there is a large demand for rock because growth is leading to construction of new roads and the widening of existing ones. Last year, county officials suggested conducting a study ...

Water rules challenge voluntarily dismissed
Eric Staats /Naples Daily News /Sep 25
The Conservancy of Southwest Florida voluntarily has dismissed a 2003 legal challenge against water-quality rules, citing progress in talks with environmental permitters about reducing pollution from new developments. The Conservancy filed the challenge against the South Florida Water Management District, alleging that the district's water quality rules, written in the 1980s, are based on presumptions and not scientific evidence. The challenge had been on hold while the Conservancy, the district, engineers and developers tried to hash out a new rule. The Conservancy filed paperworkdismissing the case Aug. 18."We feel confident we're moving forward together in partnership," Jennifer Hecker, the Conservancy natural resource policy manager, said last week. The dismissal came after both sides agreed to a new timetable to research and draft a new water quality rule, take ...

SOUTHWEST COAST

Marine service fishing for input on plan to save sawfish
Eric Staats /Naples Daily News /Sep 9
Pity the endangered smalltooth sawfish, swimming anonymously around Southwest Florida except for the occasional accidental snaring by a fisherman's net orhook. They are not furry or huggable. They don't have their own Florida license plate like the endangered panther or manatee. But a plan to restore the smalltooth sawfish population is raising hopes among researchers that the first marine fish to land a spot on the federal endangered species list will finally find a soft spot in the public's consciousness. "It's these chance encounters with the public that are the most crucial (to sawfish recovery)," said Colin Simpfendorfer, a sawfish researcher at Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota. Southwest Florida is the last stronghold of the odd-looking creature, which shares a branch of the animal kingdom tree with sharks and rays. Smalltooth sawfish once ranged from New Jer ...

Take chance to tell Corps you don't like polluted water
Carlo Brooks Johnson /News Press /Sep 12
Do you like the "bigger and better" algae in SW Florida's water? Does it clog your boat motor? Are you happy about the balls of scum in our canals? Is your fishing business deteriorating? Is brown opaque water asattractive to you as clear turquoise water? In fall 2005, the Army Corps of Engineers flushed unprecedented amounts of dirty, nutrient-laden fresh water from Lake Okeechobee toward us, causing serious damage throughout the Caloosahatchee basin. Can our pristine environment recover before our economy is damaged? We've reached a critical time. Additional damaging releases can result in a dead estuary and a severe economic blow long before the promised Everglades Restoration beginning in 2010. The new Corps "Lake Regulation Schedule" for 2007-2010 is the key to changing Corps policy.Come 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 14 to the Lee County Commission Chambers, 2120 ...

Make your voice heard for the Caloosahatchee
Marti Daltry /News Press /Sep 24
In the popular Broadway musical, "The Music Man," Professor Harold Hill comes to town warning the residents that "Ya got trouble right here inRiver City." We certainly can echo that statement in our own river city of Fort Myers as it relates to the Caloosahatchee. Last October, the Caloosahatchee River Citizens Association/Riverwatchnominated the river as one of America's Ten Most Endangered Rivers. The Caloosahatchee made the list with a ranking of seventh in the nation. By achieving such a "distinction," it was hoped that the river's plight would alert the public-policy makers to the problems of the river and,subsequently, be a catalyst for change. The policy makers involved, most notably the South Florida WaterManagement District and the Army Corps of Engineers, have not been able to correct the problem and their proposed alternative will not solve but exacerbate i ...

The Red Menace: Panel discusses effects, control of red tide
Steven Smith /Sun Herald /Sep 25
ENGLEWOOD -- Red tide is a menace, a killer of fish, wildlife and tourism. It can make going to the beach a nightmare. It can fill the air with acrid toxins that irritate the eyes, nose, throat and lungs. This massive conglomeration of tiny, single-celled algae is mostly seen in warm saltwater as a brownish red sheen on the surface. It can cover up to several hundred square miles. No one has been able to predict when or where it will appear or how long it will last. How long has red tide been around? Are we seeing blooms more and more frequently these days? Why? How does it affect our lives? And what can we do to minimize its effects on our environment and industry? These were questions addressed by a roundtable of panelists assembled at the Englewood Sun last week. They came from the ranks of science, business and history in order to examine the subject within their own particula ...

Researchers worry about algae toxins in water supply
Cathy Zollo /Herald Tribune /Oct 1
SARASOTA -- Toxin-emitting blue-green algae blooms in Florida's fresh water prompted scientists and public health experts to call for research to understand how they can protect people from what could be a looming health threat. They don't know if the toxins reach drinking water sources or if they survive treatment, said researchers at a Florida Department of Health gathering to share study results from a three-year, $3 million Centers for Disease Control grant. The scientists do know that the toxins cause a wide range of ill effects forpeople, from rashes and respiratory problems to cancer. Their research is aimed at understanding the health effects of harmful algalblooms, or HABs. HABs are naturally occurring toxic algae or blue-green algae. Under the right conditions, they reproduce rapidly to form a bloom. The blooms can release toxins into the water or air, or both. ...

Red tide toll on sea life in Gulf rising
Kate Spinner /Herald Tribune /Oct 1
Red tide has been making area beaches ugly since August, but the noxious algae are multiplying and their most sinister workings are taking place at sea. A loggerhead sea turtle killed by the algae washed ashore on Englewood Beach on Friday. That turtle represents just one of more than 100 that have died or become ill this year from red tide toxins. Nadine Slimak, spokeswoman for Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, said the laboratory's investigations center has taken in 76 sea turtles since August,when red tide became severe in the area. Mote has five sea turtles recovering from red tide exposure in its rehabilitation center. Since the beginning of August, red tide also has claimed the lives of 16 manatees, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute. Onshore winds this week dumped tons of dead fish on beaches from Lee to Pinellas counties. As ...

Man invents red tide killer -- bleach
Greg Martin /Sun Herald /Oct 2
VENICE -- Inventor Bob Rigby has a secret formula to kill red tide without causing what he considers significant damage to other marine creatures. But, Rigby said, he has grown frustrated, since he began research on his red tide cure seven years ago, over the reluctance of Mote Marine Laboratory and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute to fund the development of his invention."I said I had a cure for red tide and they didn't want anything to do with it," he said of the FFWRI. He also said Mote scientists only offered to work with him on the research if he let them take credit for the discovery. Richard Pierce, a Mote research director, however, said Mote couldn't work with Rigby because he refused to disclose the compound he uses to kill red tide organisms. Occupational safety rules require such toxic materials disclosures, he said. Rigby also said a group called Sol ...

Red tide hits hard
Rita Juhasz /Sun Herald /Sep 29
ENGLEWOOD -- Red tide came back to the beach with a vengeance Thursday. From Englewood to Sarasota, people were choking from red tide's invisible curtain of discomfort and destruction.And thousands of dead fish washed up on Gulf beaches from Lido Key to Manasota Key. "It was terrible. There are more dead fish here today than I've seen in two months," said Milton Tow, who lives on the north end of Manasota Key. Red tide apparently also claimed a large sea turtle north of Blind Pass Beach. No sea creature is immune to the fatal effects of red tide, and Thursday afternoon's tide left the dead turtle ignominiously perched on its back with the surf crashing around it. Untold numbers of fish littered the sand.Increasing winds made taking even a short breath difficult, with coughing almost instantaneous. Gray skies hovered over the deserted north end of the beach on Manasota Key, t ...

SW Fla. misses storm vulnerability Top 10
Julio Ochoa /Naples Daily News /Oct 2
Southwest Florida got snubbed from a recent Top 10 list but local officials aren't complaining. When the International Hurricane Research Center put out a list of the 10 most hurricane-vulnerable areas in the United States last week, Southwest Floridacities missed the cut.Despite having several hits or near misses in the past few years, the area is less vulnerable than most because of its smaller population, superior home and building construction and lack of hurricane frequency, said Stephen Leatherman, director of the research center. The attributes weren't enough to take local cities out of the top 20, though. Naples was 15th on the list and Fort Myers was 16th."If you are in the top 20, I don't think there is any security in that," Leatherman said. "I'd be more worried if I lived in New Orleans or at the base of Lake Okeechobee, but this is not a clean bill o ...

Ecotours highlight the fragility of the world we live
Carl Kelly /Naples Sun Times /Oct 3
How do we live here, work here, and play here without also adversely affecting the ecosystems in which we all live? A wide range of public and private agencies and organizations in southwest Florida currently work on that question, as well as its corollary. How do we undo some of the damage we have already done? Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve and co-sponsor Society for Ethical Ecotourism in Southwest Florida, with their Ecotour Operator's Series, have provided a forum where ecotour guides can meet with scientists who study this environment, thusestablishing one link between scientific study and public education.Their hope is that better informed guides will lead to a better informed public, who will live, work and play toward a less adversely-impacted environment. The first session laid the groundwork for the next three, with adiscussion of ecotourism and eth ...

LAKE OKEECHOBEE

State might fund Lake O cleanup
Suzanne Wentley /TCPalm /Sep 8
OKEECHOBEE — Instead of pressing for an increase in the property tax to benefit state water managers, a group of nine county commissioners on Thursday agreed to ask state legislators to fund water quality projects for Lake Okeechobee. The proposed funding method is similar to the work of the St. Lucie River Issue Team and the Loxahatchee River Preservation Initiative, two groups that prioritize construction and research projects to create a packaged request for inclusion in the state budget. This year, the state allocated $27.7 million for local river improvement projects. With the help of lobbyists from the South Florida Water Management District, the Nine-County Coalition members, focused on the health of Lake Okeechobee and its estuaries, hope to receive even more. "I'd love to have us develop a list of what we think is most important to the area," said ...

Experts draft plan to strengthen aging Lake Okeechobee dike
Andy Reid /Sun Sentinel /Sep 13
A team of dam experts from across the country has crafted a new plan to strengthen the aging dike surrounding Lake Okeechobee, water management officials learned Wednesday. The need to reinforce the dike gained urgency in May, after an independent engineering report declared the 70-year-old dike "poses a grave and imminentdanger to the people and the environment of South Florida." Work stopped in June on a long-planned, $300 million project to reinforce the 140-mile earthen barrier that surrounds the lake because of concerns that materials being used would not hold up. The new plan calls for extending a concrete wall through the dike, from the bottom to its highest point. A previous plan called for a concrete wall at the base of the dike. On Wednesday, Col. Paul Grosskruger, the newly installed leader of the Army Corps of Engineers district charged with manag ...

FPL proposes building coal-fired power plant near Lake Okeechobee
Joseph Mann /Sun Sentinel /Sep 12
In a dramatic move to diversify fuel sources and meet future demand for electricity, Florida Power & Light Co. said Tuesday it plans to build a $2 billion to $3 billion coal-fired power plant near Moore Haven in Glades County, on the western shore of Lake Okeechobee. The plant, which would use the latest in emissions controls, would occupy a 5,000-acre parcel and would have a major economic effect on the rural county, Juno Beach-based FPL said. FPL on Monday received site approval for the plant from Glades County. Last year, St. Lucie County rejected the company's proposal."This innovative coal plant will use abundant coal reserves, increase systemreliability and help stabilize power prices in the future," Armando Olivera,FPL's president, said in a statement. "It will be one of the cleanest coal plants in the country, providing power for more than 650,000 homes."FPL ho ...

Remembering the 'forgotten' storm of '28
Lorna Jablonski /News Zap /Sep 16
This hand-drawn picture made the front page of the Sept. 28, 1928, issue of The Okeechobee News, 10 days after the killer storm of Sept. 18. Its caption stated: "For years we have asked for flood control, and received canals that flow backward. Two thousand lives pay the price of politics, indifference and mismanagement."Okeechobee News/archives By Lorna Jablonski, Okeechobee News On Monday, Sept. 16, we will mark the 78th anniversary of the killer hurricane known to some as "The Forgotten Storm" of 1928. This storm may be forgotten by some, but for those who live and work around the lake, the storm of 1928 will forever be remembered as one of the most devastating, life-altering events in the history of Lake Okeechobee.The State of Florida slowly returned to normal following the "The Great Storm of 1926." Official reports attribute between 242 and 373 deaths to the storm. It did ...

Lake O drainage plan not done deal
Kevin Lollar /News Press /Sep 15
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' theme Thursday night at a public meeting on a proposed plan to manage Lake Okeechobee was a willingness to change. About 200 people attended the meeting at the Lee County Commission chambers, where area residents raised concerns that the plan would allow the continued degradation of the Caloosahatchee River and estuary. After heavy rains over the past two years raised lake levels significantly, forcing massive and harmful freshwater releases down the river, the Corps decided it needed a new plan for managing the lake; the plan will be in effect from 2007 until 2010, when Everglades restoration projects will help alleviate problems caused by lake releases. The Corps considered four alternative plans before settling on a plan designated 1bS2-m. In opening remarks, Col. Paul Grosskruger, Jacksonville Districtcommander, pointed out tha ...

Army Corps may finally be coming to its senses on the risky Okeechobee dike.
Editorial /Orlando Sentinel /Sep 16
Some came running in the wake of a May warning that the dilapidated 140-miledike surrounding Lake Okeechobee posed a grave and imminent danger to 40,000nearby residents. The state and the counties fronting the lake sped retooled evacuation plans designed to more efficiently get people out of harm's way. Residents hurriedly crowded into shelters as Tropical Storm Ernesto last month blew through the area, heeding calls from officials not to tempt the dike's 1-in-6 chance of breaching this year. But the Army Corps of Engineers insisted it knew better and dug in its heels. The independent warning issued by experts hired by the South Florida Water Management District was "cavalier and irresponsible," it said.The only thing cavalier and irresponsible about the experts pointing their fingers at the Corps' ineffective approach to shoring up the dike's structural integrity was th ...

Algae bloom resurfaces in St. Lucie River, but it's not toxic
Suzanne Wentley /TCPalm /Sep 30
Despite no freshwater discharges from Lake Okeechobee for months, a dull-green algae bloom is hugging the banks of the St. Lucie River for the first time since 2005's toxic bloom put local waters off-limits, stateofficials confirmed Friday. A possible cause is nutrient-rich, polluted water flowing north from sewage discharge pipes in the ocean off Palm Beach and Broward counties, Rivers Coalition members learned Friday during a monthly meeting at the Blake Library in Stuart. Brian LaPointe, a senior scientist with Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution, presented his findings that local waters can be affected by algae blooms in wet and dry conditions because of excess nitrogen and phosphorous. The latest bloom, likely a blue-green algae called microcystis, has been reported near the Roosevelt Bridge in downtown Stuart, the Evans CraryBridge near the St. Lucie In ...

EVERGLADES RESTORATION

Sugar industry receives benefits on public dime
Ray Judah /News Press /Sep 9
In a recent rebuttal to a newspaper story concerning sugar price support policies, Mr. Robert Coker, senior vice-president of public affairs for U.S. Sugar Corp., states that America's sugar program is not a subsidyprogram and operates at no cost to the government.To the contrary, the very existence of the sugar cane industry in South Florida can be attributed to ill advised government policies resulting in Big Sugar being a huge welfare recipient at the expense of the public taxpayer. For years, U.S. government subsidies have enriched the sugar industry's profit margin. This insidious federal sugar subsidy program includes government-backed loans, price support and import quotas. A sweetheart arrangement with the United States Department of Agriculture allows the sugar processors to pledge sugar as collateral for businessloans at a rate of approximately 18 cents ...

645-foot freighter wanders off course, crunches first reef off Fort Lauderdale
Robert Nolin /Sun Sentinel /Sep 15
It must have been like watching a crash in slow motion. For more than 30 minutes Thursday afternoon, Coast Guard observers watched aheavily laden freighter move too fast toward Port Everglades. Despite their warnings, the Bahamian-flagged Clipper Lasco and its more than 30,000 tons of cargo ended up stuck on a reef about three-quarters of a mile offshore, officials said. "We made contact with the ship's captain and informed him, `Hey, you're off course and in immediate danger of running aground,'" Petty Officer Dana Warrsaid. "They eventually did." It was the 12th large ship since 1994, and the second this year, to become lodged on one of three reefs between which vessels anchor while awaiting entrance to the port. The Clipper Lasco's owner, Colas Lasco Ltd., which hasoffices in Nassau, could have to pay millions to restore the fragile reef if the ship damaged it. ...

Keep development away from national parks
Shannon Estonez /Miami Herald /Sep 16
Miami-Dade is the only county in the nation that borders two iconic national parks -- Everglades and Biscayne. These parks protect and preserve nationally known marine ecosystems that attract visitors from all over the world and provide us with amazing places to appreciate and recreate. Unfortunately, both parks face serious threats from urban sprawl and other external impacts. Three applications for large-scale development outside the UrbanDevelopment Boundary are under review by the state of Florida. If approved by the state and then the County Commission, these developments would place thousands of new homes in close proximity to Everglades and Biscayne, increasing demands for water from the parks, displacing critical wetlands that serve as spawning grounds for fish and other wildlife and threatening the success ofEverglades restoration. This p ...

Tax support for farms should end
Nancy Heise /Sun Sentinel /Sep 18
You quote Gaston Cantens, spokesman for Flo-Sun, the largest sugar company in Florida, in a Sept. 10 South Florida Sun-Sentinel article: "We're tired of being picked on. Everyone wants to say we're the problem in the Everglades. We've had to become politically active to protect ourselves." This is the greatest lie I have ever seen printed in a newspaper. Flo-Sun, the grossly profitable private company held by the grossly rich Fanjul family ofPalm Beach, formerly of Cuba, is so grossly profitable because they have had the support of politicians ever since our country set up the corrupt sugar program in an effort to hurt Cuban sugar exports. The sugar farms make large contributions to their PACs. They have to. If thesugar farms were to do business like everyone else and not rely on government intervention and favoritism, they would not be in business. They are pro ...

Freighter towed into Port Everglades after refloating
Robert Nolin /Sun Sentinel /Sep 21
The freighter Clipper Lasco was in Port Everglades on Wednesday night after a rising tide and tugboats dislodged it from the reef off Fort Lauderdale, where it had been grounded for the past six days. Its hull was declared free of damage, but now it remains for environmentalists to assess how badly it scarred the reef, about three-quarters of a mile offshore. Any sea bottom restoration will be the responsibility of the ship's owner, who paid for the re-floating. An investigation continues into how the vessel ran aground. "She came free pretty easily," said Jim Balboni, a crewman on the tug Fort Lauderdale, which along with the tug Broward yanked the vessel loose. "Half-power on the tugs and it came right off." The tugs towed the 645-foot cargo vessel to deeper water about a mile and a half out to sea. Coast Guard divers closely inspected its hull for breaches, ...

Coalition pushes to elevate 11 miles of Tamiami Trail
David Fleshler /Sun Sentinel /Sep 22
The dream of a skyway across the Everglades brought environmentalists, tourism officials and civic leaders to the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, where they launched a coalition to persuade the federal government to elevate 11 miles of Tamiami Trail.The road cuts across the northern boundary of Everglades National Park, blocking the historic flow of water into the park. The federal government has been atwork for years on plans to bring more water into the park and is working on plans for two bridges along the trail. These would be one and two miles long, but the proponents of the skyway say that's not enough. "It funnels all the water through those two locations, but it creates a dam of eight miles along the most important waterway of the Everglades," said Jonathan Ullman, South Florida Everglades field representative for the Sierra Club. "We need a skyway because ...

Keep Corps reforms in water-resources bill
Editorial /Miami Herald /Sep 22
The underlying cause for two very different policies on reforming the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers contained in Senate and House bills is timing. The bills now are being reconciled in a conference committee. The House of Representatives passed its bill before Hurricane Katrina. With the benefit of hindsight, the Senate adopted its legislation after the post-Katrina flooding overwhelmed New Orleans' Corps-built levies. The Senate bill takes Corps reform much further than the House's measure. A compelling need After Katrina, the White House was one of several voices calling for reform of the Corps. Now the reform provisions may be watered down by the conference committee. The White House should tell committee members to leave the Senate reforms intact. The most important Senate measure would require independent evaluation of Corps projects. This is what the Bush ...

Corps studies lake-to-Miami pipeline
Robert King /Palm Beach Post /Sep 23
Can 30 miles of pipes help lower Lake Okeechobee and protect the St. Lucie River while restoring the heart of the Everglades? The Army Corps of Engineers says it's worth a try. The pipes are a key part of what the corps calls a "bold" $1 billion proposal for sending lake and farm runoff south into the Everglades from Palm Beach County's sugar farming region. The proposal would provide a modest alternative to the corps' current practice of dumping polluted lake water into the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers. And it would get around the current quandary of how to send lake water southeast to Miami-Dade County, which needs it, without contaminating the Everglades in between. The corps' solution: Go underground. The proposal would place two or three 10-foot-diameter pipes along the bottom of the Miami Canal for the roughly 30-mile stretch where it slices across the central Ev ...

Group opposes developing west
Andy Reid /Sun Sentinel /Sep 23
Environmentalists fired back Friday at the push by Palm Beach County commissioners to increase western development, saying it would "overburden" roads and "devastate" natural areas. The commission Tuesday called for rewriting western development guidelines to allow as many as 4,000 homes on the county-owned Mecca Farms property, 1,919acres once intended to house The Scripps Research Institute. Commissioners contend developing Mecca Farms would enable them to recoup $60million in taxpayers' money spent to acquire the land. They say it also would generate affordable housing needed for low- and middle-income workers. The development watchdog group 1,000 Friends of Florida countered Friday with a plan that supports using Mecca Farms for environmental restoration. The group called for selling Mecca Farms' development rights to builders on other properties who propose m ...

Soaring prices for environmental land purchases irk Gov. Bush
Michael Peltier /Naples Daily News /Sep 25
TALLAHASSEE — For the past eight years, Gov. Jeb Bush has repeatedly expressed his angst over how taxpayers often end up paying high prices for environmental lands purchased by entrepreneurs for the sole purpose of selling them back to the state.Last week, Bush and cabinet members deferred action on a $50 million purchase of nearly 5,000 acres in Central Florida. The parcel includes a smorgasbord of ecosystems from wetlands to uplands and would provide yet another link in a trans-Florida trial from the northern state line to Lake Okeechobee and beyond. Nobody is questioning the tract's environmental value. What is bringing on the heartburn is how much the state would have to pay and what role the state should play in Florida's real estate boom. That's because the tract was purchased last year for $32 million. Yep, that's nearly a 60 percent appreciation in one ye ...

Report finds `troubling delays' in bid to restore Everglades
David Fleshler /Sun Sentinel /Sep 25
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - A new report finds "troubling delays" in the $10.9 billion campaign to restore the Everglades, with costs escalating and deadlines passing without the completion of a single project. The National Research Council on Monday issued the first of a series of progress reports mandated by Congress on the massive federal-state effort to restore the southern Florida wilderness.The report praised the planning and scientific work being put into the project but found that none of the 10 components scheduled for completion in 2005 were finished. It also found a significant delay in the effort to loosen the corset of canals and levees that block the flow of water into Everglades National Park. And it projected that the federal government would pay only 21 percent of the costs by 2009, despite an agreement to split costs evenly with the state."The g ...

Political climate threatens to doom Everglades restoration
Jeremy Cox /Naples Daily News /Sep 27
Dwindling federal support for the Everglades rescue mission is tipping the scales in favor of reserving water, the River of Grass’ lifeblood, for farms and urban developments, according to a landmark scientific report. The lack of funding also has led to frustrating delays, missed opportunities to buy land at favorable prices and fissures in the project’s state and federalpartnership. “With the (Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan) only in its fifth year and no projects actually completed, it is highly likely that the partnership will see more rather than fewer tests of its cohesiveness,” the National ResearchCouncil panel wrote. The 200-page report, released Monday, is the first in a series of Congress-mandated progress reports on the $10.9 billion restoration project.While praising water managers for several accomplishments to date, the report paints a gloom ...

Great Lakes funding good start, backers say
Sarah Kellogg /Michigan Live /Sep 28
WASHINGTON -- Congress appears to be getting more serious about protecting endangered fish and wildlife in the Great Lakes. The U.S. Senate is expected to approve legislation today to double federal funding for fish and wildlife protection in the Great Lakes, boosting the annual allotment from $8 million to $16 million. The House approved the bill late Wednesday. "This bill has provided Michigan and other Great Lakes states with theresources to preserve wetlands, protect wildlife and fish habitats andensure the health and well-being of the lakes and their delicateeco-systems," said U.S. Rep. Candice Miller, R-Harrison Township. The legislation renews the 16-year-old Great Lakes Fish and Wildlife Restoration Act, which finances projects to assess and restore habitats such as wetlands, curb invasive species and replenish depleted fish species. Since 1998, 65 projects ...

Hurricane vulnerability bleak for South Florida
Josh Frank /Sun Sentinel /Sep 29
Three of the top 10 areas in the nation most vulnerable to hurricanes are -- you guessed it -- in South Florida, according to a Florida International University study released Thursday. "Everything in South Florida gets a high [ranking] because of the frequency of hurricanes," said Stephen Leatherman, the director of the research center.First on the list, not surprisingly, is New Orleans, which was devastated byKatrina in 2005. The Lake Okeechobee area in Palm Beach County is second, the Florida Keys third and Miami/Fort Lauderdale fifth. Areas were selected based primarily on how often they get hit and how hard, as well as the potential for flooding from a levee or dike failure. Other factors included evacuation distance and routes, population and property values, said Stephen Leatherman, the director of the International HurricaneResearch Center at FIU. Lake O ...

Butterfly obsession: Observers of these colorful insects say they're an indicat or of environmental h
Georgia Tasker /Miami Herald /Oct 1
Butterflies are the new birds. Butterfly watchers, like birders, now carry binoculars (close-focus) and lists, go on walks to see their fluttery friends, hold daylong events to count them and plant gardens to attract them. In South Florida, butterfly lovers are serious about saving them and the plants on which they depend. Butterflies, they say, are indicators of ecosystem health. ''We've got to care about conservation here in South Florida, especially because we have eight or so butterflies critically imperiled that occur nowhere else,'' said David Lysinger, a butterfly photographer. ``As stewards of the environment, we must do what we can to protect them.'' Butterfly Day at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden last July drew 1,600 people, who saw ground broken for the one-acre Lisa D. Anness butterfly garden. Anness, who died last year, was a garden volun ...

First, the questions: How much and how many?
Editorial /Palm Beach Post /Charles Pattiso
Oct 1 Flying over the area where western Martin and Palm Beach counties meet, the contrast is dramatic. To the north, Martin's largely rural, undeveloped lands spread out. But at the county line, Palm Beach's sprawling development begins.Martin County's green open spaces are largely a result of diligent planning. Since 1990, when the county decided to allow only one home per 20 acres of land outside the Urban Service Boundary, these areas have remained largely rural. This and other decisions adopted into the local comprehensive plan, such as strict limitations on extending water and sewer lines outside the boundary, have helped thOver the years, 1000 Friends of Florida, the not-for-profit growth-management watchdog group, has worked with community leaders and concerned citizens to develop and maintain Martin County's award-winning plan. Last year, the county hired a team of consul ...

Climate change ups ante on hurricane season
Mindy Lubber /Sun Sentinel /Sep 25
A recent report linking global warming with more powerful hurricanes is only the latest evidence of why climate change is perhaps the greatest threat the insurance industry may ever face. As land and ocean temperatures rise, the additional energy appears to be creating more intense weather systems around the world. More powerful hurricanes in the North Atlantic are the most obvious example -- a reality further validated by this month's report from 19 climate scientists. Their work determined that sea surface temperatures in hurricane-breeding regions in the Atlantic and Pacific are likely rising because of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere. But insurers are also seeing rising losses inland due to record heat waves, more powerful hailstorms and more damaging wildfires. While this summer's hurricane season has so far not had much U.S. effect, the ...

Winds, El Niño gang up on storms
Robert King /Palm Beach Post /Sep 18
Some meteorologists are calling this the Year of Shear. If we can remain lucky for the next 2 1/2 months, that is.Whatever you call it, this hurricane season has been nothing likethe snarling Rottweiler that meteorologists were predicting months ago. So far we've experienced nothing like Florida's six-week spree of four hurricane landfalls in 2004, let alone last year's record-setting 28-storm season that included the calamity of Katrina.That record had forecasters and many residents girding for a third traumatic year in a row. Instead, the season's surprises have included a persistent barrage of wind shear — crisscrossing air currents that can knock storms off balance, rip off their heads or pump them full of lethal doses of dry air. And on Wednesday, federal meteorologists announced the return of El Niño, a hurricane-killing climate pattern that sent the brutal 2004 season to an ea ...

Postal Service Salutes Florida's Wetlands
David Kent /Courant /Sep 26
The Southern Florida Wetland is the latest natural habitat to be featured in the Postal Service's series designed to promote appreciation of significant plant and animal communities in the United States. The pane of self-adhesive stamps will be released next week. The subtropical wetlands of southern Florida are remnants of a great wilderness that once stretched for hundreds of miles. They still include some of the most extensive saw-grass marshes and mangrove swamps in the world, wetlands that support a remarkable number of species. Much of southern Florida's natural wealth is protected in Everglades National Park, a huge preserve known for its vast marshes and swamps. The park's wetlands are home to hundreds of bird species and such rare creatures as the Florida panther and Everglades mink. Its wetlands arealso havens for the elusive American crocodile and the mor ...

No drilling. That's good
Editorial /Palm Beach Post /Oct 2
The good news, for sure, is no drilling close to the state's beaches. The bad? No water resources legislation to speed work on the Indian River Lagoon plan, the first federal Everglades project. Congress' inaction is another body blow to already weak federal involvement in Everglades restoration. On drilling and the lagoon, the House and Senate approved separate bills they couldn't reconcile before election-season adjournment. ...

Water district adopts budget
staff /TCPalm /Oct 3
The South Florida Water Management District has adopted a $1.3 billionbudget for the new financial year.The board also adopted a property tax rate of about 70 cents per $1,000 of taxable property value within the 16-county district. The $1.3 billion budget includes more than $400 million in borrowed funds needed to meet the aggressive schedules of the Everglades restoration construction program. Other budget highlights include an emphasis on alternative water supply development and implementation; funding to cover 35 percent increases in pump station fuel costs; repairs and upgrades to critical flood control structures and support for Herbert Hoover Dike repairs; funding for Lake Okeechobee and estuary recovery initiatives; establishment of capital construction and hurricane cleanup reserves; and construction ofadditional water-quality improvement projects. ...

Everglades restoration bill doesn't get Congress OK
Jeremy Cox /Naples Daily News /Oct 3
Election-year politics weren't enough last week to win congressional approval for a critical Everglades restoration funding bill. The bill would have included the federal government's tab for a $362 millionmakeover in Southern Golden Gate Estates. State water managers are forging ahead with the project on their own although it was planned as a 50-50 endeavor between the state and federal governments. A conference committee tried to work out the differences between House and Senate versions of the Water Resources Development Act. But negotiators ran out of time last week, leaving issues such as the more than $10 billion price tag and disputes over federal-state cost-sharing on the table.The bill won't get another hearing until after the Nov. 7 elections. Congress hasn't passed a Water Resources Development Act since 2000; such bills are typically approved every two years ...



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