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Apr 2007 / go to archive


BIG CYPRESS

‘Livin’ with the Waters’
Jeremy Cox /Naples Daily News /Apr 1
Scene: Two children are standing in the woods, a boy peering skyward though a pair of binoculars and a girl pointing in the same direction. “Wow! What big trees. But where are the birds?” the boy asks. “There are none! You’re looking at one of the worst enemies of the Everglades — the invasive melleuca,” the brainy girl responds in an assessment that is dead-on, notwithstanding the tree’s name; the invader is actually called a “melaleuca.” Meet Wade and Willow Waters, characters in a cartoon strip that involves the exploits of three generations of a black family that lives near the Everglades. It is the brainchild of an unlikely author: the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Since its debut last year, the comic strip, called “Livin’ with the Waters,” hasgarnered some praise as an innovative way to engage southern Florida blacks in the $11 billion Everglades restorati ...

Another panther killed on I-75
staff /Naples Daily News /Apr 3
A panther that was found dead Tuesday on Interstate 75 may have been the same cat that has menaced the south end of Golden Gate Estates over the past eight months. A Florida Highway Patrol officer discovered the dead panther in the median at mile marker 98, about two miles east of the Alligator Alley toll plaza. The death of the 3-year-old male marked the sixth panther fatality on a Florida roadway this year. Based on photographs and descriptions from eyewitnesses, a state panther expert believes the panther may have been the same cat that has been attacking livestock in the Inez Road area. A panther killed five goats there last Februaryand twice wounded a miniature donkey in August. ...

Collier has one of driest periods ever
Jeremy Cox /Naples Daily News /Apr 3
With the state mired in one of its driest durations on record, Collier County remains the only county south of Lake Okeechobee that hasn’t had tougherconservation measures thrust upon it. Residents can thank the fact that their water supply isn’t tied to a dwindling Lake Okeechobee. Not to mention the fact that Collier was under year-round irrigation restrictions long before the drought set in. State water managers and local water utility officials hope those advantages will keep the county afloat until the rainy season crackles to life in May or June. So far, though, the numbers paint a dire picture of the situation: Œ A rain gauge at Naples Municipal Airport recorded a mere 1.22 inches of rain between Jan. 1 and Tuesday, 5.1 inches below average, according to the National Weather Service. The combined January, February and March rainfall totals were the fourth-l ...

Southwest Florida’s future appears flooded
Jeremy Cox /Naples Daily News /Apr 6
A clearer picture is emerging of how climate change will alter SouthwestFlorida’s low-lying landscape and upend the lives of creatures from mosquitoes to humans. Two new reports — a U.N. panel’s report released Friday outlining the expected impacts of global warming and an update completed this week of local sealevel-rise projections — show tough times ahead.• Across North America, coastal communities will be “increasingly stressed” by climate change coupled with the impacts of development and pollution, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.• Globally, the panel’s scientists think that 30 percent of species face an increased risk of vanishing if temperatures jump 3.6 degrees above the average set in the 1980s and 1990s. • A 5-foot rise in sea level will inundate 435,811 coastal acres in Collier County, or about one-third of its total land ...

Tamiami Trail, Florida scenic highway: Part I
Betsy Perdichizzi /Marco Island Sun Tim/Apr 9
The Tamiami Trail Scenic Highway is a 50-mile segment of U.S. 41 located in Collier County beginning at the north boundary of theCollier-Seminole State Park and extending eastward through the Picayune Strand State Forest, Fakahatchee Strand State Preserve, the Ten Thousand Island National Wildlife Refuge and the Big CypressNational Preserve. In June of 2000 the Tamiami Trail was designated a "National Scenic Byway." In May 2005 the Collier Metropolitan Planning Organization MPO voted to remove the Scenic Highway designation. No action has been taken; apparently they are waiting for Naples, Marco and Everglades City to take stands on the issue. ...

At Joanie's Blue Crab Cafe, conversation and good Old Florida food
Jeff Klinkenberg /St Pete Times /Apr 12
OCHOPEE One time a big alligator chased me through Joanie's Blue Crab Cafe in the Big Cypress preserve, bellowing until the rafters shook. Shouting for help, I escaped by jumping on top of a table. From the safety of the kitchen, Joanie hollered, "You're on your own, mister." There was little I could do but eat a bowl of lima bean stew while standing next to the bottle of Louisiana Hot Sauce.I'm lying, of course, except for the part about lima bean stew, which I eat whenever I stop at Joanie's. As for the alligator: I would like to think a live crocodilian will one day make an appearance inside the only restaurant in the 725,000-acre national preserve. Things happen at Joanie's that will probably never happen at another restaurant in Florida. Like the time four years ago when I was wolfing down a bowl of lima bean stew atdusk and a bear showed up behind Joanie's to ...

State trail strolls through county
DAVE PIEKLIK /Chronicle Online /Apr 14
Inverness seen as ‘missing link’ between Pensacola, South Florida Anyone planning to take a stroll through Inverness may soon be told to go take a hike. Which is exactly what a group of volunteers working on plans for a new scenic nature trail extension want. Plans are beginning to bring the Florida National Scenic Trail through the city’s Whis-pering Pines Park. From there, the hiking trail would connect to the Withlacoochee State Trail, where hikers could continue north to get back on the scenic trail if they wanted.The 1,300-mile hiking trail, also called the Florida Trail, stretches from the Big Cypress National Preserve in South Florida to the Gulf Islands National Seashore near Pensacola. A section of the trail enters Citrus County from the south in the Withlacoochee State Forest, but ends at theintersection of County Road 581 and Haven Stre ...

Cat on a Collision Course
Joe Dupree /National Wildlife Or/April 2007
IT’S A RARE THING to encounter a live Florida panther in the wild, even for workers in the country’s only official refuge for the endangered cat. But on a morning not long ago, Larry Richardson found himself face-to-face with four of them: a mother and three kittens, sprawled lazily across a dirt trail as he rounded a corner in his pickup. “The kittens were sleeping, all stacked together like cordwood, until they saw my truck,” recalls Richardson, a biologist with the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge near Naples, Florida. “The mother and two kittens ran, but a third kitten just stood there, watching me. We both got a good look at each other.” The moment is seared into Richardson’s brain because of what happened next: Overthe following months, the mother and two of the kittens were found dead, struck by cars or killed in turf fights with other panthers. Finall ...

Lands targeted for swamp buggy trails could instead be designated wilderness
Jeremy Cox /Naples Daily News /Apr 16
Much of the land that swamp buggy riders have targeted to expand their trail network in Big Cypress National Preserve is eligible to be designated aswilderness, a move that would prohibit such vehicles. About 109,000 acres, or three-fourths, of the "Addition Lands" would qualify under the designation, according to a National Park Service study. The results of the study were made public today in a Park Service announcement of newly revised recreation proposals for the 147,000-acre portion of the preserve. Environmentalists had pressured the agency to conduct a wilderness study, pointing to a 21-word statement in the 2000 off-road vehicle (ORV) management plan for the original section of Big Cypress. The plan said that "until the wilderness suitability study and general management plan are completed, the Addition Lands will remain closed to recreational OR ...

House OKs Picayune Strand water bill
Amie Parnes /Naples Daily News /Apr 19
WASHINGTON — A large water bill, which holds funding for the Picayune Strand andother Everglades projects, steamrolled through the U.S. House on Thursday with little objection from lawmakers.The bill — which passed by a vote of 394 to 25 and contains funding for projectsaround the country — authorizes more than $362 million for the eastern Collier County project and more than $1.2 billion for the Indian River Lagoon in Martin County. Both estuaries on opposite ends of the state carry contaminants that have polluted the Everglades for years. In Southwest Florida, the legislation will also authorize a number of projects aimed at protecting the ecosystem, including a study to restore the water quality and supply at the Vanderbilt Beach Lagoon. The bill includes a study that would examine providing shoreline protection and hurricane and storm damagereduction on Vanderbilt, Par ...

U.S. may ban off-road vehicles from 109,000 acres in Big Cypress Preserve
David Fleshler /Sun Sentinel /Apr 24
As much as 109,000 acres of swamp, wet prairie and cypress forest on the westernborders of Broward County could be designated federal wilderness, the highest level of protection, under controversial options being considered by theNational Park Service. Home to deer, panthers, black bears and other wildlife, the land is a portion oftwo parcels totaling 146,000 acres added in 1988 to Big Cypress NationalPreserve. Park Service officials are drawing up a management plan for the territory, known as the Addition Lands, and hunters and environmentalists are arguing over whether the plan should include access for swamp buggies and other off-road vehicles. The Addition Lands are currently closed to these vehicles. Among the Park Service's proposed alternatives is designating as much as 109,000acres as wilderness, a classification that would prohibit mechanical forms of transportati ...

When Mother Nature says ‘enough’
Jeremy Cox /Naples Daily News /Apr 25
So this is how nature reacts when it’s pushed too far. When real estate scammers carved up 55,000 acres of cypress forest and swamp in the 1960s, they left behind more than just useless contracts and crushed dreams.They gave Collier County the outsized matchbook that is Southern Golden Gate Estates.Its latest immolation began Monday afternoon and quickly spread to 3,000 acres in the central part of the failed subdivision, now part of Picayune Strand StateForest. The wildfire chafed at containment Tuesday, spreading smoke and ash as far away as downtown Naples, more than 15 miles away. Investigators don’t know what caused this particular blaze, but they do know what fueled its rampant growth: bulldozers, dynamite and dredges. Four decades ago, workers gashed 40 miles of canals through the swamp, immediately draining 30,000 acres of wetlands and dropping the water table ...

the uninvited guest
Jeff Klinkenberg /St Pete Times /Apr 22
OCHOPEE - About a year ago, the old man's chickens began disappearing during thenight. At first he suspected bears. Then his cat, Homer, vanished, followed by agoose. If this kept up he'd run out of animals. Calvin Hodges is 80, a native Floridian. Thirty years ago he built a house with his own hands in the Big Cypress National Preserve. He grew his own food, raisedlivestock and hunted deer. Over decades he got used to the black bears. "Even if I don't see them, I can smell them," he said. "They really stink." It wasn't bears this time. Hodges, infirm and in a wheelchair, recognized cat tracks and summoned the authorities. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service told him to protect his animals during Florida panther hunting hours between dusk and dawn. Hodges promised to keep hisdog, Lilly, inside after dark. He got his son to fortify the chicken coop with electric wire. A fe ...

Woodpecker debate awaiting decision from state
Eric Staats /Naples Daily News /Apr 26
A lingering debate over protections for endangered woodpeckers in a corner of Collier County is about to come home to roost. The debate goes back to 2002, when county commissioners adopted a landmark plan to control growth in rural Collier County, including in North Belle Meade, a chunk of land north of Interstate 75 and east of Collier Boulevard, surrounded by quickly growing Golden Gate Estates. Starting in 2002 and again in January, commissioners have flip-flopped twice on whether to put stricter protections on about 650 acres in North Belle Meade, called Section 24, to save habitat for endangered red-cockaded woodpeckers. Now the county is waiting to hear whether the state Department of Community Affairs will find the latest plans for Section 24 in compliance with state law. A notice of intent is due by May 2. The outcome threatens to take Collier County back in ...

Public gets a say this week about trail systems in Big Cypress addition
Jeremy Cox /Naples Daily News /Apr 28
A battle over the future of one of Collier County’s most pristine expanses will be waged next week at three public workshops. For nearly two decades, the Addition Lands of Big Cypress National Preserve havebeen a ship without a rudder. That is, the 147,000 acres lacked a general management plan, a blueprint that the National Park Service uses to negotiate the delicate balance betweenpreservation and recreation. A set of proposals released in late 2005 provoked vocal comments from hunters and environmentalists, two sides that have displayed little common ground. Now, park managers have returned with new proposals, this time armed with two key reports.At the behest of hunters, park managers have drawn maps of where swamp buggy trails could be etched into the swamps and piney woods. Their conclusion: The land could sustain up to 139 miles of trails, a distance roughly equ ...

No nests for endangered birds
Kevin Lollar /News Press /Apr 26
The official 2007 wood stork score for Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary is in: no nests, no eggs, no fledglings. In fact, this is a dismal nesting season everywhere for the wood stork, which has been listed as endangered species since 1984. "It's looking bad throughout the state," said Gary Morse, spokesman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. "There may be 10 nests in one place near Jacksonville and a few others elsewhere, but they're not doing well anywhere. We've gotten reports from Georgia, and it looks bleak there as well. It's bleak everywhere." Earlier this month, wood storks seemed on the verge of nesting at Corkscrew, the largest breeding colony in North America."They were going through the motions, but they didn't stay," sanctuary manager Ed Carlson said. "We're just accepting it as an off year. It's happened in the past." Since resear ...

Lawsuit seeks to void federal permit for Saturnia Falls
Eric Staats /Naples Daily News /Apr 16
Environmental groups are ratcheting up their legal fight over wetlands and wood storks the groups say are threatened by development in northern Collier County. A lawsuit, received Monday at the federal courthouse in Fort Pierce, asks a judge to void a 2006 federal permit for Saturnia Falls, an upscale neighborhood proposed for some 640 acres north of Immokalee Road and west of Interstate 75, and to order a more detailed review of the project’s environmental impact. The National Wildlife Federation, the Conservancy of Southwest Florida, the Florida Wildlife Federation, the Collier County Audubon Society, and theNational Audubon Society on behalf of Audubon of Florida are filing the lawsuit against officials with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Interior Department. Monday’s lawsuit is the latest in a string of legal challeng ...

SOUTHWEST COAST

Drought affecting Lee water supply
Julio Ochoa /Naples Daily News /Apr 2
The drought is now affecting Fort Myers’ water supply. Lee County Utilities is issuing a notice to customers who’s water supply comes from the Olga Water Treatment Plant on the Caloosahatchee River.The notice states that sodium levels have exceeded maximum standards set by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. For the average user, the higher salt content in the water should not be a problem, said Patty DiPero, spokeswoman for Lee County Utilities. But those on sodium restricted diets should take notice, she said. The Caloosahatchee River’s salt level has risen over the past few months due to the drought. ...

Mack searching for support for water-quality legislation
Julio Ochoa /Naples Daily News /Apr 3
U.S. Rep. Connie Mack brought his campaign to fund red tide research and improvethe water quality of the Caloosahatchee River to Fort Myers on Tuesday, saying he needed local help to persuade Washington to fund his initiatives. Mack’s new bill, “Restoring the Caloosahatchee River: A Legacy for Florida,” would provide a water-quality component to a reservoir being built in Hendry County. Left alone, the C-43 reservoir will address the quantity of water that flows down the river from the lake but do nothing address the quality of the polluted water. Releases from the lake are packed with phosphorus and nitrogen, which promote algae growth, including blue-green algae and possibly red tide. Local officials, including county commissioners, have been working since the reservoir was proposed to get a water quality component added. ...

Mack's working to help river
Editorial /News Press /Apr 5
U.S. Rep. Connie Mack is making an important contribution to the fight to save the Caloosahatchee River and its embattled estuary.The current anxiety is drought, but the wet will return. Vast releases of pollution-laden water from Lake Okeechobee remain a threat to our coastal environment and nature-based economy unless we rework water management in South Florida. Mack has introduced a bill, HR 1816, co-sponsored by Reps. MarioDiaz-Balart, R-Hialeah; Vern Buchanan, R-Sarasota; and Tim Mahoney, D-Palm Beach Gardens, dealing with a key element in the fight to STOP THE MUCK,to use The News-Press slogan. Heavy rains in 2004 and 2005 forced massive releases of fresh water fromLake Okeechobee into the Caloosahatchee and its estuary. Agricultural and other pollutants in the water triggered algae blooms that tainted the river and smothered sea grasses and ki ...

Caloosahatchee River has it backward - water flow, that is
Julio Ochoa /Naples Daily News /Apr 7
At least that’s what measurements taken by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers show. The reports, which show hundreds of millions of gallons from the headwaters of the Caloosahatchee flowing back into Lake Okeechobee, are very concerning, said Wayne Daltry, director of Smart Growth for Lee County. The water, which is likely being pumped back out of the lake for agricultural users, could help lower salinity levels in part of the county’s drinking water supply, Daltry said. Instead, salinity levels have risen so high in the Olga Water Treatment Plant, which serves part of Fort Myers, the county had to issue warnings to its users. And salinity levels likely will keep going up because when water flows backward at the river’s headwaters, saltwater is sucked up through the river, Daltry said. “They are letting water go to the farmers but not requiring them to keep enough flow ...

Snook fishing doing mighty fine
staff /News Press /Apr 12
It’s that windy time of year, but inshore anglers who don’t mind a little salt spray have been doing well with snook. Spanish mackerel in the baysand off the beaches have been the ticket to fast action, tarpon are around and some bruiser sharks top the heavyweight bill. Boating is risky business in the inland lakes, but bass, crappie, bluegill and Mayan cichlids are biting in concentrated numbers. SNOOK: Snook fishing was very good last week for anglers in the Edison Big Snook, in which 111 keeper-size fish were tagged by state biologists. Miles Meredith and teammates reported catching eight keepers to 8 poundson the first day, Thursday, fishing in the Caloosahatchee from the Midpoint Memorial Bridge area to the mouth, as did many tournamententries. ...

Bills hurt local clean water efforts
Editorial /News Press /Apr 25
We need the Legislature to help fight pollution, not handcuff local governments trying to wage that war for their citizens. The issue has sharp impact in Lee County, where the addition of excess nutrients from fertilized lawns and farm fields has triggered devastating algae blooms. Two bills pending in the Legislature, HB 1197 and SB 1952, contain an especially pernicious amendment that just might pre-empt local government efforts to regulate the use of fertilizers on lawns and other landscapes. Critics, including Lee County commissioners, Sanibel council members and a posse of environmentalists, say it’s being done on behalf of a fertilizer industry wary of locals just a bit too eager to clean up their water. That’s us. This is crucial to efforts to reduce nutrients in the Caloosahatchee andits estuary. ...

Dry weather puts nurseries, growers in bind
Laura Layden /Naples Daily News /Apr 28
How does your garden grow? Not without water. Plants, trees and flowers. They all need water to survive. Like people, they’ll shrivel up and die without it. With more stringent water restrictions and a lingering drought, Southwest Florida farmers are growing more concerned about their crops, from citrus to tomatoes. They already have suffered losses from the drought, described by some as the worst in South Florida’s recordable history. And they’re taking a hit from restrictions that have forced them to cut water usage by 30 percent or more. The South Florida Water Management District has asked for help in determining the blow to the agriculture industry. About two weeks ago, district managers metwith Florida Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson and Gov. Charlie Crist to discuss the drought and its impact on growers. “This thing is a moving targ ...

Tighten the tap: Record cutbacks coming
Curtis Morgan /Miami Herald /Apr 4
South Florida faces its toughest water cutbacks ever, and brown lawns and wilted flowers could look like minor worries soon. In the coming days, canals and ponds in western suburbs will drop fast and shallow ones may dry up. In weeks, municipal wells near the coast -- particularly in Broward County -- could pump water too salty to drink. In months, wetlands may wither and Lake Okeechobee could recede to the lowest point since the dike was built around it more than 70 years ago. That's the dry-as-a-bone scenario regional water managers painted Tuesday as they called for a new round of emergency cutbacks, expected to take effect April 13. Homeowners in Miami-Dade, Broward, Monroe and Palm Beach counties will be restricted to only two days a week of landscape wateringinstead of the current three. Golf courses, nurseries and other industrial users ...

LAKE OKEECHOBEE

Inland canals, wetlands to dry up as water managers limit damage from drought
Andy Reid /Sun Sentinel /Apr 4
With the drought becoming one of the worst on record, water managers today plan to cut off South Florida communities from tapping the Everglades to restock drinking water supplies.An emergency order from the South Florida Water Management District would at least temporarily stop the flow from the Everglades water conservation areas to local utilities.One result: Expect inland canals and wetlands to dry up as water managers move more water to the coast to try to stop saltwater from seeping in and fouling drinking water, said Carol Ann Wehle, executive director of the water managementdistrict. "Mother Nature is dealing us a very serious hand," said Wehle, who announced Tuesday she would sign the emergency order today. "This is one of the worst drought situations we have ever seen." Water in the Everglades conservation areas, located just west of South Florida subu ...

Smoke from wildfire that shut Alley may blanket north Broward, Palm Beach
MJean-Francois & AReid /Sun Sentinel /Apr 10
The four-day wildfire that has burned 12,000 acres since Saturday may send smokeinto north Broward and Palm Beach counties in the coming days if the winds act as expected -- but it should not be a threat to residential areas -- authoritiessaid on Tuesday.The fire is in the Everglades on the south side of Alligator Alley/Interstate 75. The toll road on Tuesday was running smoothly after authorities reopened it about midnight after a six-hour shutdown because of heavy smoke centered betweenMile Markers 39 and 42. The shut down extended from U.S. 27 in Broward County tothe Collier County line on Monday. Today's 5-mph southerly wind will push the smoke north, said Andy Tingler, a spokesman for the National Weather Service in Miami. "It's going to blow all the smoke north," Tingler said. "And tomorrow, it may become southwest, which will take the smoke northeast, blowing it mo ...

Red tide poisons food of sea cows
Kate Spinner /Herald Tribune /Apr 22
When 27 manatees died from red tide poisons near the Caloosahatchee River in March and April, there were no signs of a red tide bloom. But toxins from an earlier bloom settled into sea grass beds near Fort Myers, and the grasses stayed poisonous for weeks. As the weather warmed, manatees migrated out of their river wintering grounds and ate the deadly grass. Because scientists are just beginning to realize that red tide can render sea grass toxic weeks after a bloom passes, few solutions have been proposed to makespring migration for manatees less deadly. "It's really a dangerous time now," said Jan Landsberg, a marine scientist at Florida Wildlife Research Institute. Manatees frequently perish when a red tide bloom creeps into Charlotte Harbor's estuaries during their spring migration, but it's unusual for so many to die in the absence of a bloom, said Leanne ...

Sun Sentinel
Apr 10 /Editorial /ISSUE: Dike rep
The costs to repair a critical dike around Lake Okeechobee keep changing. The need for the work does not, however. So, water management officials and lawmakers, plus the taxpayers who ultimately fund public works projects, have no choice but to grit their teeth and ready theblueprints. There's really no other way around this. The 140-mile dike that surrounds "Lake O" serves to protect many lives and many communities from what could be devastating, massive flooding. About a year ago, an engineering report on the Herbert Hoover Dike warned that erosion hadweakened that vital safety net, posing "a grave and imminent danger" to South Florida's population and environment. ...

Turning off Everglades spigot is good first step
Editorial /St Pete Times /Apr 11
State officials turned off the tap last week on water withdrawals from the Everglades, another step toward helping the River of Grass live up to its name. The new rule, adopted by the South Florida Water Management District, means cities along the southeast coast must develop alternative water sources to meet the needs of their growing populations. The move is a good one, but officials still need to enforce greater conservation efforts. The rule, a year in the making, is the first time the government declared the Everglades off-limits for new or additional water supplies. Miami-Dade, Broward,Monroe and Palm Beach counties now rely on 500-million gallons each day from theEverglades. While existing permits will not be revoked, the rule caps withdrawals and forces utilities to look at alternative sources, such asreclaimed water and desalination technology. ...

Lawsuit gaining broader support
Editorial /TCPalm /Apr 11
The list is growing — and so is the momentum. One by one, individuals, organizations and governments in our area are pledging money to an important cause: a lawsuit designed to force the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to stop discharging polluted water from Lake Okeechobee into the St. Lucie River and Indian River Lagoon. The Rivers Coalition Defense Fund, based in Stuart, filed the lawsuit inNovember on behalf of 22 homeowners who claim the Corps "violates the federal constitution when it degrades the riparian property of waterfront land owners along the estuary." The suit claims damages in the amount of$50 million — the combined appraisal value of the 22 plaintiffs'waterfront properties — though financial compensation is not the real objective. Instead, the plaintiffs and the Rivers Coalition want to stopthe discharges and restore the estuary. The latter has suffere ...

Funeral services set for 1928 Okeechobee hurricane survivor
Eliot Kleinberg /Palm Beach Post /Apr 10
Services are set for April 20 in West Palm Beach for Vernie A. Boots, whose ordeal as a 14-year-old in the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane was one of the most compelling stories of America's second-deadliest natural disaster. Mr. Boots died Thursday at a Tampa nursing home where he'd lived for more than a decade.Mr. Boots lost his parents and a brother on Sept. 16, 1928, when the storm washed a wall of water over what was then a 6-foot muck dike, killing perhaps as many as 3,000. Later in his life, Mr. Boots farmed and designed farm equipment and worked on the giant Herbert Hoover Dike, built to prevent a repeat of the 1928 catastrophe. In 2003, for the storm's 75th anniversary, the official death toll was changed from 1,833 to 2,500, making it second only to the 1900 Galveston, Texas, hurricane, which killed 6,000 to 10,000. ...

Lake Okeechobee dries up To lake lovers, hope rising
Joel Moroney /News Press /Apr 14
The wetlands shimmer like prairies full of puddles after a hard rain. But the tall grass swaying in the breeze grows in hundreds of acres of Lake Okeechobee bottom baking under the sun of a record drought.It’s a reality of South Florida’s lack of water — a lake so shallow you can stand in the middle of it and not get your knees wet. It’s a lake running dry and unable to deliver its crucial stock of irrigation water to surrounding agricultural communities or drinking water to the East Coast. Yet, environmentally, it could produce one of the best outcomes ever. “The drought is what can revive the lake both as a fishery and clean water going into the estuaries,” said Mary Ann Martin, of Roland & Mary Ann Martin’s Marina & Resort, a fishing mecca in Clewiston. Blessing in disguise The 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons have been described as the most recent ...

Drought, weakened dike create headache for Lake Okeechobee officials
Andy Reid /Sun Sentinel /Apr 12
One of the worst droughts on record has water managers reconsidering a plan to keep Lake Okeechobee lower than usual year-round, a step once considerednecessary to protect the lake's aging dike from a New Orleans-style breach. The proposal from the Army Corps of Engineers to keep the lake about a foot lower than usual could too often leave South Florida without enough water, said Michael Collins, who serves on the governing board of the South Florida Water Management District. The corps proposes keeping water levels lower to ease the strain on the dike surrounding the lake and to improve the environmental health of the lake. That also threatens to leave too little water during times of drought toirrigate crops and to replenish drinking water supplies, Collins said Wednesday.He called on the corps to reconsider the plan. ...

Water level in Okeechobee drops to record April low
staff /News Press /Apr 12
West Palm Beach – Recent rains did little to improve drought-related conditions across South Florida as water levels continue to drop, water officials said. Today, the board of the South Florida Water Management District declared a severe water shortage in most of its 16-county territory and an extreme water shortage in the Everglades Agricultural Area. Also, the water level in Lake Okeechobee, the source of water for the Florida Everglades and the primary back-up water supply for most residents of the SFWMD, is at the lowest elevation ever recorded in the month of April. If drought conditions persist, water managers said they expect the lake level to drop below its record low of 8.97 feet above sea level, recorded on May 24, 2001. At just over 10 feet above sea level today, the lake level is so low this year water from the lake cannot be used to replenish ...

Name a Lake O leader
OpEd /Palm Beach Post /Apr 15
Gov. Crist told The Post that naming a Lake Okeechobee manager, who would oversee cleanup and other lake issues from the governor's office, is "a very good idea." He's right, so he should do it. In an interview with the paper's editorial board, Gov. Crist even mentioned a prospect: a deputy Cabinet aide, Diana Sawaya-Crane, who advises him on environmental, natural resources and growth management - including matters that affect Lake Okeechobee. Ms. Sawaya-Crane worked for the governor when he was attorney general, serving as a Cabinet aide and legislative affairs director. Before that, sh ...

Legislature seeks quicker fix for dike
Josh Hafenbrack /Sun Sentinel /Apr 20
TALLAHASSEE · A frustrated Florida Legislature on Thursday called on Congress toexpedite repairs to the 140-mile Herbert Hoover Dike that guards Lake Okeechobee, warning that swift action is needed to prevent a catastrophe like the flooding triggered by Hurricane Katrina. The measure, which passed both chambers unanimously, is the Legislature's first response to concerns about the structural integrity of the aging dike. It declares that the dike doesn't meet modern safety standards and poses a "clear and imminent threat of catastrophic proportion to the communitiessurrounding Lake Okeechobee," which include poverty-stricken Belle Glade, Pahokee and South Bay. The Legislature did not provide any money for the repairs, simply calling on Congress to fund upgrades that are expected to cost at least $856 million. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers maintains the dike. ...

Drought has varied effect on Lake O life
Jeremy Cox /Naples Daily News /Apr 27
Paul Gray eased back the throttle on his airboat and skimmed to a stop alongsidea tenuous-looking clump of green sprigs poking above the water. As soon as the engine died, his bare feet were in the muck. "This whole area should be vegetated," said Gray, a scientist with the National Audubon Society who has become one of the biggest cheerleaders of efforts to restore Lake Okeechobee. "This is the last of the survivors." If he had been standing on this spot in November 2005, the surface of the lake would have been about two feet above the bill of his baseball cap. Instead, on this clear morning in April nearly two years later, the bourbon-colored water was lapping just above his ankles. Gray estimates that 75 square miles of aquatic plants across Lake O drowned after the tumultuous 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons drenched Central and South Florida. Now, a reprieve in ...

Managing the level of Lake Okeechobee has its ups and downs
Julio Ochoa /Naples Daily News /Apr 28
Mother Nature’s schizophrenia and those at the mercy of it are tearing the state’s water managers in opposite directions. Too much water or too little? This is the question the Army Corps of Engineers struggles with as it builds long-term plans to deal with Lake Okeechobee. As for the correct answer, it depends on who you ask. When the lake’s level gets too high, it creates dangerous conditions for the dike surrounding the lake, forcing water managers to send high discharges of polluted water down the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie rivers. But when the lake’s level gets too low, there is not enough water for farmers and other water users. Back-to-back busy hurricane seasons in 2004 and 2005 forced the Corps to rethinkthe way it releases water from Lake Okeechobee. The Corps came up with a plan to operate the lake at lower levels, which would lessen the stress on ...

Ecosystem restoration projects slow as federal funds lag
Brian Skoloff /Bradenton Herald /Apr 29
A 10-foot alligator bakes in the sun. Wading birds pluck food from the shallows.Fish feed in pools where water ebbs and flows. Life has returned. The Kissimmee River is a success story of nature restored after years of dikes, dams and diversions for flood control left it an ecological mess. But it's also a tale of bureaucracy and politics. Congress approved the plan to restore the Kissimmee River - the headwaters to the Everglades - in 1992, clearing the way for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to begin construction. Fifteen years later, the project is fully funded,although it's just about a third complete. But it's doing better than other projects. Federal funding for overall Everglades restoration is lagging and it could now take a half-century to complete, two decades past the goal. Ecosystem restoration and flood control projects across the country have bee ...

Four navigation locks on Lake O closed
staff /TCPalm /Apr 28
Four navigation locks on the north shore of Lake Okeechobee have been closed to navigation because of safety hazards caused by low water levels in the lake. These navigation locks, operated by the South Florida Water Management District, will remain closed until water levels in Lake Okeechobee have returned to safe operating levels. The S-135 navigation lock at J & S Fish Camp, G-36 navigation lock at Henry Creek, S-127 navigation lock at Buckhead Ridge and S-131 navigation lock at Lakeport will be closed to boat traffic because of safety issuesboth inside the lock chamber and on the lakeward approach to thenavigation locks. ...

Lake O water may go south
George Andreassi /TCPalm /Apr 27
A proposal to build a 25-mile long, 10-mile wide "flow-way" from Lake Okeechobee south to the Everglades — which would provide an alternative to releasing lake water into the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers — is gaining political traction. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers relieves high water levels in Lake Okeechobee by releasing billions of gallons of water into the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers, damaging the water quality of the estuaries as well as local fishing, boating, tourism and real estate industries. The lake water contains fertilizer, pesticides and sediment that run offfarms and lawns into the waterways leading to the lake. Also, too much fresh water in the St. Lucie River has been linked to fish lesions and toxic algae blooms in 2005. The flow-way would send the lake water south to replenish the Evergladesand underground drinking water ...

EVERGLADES RESTORATION

Saving water means saving money: Why not do both?
Daniel Vasquez /Sun Sentinel /Apr 1
It has come to this: South Florida is spawning water snitches. Tattletales who turn in their neighbors for violating drought restrictions are akey component of Florida's emergency water regulations that dictate whenhomeowners can legally water lawns and wash cars. Now, nobody likes a snitch. But saving water around the home means saving money -- and protecting the environment. And there are so many easy, cheap ways to save water at home, there's almost no excuse not to do it. For a little water perspective, consider this: A faucet with a drip-per-second leak can waste up to 34 gallons a month. Two drips per second can lose 100 gallons a month. That's literally money down the drain. And there are two basic ways to do it: Repair and upgrade bathrooms and kitchen fixtures, and change your water-wasting ways. ...

State deems Everglades water off-limits
AP /Florida Today /Apr 3
WEST PALM BEACH — The tap on the fragile Everglades ecosystem has beenclamped as officials warn cities across South Florida to find other waysto quench the thirst of a growing population, the state announced Tuesday. The new Regional Water Availability Rule prevents water users from tapping the River of Grass for any new or additional water supplies and means utilities will now be forced to develop alternative means of production,according to the South Florida Water Management District. It is the first time in history that Everglades water has been deemed off-limits. South Florida water suppliers in Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe counties currently depend on an estimated 500 million gallons each day from the Everglades.“The water that is being withdrawn today, that’s it, we’re capped off,” district director Carol Wehle said Tuesday. “It sends ...

Faucet turned off in fragile Everglades
Brian Skoloff /Orlando Sentinel /Apr 4
WEST PALM BEACH -- The tap on the fragile Everglades ecosystem was clamped shut Tuesday as officials warned cities across South Florida to find other ways to quench the thirst of a growing population. The new Regional Water Availability Rule prevents water users from tapping the Everglades for any new or additional water supplies and means utilities will nowbe forced to develop alternative means of production, according to the South Florida Water Management District. It is the first time in history that Everglades water has been deemed off-limits. South Florida water suppliers in Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe counties currently depend on an estimated 500 million gallons each day from the Everglades. ...

Protect the Everglades with rock-mining study
Editorial /Palm Beach Post /Apr 4
Under Gov. Bush, state officials had an invitation from Palm Beach County to study the future of the Everglades Agricultural Area. They accepted before they declined. Now, the Legislature appears intent on overriding the county's modest effort to perform a far less ambitious study. Overreacting to a county moratorium on approvals of rock mining, the House will consider a bill that would usurp local control. Supporters say the Legislature is acting in the legitimate statewide interest of ensuring a supply of road-building materials. The real reason to fight the ...

Indian River Lagoon cleanup bill makes progress
Alexi Howk /TCPalm /Apr 4
ST. LUCIE COUNTY — A massive federal water bill that allocates $1.3 billion to cleaning up the Indian River Lagoon is one step closer to reality, the state's senior senator said Tuesday. U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., who characterized the bill as having a "torturous" past, was in town along with Rep. Tim Mahoney, D-Palm Beach Gardens, and Sen. Dave Aronberg, D-Greenacres and chairman of the Joint Committee on Everglades Oversight, to update elected officials on local issues. Among those was the latest developments surrounding the Water Resources Development Act, a major element of the Everglades restorationproject.The legislation has lingered for years while disagreements between the House and Senate have prevented lawmakers from passing it. Congress has failed to pass a water bill since 2000 and new legislation should be introduced every two years, officials said. ...

Miami attorney named to water board
Curtis Morgan /Miami Herald /Apr 5
A Miami attorney was named Thursday to the board of the South Florida Water Management District by Gov Charlie Crist. Eric Buermann, 55, with the international law firm Squire, Sanders & Dempsey and former general counsel for the Republican Party of Florida, joins the appointed board that oversees the powerful, often controversial agency. The district manages the water supply for 16 counties and directs Everglades restoration and cleanup.''He is a devout environmentalist,'' Crist said in a statement, ``but also a businessman who understands organizations, finance and controlled development.'' Buermann, who has served on the Miami River Commission and Florida Elections Commission, said a role examining environmental issues for Crist's transition team had grounded him in the ''jillions of issues'' facing water managers -- from polluted Lake Okeechobee ...

Nelson discusses efforts to restore lagoon
Cara Fitzpatrick /Palm Beach Post /Apr 4
Looking out over the Indian River Lagoon, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson told city and county officials Tuesday about his efforts to pass a massive water projects bill - a bill that has languished in Congress for several years and includes about $1.4 billion for restoration of the lagoon."This bill has had a torturous past," he said. Nelson, D-Fla., held a press conference at 11 a.m. at the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution near Fort Pierce to discuss that past and current efforts to move the bill forward. U.S. Rep. Tim Mahoney, D-Palm Beach Gardens, and state Sen. Dave Aronberg, D-Greenacres, also attended. Congress has not passed a Water Resources Development Act since 2000. Last year, the House and Senate each passed a different version of the bill, but failed to reach a compromise. The bill would provide funding for water projects throughout the country, including $95 million for res ...

Soldiers of nature
Georgia Tasker /Miami Herald /Apr 6
Keith Bradley and George Gann have considered posting a sign that says ''Rattlesnake Preserve'' to keep intruders out of this ragged two acres in Goulds. But it is not rattlesnakes they are preserving. This day, they are looking for the remnants of the Redland sandmat, a minuscule plant found only in a handful of pinelands between Southwest 216th Street and Florida City. It flattens itself so tightly onto surfaces of bare oolitic limestone that you'd thinkraising one tiny leaflet would expose it to sure death. You'd be right. It is critically imperiled. And Bradley, Gann and botanist Steve Woodmansee are its godfathers. For more than a decade, the three have fought the destruction ofSouth Florida's plant heritage by documenting it one plant at a time -- and made themselves key experts on South Florida's plants. ...

As drought pain deepens, water managers want permission to tap the Everglades
Andy Reid /sun Sentinel /Apr 14
The River of Grass could once again pay the price for South Florida's sea of lawns. State water managers want permission from the federal government to use more Everglades water than usually allowed to restock drought-strained drinking watersupplies -- half of which typically ends up irrigating landscapes. That would lower the Everglades water conservation areas beyond limits set to protect wildlife habitat. Just how badly fish, bird and alligator populations would suffer depends on how low the water goes and for how long.It would be a "painful" decision to dip deeper into Everglades water, but one ofthe worst droughts in history might require it, said Carol Ann Wehle, executive director of the South Florida Water Management District."The need for drinking water must take precedence over the need for habitat," Wehle said. Shrinking fish populations, wading birds for ...

Wetlands restoration keeps PSL's waterways clean, wildlife untouched
Chris Young /TCPalm /Apr 16
PORT ST. LUCIE — Rick Madden looks out at a long canal in the city's northwest area that passes under East Torino Parkway, practically dried out from months of drought. As cars fly by, he directs men with sprayers to areas of the canal, targeting clusters of torpedo grass and other exotic plants. He likes what he sees. "Some people look at this as a bunch of weeds, but this is the way Florida should be, the natural growth of Florida," he said, gesturing at duck potato, pickerelweed and spikerush that fill out the canal. City crews constantly maintain about 200 miles of waterways and about 2,000 acres of lakes and wetlands throughout the city, selectively killing invasive plants and encouraging native species to grow. Rather than paving waterways with concrete, the city maintains aquatic plants to filter outsubstances like ammonia, nitrogen and phosphor ...

This author's up to his ears in alligators
interview /Miami Herald /Apr 16
This author's up to his ears in alligators When you think ''swamp,'' it's usually in reference to somethingdark, dank and bug-infested. But when Washington Post national reporter Michael Grunwald first visited the Everglades, he saw instead ''a beautiful, colorful, enormous work of nature, a natural water management system.'' So deep was his fascination that Grunwald, who lives and works in Miami, decided to research the great, grassy river's history. The result was The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise (Simon & Schuster, $15 in paper), which recently was a gold-medal winner for nonfiction in the Florida Book Awards, a new competition sponsored by a coalition of literary centers and societies and coordinated by Florida State University's Program in American and Florida Studies. Michael Grunwald gets Unbuttoned with James H. Burnett I ...

Officials set to cut marsh levels to protect wells
SV Date /Palm Beach Post /Apr 17
TALLAHASSEE — State and federal officials Monday prepared to override environmental rules for levels in marshes that feed the Everglades in an attempt to stave off long-term damage to groundwater wells for urban South Florida. Maintaining a steady flow of fresh water through the ecosystem - without major fluctuations - has been a top priority in the massive Everglades restoration project. But officials said the 2-year-old drought is so severe that unless more fresh water is allowed to flow eastward in Palm Beach and Broward counties, wells there will start having salt water seep upward and contaminate fresh water suppli"If you have that saltwater intrusion in these important well fields, we actually lose those well fields for a fairly significant amount of time, up to a decade," state Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Michael Sole said. Gov. Charlie Crist, who over ...

Retiring U.S. Army Corps of Engineers deputy to continue serving others
Jacksonville Daily Record /Caroline Gabsewics /Apr 19
After 38 years of public service, Richard Bonner of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Jacksonville District is retiring, but he is planning to serve the public in other ways. Bonner, who has been the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers deputy district engineer in Jacksonville since 1989, will be working in his office in the Prudential Building for the last time on Friday. His last official day isn’t until Aug. 3, because of leave and vacation time that he had. “It hasn’t really hit me yet,” he said. “It has been a big part of my life. It’s going to be strange, but I still have several jobs to finish before Friday.” ...

South Florida is the worst example for preserving water
Ron Little /Jacksonville Times-U/Apr 20
The smelly, smoky haze that clouded the sky the past several days is a visible reminder of how dry it is. And those of us who were here in 1998 hope it's not foretelling another summer of wildfires like occurred that year. I asked Tim Deegan, chief meteorologist for First Coast News, about the drought.He said rainfall last year was 30 percent below normal. And the period from lastApril through the end of March was "one of our driest 12-month periods on record."It's not much better. Rainfall in Jacksonville so far this year was about 5 inches below normal and the St. Johns River Water Management District reports that rainfall in the district's 18 counties is 3.37 inches below a normal year. And there's more bad news. According to news reports, during an emergency meeting in Tallahassee earlier this week on Florida's drought, weather experts told Gov. Ch ...

Plan aims to help the Everglades by building 'flow-way' from lake
George Andreassi /Sun Sentinel /Apr 27
A proposal to build a 25-mile-long, 10-mile-wide "flow-way" from Lake Okeechobeesouth to the Everglades -- which would provide an alternative to releasing lake water into the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers -- is gaining political traction. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers relieves high water levels in the lake by releasing billions of gallons of water into the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers, damaging the water quality of the estuaries as well as local fishing, boating, tourism and real estate industries. The lake water contains fertilizer, sediment and pesticides that run off farms and lawns into the waterways leading to the lake. Also, too much fresh water in the St. Lucie River has been linked to fish lesions and toxic algae blooms in 2005. "The corps has been urged to re-evaluate this concept of a flow-way and the momentum on both the east co ...

'Flow way' idea drawing attention, activists say
Rachel Simmonsen /Palm Beach Post /Apr 28
STUART — A plan to build a marshy "flow way" south of Lake Okeechobee is gaining momentum, St. Lucie River activists said Friday. At their monthly meeting at the Blake Library, members of the Rivers Coalition said an advisory committee for the South Florida Water Management District agreed this week to study the years-old plan, which would cut a swath through about one-fifth of the Everglades Agricultural Area. Until now, the plan had languished at the bottom of a district priorities list, said coalition member Ted Guy, who also serves on the water management district advisory committee. By sending more water south, water managers could cut back on the number of releases made during the wet season from Lake Okeechobee to the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers. Such discharges have polluted the St. Lucie River and endangered fish, oysters and sea grass there, according to me ...

Why is Florida so dry?
Curtis Morgan /Miami Herald /Apr 29
In the past month, nearly double the normal rainfall dumped on Miami-Dade County. The Biscayne Aquifer, the limestone sponge that supplies most ofSoutheast Florida's drinking water, brims from Florida City to coastal Broward County. Some Everglades airboat trails off the Tamiami Trail gleam with standing water, atypical for the dry season. So this is a drought? Some people in South Florida may have a hard time believing it, but state water managers insist that, yes, things really are serious. And they could turn dire if the 17-month dry spell extends into the region's rainy season, normally just a month away. ''Droughts are slow-simmering water emergencies, not sudden flares like floods or hurricanes,'' said Carol Ann Wehle, executive director of the South Florida Water Management District. ``But they can be just as dangerous, because they i ...

Questions and answers about the drought
staff /Miami Herald /Apr 29
QWith rainfall totals slightly above average, why do homeowners in Weston, Coral Gables and other South Florida neighborhoods have to cut back on sprinkling their landscaping to twice a week? A Miami-Dade, Broward and part of Palm Beach sit atop the Biscayne Aquifer, the primary source of the area's drinking water. But the urban southeast coast still depends on a complicated supply labyrinth stretching from Orlando to Key West. To a large extent, everybody is hooked into the same plumbing -- a flood-control and water-delivery system that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers constructed in the 1950s and '60s. Water flows south from the Kissimmee River basin into Lake Okeechobee, where it's pooled behind a towering earthen dike andrationed out by water managers, who move it around the region through about 1,900 miles of canals and more than 200 ga ...



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