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SWFL ENews: February 2007 SWFL ENews:
February 2007 / go to archive


BIG CYPRESS

Young male Florida panther makes way onto Keewaydin Island again
Jeremy Cox /Naples Daily News /Feb 9
For the second time in as many months, a young male Florida panther has trekked its way onto Keewaydin Island, a state biologist said today. Known as FP147, the panther’s radio collar revealed its location today near the middle of the 9-mile-long barrier island, said Darrell Land of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Land first picked up the panther’s signal on the island on Jan. 17, marking the first time a panther had been located on a beach of any kind since biologists began tracking them with radio collars in 1981. So, Land dubbed the cat “Beach Boy” in an e-mail message to colleagues.During its initial island trip, Beach Boy stayed only about four or five days before returning to the wilderness south of U.S. 41 East and west of CollierBoulevard. At one point, he was frequenting the woods on a property that is being developed into a golf co ...

Park Service reopening 11 miles of off-road trails in Big Cypress National
staff /Naples Daily News /Feb 21
Under pressure from hunters, National Park Service officials are reopening 11 miles of off-road trails in the northwest corner of Big Cypress National Preserve. The trails are to be reopened on Feb. 28, the park service announced today. The addition raises the total of available trails in the "Bear Island Unit" to 30 miles, the maximum allowed in the area under a 2000 management plan. Further, three miles of previously designated trails are set to be closed inorder to allow them to return to natural conditions.Park officials initially closed the Bear Island trails a few years ago in aneffort to shield nearby Florida panthers from the noise caused by all-terrain vehicles, swamp buggies and other off-road vehicles. Bear Island, just east of State Road 29 and north of Alligator Alley, is a popular area for hunting deer, wild hogs and other game. ...

Provide more panther land or face suit, wildlife group warns Ave Maria
Jeremy Cox /Naples Daily News /Feb 21
An environmental group Tuesday threatened to file a federal lawsuit challenging the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permit that paved the way for the construction of Ave Maria university and town amid Florida panther habitat. By signing off on the destruction of 5,000 acres of panther territory, the agency, along with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, violated the 34-year-old Endangered Species Act, Defenders of Wildlife claimed. The new town and university, which is intended to rival and even surpass theUniversity of Notre Dame as a Roman Catholic institution, are under construction on a swath of former farm fields south of Immokalee. The campus opening is pegged for this fall. Defenders of Wildlife wants the two federal agencies to force developers Barron Collier Cos. and Domino’s Pizza found Tom Monaghan to set aside more land for the critically endangered panther. I ...

Wildlife Service: Is eastern cougar really extinct?
staff /Naples Daily News /Feb 28
The Florida panther may not be the only big cat roaming the wilderness of the eastern United States.The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced today that it will begin reviewing evidence to determine whether the eastern cougar is really extinct. The eastern cougar is believed to have ranged from Maine to South Carolina and as far west as Michigan and Tennessee. Early American settlers killed countless off deer, bison and other prey, virtually wiping out the eastern cougar by the beginning of the 20th century. Verified cougar reports include a road-killed kitten in Kentucky in 1997, a cougar killed and another captured in West Virginia in 1976, scat fromMassachusetts in 1997, and more. Videos, photos and other evidence of cougars also exist. ...

SOUTHWEST COAST

Tape grass victim of salinity
Editorial /News Press /Feb 2
People angry about the battering Lee County has taken in recent years as a dumping ground for dirty water from elsewhere in South Florida have another chance to do something about it. With stinking mounds of red drift algae piling up this very day on thebeaches of Sanibel, we should rattle the cages of our state leadership in support of proposed legislation that would finally give our estuaries the attention and protection they deserve, on a par with Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades. Companion bills sponsored by Rep. Trudi Williams, R-Fort Myers, and Sen. Burt Saunders, R-Naples, would amend the Lake Okeechobee Protection Act to add an Estuary Protection Program.This is the outgrowth of the work of the Caloosahatchee/St. Lucie Rivers Corridor Advisory Committee, created last session in response to public outcry over polluted water releases from the lake that ...

Don’t let funding ‘muddy’ sound cleanup legislation
Editorial /Naples Daily News /Feb 2
Legislation that would bring more oversight to the Caloosahatchee River is astep in the right direction.Make that a half step.The proposed amendment to the Lake Okeechobee Protection Act would in essence treat the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie rivers and their accompanying estuaries the same as Lake Okeechobee. What that translates to is more attention, moreregulation and, inevitably, higher water quality. All of that is needed, and more. Water managers now essentially use the Caloosahatchee River to the west and St. Lucie River to the east as relief valves. By artificially manipulating the water flow to both areas, we get the worst of both worlds: Too much fresh water in the rainy season, too little in dry times.The result? Algae blooms, a suffering fishing and crab industry, too-high salinity in the winter and too-low salinity in the summer.Setting standards that ...

Crist budget includes $40 million for estuaries
Julio Ochoa /Naples Daily News /Feb 6
Gov. Charlie Crist set aside $40 million for the restoration of the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie estuaries in a new state budget released last week. The money could be used to deal with water quality issues that plague the Caloosahatchee River, Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp said during a meeting Monday with environmental agencies in Fort Myers. The governor's budget also increases the money set aside for the restoration of Lake Okeechobee from $25 million to $50 million, said Florida Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Mike Sole, who also attended Monday's meeting held at Edison Community College. The funding for the estuaries is the first of its kind and proves the issue is one of the governor's top priorities, Kottkamp said."The governor spends a lot of time in Southwest Florida and loves the waterways," he said. "He is very familiar with the problem and very comm ...

Lake O. environmental releases too little, too late; water managers recommend e nding them
Charlie Whitehead /Naples Daily News /Feb 13
Water managers are recommending environmental releases from Lake Okeechobee meant to save Caloosahatchee River tape grasses be stopped for a very simplereason. There's nothing left to save. Terrie Bates, assistant deputy director for water resources for the South Florida Water Management District, told Lee County commissioners Tuesday thegrass beds near I-75 have died. The "trickle releases" were meant to keep salinity levels low enough to keep the grasses alive, but they failed."We basically lost that tape grass community, so the releases aren't going to help the environment," Bates said.Releases meant to keep the salinity low at the county's Olga drinking water treatment plant would continue, she said. ...

Commissioners look for red algae answer
staff /News Press /Feb 20
A scientist might determine how much of the red algae polluting Lee County shorelines is caused by fresh water releases from Lake Okeechobee. Commissioner Ray Judah asked his staff today to look into that and bring it back to the commission for a future vote.Red algae has polluted beaches the county relies on to attract tourists and maintain a strong fishing industry. Fresh water releases from Lake Okeechobee, which the U.S. Army Corps. of Engineers and South Florida Water Management District control, are one of the problems, local officials have said. And a scientist can help themlearn how much of the problem it is, compared with how much is caused by local pollution, as the Mote Marine Laboratory’s Charlotte Harbor Field Station has suggested. ...

Cape Coral canals safe, city study finds
Don Ruane /News Press /Feb 22
Cape Coral's 409 miles of canals are safe for fishing, swimming and boating — at least for now. A new city study shows the quality of the water in the city's canals and lakes is good — but down slightly from 2005 — when compared to state standards. But growth, stormwater runoff and nutrient-rich Lake Okeechobee discharge into the Caloosahatchee River could threaten those positive numbers. Land along canals in the city remains valuable, especially those with Gulf access. The average lot sale price on saltwater was $425,000 in December after hitting $450,000 in January 2006. About 20 percent of the city'sresidential acreage is on water.Cape's canals are not only a source of boating and fishing, but also provide water for irrigation and firefighting for its 160,000 residents. "They're one of the draws for people to come live in Cape Coral," cityEnvironmental Services ...

Lawmaker: Lee officials should tackle pollution sources
Jeremy Cox /Naples Daily News /Feb 23
Lee County officials should stop blaming Lake Okeechobee for the Caloosahatchee River’s poor health and tackle pollution sources in their own backyard, a state lawmaker said today. The county discharges millions of gallons of processed sewage into the river and its fragile estuary every day, said Rep. Richard Machek, D-Delray Beach. Lee also needs to reduce its reliance on septic tanks, another major contributor to nutrient pollution, he said. Between 2000 and 2004, builders sunk more than 17,000 septic tanks into the ground in Lee County. “That’s the highest amount of permitting in the state of Florida,” Machek said. “You set the record. And as we all know, in today’s standards, that’s a no-no.” Machek blasted the county at a state congressional committee hearing at Florida Gulf Coast University. The goal of the six-member Joint Legislative Committee on Everglades O ...

Gov. Crist calls for more spending on St. Lucie River
Rachel Simmonsen /Palm Beach Post /Feb 23
STUART — Gov. Charlie Crist toured the St. Lucie River by pontoon boat this morning, then called for an increase in spending for the river, which he said has improved in a year, but "can be even better." Crist's proposed budget calls for $40 million to be split between the St. Lucie and the Caloosahatchee River to the west of Lake Okeechobee. An additional $50 million would be spent on restoration projects related to the lake. The proposed funding comes as environmental officials announced plans to focus more restoration efforts north of the lake, something St. Lucie River activists have advocated for years. "They were right," said Carol Wehle, executive director of the South Florida Water Management District, who accompanied Crist on his river tour. St. Lucie River activists long have blamed massive discharges from Lake Okeechobee for flooding the river with polluted fresh wate ...

Hearing on long-running wetlands battle gets under way
Eric Staats /Naples Daily News /Feb 27
A long-running legal battle over wetlands near the Collier-Lee county line moved to the inside of a makeshift hearing room Monday. Administrative Law Judge J. Lawrence Johnston is scheduled to hear testimony all week from engineers, hydrologists and biologists as part of the Conservancy of Southwest Florida's challenge to a South Florida Water Management District permit for a proposed neighborhood called Saturnia Falls. A ruling could be months off. The challenge is part of a larger campaign by environmental groups to preserve a natural path for water the groups say is getting choked off by development on both sides of the county line. Saturnia Falls threatens water quality in the Wiggins Pass estuary via the Cocohatchee canal along Immokalee Road and threatens habitat for wood storksthat are a worldwide draw at nearby Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, opponents said. "T ...

LAKE OKEECHOBEE

Follow the law; clean up Lake Okeechobee
David Guest /TCPalm /Feb 1
South Florida's water pollution problems will not be solved until state, regional and federal officials stop trying to create exemptions for polluters and start honestly enforcing the law. The South Florida Water Management District is using your tax dollars to argue that it is outside the reach of the Clean Water Act, one of the most effective and popular environmental laws in the United States. Big Sugar supports this claim. In a recent article by The Associated Press, the water management district argues that if it has to get permits to regulate the contaminants in the water it pumps into Lake Okeechobee, every flood control system in the United States would have to shut down and the entire Everglades Restoration Project would be jeopardized. Big Sugar also made this inflammatory claim. The water management district and U.S. Sugar are in denial. They present ...

Algae scrubbers get chance to shine on Taylor Creek
Robert King /Palm Beach Post /Feb 2
A 3.6-acre pool filled with manure-laden runoff. Huge sheets of mesh-covered plastic designed to house pollution-munching algae. A throng of state environmental and farming leaders, pledging that this time they will rescue Lake Okeechobee from its smothering shroud of waste. And of course, Paul Newman, who came to an Okeechobee County cattle ranch Thursday to watch an ambitious cleanup technology make its long-awaited premiere. Yes, that Paul Newman. The Oscar-winning actor is a longtime investor in HydroMentia, an Ocala company that says it has a cheaper, more effective way to purge phosphorus and nitrogen from runoff. But his famous blue eyes weren't exactly twinkling at the agonizing pace of efforts to stem the lake's soaring pollution levels. "It's so slow and painful," he said at the opening of the company's cleanup project along Taylor Creek north of the lake. "Every year th ...

Lake Okeechobee runoff may be greatest threat yet
Bud Jordan /TCPalm /Feb 2
The first column of this series focused on the history of the St. Lucie River and reasons for its decline from 1900 through 1990. The second focused on how widely supported local efforts since 1990 were coordinated to improve water quality and the timing of local drainage to the river. We believe these efforts since 1990 are unprecedented in any watershed, and certain to bear fruit in terms of improved river health. Despite all these efforts, the river and lagoon are now threatened as never before by Lake Okeechobee discharges. Even if all our local drainage were perfectly clean and perfectly timed for maximum river health, we will still be unsuccessful in cleaning up the river due to the way Lake O is being managed. Massive discharges of water from Lake Okeechobee to the river in 2003, '04 and '05, totaling more than 1.4 million acre-feet (460 trillion gallons) ha ...

Okeechobee polluters don't deserve any slack
David Guest /St Pete Times /Feb 3
South Florida's water pollution problems will not be solved until state, regional and federal officials stop trying to create exemptions for polluters and start honestly enforcing the law. The South Florida Water Management District is using your tax dollars to argue that it is outside the reach of the Clean Water Act, one of the most effective and popular environmental laws in the nation. Big Sugar supports this claim. In a recent Associated Press article, the water management district argues that if it has to get permits to regulate the contaminants in the water it pumps into Lake Okeechobee, every flood-control system in the United States would have to shut down and the entire Everglades Restoration Project would be jeopardized. Big Sugar also made this inflammatory claim. The water management district and U.S. Sugar are in denial. They presented identi ...

Cost of repairing dike around Lake Okeechobee could soar to $856 million
Andy Reid /Sun Sentinel /Feb 8
The price tag to fix Lake Okeechobee's aging dike could nearly triple, to $856 million, and the work would finish in 2016 instead of stretching over a couple decades as once planned. The Army Corps of Engineers disclosed the new preliminary price estimate andtimetable for the updated plan to strengthen the 70-year-old earthen levee -- which this month landed on a list of levees nationwide at risk of failing.The corps last month resumed long-stalled work to repair the 140-mile-long dike, at risk of eroding from water seeping through the structure. Its plan calls for strengthening much of the southern and eastern portions of the dike over the next five years and completing the entire project by 2016. Meeting that deadline requires getting the money needed from Congress. "Making sure that we have Lake Okeechobee and the dike secure is a toppriority," U.S. Rep. Tim Mah ...

Lake O dike can't wait 15 years for repair job
Editorial /Palm Beach Post /Feb 9
It's hard to be enthusiastic about the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' new plan to fix the Herbert Hoover Dike around Lake Okeechobee. The corps reports that the plan may require several hundred acres of land, much of which the South Florida Water Management District owns. The plan sets a huge new price of nearly $1 billion on the repairs, almost triple last year's estimate. At that rate, with President Bush suggesting only $56 million for dike repair in his 2008 budget, the work could take 15 years. The state can't wait that lon Particularly galling is that the public now has to pay for years of bad management by the corps and the water district. Until recently, the agencies, which jointly manage Lake Okeechobee, allowed water levels to get as high as 18 feet and stay at those high levels for long periods. The high water destroyed fish and wildlife habitat because grasses basically dr ...

SFWMD may recommend halting Lake O releases
staff /News Press /Feb 12
Water management district officials could recommend temporarily halting freshwater releases from Lake Okeechobee into the Caloosahatchee Riverduring its presentation to Lee County commissioners Tuesday morning.Southwest Florida is in the dry season. Meanwhile, the river must compete with the water needs of agricultural lands surrounding the lake and east coast estuaries. So there’s not enough water to go around this time ofyear. Sending reasonable amounts of freshwater to the west coast throughout the year ensures the river’s salinity is at a safe level, which its habitat depends upon. If saltwater levels are too high, it can impact upstreamhabitat and the treatment of drinking water.The high salinity is killing eel grass, which is food for fish, freshwater turtles, manatees and birds, and provides habitat for many animals, including small fish, crabs, clams and shrim ...

Lake O releases likely to end
staff /News Press /Feb 13
Water management officials are expected to stop environmental releases from Lake Okeechobee into the Caloosahatchee River because they’re notdoing any good. The tape grasses the releases were meant to save are already dead, said Terrie Bates, assistant deputy director for water resources for the South Florida Water Management District. The district has been doing light, trickle releases targeted at keeping salinity levels so the saltwater/freshwater mix is low enough to keep tape grasses alive.But Bates told Lee County commissioners today that most of those grassbeds are dead and there’s nothing left to save. ...

Mess not fault of Lake O
Editorial /News Press /Feb 19
People worried about the ominous decline of our coastal waters have rightly placed a lot of emphasis on distant causes, specifically from Lake Okeechobee. But continuing research by Mote Marine Laboratory’s Charlotte Harbor Field Station is providing specific confirmation of something we haven’t always been willing to admit around here, that lots of this pollution — maybemost of it — is very homemade. The lesson is that unless local governments in Southwest Florida startmanaging water with more urgent concern for pollution, we are going tomess ourselves up no matter what’s done with water from Lake Okeechobee. And it will be our own fault. The lake has in recent years been the source of some very heavy slugs of water polluted with agricultural nutrients and dumped into the Caloosahatchee River. ...

Clean up the numbers on Lake O pollution
Opinion /Palm Beach Post /Feb 21
Audubon of Florida took a courageous stand last week when the environmental group complained about flaws in the South Florida Water Management District's report to state legislators on Lake Okeechobee's pollution problems. The district's response, which came through board member Mike Collins, was to accuse environmentalists of generating "insulting" news coverage about the district. Then, the boar Instead, the board should have listened to Audubon's Paul Gray, who monitors Lake Okeechobee issues. Mr. Gray pointed out that the district's report underestimates the amount of phosphorus in the lake. The report doesn't include statistics from 2004, when three hurricanes crossed the lake. Runoff from the storms boosted phosphorus levels to 938 metric tons. The district figured its baseline calcul The report, using the district's math, suggests that the state faces a far less challenging ...

EVERGLADES RESTORATION

Sugar industry ignores our severe water imbalance
Ray Judah /News Press /Feb 4
Mr. Robert Coker, vice president of U.S. Sugar Corporation, once againattempted to attack my integrity in his recent guest opinion involvingLake Okeechobee water quality and the impact of excessive water release to the coastal estuaries. Since Mr. Coker cancelled a scheduled talk show program to be aired byWGCU allowing both of us to discuss the issue of Lake Okeechobee and the degradation of our coastal estuaries, I offer the following response as to the disruptive impact of 430,000 acres of sugar cane fields in the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA) separating Lake Okeechobee from theFlorida Everglades. Historically, water would overflow the banks of Lake Okeechobee during the summer wet season and flow south to the Everglades and Florida Bay. The natural hydrological system was severely altered when a massive engineering project in the late 1880s connected Lake Okeecho ...

Bush proposes funds for Everglades
Larry Wheeler /News Press /Feb 5
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is seeking money for a number of Everglades restoration projects and money to shore up the leaky Herbert Hoover Dike surrounding Lake Okeechobee. The funding request for the Army Corps of Engineers, released today, is for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. It included $162 million for projects that are part of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan and $55.77 million for seepage control at the Herbert Hoover Dike.The spending blueprint now goes to Congress for consideration. It could be months before the Democratic-controlled Congress finalizes the Army Corp budget for fiscal year 2008.Environmental groups and interested Florida lawmakers spent much of the day digging for details of the Bush administration's suggested spending levels for the Everglades to determine how it compared with years past. ...

Sugar shouldn't get water advantage
WE Ted Guy Jr /Sun Sentinel /Feb 5
Contrary to the Jan. 29 opinion by Robert Coker, senior vice president for public affairs of U.S. Sugar, I have never heard an environmentalist proposeflooding the communities south of Lake Okeechobee.Mr. Coker conveniently ignores the fact that Big Sugar has blocked the historic overflow of Lake Okeechobee south through the "River of Grass" to the Everglades by lobbying Congress, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the South FloridaWater Management District to maintain a perfect groundwater level at all times, wet or dry years, in the Everglades Agricultural Area to foster their heavily subsidized sugar crop. He conveniently leaves out the fact from the lawsuit that David Guest, for the EarthJustice Foundation and other plaintiffs, prevailed, and Federal District Judge Altonaga's recent decision will not stop the back pumping or flood theEAA. It's not about back ...

Everglades restoration to rely on 'armored' reservoirs
Curtis Morgan /Miami Herald /Feb 5
When it's done, the reservoir northwest of the Broward County line will cover an area the size of Boca Raton and hold more water than all but a handful of the state's lakes. It's the biggest of seven huge basins to be built over the next five years as part of the Everglades restoration effort. All that water -- 62 billion gallons, give or take a bathtub, in the biggest one alone -- will be held behind man-made levees. If these were ordinary levees -- the leaky one around LakeOkeechobee comes to unsettling mind -- a string of massivereservoirs would seriously raise flooding risks in a region routinely raked by hurricanes and deluges. Two ponds -- among the smallest but each still spanning 1,800 acres -- will abut West Broward suburbs.The South Florida Water Management District and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have scrapped a levees-as-usual blueprint in favor ...

Indian River bill resurrected
Editorial /TCPalm /Feb 6
Florida lawmakers have reintroduced legislation as part of a massive federal Water Resources Development Act that includes more than $1.2 billion for the Indian River Lagoon. A major element of the Everglades restoration project, passage of the WRDA has been held up for six years with House and Senate members unable toreach an agreement. "We can't wait any longer," Florida's senior senator, Democrat Bill Nelson, said recently. "Each day we delay, the nation loses more of a great natural wonder — and Florida loses more of an important source of water." The $1.2 billion to construct reservoirs, storm-water treatment facilities, preserve 92,000 acres of wetlands and remove muck to upgrade the Indian River Lagoon was approved by the House in mid-2005. A year later, it was approved by the Senate. But, in the final days of Congress in December, the bill died inconference c ...

State Reaches Everglades Land Acquisition Milestone
George McGinn /All Headline News /Feb 6
West Palm Beach, FL (AHN) - The South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) and Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has acquired more than 99 percent of the land needed to complete Acceler8 - Florida's initiative to speed up eight vital Everglades restoration projects."Land acquisition is essential to complete the largest environmental restoration project in the nation," said Governor Charlie Crist. "By moving forward aggressively to acquire the remaining land, we are reaffirming Florida's commitment to the restoration of America's Everglades." Crist has made Everglades restoration a priority for the Fiscal Year 2007-08 budget by recommending $100 million for the Save Our Everglades Trust Fund, $50 million for the restoration of Lake Okeechobee as well as $40 million to protect the health of the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie estuaries. Florida has invested more than ...

Our cut of the $2.9 trillion
Amie Parnes /Naples Daily News /Feb 7
WASHINGTON — The latest federal budget report released this week by the White House is a mixed bag for Southwest Florida and the rest of the state. On the plus side, President Bush recommended that Congress spend hundreds ofmillions of dollars for Everglades restoration projects in the state. The president also approved money for a multimillion-dollar veterans outpatient clinic in Lee County. But the White House failed to include beach restoration funding in its annual wish list, a temporary setback for the region.In the budget report, Bush suggested that Congress spend more than $162 million to continue work on the Everglades Restoration project, which includes money for the Picayune Strand project in eastern Collier County and the Indian River Lagoon along the Treasure Coast. The proposed funding — roughly the same as last year’s recommendation by theWhite House — would ...

State 'Stepped Up To The Plate' For Restoration
John Allman /Tampa Tribune /Feb 11
WEST PALM BEACH - Since 2000, when Congress approved a massive effort to restore the Everglades, state officials have struggled to begin work. The main reason: a lack of federal money promised as part of the legislation. The federal Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan included about $10.9 billion for 68 projects to be jointly supervised by the state and the Army Corps of Engineers. About $200 million was slated to come from federal coffers each year, or roughly $1.4 billion to date. The actual federal contribution so far is less than $300 million. Instead of waiting, the South Florida Water Management District, working with then-Gov. Jeb Bush in 2004, created the Acceler8 initiative, which identified work in six counties to address wildlife restoration and water quality needs. The work comes with considerable cost to Florida, however, because the federal dollars promised by ...

Everglades plan isn't restoration -- it's insanity
Mike Thomas /Orlando Sentinel /Feb 11
Down in South Florida, the state is studying plans to sink hundreds of pipesdeep into the ground. And then it would route polluted runoff to them, fire up the pumps and give Mother Nature one humdinger of an enema. This bit of insanity, which I'll explain later in more depth, is courtesy ofthose who profess to be restoring the Everglades. You may have heard of the plan, now projected to cost almost $11 billion. It has been sold as a project to save the nation's grandest swamp. But it is as much a political plan to protect the very same sugar farms that are destroying the Everglades. It falls short for one simple reason: You cannot fix the Everglades without finding a place to store the water. Why? The Everglades has been whittled down to a sliver. It once was a vast network of lakes, swamps, rivers and sloughs extending from Orange County toFlorida's southern tip. Bu ...

Water limits approved for South Florida
Robert King /Palm Beach Post /Feb 15
South Florida's era of cheap water is ending, water managers said today in unanimously voting to clamp down on cities' and counties' pumping from the Everglades. The limits — which also affect pumping from the Loxahatchee River and its tributaries — mean local governments will have to turn to increasingly to new sources to meet the needs of their soaring populations. Those steps could include recycling sewage for irrigation, drawing mineral-laden water from deep underground or possibly desalinating ocean water. The result will mean higher water bills for people and businesses from Martin County to the Keys, utility managers warn. Even so, the South Florida Water Management District's new rule won endorsements today from some utility managers, as well as environmentalists and the U.S. Interior Department. The board voted 7-0 to OK the rule, which will take effect in 21 days unless ...

Proposed budget items, legislation would aid Lake O, Everglades, local rivers
Editorial /TC Palm /Feb 18
A spate of water resources issues have been in the news lately. State and federal officials have recently taken steps to fund several projects that would benefit Lake Okeechobee, the Everglades and local estuaries. GOOD NEWS/BAD NEWS Advocates for Lake Okeechobee recently received a double dose of bad news.First, the Herbert Hoover Dike around the lake was named one of the 100 weakest levees in the country in a report released by the Army Corps of Engineers.Second, the Corps raised its cost estimate for strengthening the dike to a whopping $856 million — almost three times the price tag it cited lastyear. But there was some good news, too: ...

Water district board 'green' as can be
Editorial /Palm Beach Post /Feb 16
While it is neither practical nor productive to respond to each of The Post's frequent mischaracterizations of the South Florida Water Management District Governing Board's accomplishments, after nearly eight years on this distinguished, collegial body, I no longer can remain silent in the face of the Feb. 3 editorial, "Turn water district green." The Post's repeated smug editorial assaults on our board's model environmental record are fallacious. Since 2000, Florida has poured $3.5 billion into building pollution treatment marshes, buying land and doing water storage projects. As for the paper's characteristically unfair name-calling of several of my colleagues, the undeniably documented reality is as follows: Both Michael Collins and Kevin McCarty, having served as chairmen of our board for two years, respectively, contributed their extensive individual talents, prestige and consens ...

Everglades restoration
Mark Perry /TCPalm /Feb 16
Hundreds of people gathered recently near Orlando at Shingle Creek, "the Headwaters of Florida's Everglades" for the 22nd Annual Everglades Coalition Conference, "Kissimmee to the Keys: Standing Firm for Everglades Restoration." It is the largest annual forum for Everglades conservation and restoration.State and federal political leaders, agency chiefs and environmental organizations presented and debated the critical issues of restoring the greater Everglades ecosystem. Poor water management, development and invasive species continue to threaten the wildlife habitat and the spatial extent of the Everglades while causing extensive damage to our coastalestuaries.The Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, with 68 component projects, was approved to move forward in year 2000. The plan, now at $10 billion, was also to be funded with a 50-50 match from state and federa ...

Crist wants Everglades restoration to have focus to the north
Brendan Farrington /Bradenton Herald /FEb 23
STUART, Fla. - Gov. Charlie Crist took a boat tour along the St.Lucie River on Friday, heard how it's being damaged by Lake Okeechobee water releases and then pledged to support a plan that would focus Everglades restoration on areas north of the lake. Realizing that pollutants that flow into Lake Okeechobee from the north eventually wash through the Everglades and into the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers, the Legislature wants a plan to stop the problem at its origin."If you don't stop that water, which literally is just pouring into the lake, you will never get ahead of it because that water goessouth," said Senate President Ken Pruitt, R-Port St. Lucie, who took the tour with Crist. The plan would include purchasing land north of the lake, creating storage areas that could clean the water before it flows south and working with farmers to reduce the amoun ...

A flow of good ideas
Editorial /Palm Beach Post /Feb 24
Since 1995, South Floridians have been warned that the days of unlimited, cheap water are nearing an end. The warnings were real. Last week, the South Florida Water Management District took a big step toward curbing the amount of water cities and counties can draw from the Loxahatchee River and the Everglades. The new rule will help the Everglades, which needs water the $10.9 billion restoration aims to route to the River of Grass. The restoration's secondary goal is to provide water for new residents. As the district predicted, local governments must find new ways to meet the water demands of increasing populations. Some communities listened to the earlier warnings and have taken action. Stripping minerals out of water drawn from deep underground and recycling wastewater to use for irrigation are some of the sources governments are tapping for "new" water. Those solutions mean hig ...

Crist sets a new course on big lake and rivers
staff /Palm Beach Post /Feb 28
The message was the same: Lake Okeechobee and the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers are in deep trouble, and Florida must provide more money for cleanup and restoration. But the contrast between Gov. Bush's visit to the lake toward the end of his second term and Gov. Crist's river tour in Stuart last week, barely two months after he took office, is striking.Folding chairs under a tent canopy pitched beside the lake, fancy refreshments and dozens of politicians greeted a perfectly dressed Gov. Bush, who finally acknowledged pollution problems with the lake but said little about the rivers that so often must accept the lake's fouled, excess water. Gov. Crist wore faded jeans on his pontoon boat trip, and it was a no-frills event. Refreshments? Bottled But the governor's message was first-class. He touted his budget proposal to spend more - $40 million on the rivers and $50 million on ...

The last thing the river of grass needs
Carl Hiaasen /Miami Herald /Feb 24
Once upon a time, a kid could catch a stringer of bass anywhere in the Everglades, and fry up the whole batch with nothing to fear. Now the bass are getting loaded with mercury and signs posted on the shores of freshwater canals and lakes warn anglers that eating too many fish can be perilous. It’s not a good omen when poisonous chemicals start showing up near the top of the food chain. For that reason, Dan Kimball, the superintendent of Everglades National Park, worries a lot about mercury. Kimball recently wrote to the state Department of Environmental Protection about a huge coal-burning power plant that Florida Power & Light wants to build on the western side of Lake Okeechobee.The superintendent said that mercury emissions from the proposed Glades Power Park facility “will increase … the risk of toxic effects to both humans and wildlife.” He also expressed concerns about the ...



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