January 2002 

  Everglades Village News

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Save Our Everglades
Founded in 1993 by the late George Barley (1934-1995) an Orlando developer and avid sportsman, with Paul Tudor Jones an investment advisor and noted conservationist who has been a part-time Floridian since childhood.  Barley, a seventh generation Floridian, brought his no nonsense business acumen to the Everglades restoration process. Fortunately, the Organizations' vision did not perish when Mr. Barley met an untimely death in a 1995 plane crash while on his way to attend an Everglades related meeting. His mission – the restoration of the Everglades for our children,  our children’s children and our nation, has been taken up by his wife, Mary, and his many friends.

      Mary Barley profile
      http://www.saveoureverglades.org/about/about_board_mary.html

      Paul Tudor Jones, II profile
      http://www.saveoureverglades.org/about/about_board_paul.html

  Copyright  © 2003 Saveoureverglades All rights reserved.

Swamp Sweetener
For the past 60 years a 500,000-acre sweet spot between Florida's Everglades National Park and Lake Okeechobee has been contaminating the surrounding ecosystem. Half of the nation's sugarcane is produced here, and fertilizer runoff from the cane fields pollutes the fragile marsh. Now a new campaign spearheaded by longtime Everglades champion Mary Barley is urging consumers to "fight sugar with sugar." To this end, the Save Our Everglades Sugar campaign offers a more environmentally responsible product, grown in Texas and Louisiana. And all profits generated by the campaign's brand of organic sugar go directly to Everglades restoration programs. "If consumers are buying our sugar, then that's good," Barley says, "because it's taking money out of the pockets of people destroying the Everglades."
--Shervin Hess
Copyright  © 2003 Audobon All rights reserved.

31-Jan-02

Bush administration releases draft of Everglades restoration project
A Bush administration draft of rules for a $7.8 billion restoration of the Florida Everglades maps out a broad strategy to save water but contains no deadlines or timelines demanded by environmental activists.  The draft, recently released by the Army Corps of Engineers, includes only the most general of plans for saving the nation's shrinking wetlands.  The blueprint specifies elimination of canals, construction of pumps, conservation of water, and the tracking of wildlife over the next three decades. No dates are given for completing specific goals, and Florida officials are given latitude to determine how the project should be completed.  Advocates of stronger environmental regulation decried the draft, especially the lack of deadlines or timelines.  They feared pressure from agricultural and other interests would make state officials reticent to push ahead at a fast-enough pace.  Stu Applebaum, chief of the restoration project for the corps, said Congress did not request timelines when it directed the agency to create development rules. 
Copyright  © 2002  US Water News All rights reserved.

             Editorial: Urban sprawl
          And the answer will be, 'runaway development'

Southwest Florida and its taxpayers will be wondering that about urban sprawl and road taxes a few years from now unless two development drives are rethought. Collier County Public Schools is at the wheel of a surefire urban sprawl outbreak — the fast-track addition of four new schools, including two far east of Collier Boulevard within the next two years. One site is so remote it will require its own water and sewer services. If there is a magnet as strong as golf for residential development, it's a school. Plus, the hurry-up construction plans come before a long-range land use plan for that area has been made by the County Commission, in response to a 1999 state mandate to curtail sprawl. Rush ahead with these schools now, and when roads and utilities and police service fail to keep up with the demand, taxpayers will say, "Gee. How did that happen?" Ditto for southern Lee County, where developers of the region's biggest mall — twice the size of Naples' Coastland Center — near FGCU have seen planners once again pare their road impact fees. Starting at $37 million, the tab has slipped to $15 and now, on the eve of formal approval, to a maximum of $10 million.

Copyright  © 2002  Naples News  All rights reserved.

          
Editorial
Job 1: The Everglades
Floridians must hope that expertise on Everglades issues will outweigh potential conflicts of interest among the seven members of the Environmental Regulation Commission, because survival of the state's unique natural resource depends on what the commission does.  The commission will decide what amount of phosphorus will enter the Everglades, and that number is crucial to Florida's fragile "river of grass." Gov. Bush's administration has proposed a super-low limit of 10 parts per billion but has not decided how, where and how frequently to       measure the phosphorus. It is a chief ingredient in fertilizer and the main pollutant in the Everglades.
Copyright  © 2002  Palm Beach Post  All rights reserved.

          Put money aside for Everglades restoration

          Restoration of the Florida Everglades is the most ambitious environmental restoration project ever 
          undertaken in the world. This project is of vital importance to Florida and the nation, but is   
          especially important for all of South Florida. The restoration project will provide two greatly needed 
 benefits.  First, and foremost, the               Florida                                       Everglades is a unique and critically
           important ecosystem that has greatly suffered from the impacts of
           unchecked growth throughout South Florida. The restoration project will
           restore to the greatest extent possible this invaluable natural system.
           Second, the restoration project will result in water management policies
           and facilities that will help ensure that there are adequate drinking
           water supplies for the current and future residents of all of South
           Florida. Without successful restoration of the Everglades, the economic
           vitality of all of South Florida is in jeopardy.
           Copyright  © 2002  Fort Meyers News Press  All rights reserved.

"Florida's Design for Conservation"
Here's a permanent cure for our conservation ills. It's an exciting and painless medicine that can revolutionize funding for our outdoors. Call it "Florida's Design for Conservation." To accomplish this truly amazing program, we suggest herewith that the state's movers and shakers get behind the Design by having it placed on the ballot as a proposed constitutional amendment. The amendment, very simply, would adopt a one-eighth of one cent sales tax with all of the funds constitutionally dedicated solely for protecting and enhancing the outdoors. Specific benefits would range from saving crucial habitats to building accesses for activities from hiking, birding and other nature involvement to new ramps, fish stocking, solid research and enforcement. No, the Design idea did not pop out of a dream. Instead, it adopts a time-tested and immensely successful funding method developed a quarter-century ago in Missouri. Not coincidentally, it was called Missouri's Design for Conservation. Copyright  © 2002 Florida Sportsman Magazine. All rights reserved.

Marine biologist warns against damage being done to sea life
PALM BEACH -- Her Deepness was in Flagler's Steakhouse munching on
Caesar salad. You'll find no fish on Sylvia Earle's plate -- partly because she has
spent more 6,000 hours among them during her explorations beneath the waves.
"I used to say I don't eat anybody I know personally," said the marine
biologist, an author and undersea pioneer whose diving career began 50
years ago when she was teenager living north of Clearwater. In time, she
lost her appetite even for marine creatures she hasn't encountered.
"I really value them so much more alive," she said, pausing to pick her
words as carefully as a crab poking around a reef. "I know I can't make
a grouper, can't make a lobster, can't make a shrimp."
Copyright  © 2002  Palm Beach Post  All rights reserved.

District Rejects Request To Fund 2nd Desal Plant
BROOKSVILLE - If the region's utility wants to build a second
desalination plant, it will be without financial help from the Southwest Florida
Water Management District. Rather than pour $240 million into another desalination plant, members of the district, known as Swiftmud, want to boost the use of reclaimed
water. Swiftmud already kicked in about $85 million to defray the cost of a
desalination plant being built on Hillsborough Bay.
But when Jerry Maxwell, general manager of Tampa Bay Water, asked
Wednesday for more money from Swiftmud for a plant planned near Anclote, it became
clear desalination isn't on the district's shopping list.
Instead, the Swiftmud board wants to tap some of the 128 million gallons
of treated sewage flowing into Tampa Bay or injected deep underground each
day. That water could be used for lawn irrigation.
Copyright  © 2002  Tampa Tribune  All rights reserved.

30-Jan-02

The Everglades' long road to recovery
One of the president's duties is to deliver an assessment of the state
of the union, which President Bush did last night. Governors make similar
presentations in a State of the State Address. In this context, now
would be an appropriate time to offer an assessment on an issue important to
both our president and governor: restoring America's Everglades.
The term depicts a national treasure, but while it is of interest to
those outside our state's boundaries, it is of vital importance to present and
future Florida. Today's leaders understand the task's enormity as well
as the prescription for a return to vitality. While the Everglades are in the early stages of a long road to recovery, their cure is closer than it was just two years ago. At least five
significant events have taken place in that time, impacting funding,
land purchases, and water quality, quantity and allocation:
Copyright  © 2002  Miami Herald  All rights reserved.

`Federal oversight' isn't reassuring

My husband and I were traveling back from Sanibel Island over New Year's
when we stopped to walk through Big Cypress National Reserve. My
husband, a native of Virginia, expressed awe when we found tracks left by a black
bear. When I read the Jan. 15 article, "Drilling in Big Cypress gets OK," I
cried. My family has lived in Florida for four generations, and every
year I watch as the very thing that makes Florida unique is destroyed to
build roads, shopping malls and yet another housing development.
All this is done in the name of profit. Mr. Duncan, general manager of
Collier Resources, says the drilling company will work with care "with
the control of federal and state oversight." The federal government is the
one pushing for expanded oil exploration in more than one national preserve,
so Mr. Duncan's assurance is hardly soothing. Collier Resources would push
innumerable animals closer to extinction to "exercise their rights," and
make a profit. Copyright  © 2002  Sun-Sentinel  All rights reserved.

Disfigured lagoon dolphins cue search for lesion source
FORT PIERCE -- Nearly one out of every three dolphins in the Indian
River Lagoon has come down with mysterious and sometimes grotesque skin
disorders. Eager to find out what's going on, alarmed scientists from Harbor Branch
and other marine institutions in recent weeks have started using
cutting- edge methods to conduct "remote biopsy sampling" of about 30 dolphins in
the lagoon, which stretches 156 miles from the Jupiter Inlet to the
Ponce de Leon Inlet in Volusia County. Researchers use a modified .22-caliber rifle equipped with a digital video camera to fire small darts at the dolphins, said Patricia Fair, head of
the living marine resources branch of the Center for Coastal Environmental
Health and Biomolecular Research in Charleston, S.C.  The free-floating darts collect a 1-gram sample of a dolphin's skin and fat. The video camera allows researchers to identify each sampled animal by matching the image of its dorsal fin against a database of more than 500
dolphins catalogued in the lagoon over the years by Steve McCulloch,
head of Harbor Branch's dolphin program.
Copyright  © 2002  Palm Beach Post  All rights reserved.

State expresses concerns over beach rebuilding plan
BOCA RATON · The city's proposal for a $7 million beach renourishment
project needs to be reworked, according to a decision by the state
Department of Environmental Protection. State environmental officers fear the project as designed could bury or otherwise harm the underwater habitats at Red Reef Park and could
disrupt the natural flow of sand to beaches south of the city, according to a
letter sent to the city by Martin Seeling, the environmental
administrator with DEP's Office of Beaches and Coastal Systems in Tallahassee.
After a preliminary evaluation of the plans, "the project, as proposed,
cannot be recommended for approval," Seeling wrote in the letter, which
outlines the agency's concerns and gives suggestions for an alternative
plan. The DEP's alternative would have the city avoid the beaches at Red Reef
Park, as well as make other small changes to the renourishment project,
which encompasses a 2.25-mile stretch from Red Reef Park south to the
Boca Raton Inlet. Read more... 
Copyright  © 2002  Sun-Sentinel  All rights reserved.

2 manatees found dead off Lauderdale
Two manatees were found dead this week in Fort Lauderdale waters, and
one appeared to have been killed by a boat, according to the state wildlife
commission. A team of Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission researchers led by
biologist Penny Husted examined the two dead manatees Tuesday morning.
An adult female discovered Monday behind an office park on Southwest 42nd
Street west of the airport park-n-save lot, apparently died from an
infection under a wound caused by a boat propeller, Husted said. A young
female manatee found Tuesday near a marina in the 3000 block of State
Road 84 died of natural causes. "Manatees die for all reasons, but watercraft mortalities are up this year," Husted said. Last year, a record 81 of the endangered marine mammals were hit by
boats and died. Already this year, at least 12 of the 39 found dead were
killed by watercraft, according to the Marine Mammal Pathobiology Laboratory in
St. Petersburg. Eight manatees have died in South Florida, three of them
in Broward County.
Copyright  © 2002  Sun-Sentinel  All rights reserved.

Area Growers Avoid Major Citrus Canker Outbreaks
TAMPA - While the battle against citrus canker rages from the back yards
of Miami to the halls of the Legislature, the west-central area of the
state has escaped relatively unscathed from a disease that threatens the $9
billion industry. About 7 percent of the 1.5 million citrus trees chopped down since 1995,
when the canker program began, were in Hillsborough, Polk and Manatee
counties. The three counties produce about 20 percent of the citrus in
Florida. ``It's in real good shape compared to the east coast,'' said Liz
Compton, public information director for the Florida Department of Agriculture.
Authorities recently asked federal regulators to lift the 2- year-old
quarantine placed on land near Sun City Center after inspectors found 56
instances of canker in residential trees. The quarantine restricts moving the citr.us from the Sun City area. More than 12,000 citrus trees were cut because of the findings.
Canker is a highly contagious and mobile bacteria that causes brown
blemishes and results in fruit prematurely dropping from trees.
Copyright  © 2002  Tampa Tribune  All rights reserved.

Mickey hogging cash for tourism, legislators charge
TALLAHASSEE -- To South Florida lawmakers, Mickey Mouse is more gorilla
than a rodent. Area legislators chafed Tuesday to learn Central Florida has received
the bulk of the state cash to revive Florida tourism after Sept. 11. A $20
million bailout package, passed last month, provided money to pay part
of the cost of ads for hotels, airlines and attractions.
The head of Visit Florida, the group doling out the cash, told a Senate
panel the state has agreed to spend $9.5 million to promote tourism in
Central Florida, but only $3.6 million in South Florida and $1 million
in North Florida. "We've seen enough Mickey Mouse," quipped Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla,
R- Miami and head of the Senate Commerce and Economic Opportunities
Committee.Sen. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, also questioned the tally.
"I don't think this is a fair number," Klein said.
Copyright  © 2002  Palm Beach Post  All rights reserved.

29-Jan-02

Activists plan boycott of Everglades meeting
Activist groups including the Sierra Club are boycotting a meeting today
about the Everglades restoration, saying water managers have refused to
answer their questions about the project's risks to public health.
Specifically, the groups want the South Florida Water Management
District to provide promised answers -- in writing -- to 108 questions they
submitted in September.  The questions focus on the safety of the $8.4 billion restoration's most controversial part: a plan to use more than 330 wells to store billions
of gallons of water underground in the Floridan Aquifer. Among the questions:
Where exactly will the water come from? What types of contamination might it contain?
If the pumped water contains dangerous bacteria, will engineers be
able to remove them all? How exactly will the water be made safe to drink?
Water managers say answering questions like that is the purpose of
today's meeting, set for 10 a.m. at the district's headquarters in suburban West
Palm Beach.
Copyright  © 2002  Palm Beach Post  All rights reserved.

Groups petition EPA to halt use of pesticide against mosquitoes in
Collier, Lee
An environmental coalition is asking the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency to suspend use of a pesticide that is a favorite of mosquito
fighters in Collier and Lee counties. In a letter Monday to EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman, three environmental groups accuse the agency of violating the Endangered
Species Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act by allowing fenthion to be
used in Florida and Louisiana. Fenthion is suspected in a dozen bird kills at Sand Dollar Island off Marco Island in 1998 and 1999 within hours after Collier Mosquito
Control District helicopters sprayed the pesticide over the area.
The letter puts the EPA on notice that it has 60 days to take corrective
action or be sued by the groups - the Defenders of Wildlife, the
American Bird Conservancy and the Biodiversity Legal Foundation.
"What we hope is that the result will be that EPA will come into
compliance and order suspension of use of fenthion and its present use
method," said Gerald Winegrad, vice president for policy at the American
Bird Conservancy in Washington, D.C.
Copyright  © 2002  Naples News  All rights reserved.

Guest editorial: Poor marks on the environment

One of the president's assistants said recently that if Bush chose to model himself on anyone, it would be Theodore Roosevelt. As regards environmental policy, surely an important component of Roosevelt's legacy, we fail to see the comparison. Roosevelt started the national wildlife refuge system. Bush sees the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as a source of oil. Roosevelt greatly expanded the national forests. Bush would shrink important protections for those forests. For conservationists, Bush's first year was a big disappointment, yielding little more than a few promises. It's possible that he may yet do good things for the national parks, despite his fixation on letting snowmobiles roam as free as the bison in Yellowstone. He has also promised full funding for the government's main land acquisition program, and promoted the redevelopment of contaminated industrial sites known as brownfields. On most major issues, however — clean air, clean water, the protection of the public lands from commercial exploitation — he has retreated or signaled retreat from the policies of his predecessor. Unless Bush himself alters course, the prospects for improvement are zero. That is because he has filled nearly all the critical posts where policy is hatched and regulations written with people who regard the environment as a resource to be exploited and who have earned their keep representing logging, mining, oil, livestock and other interests. The one faint hope in this dreary landscape is Christie Whitman, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency. But apart from a brave decision directing GE to clean up the Hudson River, Whitman has essentially been running in place. A big victory for her is upholding a rule written in the Clinton administration.

Copyright  © 2002  Naples News  All rights reserved.

28-Jan-02

Study takes bird’s-eye view of Cape owls

Group focusing on living conditions

As Cape Coral has blossomed, its native burrowing owls have found less and less space to call home.  

WHO'S THERE?: A young burrowing owl peers out from the safety of its hole in Cape Coral. By digging a starter burrow, property owners can entice owls to take up residence. File photo Click on image to enlarge.

With that in mind, a new study is trying to find how well the Cape’s 2,000-or-so burrowing owls are living side-by-side with the city’s 109,000-or-so human residents.

Six years have passed since the last study of burrowing owls in Cape Coral, said Susan Scott, planning technician for the city.

It’s about time for another.

“We want to know how we’re doing,” Scott said. “A lot has changed in the six years since that study. What was once 50 percent developed is now 80 or 90 percent developed.  

Copyright  © 2002  The News-Press. All rights reserved.

Red-cockaded woodpecker slipping in state's protection plan

  A bird losing habitat in Collier and Lee counties could be on the verge of losing something else: its state status as a threatened species.

Three female red-cockaded woodpeckers were brought to the Picayune Strand State Forest in December 2000 as part of a plan to help expand the endangered species' foothold in Collier County. The state is moving closer to a vote on whether to downlist the birds from a threatened species to special concern status. Michel Fortier/Staff

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission voted last week in Tallahassee to rewrite the state's protection plan for the red-cockaded woodpecker, the final step before a vote on whether to downlist the species to special concern status.

That would put it on the same list as the gopher tortoise and the American alligator, one step below threatened status and two steps below endangered status. The woodpecker would remain on the federal endangered species list.

 

 

Copyright  © 2002  Naples News  All rights reserved.

 

Lee targets agriculture tax issue; farm organization opposes move  

Property Appraiser Ken Wilkinson says it's nothing but a scam to avoid paying property taxes. The Florida Farm Bureau says it's a needed protection for a way of life being crowded out by development-inflated land prices. Call it what you will, Lee County commissioners this week gave their attorney the go-ahead to stop it. Wilkinson says hundreds of property owners improperly take advantage of a system set up to protect legitimate farming from skyrocketing land values. The system assigns a radically lower value, for tax purposes, to land used for agriculture. It's supposed to reduce the pressure farmers feel to sell, pressure brought by high tax bills produced by increasing land values, values themselves increased by the ever-increasing pace of development.  
Copyright  © 2002  Naples News  All rights reserved.

27-Jan-02

Lee County is maintaining its record-breaking form for boat-related
manatee deaths so far this year, tallying four such deaths through Jan.
18, or half the eight manatee deaths recorded in all of Florida.
During the same span last year, only one boat-related death had occurred
in Lee waters. Three of the manatees killed by boats in Lee this year
were recovered in the Orange River, according to Florida Marine Research
Institute records. The fourth was in the Caloosahatchee River.
Last year, the county broke its own state record for boat deaths with
23. One manatee has been killed so far in Collier County from a
watercraft collision. That incident occurred in the Port of the Islands
area. The fast start for 2002 has environmentalists calling for more speed
zones and additional law enforcement, while boaters are saying it's a
matter of simple math. More boats on local waters equal more
boat-related deaths, they say.
Copyright  © 2002  Naples News  All rights reserved.

Guest commentary: Solution to growth isn't attacking the developers
There is at least one area in which the Naples Daily News appears to
exhibit a continuing disregard for accuracy. That is in regard to the
issue of growth and development in Southwest Florida. In spite of the
fact that your newspaper's Sunday edition contained no less than 108
pages of paid real estate advertisements, your editorial page editor,
Jeff Lytle, published another of his uninformed diatribes against
"greedy developers," to use one of his favorite phrases. If nothing
else, I suppose this exemplifies the old adage about biting the hand
that feeds you. Unfortunately, this brand of irresponsible journalism also ignores the
very significant contributions to our community made by exemplary
corporate citizens such as the Bonita Bay Group. For years this
development company has won countless awards for its efforts to
accommodate the natural environment, enhance the lifestyle in our
community and support our local economy. The company also has led all
others in contributions to the United Way year after year. Bonita Bay is
not the only such good corporate citizen involved in land use in our
area. But Mr. Lytle has little to say about these efforts.
The solution is not to whine ineffectively about the impacts of growth.
Copyright  © 2002  Naples News  All rights reserved.

Commentary
Sugarcoating truth won't help taxpayers
Judy Sanchez is a mouthpiece for that publicly subsidized tumor in the
Everglades known as Big Sugar. Last week, she called me a tabloid journalist for slanting the truth. This from someone whose bosses once were warned by a prosecutor to stop
lying to the public. That happened in 1996. Corporate sugar farms were campaigning against a
constitutional amendment that would have required them to pay their own
pollution cleanup costs. They said it would give "politicians and
bureaucrats the power to raise property taxes hundreds of millions of
dollars. " This was such a whopper that Orange-Osceola State Attorney Lawson Lamar
told growers it was his "strong recommendation that no further
misleading materials be distributed to the public."
The Orlando Sentinel
http://orlandosentinel.com

Gliding through the Everglades

We were talking about alligators.
"As long as you don't harass them or get in their way, you won't have
any problems," said Sarah W. Davis, a ranger at the Everglades National Park
office in Everglades City, Fla. This was reassuring. I already had paid $500 for three nights and four days of kayaking and camping in the Everglades with North American Canoe
Tours, based in Everglades City. I wanted to see alligators close up -- but not
too close -- and otherwise saturate my soul with the flora and fauna of
one of the world's genuinely unique ecosystems.
The Orlando Sentinel
http://orlandosentinel.com

26-Jan-02

Conservancy taps CREW official as new policy specialist

A Southwest Florida environmental group trying to shake criticism that it is adrift has hired a familiar face to expand the group's efforts to stem Southwest Florida growth-related problems. The Conservancy of Southwest Florida announced Friday it had hired CREW Land and Water Trust Executive Director Ellen Lindblad to fill a new position as senior environmental policy specialist. Lindblad is set to start her new job in early February.

Ellen Lindblad

The CREW Trust is a non-profit public-private partnership that coordinates land acquisition and management of the Corkscrew Regional Ecosystem Watershed, a 60,000-acre area that straddles the Lee-Collier county line. Since 1990, CREW has purchased almost 25,000 acres for preservation. Lindblad has been CREW's executive director since 1992. Conservancy President Kathy Prosser said Friday that Lindblad's top priority will be to focus land acquisition efforts on areas most under threat of development. 
Copyright  © 2002  Naples News  All rights reserved.

Big Cypress Basin board bucks system; seeks director's pay hike

Florida's Attorney General's Office could be called in to settle a turf battle between the Big Cypress Basin and its parent agency, the Basin's vice chairman said Friday. The six-member governing board of the Big Cypress Basin, the local arm of the South Florida Water Management District, is at odds with the district, based in West Palm Beach, over which agency controls the salary of Basin Director Clarence Tears. Basin board members contend Tears is underpaid. They say his job should be reclassified to a higher pay scale. Tears earns $84,000 a year. Squabbles over control of Basin administration have popped up on and off for the past 10 years. The topic could come up again at the Basin board's next meeting in March.

Copyright  © 2002  Naples News  All rights reserved.

 

Shrimp boats seized in reserve

Two Fort Myers Beach shrimp boats were seized Tuesday morning after Coast Guard crew members boarded them inside the Tortugas Ecological Reserve.  The Green Flash and the Perseverance I, owned by Erickson & Jensen Seafood Packers, are suspected of illegally fishing inside the reserve.  Another shrimp boat, the Day Light II, out of Bayou La Batre, Ala., was also seized in the reserve Tuesday, and a fourth vessel, the Mayflower, out of Biloxi, Miss., was seized Thursday.  A total of 10,000 pounds of shrimp were found aboard the four boats.  Crew members of the Coast Guard Cutter Key Largo didn’t actually see the vessels fishing in the reserve, said Petty Officer Danielle de Marino.  “We saw them in the restricted area and we boarded them,” de Marino said. “When a vessel is spotted in that area, we normally board it because there are so many restrictions there.”  The 150-square-mile reserve, about 70 miles west of Key West, protects marine life spawning grounds and coral reefs.

Copyright  © 2002  The News-Press. All rights reserved.

Eon's beauty a constant
The Econlockhatchee River has been used by humans for hundreds, perhaps
thousands, of years, yet it has escaped the kind of encroachment and
pollution that would bring about its demise. Through a combination of luck, good planning and the river's own natural defenses, much of this dark water stream appears unchanged from the time when native Americans hunted its shoreline. That may be about to change, however, as growth in Orange and Seminole counties continues to push east, threatening to leapfrog the delicate river.
The Orlando Sentinel
http://orlandosentinel.com

25-Jan-02

A Message from the President

We have just taken a big step forward in our fight for clean water in the Everglades. We have hired a scientist to back up our positions and to testify as an expert witness in our lawsuits. He is Dr. Leslie Wedderburn, who worked for many years with the South Florida Water Management District and is an expert on the Everglades. Now we have to find the money to pay him. We are launching an extensive fund raising campaign. We ask you to help. Please send a check to...

 

24-Jan-02

Collier growth plan tackles agriculture regulation issues

The thorny issue of regulating

Members of Collier County's Environmental Advisory Council thumb through the county proposal to address a 1999 order from the state Cabinet to address growth and natural resource protection, on Wednesday during the plan's public unveiling at the Collier County Government Center. Michel Fortier/Staff

agriculture in Collier County got an airing Wednesday during a daylong hearing on sweeping changes to the way the county guides growth.

 The hearing before the county's Environmental Advisory Council served as the public's first look at the county's response to a 1999 order from Gov. Jeb Bush and the Cabinet that requires the county to do a better job of protecting the environment.

A June deadline looms. The plan was prepared by county staff, the Rural Fringe Area Assessment Oversight Committee and consultant Bob Mulhere, the county's former planning director. The county's Planning Commission is set to take up the rewrites Feb. 7. County commissioners have scheduled a vote on the new growth plan for Feb. 27 during a special hearing at Max Hasse Community Park Center on Golden Gate Boulevard.

Copyright  © 2002  Naples News  All rights reserved.

Letter 
Sugar farming threatens Everglades
Some Everglades interests, notably the sugar-cane growers, are claiming that Everglades restoration is an assured success and that the water-pollution problem in the Everglades virtually has been solved. This is far from the truth, as evidenced by statements in the recently released Everglades Consolidated Report by the South Florida Water Management District and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. The report states: ``While tremendous progress is being made, significant uncertainties  remain that may prevent the District from complying with the mandate  in the Everglades Forever Act to achieve compliance with all water-quality standards by Dec. 31, 2006.'' It emphasizes the need for yet undetermined advanced-treatment technologies to reduce the phosphorus pollution from cane fields and other sources to the level where it will do no harm to the Everglades, which is 10 parts per billion. In the meantime, pollution greatly in excess of that standard continues to flow into the Everglades.

Copyright  © 2002  Miami Herald  All rights reserved.

Plan to ease rules could hurt Everglades pact, opponents say
 A Republican plan to streamline state environmental regulations could backfire on Gov. Jeb Bush and his recent agreement with President Bush to protect the Everglades, opponents warned Wednesday. The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 9-2 to approve a measure (SB-270) by Senate Majority Leader Jim King of Jacksonville that would take away the power of the governor and Cabinet to decide disputes over water management district permits. King, who has the eager backing of the Florida Home Builders Association and other industry groups, said he simply wants to speed up the regulatory process. "Time has a money value," King said. Environmental groups can challenge a permit when regulators are reviewing it and when a district board votes to approve it. After that, they can ask for an administrative hearing. If they lose, they can appeal to the governor and Cabinet. "They get four bites at the apple," King said. "That's two years that somebody is spending money defending his rights and he can't move any dirt." Environmentalists could go to court after losing the administrative hearing, but few want to risk paying their opponent's legal fees if they lose, King acknowledged.

Copyright  © 2002  Palm Beach Post  All rights reserved.

FEMA to Monroe County, 'There is nothing to negotiate'

Federal Emergency Management Agency officials have declined a meeting with
Monroe County Commissioner Murray Nelson. The county commission last week authorized Nelson to travel to FEMA's Region 4 headquarters in Atlanta to continue negotiations over a mandate to eliminate illegal ground-level construction in unincorporated Monroe County. During the same commission meeting, the commissioners failed to ratify -- despite a staff recommendation and an ultimatum from FEMA officials to do so by Feb. 28 -- a resolution to immediately implement a flood-insurance inspection. Mary Hudak, FEMA's Region 4 public affairs officer, said Wednesday there was no room for negotiation.

Copyright  © 2002  Keys news  All rights reserved.

 

First bust in Tortugas' no-take fishing zones

Three shrimp boats and 5,000 pounds of shrimp were seized by the Coast Guard
this week in the first bust in the North Tortugas no-take zone, a 120-square-nautical-mile area set aside last year by the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary for special protection. A coalition of local fishermen, environmentalists, government officials and many local citizens and business people worked together for several years to establish the North Tortugas and South Tortugas, a 60-square-mile reserve. It targets spawning grounds and isolated, deepwater coral reefs in the Dry Tortugas, which begin about 70 miles west of Key West. The Coast Guard cutter Key Largo escorted the Green Flash, Perseverance I, Day Light II and more than 5,000 pounds of shrimp to Stock Island marinas on Tuesday after the boats were caught shrimping in the no-take zone, according to Lt. j.g. Jamie Frederick.

Copyright  © 2002  Keys news  All rights reserved.

 

It's the invasion of the killer potatoes

The air potato may sound like some sort of diet food, but it's actually an
exotic vine fast eating up one of the largest remnants of native forest left in Kendall.
This Saturday, Miami-Dade County's Parks Department wants to enlist an army
of volunteer ``spudbusters'' to thwart a major invasion at Kendall Indian Hammocks Park.
Without the effort, ``we could lose the entire hammock,'' county biologist Linda McDonald Demetropoulos said. Although not as widespread or well known as exotics like melaleuca or Brazilian peppers, air potatoes rank among the most notorious pest plants because they are rampantly aggressive and supremely resilient, sort of the botanical equivalent of the nasties from the Alien movies. Kill one, and a dozen more seem to pop back up.

Copyright  © 2002  Miami Herald  All rights reserved.

23-Jan-02

Darling may benefit from refuge proposal

The J.N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel could get a much needed financial boost if Congress approves a proposed increase in the National Wildlife Refuge System’s budget for 2003.  Interior Secretary Gale Norton on Monday proposed the $56.5 million increase, which would bump the refuge system’s budget to $376.5 million.  The refuge system consists of 94 million acres in 538 refuges, including Ding Darling, where a $3 million education center was built with local donations. But many refuges are having serious financial problems.  More than 700,000 people visit Ding Darling’s 6,300 acres every year. The refuge has a budget of about $1 million, and five of its 19 positions are vacant — two because the refuge can’t afford to fill them, the rest because of attrition.  A budget increase would take refuge management “to the next level,” said Lou Hinds, former manager of the Ding Darling Refuge and present refuge manager for Florida.  “The next step is saying, ‘OK, what do we do if we had more money for refuges?” Hinds said. “At Ding Darling, people were saying we might have to close the education center if we don’t have the people and money. So a budget increase would make that whole.

Copyright  © 2002  The News-Press. All rights reserved.

 

Editorial: Big Cypress buyout will stop drilling

It’s good to hear that Interior Secretary Gale Norton wants the federal government to buy out the Collier family’s mineral interests in the Big Cypress National Preserve, because that’s the only way to stop oil drilling there.  The family retains mineral rights under more than 800,000 acres in Collier, Lee and Hendry counties, including 400,000 acres under the 729,000-acre preserve, which lies mostly in Collier County.  Last week, the National Park Service had little choice but to recommend approval for Collier Resources Co.’s plan to set off thousands of underground explosions designed to detect oil or gas for possible production.  Mineral rights are sometimes retained by landowners when the surface is bought for natural preservation, and it is not always a disaster.  It’s sometimes possible to explore for and produce oil in wildlife refuges without destroying their value to wildlife. National wildlife refuges in southern Louisiana, for example, are heavily developed for oil and gas, and remain meccas for waterfowl. Modest oil activity has been going on quietly for years in the Big Cypress, where there are 10 producing wells.

Copyright  © 2002  The News-Press. All rights reserved.

 

Keep Florida Forever funds intact

Collier County commissioners took at stand Tuesday against the state using Florida Forever money to pay for Everglades restoration projects. Commissioners voted 5-0 to approve a resolution supporting a bill introduced by state Sen. Burt Saunders, R-Naples, that would return $75 million legislators diverted from the land-buying program last year. The bill also would prohibit similar transfers in the future.  Environmental advocates told commissioners that keeping Florida Forever money intact is important to several ongoing land acquisition projects in Collier County and could become increasingly important as the county looks for ways to control growth around Immokalee.  The Conservancy of Southwest Florida environmental policy manager Nicole Ryan said the resolution approved Tuesday is "not as combative" as one proposed by the Conservancy but still will get the job done.  "It will send a good message," Ryan said.

Copyright  © 2002  Naples News  All rights reserved.

 

22-Jan-02

Peace River Basin Board to Begin Online Discussion Forum

Members of the Peace River Basin Board today will begin a pilot online discussion forum. The public will have read-only access to the discussion via the Southwest Florida Water Management District's Web site, www.WaterMatters.org, in the "Discussion Panels" section. The Web discussion will continue until 5 p.m. Feb. 12. Swiftmud officials have been considering this Web discussion for some time after former basin board member Don Ross suggested in last year. It was started on a pilot basis for the Peace River Basin Board after consulting the Attorney General's Office to make sure this would be legal under Florida law. The idea of was proposed to allow more extended discussions among board members of complex topics than the regular meetings allow.

Copyright © 2002. The Ledger. All rights reserved

 

21-Jan-02

Endangered Plant Garden Planned

The Bok Tower Gardens project will be dedicated on Earth Day.

By MERISSA GREEN

Bok Tower Gardens is planning for a new endangered plant garden that will give visitors a chance to learn about the rare plants that grow in Florida. The endangered plant garden will be dedicated April 20, which is Earth Day. Public access to the endangered plant collection was previously by appointment only. "We've had a tremendous response from guests who would like to see the endangered plant collection in the nursery research area," said Robert Sullivan, president of Bok Tower. The garden was constructed through a $123,232 grant from Florida's Division of Plant Industry. This is the second year that Bok Tower Gardens has been awarded the Endangered and Threatened Native Flora Conservation grant. The endangered plant garden was constructed in a circular design so visitors can view it up close. Informational panels placed along the garden's path will identify the plants and tell about their habitat and life history.

Copyright © 2002. The Ledger. All rights reserved

 

20-Jan-02

Growth issues no state priority
Environmentalists hope to protect and expand land-buying programs
PENSACOLA -- State land purchases to prevent rare insect-eating pitcher plants from being bulldozed into oblivion on Pensacola's outskirts also are serving a growth management function.  Navy officials joined environmentalists in urging the state to buy the land, not out of fondness for the carnivorous plants, but to keep residential and commercial development out of Pensacola Naval Air Station's flight paths. Protecting state land-buying programs from budget cuts and adding a new one for the Everglades have emerged as leading legislative issues for environmentalists who believe lawmakers will do little else this year to manage the state's growth.  ``Buying these environmentally sensitive lands before they get developed is a key component of any growth management,'' said Charles Pattison, executive director of 1000 Friends of Florida. A wide-ranging growth management bill that Gov. Jeb Bush made a top priority died in the waning hours of last year's session amid disagreement over granting local officials new taxing authority.  With lawmakers preparing to convene their regular session Tuesday, growth management again is on Bush's wish list, albeit a scaled-down version. His
bill would be limited to making local governments consider school crowding before they permit new development, said Community Affairs Secretary Steve Seibert, Bush's point man on the growth issue. 
Read summary of related legislation
Copyright  © 2002  Miami Herald  All rights reserved.

Collier to unveil new growth plan
Collier County reaches a milestone this week in its efforts to guide growth, but the road ahead could be bumpy.  The county's Environmental Advisory Council is set to preside Wednesday over the unveiling of the most significant changes to the county's approach to growth since it adopted its growth plan in 1989. The EAC session is set to start at 9 a.m. in Collier County Commission chambers.  Two years in the making, the new plan seeks to balance environmental protection with private property rights in a 93,000-acre area of the county dubbed the rural fringe - generally between Collier Boulevard and Golden Gate Estates. Almost nobody seems perfectly happy with the result.  The new growth rules are an outgrowth of a 1999 order from Gov. Jeb Bush and the Cabinet that requires the county to do a better job protecting wetlands and wildlife. The order froze most new development in rural Collier County until new growth rules are in effect.  A separate study, stemming from the same order, is underway on some 200,000 acres around Immokalee. The county is aiming to have new growth rules adopted for that land by October.  After this week's EAC review, the rural fringe rules are set for a Collier County Planning Commission review Feb. 7. County commissioners are set to vote on the plan Feb. 27.  The plan must pass muster with the state Department of Community Affairs, the state agency that prompted the state order in the first place. A final vote by county commissioners will follow a review by DCA officials. After that, legal challenges could tie up the plan for months if not years.  An indication of the plan's potential for controversy is the at-times cantankerous meetings of the county-appointed committee created to oversee the writing of the new plan.
Copyright  © 2002  Naples News  All rights reserved.

Legislature: Goodlette, Saunders key figures in Everglades funding debate
Two local legislators could end up knee-deep in the Everglades this legislative session - at least in debates about how to pay for its restoration.  House and Senate bills to allow the state Department of Environmental Protection to issue bonds to pay for Everglades land acquisition are at the top of environmental lobbyists' list of proposed laws to push to passage, they say. The session starts Tuesday in Tallahassee.  Gov. Jeb Bush has proposed a rival funding plan that does not authorize bonding, a form of borrowing money and paying it back with interest over decades.  Land is a key component of the $8 billion state-federal plan to replumb the Everglades by building reservoirs, filter marshes and underground water storage wells around South Florida. The state's annual tab for Everglades land acquisition is $100 million.  State Rep. Dudley Goodlette, R-Naples, a co-sponsor of the House version of the bonding proposal, said he is meeting this week with key Bush staff members to discuss the governor's plan.  "I'm perfectly willing to explore advancing the governor's proposal," Goodlette said.  Eric Draper, Audubon of Florida policy director, said he hopes Goodlette will not back Bush's proposal.  "That would be disappointing to us if that were the case," Draper said.  
Copyright  © 2002  Naples News  All rights reserved.

Fix 'Glades, don't close it

The phone rang at 6:30 a.m. It was Buck Kendall, and he was more excited than usual. "Hey man, saw you at that Army Corps of Engineers meeting on how to get more water under Tamiami Trail last night," he said in his unmistakable drawl. I didn't see you there. And I certainly didn't hear you. "I was sitting in the back. I wanted to see if any fishermen were going to show up." There were a bunch of bass club guys. Probably about 50. I was glad to see them there. "Yeah, it's about time they got involved and let the Corps know that fishing in 'Glades canals is important. Let the Corps have its way, and it'll build a wall around the Everglades and put a lock on the gate." I don't think the Corps would go that far, but it probably wouldn't hesitate to fill in all the canals in the Everglades in the interest of restoration. "I liked when the old guy got up and said that sometimes in going back to what was there, we take away some good things. The 'Glades would be a lot better off if those canals were never built, but now that we got them and all that good fishing, there's no reason to fill them in. Take out the levees and leave the canals, and the 'Glades will flow again."

Copyright  © 2002  Sun-Sentinel  All rights reserved.

19-Jan-02

Radio talk show with pro-environment bent debuts Sunday
Take a deep breath.  Newly minted radio talk show host Gary Burris wants you to think about where the oxygen came from, whether its source is infinite.  What about that last fill-up at the gas station? Is its source infinite?  Burris' message is that neither of them is but that ways to preserve the earth's resources don't have to conflict with the American business of doing business, as Calvin Coolidge described it.  What Coolidge said next in his 1925 speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors is long forgotten: "The accumulation of wealth cannot be justified as the chief end of existence."  That's Burris' point exactly, and he'll make it on his radio talk show CenterPoint that debuts Sunday at 7 a.m. at 1200, 1240 or 1270 on your AM dial, depending on where you live. The show reaches from Sarasota to Marco Island - Key West on a good day.  Burris says a fat wad in the bank can't make up for not being able to breathe or watching the nation's economy falter and fail because we ignored the fact that oil is a finite resource.   "We're really going to be looking at our oil supply," Burris said.  He and nationally respected scientists agree it will be gone someday either through depletion or by acts of war, and he wants the country to be prepared.

Copyright  © 2002  Naples News  All rights reserved.

 

17-Jan-02

Agricultural Leaders Brainstorm on Water Policy
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) - Facing population growth from cities and increasing droughts, farming and water management leaders brainstormed Thursday on ideas for an agricultural water policy. The goal is to come up with a policy that ensures farmers have enough water for the next 50 years.  "Not long ago people were saying we're going to have plenty of water," Florida Agriculture Secretary Charles Bronson told about 40 growers, water district managers and state lawmakers who are part of the Agricultural Water Supply Summit. "Now people are saying we don't have enough."  No action was taken at the meeting and at least three more will be held before officials arrive at a written policy. Thursday's meeting was a follow-up to a meeting last July in Marco Island.  Greater cooperation between agriculture and residents in urban areas should be encouraged, according to a draft proposal. An increase in urban water conservation is needed, and both agriculture and urban areas should do a better job of capturing surface water, according to the draft.   

Copyright  © 2002  Tampa Tribune  All rights reserved.

FAA to study whether cargo flights could work at Glades  
The Federal Aviation Administration will have plenty of questions for the businessmen who want to build a massive air cargo facility near Pahokee, but the agency itself will answer the first and biggest question about the project: Will it fly in the proposed location?  Glades Air Cargo District Inc. will be asked to provide the exact latitude and longitude of the proposed 10,000-foot landing strip, said FAA spokesman Chris White in Atlanta. What will follow is an airspace study to determine whether flights there will interfere with existing air traffic patterns from Palm Beach International Airport and the county's smaller airports, White said.  Glades Air Cargo District sent a two-page proposal and a rendering of the proposed 500-acre facility to the FAA on Friday, and the agency received it Monday, White said. The airspace study could take up to two months and is "step one of a multi-step process," he said. 
Copyright  © 2002  Palm Beach Post  All rights reserved.

Everglades shows issues to Interior secretary  
For a few moments Wednesday afternoon, Gale Norton cradled the Everglades' green, pulsing life in her hands.  It came in the form of a tree frog, smaller than the thumb of the U.S. Interior secretary, who holds vast power over the future of the amphibian's 2.4-million-acre habitat.  "Oh, you're a cute little guy," Norton cooed, standing on an airboat in the Everglades' northernmost remnant, the Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge.  Clad in green wading boots, she had just taken a tour of the Everglades' saw grass plains, inspected an abandoned alligator nest and felt the papery bark of one of the marsh's most harmful invaders, the Australian melaleuca tree.  She also got a lesson from the refuge's staff about the ecological havoc that results from fertilizer-polluted runoff and nature-skewing pumps and floodgates.  "This is the first time I've had a chance to go out into it and have some people around who can explain exactly what I'm seeing," she said.  It was her first official trip to the Everglades, and her first visit ever to the refuge in Palm Beach County.  Norton restated the federal government's support for restoring the Everglades through a four-decade, $8.4 billion overhaul of South Florida's drainage.  
Copyright  © 2002  Palm Beach Post  All rights reserved.

Interior secretary pays visit to Glades
U.S. Interior Secretary Gale Norton got up close and personal with the Everglades and its denizens Wednesday and pronounced herself in love.  Such an assessment is all but obligatory from the chief of a federal agency that manages roughly half of the remaining River of Grass, and she did not follow it up with any new or dramatic promises of support for the shrunken system or South Florida's national parks and refuges. Norton was noncommittal, for instance, on a controversial proposal to expand oil drilling in the Big Cypress National Preserve.  But -- even with all the photo-op cameras packed up and gone from an airboat tour of the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge -- she smiled in genuine delight when senior refuge biologist Laura Brandt placed what she called a gift into Norton's hand, a small tree frog.  ``This is just great,'' Norton said as she watched in fascination, cupping one hand to safeguard the small green creature crawling along her wrist.  ``You can't keep that, now,'' refuge manager Mark Musaus joked. 
Copyright  © 2002  Miami Herald  All rights reserved.

Editorial
DISHARMONY IN BIG CYPRESS
WHERE OIL AND RECREATION DON'T MIX WELL
The Big Cypress National Preserve doesn't enjoy the same protections as does its cousin, Everglades National Park. The lesser-known preserve -- with its unique terrain of cypress groves, sabal palms and saw palmettos -- shelters Florida panthers and bald eagles amid the hikers, wild-orchid lovers, hunters and oil drillers found there.  Such a juxtaposition of uses is rarely harmonious, so it's no surprise that a request to expand oil exploration in the preserve is giving environmentalists' headaches. Another controversy involves the use of all-terrain vehicles in the preserve by hunters and fans of the so-called swamp buggies. According with estimates, the vehicles have carved 22,000 miles of ruts in the 729,000-acre preserve. The National Park Service and the buggies' users have been negotiating an agreement to limit their use. No more. The swamp-buggy fanciers broke off the talks, with the threat of going to court.

Copyright  © 2002  Miami Herald  All rights reserved.

Foley: Everglades Agreement 'Thick As Blood'
Congressman Mark Foley (FL-16) has praised President Bush and Florida
Governor Jeb Bush for their leadership in restoring the Everglades. The
brothers signed the agreement today as required under the Comprehensive
Everglades Restoration Plan.  "The agreement is binding, its enforceable, and you can almost say its as  thick as blood," Foley quipped. "Today's agreement shows the Bush family is leading the way in restoring the Everglades. The agreement will result in restoring the natural flows of the Everglades and ensures taxpayers' money will be well spent."
Read More...

IMPACT OF LAND-USE MANAGEMENT PRACTICES IN FLORIDA ON THE REGIONAL CLIMATE OF SOUTH FLORIDA AND THE EVERGLADES
By Curtis H. Marshall, Jr. and Roger A. Pielke
© American Meteorolical Society
Since the early 1900s, South Florida, and particularly the Everglades region, has undergone extensive urbanization and land cover conversion to agriculture, with associated diversion of water resources for agricultural uses, domestic water supply, and flood prevention. In this work, we present a series of mesoscale modeling experiments using the Colorado State University Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS; Pielke et al. 1992) that have been designed to investigate the sensitivity of the regional climate of South Florida to these changes in the landsurface environment of Florida and the Everglades. Building upon the work of Pielke et al. (1999), highly detailed Florida land cover classification datasets for 1900 and 1992/93 are used to produce otherwise identical seasonal integrations of the mesoscale model. Read more

16-Jan-02

Environmentalists hope controversial interior official will be 'Glades ally
Interior Secretary Gale Norton tours the Everglades today, one eco-treasure that environmentalists hope she can be an ally in saving, even as they criticize her decisions on other ecological fronts.  Her Interior Department has pushed for oil exploration in federally protected Alaskan wilderness and preliminarily approved drilling and blasting inside Florida's Big Cypress National Preserve. She decided to put on hold plans to eliminate snowmobiles spewing pollution and noise inside Yellowstone National Park. She gutted Clinton administration rules that could have led to more environmental safeguards for silver, gold and copper mining in the West.

U.S. Interior Secretary Gale Norton

Jan. 16, 2002
Copyright © 2002, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

But the White House has signaled that it intends to support the $8.4 billion Everglades restoration project, and Norton suggested Tuesday the massive reclamation may get some special treatment.  

Copyright © 2002, South Florida Sun-Sentinel


U.S. moves to stop oil drilling at Big Cypress by buying mineral rights
Interior Secretary Gale Norton announced Wednesday that the United States is attempting to thwart plans for more oil drilling at Big Cypress National Preserve by acquiring the mineral rights.  In her first official visit to the Everglades, Norton brought good news to environmentalists who were aghast at the prospect of a major drilling project in a wilderness inhabited by panthers, black bears and many other protected species.  She said the Bush administration had initiated talks to acquire the rights from the Collier family, which had retained them in the 1974 deal that created the preserve. 

TOURING: Interior Secretary Gale Norton gets a
blast of wind from another airboat  Wednesday,
as she and Rep. E. Clay Shaw Jr. take a ride
through the Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee
Natural Wildlife Refuge in Palm Beach County.
(Sun-Sentinel/Scott Fisher)

Her announcement contrasted with the news earlier this week that the National Park Service, which is part of the Interior Department, had made a preliminary recommendation of approval for the first of the Colliers' 26 oil exploration plans. The plan called for an exploratory well, an access road and 14,700 small underground explosions over 41 square miles that would be gauged for seismic evidence of oil.

Copyright © 2002, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Swamp buggyists decide to sue

A bitter swamp buggy battle in the Big Cypress National Preserve is bound for federal court. A group of hunters and others who sued the preserve last year have ended negotiations with the National Park Service over a plan that sharply restricts their freedom to roam in the sprawling wilderness of the Southwest Florida refuge. Environmentalists, who complain buggies ravage the landscape and disrupt wildlife, hailed the collapse of the settlement talks. They interpreted it as a surprise sign of support from U.S. Interior Department Secretary Gale Norton. ``The department has drawn a line, and we think that's the right thing to do,'' said Scott Kovarovics, director of the Natural Trails and Waters Coalition. The move was unexpected in part because Norton has previously angered environmentalists by reaching resolutions in similar lawsuits over Clinton administration plans to ban snowmobiles in Yellowstone and Denali National Parks. Norton is scheduled to tour the Everglades today on her first official visit to Florida. But Bill Horn, a Washington attorney who represents recreational users in Yellowstone, Denali and the Big Cypress, said it wasn't Interior that drew the line after months of talks that ended Friday.

Copyright  © 2002  Miami Herald  All rights reserved.

Army Corps, Seminoles begin water restoration
BY ELENA CABRAL


The Seminoles call it Confusion Corner, a site on the Big Cypress Reservation where several man-made water sources converge. The tribe has long had a right to use the water, but no way to move it to where it was most needed. Tribal members hope that is about to change. As environmentalists and politicians wrangle over the massive Everglades restoration project, the Seminole Indians and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Tuesday broke ground on a piece of that effort. It is a piece viewed as essential both to the restoration of the River of Grass and to the people who have long established a way of life in the region and seen its landscape change as the water gradually drained away. The $50 million water conservation project is the largest joint effort by the Corps and a Native American tribe. It received a jump start as one of a relative handful of projects that were deemed critical to Everglades restoration. Construction is set to begin in February on a network of canals originating at a South Florida Water Management District pump station at Confusion Corner. The canals will redistribute water to potentially more than 15,000 of the reservation's 52,000 acres for the first time in decades, providing a source of water for cattle and farming operations and for wetlands restoration.

Copyright  © 2002  Miami Herald  All rights reserved.

 

Iguana bite severs teen's fingertip
BY HANNAH SAMPSON


A Hollywood teenager who bought a nearly five-foot-long iguana from friends had reason to regret it 24 hours later when the reptile bit off the tip of his right index finger. Police, summoned to the home of 14-year-old Christopher Charley at 3:14 p.m. Tuesday by his mother, zapped the iguana with a Taser gun capable of quelling a barroom brawl. The creature was not fazed. ``It will drop a man but not an iguana,'' said Matt Phillips, of Hollywood Fire Rescue. Finally, after getting permission from Christopher's parents, police shot the iguana three times. ``It was going after them,'' said Christopher's mother, Mitchelle Barnes.

Copyright  © 2002  Miami Herald  All rights reserved.

Efforts to settle lawsuit over off-road vehicle access in Big Cypress fail
By ERIC STAATS, 

Outdoor sportsmen and federal officials have broken off negotiations to settle a lawsuit challenging a National Park Service plan to limit swamp buggies and airboats in Big Cypress National Preserve. Environmental groups hailed the failure of the talks Tuesday, praising the Interior Department for not walking away from the plan to keep off-road vehicles from tearing up the preserve's marshes and prairies in eastern Collier County. Sportsmen groups and preserve users sued the National Park Service over the plan in January 2001, saying it is not based on sound science and ignores less restrictive alternatives. A final push last week to settle the lawsuit fell short Friday, said a Washington, D.C., attorney for the groups. "We really tried to hammer something out but were unable to," attorney Barbara Miller said Tuesday. Written legal arguments are due in court from the sportsmen groups in early February and from the federal government and intervening environmental groups in early March. Big Cypress National Preserve Superintendent John Donahue called the failure of talks "unfortunate" and defended the plan for providing "reasonable access and sustainable management." "It's unfortunate when you can't settle a lawsuit, especially with people you usually consider your partners," he said. Plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the plan include the Collier Sportsmen and Conservation Club and its president, Lyle McCandless.

Copyright  © 2002  Naples News  All rights reserved.

Off-road vehicle negotiations break down
U.S. District Court to decide on National Park Service's rules

Settlement negotiations over off-road vehicle use in the Big Cypress National Preserve broke down this week. Now a U.S. District judge will decide whether the National Park Service's relatively new rules on off-road vehicles should be overturned. Seven organizations and individuals filed a lawsuit against the federal government last January, saying the rules were "arbitrary and capricious." The rules, known as the off-road vehicles management plan, were part of another lawsuit settlement. The Florida Biodiversity Project had sued the park service in 1995, claiming that by not having any off-road vehicle regulations it was violating the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. The off-road vehicle plan limited the vehicles to 400 miles of trails and 15 access points. John Donahue, preserve superintendent, said the plan is "sustainable" and "reasonable."

Copyright  © 2002  Fort Meyers News Press  All rights reserved.

 

Collier population explodes 5.2 percent to 264,475
Collier was the second-fastest growing area in the nation during the 1990s, watching its population balloon by 65 percent.

Explosive growth in Collier County is showing no signs of letting up, final figures released Tuesday by the University of Florida's Bureau of Economic and Business Research show. The study, based on permits and other data gathered between April 2000 and April 2001, showed 13,098 more people moved to Collier County, pushing the population up to 264,475 from 251,377. Collier saw its population increase 5.2 percent during the time period, the fourth-fastest percentage growth of the 67 counties in Florida. The story is similar in Lee County, where the population rose from 440,888 in the 2000 U.S. Census, to 454,918 as of April 2001. It's an increase of 14,030 people, or 3.18 percent, the report says. Lee was the 12th most rapidly growing county in the state during the year. Collier was the second-fastest growing area in the nation during the 1990s, watching its population balloon by 65 percent. If the same annual 5 percent increase documented in 2000-01 continues, Collier can expect another decade of 60 percent growth.

 

Copyright  © 2002  Naples News  All rights reserved.

 

Seminoles hail project to improve canal system on reservation

As a boy walking home from school on the Big Cypress Reservation's dirt road, acting Seminole Tribe Chairman Mitchell Cypress had to make his way around cows that, like him, were sticking to some of the only dry land around. "There was water everywhere," said Cypress, 54. "I never thought we'd have a water problem." On Tuesday, Cypress and other tribal leaders broke ground on a water project designed to improve the canal system that stemmed chronic flooding of developed areas but left much of the Everglades drained. The largest joint initiative ever between the Army Corps of Engineers and a Native American tribe will allow the tribe's farmers and cattle ranchers to control water supply, better nourish 14,000 acres of swamp and wooded areas, and feed cleaner water into the Big Cypress National Preserve.

Copyright  © 2002  Sun-Sentinel  All rights reserved.

 

15-Jan-02

Oil drilling expansion sought in Big Cypress

The Big Cypress National Preserve, where nine oil rigs already suck out a steady dribble of tarlike goo, could soon see more pumping amid the swamps and cypress trees. The preserve on Monday said it was prepared to allow the Colliers, the
Naples family that owns vast mineral rights across the Southwest Florida preserve, to do seismic testing across 41 square miles, build a 7 1/2-mile road and sink one exploratory well. If, that is, Collier Resources Co. agrees to meet some 80 restrictions designed to limit the impact of the work, which includes dropping some small dynamite charges into 14,700 holes that would be dug 25 feet deep into the marsh and rock. The explosions and sound waves allow geologists to pinpoint promising spots.
 

Copyright  © 2002  Miami Herald  All rights reserved.

 

Plan for homes upsets residents

Residents in east Davie are upset about a developer's plan to put 129 homes in their neighborhood when the town's plan for the property calls for less than half that number. Poinciana Homes of Broward County wants to build two homes an acre on
about 57 acres on Southwest 58th Avenue, also known as Wilson Road. The town's plan for the area calls for 57 homes. Residents are mainly concerned about traffic and speeding on 58th Avenue, where the development's main entrance would be. On Monday evening, residents met with the developer and town officials to discuss the proposal. The item is on the Davie Town Council's Wednesday agenda. In November, the town's Local Planning Agency voted against the proposal, although town staff recommended it. Marie Kaplan, who lives on Southwest 54th Court, south of the proposed development area, said 58th Avenue can't handle the extra traffic.
 

Copyright  © 2002  Miami Herald  All rights reserved.

 

U.S. rules eased for development of wetland tracts

`I am concerned that the voice of the scientists is being muted.' -- JAIME RAPPAPORT CLARK, National Wildlife Federation

The Bush administration on Monday relaxed more environmental rules imposed during the Clinton presidency, this time easing requirements on developers to restore or create an acre of wetlands for every acre they fill. The Army Corps of Engineers issued regulations that will allow developers to seek ``nationwide permits'' for certain wetlands, including speedy government approval if the impact on streams or marshes is considered minimal.
 

Copyright  © 2002  Miami Herald  All rights reserved.

 

National Park Service recommends allowing for oil search in Big Cypress

A Naples company's plan to look for more oil in Big Cypress National Preserve is taking a step forward. The National Park Service announced Monday that it is releasing an environmental assessment that recommends approving the plan with a series of requirements aimed at protecting the environment, said Don Hargrove, the preserve's minerals management specialist. The company, an arm of the real estate and agriculture empire of the county's founding family, is seeking approvals for 26 such plans for different parts of the preserve on Collier County's eastern edge, he said. The assessment applies to one application that dates to 1997. Oil has been pumped out of the preserve for a half-century. The deal that created the preserve in 1974 protected the private ownership of mineral rights beneath the preserve's wet prairies and tree islands. The Collier family still has mineral rights beneath 400,000 of the preserve's 729,000 acres. Collier company figures show preserve oil fields produce 100,000 gallons of oil a day.

Copyright  © 2002  Naples News  All rights reserved.

 

Corps waters down wetlands rules


Developers no longer will have to restore or create new wetlands for every acre they drain or fill under new regulations issued by the Bush administration Monday. The proposal by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers drew cries of alarm from some Florida environmentalists, who regard the corps as the last line of defense against development projects approved by state and local regulators. National environmental groups attacked the proposal as an abandonment of the "no net loss of wetlands" pledge that the first President Bush made more than a decade ago. "The result is going to be increased flooding, more water pollution and greater loss of wildlife habitat," said Daniel Rosenberg, an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington. But corps leaders said it is proposing only minor adjustments in policies approved during 2000. The proposal will probably "have a minimal impact on Florida," said Col. Greg May, leader of the corps' Jacksonville district, which issues permits for all of Florida, plus Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The proposed rules involve "nationwide permits," which allow developers to receive streamlined permission to dig wetlands under certain circumstances. Developers who don't qualify for nationwide permits generally have to get standard corps' wetlands permits, which are harder to obtain.

Copyright  © 2002  Palm Beach Post  All rights reserved.

 

New rule issued on filling wetlands

 The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued new rules Monday for granting permits to fill in wetland areas for development, sparking criticism from environmental groups but praise from a Lee County developers’ group. The final rules allow some builders to fill in streams that run for only part of the year, while maintaining prohibitions on filling in more than 300 feet of permanent streams. Under the new rule, applicants for permits are granted a waiver for the 300-foot rule if the streams aren’t permanent. John Studt, chief of the corps’ regulatory branch, noted that the new permit rules maintain the corps’ “no net loss” criteria by specifying that for every acre of wetlands lost another acre must be created or restored by developers. “The changes also reinforce and clarify the corps’ commitment to the ‘no net loss’ of wetlands goal,” Studt said.  But Melissa Samet, senior director of water resources for American Rivers, an environmental group, said the rules do exactly the opposite by giving district engineers the authority to waive the acre-for-acre rule or to allow developers to plant an acre of vegetation that might not qualify as a wetland.  “It’s not one-to-one if you’re replacing wetland with dry land,” Samet said.

Copyright  © 2002  The News-Press. All rights reserved.

 

ABM hear plans for five proposed golf courses above Lee aquifers

Most members of the Estero Bay Agency on Bay Management didn't like the idea two years ago of allowing golf courses in an area of the county designated to serve as a groundwater recharge area. Opinions haven't changed much since then.  On Monday, ABM members got an up-close look at plans for five courses to be built in southeastern Lee County, above the area's aquifers.  Bonita Bay Group consultants and planners appeared before the agency to present plans for the Corkscrew Links Project. Corkscrew Links consists of 1,365 acres on the north side of Corkscrew Road about seven miles east of Interstate 75.  Two years ago, county commissioners and the state agreed to allow up to 10 courses on 21,000 of the 100,000 acres within the groundwater area, which is formally called the Density Reduction/Groundwater Resource area.  Some ABM members said they were concerned that rezoning land from agriculture to recreation uses would push farmers into lands not yet affected by growth.  "You create a situation of moving agriculture to a new location," said Kim Dryden of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "It doesn't clean up (agriculture). It just moves it to cheaper land."

Copyright  © 2002  Naples News  All rights reserved.

 

Agricultural land sold to golf course community developer

Three months after settling a lawsuit over access, the owners of the southeasternmost 1,298 acres of Lee County have finalized the sale of the land to the Bonita Bay Group.  Land that once sprouted tomatoes will one day see fairways and homes instead. Bonita Bay has plans for as many as 1,158 homes and a pair of 18-hole golf courses on the property, which is south of the proposed eastern extension of Bonita Beach Road.  The sale was consummated Jan. 3, with just under $38.5 million changing hands. The owners were Kent Manley, Dewey Gargiulo and Michael Procacci.  The land was the subject of a $41.6 million lawsuit that was settled last October. The owners of that corner of Lee County had once worked together to establish a development density through a legal battle with first the county and then the state. That battle ended in 1999 when the state Department of Community Affairs approved an agreement that set buffering and preservation standards for the land.  The suit was filed when Ronto Development, which was developing 640 acres between the Bonita Bay property and the current end of Bonita Beach Road, refused to allow access. The suit claimed there'd been an agreement to work together to facilitate development of the entire area, and charged Ronto and Corkscrew Growers, the defunct farming partnership selling to Ronto, with breach of contract.

Copyright  © 2002  Naples News  All rights reserved.

 

14-Jan-02

Interior secretary: Glades plan a priority

When U.S. Interior Secretary Gale Norton steps aboard an airboat for a spin across the sawgrass this week, nobody is going to mistake her for the reincarnation of Marjory Stoneman Douglas.  In less than one year in office, she's battled to put oil rigs into a pristine Alaskan tundra, signed off on offshore drilling near Florida's Panhandle, blocked a ban on snowmobiles in Yellowstone Park, revoked efforts to restore grizzly bears in Idaho and advocated opening vast federal wilderness, mostly in the West, to wider industrial and recreational access.  Those decisions and others have made Norton, who is scheduled to pay her first official visit to South Florida on Wednesday for an Everglades task force meeting, one of the Bush administration's most controversial figures.  But the full record shows she hasn't always walked the hard line, at least in Florida. In some key decisions here, she's shown a surprising side almost as green as the Glades after a good rain.  One big step came last week when the Bush brothers signed an agreement pledging to deliver all the water necessary to restore the natural flow of Douglas' celebrated River of Grass.  Norton's attorneys were instrumental in crafting a deal environmentalists admit proved stronger than anticipated.

Copyright  © 2002  Miami Herald  All rights reserved.

Finding Funding For Wildlife Refuges

President Theodore Roosevelt started the National Wildlife Refuge System in 1903, when he designated four- acre Pelican Island, a prime pelican nesting site on Florida's Indian River, as the first federal refuge.  The outdoors-loving president envisioned preserving wilderness throughout the nation to protect wildlife and to allow Americans to experience the ``strenuous life'' of hunting, fishing and other outdoors pursuits.  Roosevelt's grand vision has been largely realized. Today the national refuge system contains more than 94 million acres in all 50 states and the U.S. territories.  But the system, as the Tribune's Jan Hollingsworth reported, is sadly underfunded. A recent review of the refuges by a coalition of conservation groups that included The Wilderness Society and the National Rifle Association found them badly maintained.  At refuges now, staff positions go unfilled for years, critical wildlife habitat goes unpatrolled, education programs are eliminated and facilities to accommodate visitors go unbuilt.  As Rich Paul of Audubon of Florida told Hollingsworth, ``We can always draw a line around something and call it a refuge, but that's not protecting it.''

Copyright  © 2002  Tampa Tribune / Associated Press  All rights reserved.

 

Governor's approach better for Everglades
The Post's Jan. 6 editorial "Still squishy on 'Glades" mistakenly argues Everglades restoration is more secure if paid for solely by promissory notes to be signed by future elected leaders. There is broad agreement with Speaker Tom Feeney, R-Oviedo, Rep. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland, and legislative leaders that a secure financing source is needed.  Gov. Bush proposes to use existing and proven financing sources to fill the Everglades Trust Fund -- with a promise to borrow more if needed.  Consider  this analogy. Suppose a father has two children who wish to attend college.  To the first, he promises to borrow the money when that time comes. For the second, he takes cash from his savings and places it in a secure trust fund for that child's education -- with a promise to borrow more if necessary.
 

Copyright  © 2002  Palm Beach Post  All rights reserved.

 

Interior's Silence on Corps Plan Questioned
Norton Never Submitted Fish and Wildlife Critique of Controversial
Proposal to Relax Wetlands Rules
In October, after the Army Corps of Engineers floated a controversial proposal that would relax a series of wetlands protection rules, the Fish and Wildlife Service drafted comments denouncing the plan as scientifically and environmentally unjustified. The service's 15-page salvo warned that the Corps proposal would "result in tremendous destruction of aquatic and terrestrial habitats," sacrificing far too many streams and swamps for houses, levees and coal mines. The plan, the comments stated, "has no scientific basis." But the Corps never received those comments. That's because Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton, who oversees Fish and Wildlife, never submitted them. So today, the Corps will announce its final version of its controversial plan without formal input from Interior's key biological agency.
 

Copyright  © 2002  Washington Post  All rights reserved.

 

Letter 
Governor's approach better for Everglades

The Post's Jan. 6 editorial "Still squishy on 'Glades" mistakenly argues Everglades restoration is more secure if paid for solely by promissory  notes to be signed by future elected leaders. There is broad agreement with Speaker Tom Feeney, R-Oviedo, Rep. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland, and legislative leaders that a secure financing source is needed.

Copyright  © 2002  Palm Beach Post  All rights reserved.

 

 

13-Jan-02

Stewards of Dry Tortugas park face threats from accidents, pollution  
DRY TORTUGAS -- Out of the corner of his eye, Park Service ranger Mike Ryan spots a brown plastic bag dancing in the wind above a moat that rings Fort Jefferson -- a desolate former military fortress that has become the crown jewel of one of the nation's most far-flung, and ecologically sensitive, national parks.  ``Let me see if I can get that,'' Ryan says, running along a slippery brick wall whose adjacent coral and sponge colonies function as incubators for young marine life. As the man-made transgressor -- probably toted by a tourist to carry a meal -- skates across the water, Ryan emits a grunt.  ``Normally this place doesn't look like this,'' he says apologetically.  The stewards of Dry Tortugas National Park -- located 68 miles west of Key West, communicable only by radio and, on a good day, satellite phone -- take every precaution to ensure that what's left of one of the nation's most prolific saltwater nurseries doesn't fall prey to the clumsy redoubt of another creature whose unmitigated presence often causes destruction.  Their threat: people. Their charges: rare staghorn and elkhorn coral, loggerhead turtles, endangered queen conch, rare tropical fish, Florida lobster, breeding nurse sharks and droves of migratory birds that make landfall each spring on their way north from Central America.  In recent weeks, though, the Tortugas have once again contended with an unwelcome predator. 
Copyright  © 2002  Miami Herald  All rights reserved.

Editorial:
Don't delay Everglades restoration
State should arrange financing to buy land before it's too costly
Everglades restoration is law, but making it reality will be a tough, decades-long battle, which is only now beginning.  There are good signs and bad.  The Bush brothers, president and governor, signed a pact last week, further committing the federal and state governments to the $7.8 billion joint project. The goal: to replace much of the water engineering works created in South Florida over the past 50 years with new filtering marshes and reservoirs designed to cleanse and save enough water to restore the environment and meet human demand.  Restoration, if it succeeds, will take 20 to 30 years. During that period, South Florida will experience continued heavy population growth, adding perhaps 3 million people.  The challenge will be to stick to the commitment to the Everglades and the South Florida environment when demand from thirsty cities will be growing so powerfully, and with agricultural demand - which takes most of the water now - also still strong.  The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' unwillingness so far to set binding deadlines for the more than 60 projects in the plan has rightly upset environmentalists. They understand the pressures that will work steadily to delay or derail this work.  Deadlines would inevitably be broken. There would have to be some flexibility in them anyway for so vast and complex a project, some of the technology for which remains unproven on such a scale.  The scope of the project is enormous, designed to restore marshes and swamps that are half the size they were when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began to re-plumb the system for the sake of farming, urban water supply and flood protection. 
Copyright  © 2002  Fort Meyers News Press  All rights reserved.

Speak up, anglers 

Anyone here like to catch fish in the Everglades? If so, then you'd better plan on attending Tuesday's public meeting on Everglades restoration. If you don't, then plan on finding somewhere else to fish in a few years. The agencies in charge of restoring the Everglades are seeking comments from the public on their Tamiami Trail modified water deliveries project, which offers several proposals for increasing the flow of water into Everglades National Park. The proposal that is selected could have a huge impact on fishing in the L-29 Canal along Tamiami Trail, as well as in the L-67A Canal. The meeting is at 7 p.m., Tuesday, at the South Plantation High School auditorium. The school is just west of Florida's Turnpike and just south of Peters Road, which is between Broward Boulevard and I-595. To get there, you can take University Drive to Peters and go east, or take I-95 to Davie Boulevard and go west. Davie turns into Peters west of U.S. Highway 441. The proposals for Tamiami Trail range from building four bridges to allow more water under the road into the park to elevating an 11-mile stretch of the road at a cost of at least $140 million. (Visit www.evergladesplan.org for details.) Some people also would like to see the L-29 Canal filled in, which would doom the L-67A Canal as well. The L-67A, which starts at Everglades Holiday Park in western Broward County, delivers water to the L-29. If there is no L-29, then there is no need for the L-67A. That would be a shame, because the L-67A is one of the most popular and productive bass fishing spots in the state.

Copyright  © 2002  Sun-Sentinel  All rights reserved.

Hammock again threatened by the (electric) power elite

Back in 1895, Mary Brickell stopped an unstoppable land-devouring tree-murdering all-powerful monopoly in its tracks. She saved Colee Hammock from the railroad.  To put it more precisely, the hardheaded Brickell didn't exactly stop the Florida East Coast Railway from building a link from West Palm Beach to Miami. But her famous obstinacy caused Henry Flagler, no weeping willow mind you, to finally abandon plans to cut a right-of-way through her hammock. Instead, he veered almost two miles west of the spine of high ground he so coveted.  ''Flagler wanted to go straight south,'' said South Florida historian Paul George. ''All of a sudden the railroad jags west.'' The famously tough Mary Brickell stood very tough against Florida's most powerful robber baron and kept her 895 acres intact and stopped the railroad from churning through her stand of oaks.  Her 107-year-old dispute has gotten fresh notice lately, though tinged with bitter irony. Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jim Naugle, as the old hammock once again became disputed territory last week, recalled the pioneer woman's struggle. He wondered whether the modern residents could stand up against another powerful monopoly that aims to cut its way through Mary Brickell's land.

Copyright  © 2002  Miami Herald  All rights reserved.

11-Jan-02
 

Editorial
HISTORIC AGREEMENT   
'GLADES RESTORATION GETS PRECEDENCE
The agreement signed Wednesday by President Bush and Gov. Jeb Bush that commits the federal government and Florida to joint funding of the $8 billion Everglades Restoration project plainly puts the parched River of Grass first on the list of water-use priorities. In stating this, the
agreement goes beyond any water-allocation commitment made so far in either Congress's 2-year-old law that created the restoration plan or in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' recently released draft of rules to guide the massive replumbing job.  
Copyright  © 2002  Miami Herald  All rights reserved.

Editorial  
Everglades commitment must go beyond words
From the brothers Bush, the Everglades has received hearty testimonials and vague promises of help.  For all the hype over the pledge that President Bush and Gov. Bush signed Wednesday at the White House, the assurance that Everglades restoration really will restore the Everglades is no greater than it was Tuesday. Under the legislation Congress approved in 2000, the state and  federal governments had to write and sign such a document affirming that the Everglades is the priority. Washington committed to split the cost of the $8.4 billion project only if the money would protect the environment, rather than subsidize overdevelopment. The three-page agreement that supposedly binds the state to that goal, however, raises some potential problems. Among them:  
Copyright  © 2002  Palm Beach Post  All rights reserved.

<posted 01/11/02>

DOI Memo re Continued Prohibition of Internet Access

December, 21, 200
MEMORANDUM
To:    All Employees
From:  J. Steven Griles
       Deputy Secretary
Subject: Continued Prohibition of Internet Access

Pursuant to a Temporary Restraining Order enter by the U.S. District Court
and a subsequent Consent Order, the Department  of the Interior is
disconnected from the Internet and may not be reconnected to the Internet
until authorized to do so. Until authorization is granted:
Read more
Department of Interior web site

Letter 
Bonds for the restoration of Everglades a good idea

Read More...

Copyright  © 2002  Gainseville Sun All rights reserved.

10-Jan-02

President, brother sign plan to try to restore the Everglades
President Bush and his brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, signed an agreement Wednesday to guarantee water for a major effort to restore the Florida Everglades. The blueprint envisions spending $7.8 billion over 30 years to restore about 2.4 million acres of the Everglades ecosystem.   "I think it has been referred to as the agreement between the Bushes," the governor joked afterward to reporters. "It's an $8 billion project, that's a lot of money and the taxpayers want to get a return on this, so we're going to do it in the right way."   He added, "It was really nice to be in the Oval Office and make this agreement."   A water resources bill passed by Congress two years ago required the president and the Florida governor to sign a pact ensuring there is sufficient fresh water available to restore the Everglades. The measure sets up a cost-sharing partnership between the federal government and Florida. It will make available an extra 1.7 billion gallons of fresh water each day in south Florida.

Copyright  © 2002 AP  All rights reserved.
 

Bushes Ink Everglades Restoration Agreement
Pact Aims to Ensure Water for Ecosystem

(Tim Chapman)

The two men with the most power over the $7.8 billion effort to restore the Florida Everglades -- President Bush and his brother, Gov. Jeb Bush -- signed a historic agreement yesterday to make sure water captured by the multi-decade effort actually goes to the Everglades.  In the agreement, Jeb Bush pledged the state of Florida to reserve enough water for the restoration of the parched Everglades ecosystem, regardless of the needs of farms or people. President Bush pledged that the federal government would respect Florida's control of its own water allocations. Both Bushes agreed to pursue adequate funding for the effort, which will be divided equally between the state and federal governments.  "We're really, really pleased," Jeb Bush said after the private Oval Office signing ceremony. "This is an important project. It will show that what was harmed by man can be restored by man."  Environmentalists and many federal officials had worried that the "Agreement of the Two Bushes" would give too much leeway to developer-friendly Florida, especially after the Army Corps of Engineers released draft rules for the Everglades project last month that just about everyone except Florida officials criticized as toothless and vague.  But some environmental groups and just about all relevant federal agencies yesterday praised the agreement's language as binding and enforceable, calling it a significant step forward. "It has the teeth we wanted," said Sean McMahon, a lobbyist for the National Audubon Society.  American presidents usually sign nothing but legislation, proclamations and treaties, but Congress specifically required this unusual president-governor Everglades agreement well before it became clear that the two Republican brothers would sign it. The reason was that even though the federal and state rhetoric about Everglades restoration is often indistinguishable, federal and state interests are not.  The federal interest is straightforward: environmental improvements that will revive the ailing River of Grass and protect Everglades National Park and several other federal properties in South Florida. But Florida's interest in this massive replumbing plan is much more complex -- not only improving its environment, but also supplying water and flood protection for a growing population, not to mention sugar farms and citrus groves.  The three-page agreement was designed to guarantee that the natural ecosystem is not forgotten. Yesterday, it drew praise from Michael Parker, assistant Army secretary for civil works; Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton; Marshall Jones, acting director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; and National Park Service Director Fran Mainella, who was previously Florida's parks director.  Some environmentalists were disappointed that it did not include a specific water guarantee for Everglades National Park, but park superintendent Maureen Finnerty was satisfied. "Today's agreement is an important step in restoring Everglades National Park," she said. "It will ensure that the entire Everglades ecosystem receives the water needed to restore the biological abundance and diversity for which this special place is so universally admired." 
Copyright  © 2002  Washington Post  All rights reserved.

U.S. government, state agree on Glades restoration  
The Bush brothers signed a landmark agreement on Friday pledging that the River of Grass will get all the water it needs to reverse its century of decline.  The document, signed in a hastily arranged Oval Office ceremony by President Bush and his brother, Gov. Jeb Bush, essentially finalized a unique legal agreement between Florida and the federal government to restore the Everglades and split the $8 billion bill.   Both administrations described the deal as an ironclad guarantee that the natural system, not suburbs encroaching on its borders, would get the first drink from the billions of gallons of water that the 30-year project is supposed to produce.  Standing outside the West Wing of the White House, Gov. Bush called what is believed to be an unprecedented water-use agreement between a president and governor ``an historic pact to preserve a natural treasure.''   Environmentalists largely echoed the enthusiasm, calling the agreement surprisingly strong.   ``It's a promise to restore the Everglades and it sets the bar a little higher than I would have expected,'' said April Gromnicki, Everglades policy coordinator for Audubon of Florida.   But some, along with Sen. Bob Graham of Florida, cautioned that critical details about water use remain unresolved.   The agreement, required before the federal government can spend money constructing any of the 68 planned restoration projects, was crafted as a compromise between federal demands for guarantees the project would not become a massive pipeline for urban growth and the state's legal right to control its own water supply.   While many environmentalists had worried the deal might be watered down, the final document clearly goes beyond standards Congress set when it passed the Everglades restoration law two years ago. In addition to ensuring a sufficient volume of water for each of the construction projects, both Bushes also committed to continued funding of the work -- a major statement for administrations facing serious budget battles.  
Copyright  © 2002 Miami Herald  All rights reserved.

Everglades water deal clinched
The president of the United States and the governor of Florida signed "the agreement between the Bushes" Wednesday, pledging that an $8.4 billion restoration will give the Everglades the water it needs to survive.  That's how Gov. Jeb Bush described the agreement, which President Bush signed in an Oval Office ceremony in front of a handful of state and federal officials.  "The restoration of this ecosystem is a priority for my administration, as well as for Gov. Bush," the president said in a statement released by the White House. He handed the pen he used to his brother the governor.  Gov. Bush, who called the $8.4 billion, four-decade restoration "a big darn project," said, "The taxpayers want to get a return on this, so we're going to do it in the right way."   It was the first time the two brothers had formally signed an agreement on behalf of the state and federal governments.   The terse, three-page document, apparently drafted in secrecy during the past five days, was one of the requirements Congress imposed when it approved the restoration in late 2000.   The agreement fulfills Congress' demand for a guarantee from the state --  that the hundreds of billions of gallons expected to be stored in the project's myriad reservoirs, marshes, canals and wells will be reserved for  the Everglades before the water goes to farms and cities, supporters said.  
Copyright  © 2001 Palm Beach Post  All rights reserved.

Bush brothers sign Everglades pact, go to Florida fund-raiser
The Bush brothers Wednesday signed the compact binding the federal government and Florida to restore the Everglades and ensure that sufficient water again flows to the fabled "River of Grass."  "My administration is deeply committed to the federal-state Everglades partnership," President Bush told Gov. Jeb Bush in an Oval Office ceremony to sign the formal pact.  Congress mandated that the president and governor sign a formal agreement when it approved the historic restoration plan in December 2000 and required the federal government and state to split the $7.8 billion cost 50-50.   Rep. Mark Foley, R-West Palm Beach, praised the agreement as "binding, enforceable ... almost as thick as blood." He said the Bushes' signatures seal the deal to restore the Everglades' natural flows and ensure that taxpayers' money is spent wisely. Sen. Bob Graham, D-Miami Lakes, said the agreement complies with Congress' orders but will require further action. "Both state and federal involvement as well as congressional oversight will be needed to determine how the state will both carry out its obligation to reserve water saved by the restoration process and fully incorporate this obligation in its permitting process," Graham said.  Environmentalists cast a skeptical eye at the pact's fine print Wednesday for fear it will let more water than needed be diverted to slake South Florida's thirst when the area's population is projected to swell from 6 million now to 12 million by 2050.  
Copyright  © 2002 Palm Beach Post  All rights reserved.

Bush brothers are big draw President raises funds to elect Jeb
The Bush political dynasty embarked Wednesday on its next conquest: securing brother Jeb's reelection to the Florida Governor's Mansion come November.  President George W. Bush headlined a series of fundraisers for his younger brother in a hotel four blocks from the White House, attracting hundreds of thousands of dollars for Gov. Bush's reelection campaign and the Republican Party of Florida.  It was the president's first major political event since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, demonstrating how important Gov. Bush's reelection is to his older brother's own political future.  ``There's no doubt in my mind that he is not only one of the great governors in Florida history, but he's one of the great governors of our nation,''  President Bush told a crowd of hundreds of GOP supporters, Washington lobbyists and members of Congress. ``And he deserves a second term.''  
Copyright  © 2002  Miami Herald  All rights reserved.

Study Finds Dilemma With Missouri River
The Missouri River's ecosystem will suffer irreversible damage without a return to a more natural ebb and flow, but that return could cause flooding and entail moving entire communities, the National Research Council said today.  The council said the Missouri, the nation's longest river, had lost so much natural habitat and so many animals in the last century that it faced "the prospect of irreversible extinction of species."  Dams and channels have straightened the Missouri over the years, providing flood control and better navigation but shortening it by 200 miles and stopping virtually all the sediment flow that once earned it the nickname the Big Muddy. 
Copyright  © 2002 New York Times  All rights reserved.

Engineers fear Marco water supply at risk
Old pipes, leaking well taint city deal to buy private system
As the fate of Marco Island's water operations hangs in limbo, city leaders say the aging system's eventual buyer will inherit some pretty pricey problems — including $5 million in deficiencies that engineers fear could lead to contamination of the island's drinking water.  A cooperative of publicly owned utilities, the Florida Governmental Utility Authority, has offered Florida Water Services $515 million for its water and wastewater systems, including $110 million for Marco's operations. The latest deadline set to reach a deal is Friday. FGUA lawyers and Florida Water executives are meeting today in Orlando.  "The future water supply is a problem and the quality of the water is a problem," City Manager Bill Moss said. "The system is aging ... Ultimately somebody's going to have to (make improvements)."

Copyright  © 2002  Naples News  All rights reserved.

09-Jan-02

COMPREHENSIVE EVERGLADES RESTORATION PLAN
ASSURANCE OF PROJECT BENEFITS AGREEMENT

       WHEREAS, the Everglades ecological system is unique in the world and
one of the Nation's great treasures;  

       WHEREAS, the Central and Southern Florida Project as originally
authorized in 1948 has had unintended consequences on the Everglades and
South Florida Ecosystem;

       WHEREAS, the Water Resources Development Act of 1992 authorized a
Comprehensive Review Study (Restudy) of the Central and South Florida
Project;

       WHEREAS, as required by the Water Resources Development Act of 1996,
the Restudy was submitted to the Congress of the United States on July 1,
1999;

       WHEREAS, the Restudy, renamed the Comprehensive Everglades
Restoration Plan, was authorized by the Congress in the Water Resources
Development Act of 2000

Read more..

 

White House Press Release
President Bush Takes Action to Help Restore Everglades

President Bush and Florida Governor Jeb Bush Wednesday took action to help the effort to restore the Everglades. The President and the Governor signed an agreement that ensures adequate water supplies are available to support the 30-year Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan.

      The White House
      For Immediate Release
      Office of the Press Secretary
      Wednesday, January 9, 2002

Statement by the President

On June 4, 2001, I joined the Governor of Florida in visiting the Everglades.  The Everglades and the entire south Florida ecosystem are a unique national treasure.  The restoration of this ecosystem is a priority for my Administration, as well as for Governor Bush.  Today we are very
pleased to solidify our commitment and full partnership in this unprecedented endeavor by signing a joint agreement to ensure that adequate water supplies will be available to benefit State and federally owned natural resources.   Read more
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/

Bush brothers approve Everglades restoration plan
In a brotherly convergence at the White House, President Bush and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush signed an unprecedented state-federal agreement on Wednesday to devote water saved from restoration of the Everglades primarily to preserve the natural ecosystem.  The agreement triggers federal spending for a 30-year restoration project and declares that the highest priority will be given to environmental use of the water that flows through the 'Glades.  The signing ceremony in the Oval Office was designed to burnish the Bush brothers' environmental credentials while fending off worries that the $8 billion replumbing job - to be paid by the state and federal governments - would be exploited to serve farmers and urban developers at the expense of nature.  The Everglades agreement was the most substantive part of a series of events for the Bush brothers in the nation's capital. Jeb Bush took part in a ceremony touting an education reform bill just signed by the president. And the president was the star attraction at an evening fund-raiser for the governor.  
Copyright  © 2002  Sun-Sentinel  All rights reserved.

Photos:  Bush brothers sign Everglades pact

Photo by Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP
  

President George W. Bush hands over the pen to his brother Florida
Governor Jeb Bush, left, after signing an agreement that ensures adequate water supplies are available to support the 30-year Everglades restoration plan in the Oval Office of the White House on Wednesday, January 9, 2002.

  

Standing in the back from left:
     David B. Struhs,
       secretary of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection
     Gale A. Norton,
       secretary of Interior
     Fran Maniella,
       director of the National Park Service.

Photo by Rick McKay

Florida Gov. Jeb Bush accepts the pen his brother, President George W. Bush, used to sign the Everglades Protection Agreement at the White House on Wednesday, January 9, 2002, as Florida Secretary of Environmental Protection David Struhs watches.

 

 

Florida drought over, but water shortage still critical
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Florida's three-year drought is over and lakes and rivers are brimming again, but after managers warn of a different story beneath the surface.  The groundwater system is still below normal in central and southwest Florida, and that's just a temporary woe.  Shrinking supplies caused by the lack of rainfall forewarned what could happen in the next few decades if the state doesn't find new water sources, officials said.  Utilities, local governments and water management districts plan to spend millions of dollars to develop water alternatives to ensure surging demand doesn't exceed supplies. They're also urging residents to conserve year-round.  ``If we just depended on groundwater, we wouldn't have enough to meet our needs,'' said Michael Molligan, spokesman for the Southwest Florida Water Management District, which covers 16 counties from Osceola to Monroe. In central Florida, wetlands, lakes, and streams will start to dry up by 2006 if all the permits to withdraw water are granted and new supplies aren't identified, said Kirby Green, director of the St. Johns River Water Management District, responsible for 16 central and north Florida counties.  The drought ``helped solidify the need to look at alternative sources,'' he said.  Water use is forecast to increase 30 percent from 7.2 billion gallons per day in 1995 to 9.3 billion in 2020 as more people move to the Sunshine State, already home to nearly 16 million residents.  
Read more
U.S. Water News Online  http://www.uswaternews.com

Editorial
Rollback on Clean Air
A proposal to weaken an important provision in the Clean Air Act is making its way to the White House for a final decision by President Bush. The recommendation, from the Energy Department and The Environmental Protection Agency, is variously described as "tentative" and "informal" — in any case, not final. One can only hope so. It is a bad idea, one of several to emerge from Vice President Dick Cheney's task force on energy last spring. By rejecting it, the administration can spare itself the kind of embarrassment it suffered when it tried to roll back the Clinton administration's arsenic standard last year.  At issue is a complicated section of the Clean Air Act known as new source review. The provision requires existing power plants to install modern controls whenever they are significantly upgraded or expanded, putting them on a par with new, cleaner plants. This was aimed mainly at hundreds of aging, coal-fired power plants that were exempted from the original act's stringent regulations in the expectation that they would soon be retired. Most of them are still going strong, contributing to smog and acid rain. Plants in the Midwest send so much pollution eastward on the prevailing winds that it is almost impossible for states like New York and New Jersey to meet federal clean air standards.

Copyright  © 2002 New York Times  All rights reserved.
 

08-Jan-02

Opinion
New 'wetlands' a damp shame
I've seen wetter.  As wetlands go, the mitigated wetland off Southwest 54th Street in Davie is
more like dampland. No chance that the 35-acre tract will become a magnet for waterfowl watchers or alligator poachers. No one would buzz through here in an airboat.  I managed to trudge around the wetland Monday without so much as getting my toes moist. Wildlife was in short supply. One egret. I did see a deflated basketball and an empty Miller beer bottle. No gators, no fish, no raccoons, no turtles, no snakes made themselves available for interviews. I've seen more webbed feet in the newsroom. Don't expect to see this chunk of semi-wetland featured in a National Geographic special on successful mitigation projects. 
Copyright  © 2002 Miami Herald  All rights reserved.

Editorial
Good News From Coalition
The good news coming out of last week's Everglades Coalition conference: It seems state leaders are committed to finding the funds needed to pay Florida's share to restore the famed River of Grass. There is, however, a difference in approach. State legislative leaders and many environmentalists want to issue $125 million annually in bonds for eight years. Gov. Jeb Bush has countered with a complex funding formula that would patch together reserves, surpluses, documentary stamp revene and land acquisition funds to pay the state's part in the project. The governor deserves credit for at least keeping the idea of borrowing the money through bonds on the table. It's good to have options, particularly with the state still facing a short-term problem of a new budget deficit that could exceed $1.5 billion.

Copyright Sun-Sentinel © 2001 All rights reserved.


Senate to Examine Plans to Weaken Pollution Rules   

Associated Press From left, Attorneys General Joseph Curran Jr. of Maryland, William Sorrell of Vermont, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island called on the Bush Administration not to relax clean air standards for power plants.
		In Depth Congress
		Regulators Urge Easing U.S. Rules on Air Pollution (January 8, 2002)

Two Senate committees announced today that they would hold hearings into the Bush Administration's plans to rewrite the regulations that require power plants to upgrade their pollution-control equipment when they upgrade their operations.  Concern has spread from the environmental community to Capitol Hill over reports that the administration is considering weakening these regulations, which it can do without permission from Congress.  Senators James Jeffords, the Vermont Independent whose defection from the Republican Party last year cost the Republicans control of the Senate, and Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, said they would hold hearings early next month on the matter.

Mr. Jeffords, who heads the Environment and Public Works Committee, and Mr. Leahy, who heads the Judiciary Committee, said they would review the status of various lawsuits filed by the Justice Department against power plants that have violated the current pollution regulations and examine why and how the administration is changing them.  Also today, attorneys-general from six Northeastern states came to Washington to protest the proposed changes and said they would sue the administration if it weakened the rules, which are known as new source review and are part of the Clean Air Act.  "We will, absolutely, go to court to forestall these rules and regulations," said Eliot Spitzer, attorney general of New York.  Top federal regulators have recommended informally that the White House relax pollution rules affecting an array of industries and power plants, a move backed by energy and industry groups that have been among President Bush's leading supporters and opposed by national environmental groups. The White House has not made a decision, and it is not clear when it will. 
Copyright  © 2002  New York Times  All rights reserved.

Regulators Urge Easing U.S. Rules on Air Pollution 
Top federal regulators have recommended informally that the White House relax one of the nation's most contentious air pollution regulations, a provision that requires power plants to upgrade pollution control equipment when they upgrade their operations.  Such a move has long been pushed by energy and industry groups — many of whom have been big supporters of President Bush — who say that current rules impose billions of dollars in extra costs that unfairly block utilities from modernizing to make plants more energy efficient.  Environmental groups have been equally vehement in their support of the current regulations, saying that any relaxation would amount to the biggest rollback of the Clean Air Act since its passage 30 years ago. In addition, the attorneys general from some states in the Northeast, which often bear the brunt of pollution from industrial plants in the Midwest, plan to gather here on Tuesday to protest any changes in the regulations.  While no final recommendations have been formally sent to the White House, officials said that the tentative results of discussions between the Energy Department and the Environmental Protection Agency had been given to the Council on Environmental Quality at the White House. "We have submitted a suggested set of reforms," one official said. "We're pretty far along." 
Copyright  © 2002 New York Times  All rights reserved.

Making the Best of What Remains of Shrinking Habitats 

	G.C. Kelley/Photo Researchers When their habitat changed, desert bighorn sheep, left, were found to have traveled up to 30 miles to find water, a greater distance than scientists anticipated.
			Map: Where the Butterfly Roamed

Why did the chicken cross the road?

The old riddle raises an issue of real importance to many animal species, and to the scientists who study them.

As human activity alters more and more of the landscape — breaking up rain forests, wetlands and prairies with highways, farms, parking lots and housing developments — some creatures retreat into ever tighter habitats, while others venture across the human obstacles to find suitable places to feed and breed. The question conservation biologists are asking is why.  Dr. John Wiens, a professor of ecology at Colorado State University, has been studying the effects of changing habitats on species as different as songbirds and sheep.  "There are various bird species, particularly in forests in the East and Northeast, that are really interior birds," he said. "They don't even go close to the edges. If you think you have a 10-acre wood lot, from the perspective of something that only uses the inner core of that, you really have two acres. As fragments get smaller and smaller, these interior species really feel the effects."

By contrast, desert bighorn sheep might be expected to stick close to the mountains where they find their water. But when Dr. Wiens's students put radio collars on the rams and tracked their movements, the results were surprising.

"Rams would get up and move 30 miles across flat burning desert to another mountain range," Dr. Wiens said. "They spend a couple of weeks over there and then come back. The scale of movement was much greater than anticipated."  Findings like this have prompted some scientists to change the way they think about habitat fragmentation. The classical model for a habitat fragment is an island. Ever since Darwin landed on the Galápagos, scientists have understood that island habitats are special.  Species in isolation tend to survive, prey, reproduce and evolve differently from species with large open territories.  Dr. Wiens says this old model is giving way to a new one. "We need to shift our thinking away from isolated areas in the midst of inhospitable human development," he said. "They're not oceanic islands." Only if biologists think of fragments in the context of the overall landscape, he went on, can they help to manage, conserve and restore these habitats. 
Copyright  © 2002 New York Times  All rights reserved.
 

07-Jan-02

Wood stork populations still falling because of loss of feeding habitat, experts say

They survived plumage hunters near the turn of the 19th century, deadly pesticide chemicals from the late 1940s and even the draining of swamplands across South Florida. But for how long, and in what capacity, wood storks will continue to thrive here is unknown.   

Wood storks wade along a shallow canal between homes and businesses as traffic passes by along Goodlette-Frank Road in Naples on Friday. Sylwia Kapuscinski/Staff

In a time when most wading birds are increasing in numbers or at least stabilizing, wood storks, this continent's only stork, continue to decline.  Loss of feeding habitat is the main reason, experts say.  Wood storks are highly specialized feeders. Unlike other wading birds such as the great blue heron, storks can only hunt in shallow waters. They stab their beaks into the soft muddy bottoms and use their long legs to herd fish into their open bills.

The birds thrive during the dry season, when fish become concentrated in shrinking pools of water. Lots of fish in condensed areas allow the storks to hunt food for their young.

That's the way it's been for thousands of years.  During the 20th century, though, wetlands that were once prime feeding grounds for storks were dredged to make canals and residential lots. Wood storks can't feed in deep canals.  "We have changed the way water works in South Florida," said Ted Below, an ornithologist who works part time for the National Audubon Society. "We changed the (water) concentrations and the amount of food. Wood storks and some of the waders that are specific in the type of food they eat are having problems."   Below is a Naples resident who has studied birds here for 30 years. He regularly covers 60 miles of coastal lands, visiting wildlife areas two to four times a week. Below specializes in the population dynamics of coastal birds, studying some 40 species.  He said the key to ensuring the future of wood storks is land preservation and restoration.
Copyright  © 2002  Naples News  All rights reserved.

Wetland promise triggers dispute
Developer, Davie square off over unfinished site 
Broward County's latest clash between development and nature has sprouted in Davie, where a builder has been accused of falling short of its obligations to create a wetland preserve.  Westbrooke Companies promised to create the Davie preserve as part of an agreement that enabled it to build a large development in Hollywood called Maple Ridge.  The Davie wetland was to make up for the loss of environmentally sensitive land at the Maple Ridge site. This sort of trade-off -- fixing up land in one location in exchange for permission to bulldoze another -- is a common practice in South Florida land dealings, increasingly so as land available for development in Broward grows scarce. It is called wetlands mitigation.  The Davie wetland, about 35 acres east of Southwest 58th Avenue between Stirling and Griffin roads, was supposed to be finished early last year, but still isn't done. Residents in the east Davie neighborhood say it has turned into an eyesore.  Representatives from the town, Westbrooke and Broward County are scheduled to meet today to review the site.  The developer promised to plant a buffer of mature trees along most of the wetland, residents and Mayor Harry Venis say, but the trees are skinny and shorter than a hedgerow.  Westbrooke representatives say the residents shouldn't worry.   
Copyright  © 2002 Miami Herald  All rights reserved.

Letter
National Park Renewal 
Re "An Uncertain Parks Policy" (editorial, Jan. 2):  You suggest that the Bush administration's priority of eliminating the $5 billion repair bill for national park maintenance addresses only road and building repair. While roads are a priority, we will also restore many historic structures and cultural sites.  Many maintenance repair projects also correct environmental problems, like outdated sewage plants that pollute ecosystems at Yellowstone and other national parks. More than 35 percent of maintenance- backlog money goes toward natural resource protection. 

Copyright  © 2002 New York Times  All rights reserved.

Letter
Sour on sugar 
Re the Jan. 2 letter Sugar program good for nation: Every industry that prospers is a net benefit to the nation, and each has an obligation to try to succeed. However, while the retail price of U.S. sugar has ranged from 20 to 40 cents a pound, even today the world price of sugar is around a dime.   Places such as the Dominican Republic that love to ``buy U.S.,'' can sell only a small portion of their production at the favored ``quota'' price. So they sell to Russia at half our support price. Because of the ``difficulties'' suffered by sugar, the Fanjul brothers were able in 1985 to buy the Central Romana in the Dominican Republic for $225 million, with a down payment of $56 million in cash, which just happened to be the amount of sugar-backed support loans defaulted on that year by their combine.
Copyright  © 2002 Miami Herald  All rights reserved.

06-Jan-02

Letter
Preserve what land is left in South Florida 
Your series of articles regarding the growth problems in West Broward seem to have had an impact. The response would appear to be an overwhelming outrage against developers, lobbyists and politicians. However, more than one letter started with ``When I moved here in . . .''   Subtle, but deeply poignant, that statement brings a few thoughts to mind. We all moved here at sometime. When I moved to north Miami-Dade 30 years ago, it was a different area than what it is now. It became crowded, and many areas that were near wilderness are now covered with houses and shopping centers.   Developers certainly put them there, but I was among the many who moved there by choice. More housing became a necessity to accommodate people just like me. Politicians became involved because they have a responsibility to the people to provide the services needed.   I moved here, to Southwest Broward, in 1999. I live in a lovely, quiet neighborhood on what used to be the wilderness where I hunted many years ago. No more.
Copyright  © 2002 Miami Herald  All rights reserved.

Editorial
Still squishy on 'Glades Governor's money plan isn't a commitment.
For someone who says he is wedded to the idea of restoring the Everglades, Gov. Bush seems wary of any long-term commitment. Three years ago, as the governor took office, members of the Legislature proposed a plan that would have guaranteed most of Florida's $200 million annual payment for what now is known as the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Project. Because the proposal involved selling bonds, the governor refused. Two years ago, Gov. Bush offered up his own plan, a vague formula that called for $100 million from various state sources and another $100 million in budget cuts and "credits" from the South Florida Water Management District.

Copyright  © 2002  Palm Beach Post  All rights reserved.

Antiterror role eyed for Glades airfield

Hijacked craft could land at old runway

Way out amid the slow water and slash pines, where nothing much moves but the blur of heat bending off an old runway, Miami-Dade and federal authorities are seeking to improve a largely neglected airstrip in the Everglades to thwart potential terrorist attacks.

Copyright  © 2002  Miami Herald  All rights reserved.

05-Jan-02

Agreement on water for Glades draws near
The Bush brothers are close to signing a key agreement intended to ensure that the Everglades, not suburbs encroaching on it, will be first in line to drink from the well of The Bush brothers are close to signing a key agreement intended to ensure that the Everglades, not suburbs encroaching on it, will be first in line to drink from the well of restoration and the billions of gallons of water it is supposed to produce.   The document, important symbolically but also historic in environmental law as the first legally binding water deal between a president and a governor, should be completed no later than mid-February, federal and state agencies said Friday.  That would meet a Feb. 15 deadline suggested by Florida Sen. Bob Graham, who made it one of his priorities for the landmark $8.4 billion restoration effort during a speech to the Everglades Coalition conference in Fort Lauderdale. Graham said having President George W. Bush and his brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, sign the agreement was important for sending a message to lawmakers who will be hammering out leaner, meaner budgets in Tallahassee and Washington, D.C.
Copyright  © 2002  Miami Herald  All rights reserved.

Everglades pledges sought in writing

Florida and the federal government have promised to restore the Everglades and give it the water it needs to survive. Environmentalists want those pledges in writing.

Copyright  © 2002  Palm Beach Post  All rights reserved.

 

04-Jan- 02

Bush: State has cash for Everglades

Even cash-strapped Florida can secure $100 million a year  for the Everglades in the next eight years -- without  increasing the state's debt, Gov. Jeb Bush told environmentalists Thursday night.

Copyright  © 2002  Palm Beach Post  All rights reserved.

Editorial
REALIZING THE DREAM SLOWLY, 'GLADES RESTORATION COMING CLOSER

Participants in the annual Everglades Coalition conference, being held in Fort Lauderdale this year, have meaty issues to address. Two of the most provocative involve the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' just-released draft blueprint for proceeding with the $8 billion, 35-year Everglades Restoration plan and some new proposals for how Florida will fund its half-share of
the project. The Corps' draft has drawn criticism for vagueness on such crucial issues as water-flow allocation. Critics question if the Everglades will be stinted in favor of agriculture and urban-consumer interests -- an excellent point. The
ultimate goal is to restore the historic water flow, in the degree
possible given permanent changes to the ecosystem.

Copyright  © 2002  Miami Herald  All rights reserved.

 

Editorial 

Bonds for Everglades 

Over the next 20 to 30 years, the federal government and the state of Florida have agreed to split the costs of an $8.4 billion restoration of the Everglades. It's not cheap or easy, and, as real-estate brokers always say, "Land in Florida isn't getting any cheaper." Rep. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland, has proposed the state sell bonds to buy the land needed to restore the natural flow of the "river of grass." Said Dockery: "The sooner you can buy, the cheaper you can get the land for." Tallahassee has been operating under a "pay as you go" approach when buying land for Everglades restoration. This summer, however, the South Florida Water Management District Board said it wants to buy land when the price is right. It is, said SFWMD board member Lennart Lindahl, "sort of the nut to getting this whole [restoration project] going."

Copyright  © 2002  Gainseville Sun All rights reserved.

03-Jan-02

Everglades Coalition letter to Colonel May, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Dear Colonel May:
The undersigned members of the Everglades Coalition write to express our profound concern and strong objection to the Initial Draft Programmatic Regulations released by the Army Corps on December 28, 2001. Based upon our initial review, the Initial Draft Programmatic Regulations are so inadequate as to threaten the future of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP).  Congress' intent for the programmatic regulations was clear: "to ensure that the goals and purposed of the [CERP] are achieved." As the Senate Committee stated, the "predominant Federal interest … is the restoration of the South Florida ecosystem." Congress was well aware of the significant future risk that CERP's benefits would be easily sidetracked to primarily serve the needs of increasing numbers of consumptive water users, rather than actually restoring the imperiled Everglades. The programmatic regulations were to be an insurance policy for the Everglades in the Water Resources Development Act of 2000 (WRDA 2000) - what the Senate Committee described as a "carefully balanced assurances provision that provides the mechanism to ensure that project benefits for the natural system are attained."
Read more

Rules for the Everglades
LAST WEEK the Army Corps of Engineers laid out its first draft of rules to govern the massive effort to replumb the Everglades. The document was as noteworthy for what wasn't in it as for what was: While reaffirming the federal commitment to restoring the Everglades ecosystem, the Corps left many key decisions for later in the process. Still to come are goals for measuring the project's success, timetables for setting those goals and firm decisions on how much of the fresh water to be recovered will go to reviving the Everglades and how much to serving central Florida's agriculture, industry and booming population. In drafting the rules, the Corps said it sought "to find middle ground to the greatest extent possible" among all the groups with an interest in the restoration projects. But this first proposal came closer to the broad and flexible rules sought by local officials than to the specific, measurable and enforceable standards that environmental groups wanted. It's a reminder of how long and difficult the path to reviving the Everglades will be.

Copyright Washington Post © 2001 All rights reserved.

Long-term cooperation is key to success
Starting today, Fort Lauderdale is hosting the annual meeting of the Everglades Coalition, a gathering of more than 40 environmental organizations concerned with the restoration of the South Florida ecosystem. The theme of the meeting, "Fulfilling the Promise," captures the spirit of the times, as diverse stakeholders take the first steps of a multi-decade effort to restore the natural ecological system of the Everglades while ensuring ample water supplies for South Floridians. As we move forward, the Interior Department will continue to be a major partner in achieving the restoration of the Everglades ecosystem. Under the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan enacted into law just over a year ago, the department has the vital role of providing technical expertise. It's clear that the objectives of the restoration plan must be met: appropriate quantities of clean water distributed at the right times and in the right places to restore the remaining portions of this unique, internationally recognized treasure.

Copyright Sun-Sentinel © 2001 All rights reserved.

02-Jan-02

Editorial
An Uncertain Parks Policy
Just over one year ago, President-elect Bush introduced Gale Norton as his choice for secretary of the interior, handed her the task of fixing the national park system and promised $1 billion in new money every year for five years to help her do it. As promises go, revitalizing the parks did not seem very adventurous. Everyone loves the parks. Still, president after president had taken the parks for granted, leaving an overdue repair bill of more than $5 billion as well as an annual operating shortfall in the hundreds of millions. Thus Mr. Bush's promise was no small thing. 

Copyright  © 2002 New York Times  All rights reserved.

29-Dec-01

Plan to Revive Everglades Brings Renewed Dispute
Environmentalists Say Draft Rules Offer No Gain
Federal officials yesterday proposed long-awaited rules to govern the $7.8 billion effort to replumb the Florida Everglades, but environmentalists immediately denounced them as a recipe for failure for the largest ecological restoration initiative in history.  The 58-page draft "programmatic regulations" released yesterday by the Army Corps of Engineers, the federal agency overseeing the Everglades initiative, included few of the specific requirements and assurances that conservation groups have insisted are necessary to make sure the project restores the parched South Florida ecosystem. And the Corps declined to propose any performance goals that would help the public measure progress in resurrecting the so-called River of Grass over the next three decades.  Instead, the Corps largely limited the regulations to generalities, postponing the details to less formal "protocols" to be drafted later. That was the strong desire of sugar farmers, water utilities and other thirsty Florida interest groups, as well as of Gov. Jeb Bush (R), President Bush's brother. Aides to the governor had argued that more detailed rules attempting to reserve water for the Everglades would trample on the state's right to allocate water as it sees fit, an argument the Corps cited in its documents yesterday.  

Copyright  © 2001 Washington Post  All rights reserved.

Glades renewal blueprint drawing criticism
Little help seen for River of Grass  
The Bush administration's first blueprint of how it plans to go about restoring the Everglades lays out a broad plan but contains few of the hard and fast details environmentalists had urged.   A draft of the plan, released Friday by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the lead federal agency in the $8 billion project, sketches a scheme to remove canals, build pumps, dig reservoirs and track impact on wildlife. But it also sets no deadlines, gives few specific goals and allows Florida wide latitude in calling the shots in the largest ecological restoration in American history.  Stu Applebaum, chief of the restoration project for the Corps, said Congress did not request timelines when it ordered the development rules.  ``Not everyone is going to like everything, and that is why we are putting the draft out there for public review,'' Applebaum said. The plan of what are called ``programmatic regulations'' will be revised after 60 days of public comment.  The initial assessments from environmental groups were not positive.  ``This just screams business as usual,'' said Shannon Estenoz, the World Wildlife Fund's Everglades director. ``They talk about states' rights. What about the rights of taxpayers to get what they're paying for: Everglades restoration?''  One glaring omission for environmentalists was any mention of perhaps the most controversial question of the project: How will the billions of new gallons of water produced from the 40-year project be divided among nature, farmers and the booming cities fringing the shrunken Everglades system?  Because no specific assurances were written into the Everglades law itself, some conservation groups had been hoping the regulations would mandate first dibs for the natural system and also adopt congressional language suggesting that 80 percent of the water be diverted to the River of Grass.  Also notably absent were biological standards for judging the success of various projects. 
Copyright  © 2001 Miami Herald  All rights reserved.

Everglades Restoration Rules Are Proposed  
The Bush administration has proposed rules for a $7.8 billion restoration of the Florida Everglades that map a broad strategy to save water but contain none of the deadlines sought by environmentalists.  The proposed rules, released today by the Army Corps of Engineers, are a blueprint for eliminating canals, building pumps, conserving water and tracking wildlife in the next three decades. The corps will offer a final version later for 60 days of public review.  No dates for completing goals were included in the preliminary version of the rules, and Florida officials would be allowed to determine how the project should be completed.
Copyright  © 2001 New York Times  All rights reserved.

26-Dec-01

Peril Of Disdaining Growth Laws
Citizens frustrated by local governments that routinely ignore their own growth laws can take heart from a recent court ruling. The 4th District Court of Appeal upheld citizens' right to force local governments to comply with their comprehensive plans. Moreover, the court decision could lead to the demolition of an apartment complex built in violation of the plan. The ruling, of course, will be appealed to the Florida Supreme Court. But it is difficult to see how the finding could be overruled. The court simply held that local governments and developers must follow the law. State law requires all local jurisdictions to adopt a comprehensive plan, which is devised with public debate. Unfortunately, elected officials often retreat from growth regulations when pressured by development interests. This case demonstrated what a committed citizen can achieve.
Copyright Tampa Tribune © 2001 All rights reserved.

A Helping Paw For Black Bears
If the Florida black bear isn't an endangered species already, it will be by the time the federal officials get around to doing anything in the way of protection. Fortunately, a U.S. District Court judge in Washington has started a fire under the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In 1990, the Fish and Wildlife Service was requested to list the bear as a protected species. Two years later, service officials said listing the Florida black bear as threatened was "warranted but precluded" under the Endangered Species Act because the agency was too busy trying to protect more-endangered species. In late 1998, the wildlife service denied a request to put the bear on the endangered list, even though it had previously concluded that the bear qualified as a threatened species because of habitat destruction, hunting, poaching and being killed crossing roads.

Copyright The Ledger © 2001 All rights reserved.

Everglades groups meet about controlling restoration of marsh
Last year, the fervent advocates for the Everglades couldn't help feeling celebratory after Congress inked its approval of the giant $8.4 billion restoration of the River of Grass. Next week in Fort Lauderdale, they'll roll up their sleeves at the Everglades Coalition's 17th annual conference as they look for proof their hard-won environmental public-works project is starting off in the right direction. The theme of the coalition meeting Jan. 3-6 at the Fort Lauderdale Marina Marriott is "Fulfilling the Promise" of Everglades restoration, which is aimed at improving water flows through the ecosystem while expanding public water supplies. Though the bulk of work unfolds over the next two decades, coalition leaders are seeking evidence now that the effort will truly bring about environmental benefits and not just aid development and agriculture. "This conference really is about which way we are going to go with restoration," said Frank Jackalone, national chairman of the coalition and the Sierra Club's senior Florida representative.

Copyright Sun-Sentinel © 2001 All rights reserved.

25-Dec-01

Everglades plan equity is sought
There are many voices guiding the Everglades restoration. Those shaping the project are taking extra steps to hear from one voice that is especially at risk of being lost in the din of special interests: South Florida's minority communities. Federal and state officials in charge of the restoration, as well as legislators and environmental groups are trying to reach out to black, American Indian, Hispanic and other minority communities. They say they want to engage them in the restoration process and help them realize its potential benefits.

Copyright Sun-Sentinel © 2001 All rights reserved.

24-Dec-01

Bonds for everglades
Over the next 20 to 30 years, the federal government and the state of Florida have agreed to split the costs of an $8.4 billion restoration of the Everglades. It's not cheap or easy, and, as real-estate brokers always say, "Land in Florida isn't getting any cheaper." Rep. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland, has proposed the state sell bonds to buy the land needed to restore the natural flow of the "river of grass." Said Dockery: "The sooner you can buy, the cheaper you can get the land for." Tallahassee has been operating under a "pay as you go" approach when buying land for Everglades restoration. 
Copyright The Ledger © 2001 All rights reserved.

Op-Ed
Universities need board of governors
The sunny future of Florida is clouded on two fronts -- an economy that has struggled to diversify and an education system that has lagged behind the rest of the nation. While both of these downward shifts can be reversed, to do so will require the wisdom to recognize the problems and the will to take prompt and sustained action. These two components of economy and education are intertwined as never before. Historically, Floridians have struggled to seize our piece of the nation's prosperity. As the Industrial Revolution began, Florida was a poor, geographically isolated state, lacking resources such as iron ore and coal.
Copyright Sun-Sentinel © 2001 All rights reserved.

Thoemke tapped to head IC's environmental management program
When International College decided to start a new degree program in environmental management, its administrators didn't have to look far to find someone to design it. They found someone who already had connections with the college and was a renowned expert as well, said President Terry McMahan. Kris Thoemke, 50, a recognized environmental authority who worked most recently with the National Wildlife Federation, has been named program chairman of International's new environmental management program. He is developing the program from scratch, but is bringing 30 years of experience, education and accomplishments in his field. "Having Dr. Thoemke do this for us is a real coup," McMahan said. 
Copyright Naples Daily News © 2001 All rights reserved.

 

23-Dec-01

Managers planning new water sources
Even in a place where tropical storms flood whole neighborhoods within hours and open floodgates cause Lake Okeechobee to drain for miles into natural waterways, water isn't everlasting - or even abundant. Water managers say if methods of obtaining water aren't changed, the Treasure Coast could see either a shortage or a rapid increase in the cost of water, affecting everything from new development to agriculture to everyday habits. "Most of your local governments heeded the warning," said Mark Elsner, a lead planner with the South Florida Water Management District. "But we don't want to paint everything as if it's fine. This area cannot rely on historically used groundwater sources." In response to the water district's findings and their own planning, water managers from Fort Pierce to Hobe Sound are coming up with new ways to produce potable water for residents, and investigating conservation and re-use methods to conserve the supply. 
Copyright Stuart News © 2001 All rights reserved.

Life on Broward's far side: no Zip code, few rules
MICCOSUKEE INDIAN RESERVATION -- For decades the surge of development in Broward has pressed a question: Just how far west can and will it go? The answer is all the way out here, where the contrasts are sharp between development and its opposite. A giant cellphone tower looms over a short row of stucco-cube houses. Cattle graze the border between Indian land and federal land. The sky is big and few rooftops interrupt it. Out here, at a vague line drawn just beyond Helene Buster's front yard, western development in Broward County finally meets its absolute end. 
Copyright  © 2001 Miami Herald  All rights reserved.

Roads and growth
Collier working to halt new crisis
Collier County is taking steps to make sure it doesn't have to deal with another multimillion-dollar transportation crisis. Those plans include restricting growth along crowded roads, hiking road impact fees and creating a system that is patterned after keeping a checkbook - each development results in a subtraction of housing units from the available balance. Collier commissioners this past week decided to pay for most of the $257 million transportation shortfall over the next five years by bonding all of its existing gas taxes and about 33 percent of its sales tax. This will cover about $193 million of the shortfall, leaving county officials to find a way to come up with the other $65 million. Now that commissioners have figured out a way to pay for road construction over the next five years, county government leaders are attempting to set up safeguards to ensure another shortfall doesn't occur. 

Copyright Naples Daily News © 2001 All rights reserved.

Editorial
Addicted to Growth
Broward Fills Up With Development, People
Development plans created in the 1980s describe an orderly process of managed growth for the state of Florida. There was just one problem with the plans: They called for too much growth and too little management. One potential consequence was this:    If each of Florida's 67 counties had developed to the maximum limit    authorized by the state-mandated master plans, the state today would    have a population of more than 90 million people -- an almost    inconceivable prospect. Fortunately, Florida hasn't come close to the full build-out permitted in its  master plans. But the state has grown at a mind-boggling pace, faster than most other states -- and it has nearly doubled its population since 1980 to 16 million.
Copyright  © 2001 Miami Herald  All rights reserved.

A Frontier of Diversity
At the Publix supermarket in Weston's new Town Center mall, customers choose among 14 types of Spanish cooking wine and nine brands of mojo marinade. The bread aisle devotes two shelves to crumbly panecillos tostados. On special this week: Venezuelan corn meal. Built largely by a single developer and billed as South Florida's city of the future, Weston earned a new distinction in the 2000 census. It is the most Latinized city in Broward County, the city of South Florida's Hispanic future. 
Copyright  © 2001 Miami Herald  All rights reserved.

Getting tourists back to nature
The county that sports throbbing nightclubs on South Beach and rhythmic salsa on Calle Ocho also is trying to sell the sunrise and serenity of Biscayne Bay. A $1.1 million Miami-Dade County Parks Eco-Adventure Tours campaign is luring tourists and residents to its parks and Biscayne Bay in an effort to showcase South Florida's natural and historical attractions. "Here in Miami-Dade, our tourism has traditionally been directed at the people who are here to party," said Ernie Lynk, a naturalist and recreation specialist at Crandon Park. Some of that emphasis is changing as Miami-Dade Parks enhances its offering of canoe trips, kayaking and nature talks. The money, part of a $4 million trust allocated to the parks from the Miami-Dade County Commission, will enhance existing tours and add new ones, said Sally Timberlake, Crandon Park manager. 
Copyright Sun-Sentinel © 2001 All rights reserved.

21-Dec-01

Editorial
Give Collier Countains more conservation land
Setting aside land for conservation is the No. 1 issue for the future, according to a survey of Collier County residents, more evidence that county commissioners should put a referendum measure on the ballot to dedicate a tax for that purpose. Eighty-one percent of the 254 residents surveyed listed conservation land-buying as the top need. The survey results are to be used by commissioners at a strategic planning meeting Jan. 29. We urge commissioners to consider seeking voter approval of a land-buying program similar to Lee County's Conservation 2020. We realize that Collier voters rejected a similar land referendum in 1996 and resoundingly rejected a proposed sales tax for roads in November. 
Copyright News-Press  © 2001 All rights reserved.

Editorial
Support Feeney plan for Everglades bonds
Ironically, a budget shortage may cause the state to provide enough money for Everglades restoration. Florida and the federal government are paying 50 percent of the $8.4 billion restoration plan, which over 20 to 30 years is supposed to provide enough water to sustain the environment and the projected 2050 population of 12 million people from south of Orlando to the Keys. The best way for the state to pay its share would be to sell bonds, thus guaranteeing the money. If it comes out of general tax revenue, the annual share could be a casualty of legislative infighting. The need for money is urgent. 
Copyright Palm Beach Post © 2001 All rights reserved.

19-Dec-01

Jeff Corwin Sets Out to Experience America
A World Premiere Episode From the Sunshine State Airs on January 1
BETHESDA, Md., Dec. 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Animal Planet viewers have globetrotted alongside Jeff Corwin for some of the most fascinating journeys on television. On Tuesday, January 1, from 9-10 PM (ET/PT) Jeff embarks on a tour of one of America's most unique habitats in a premiere episode of THE JEFF CORWIN EXPERIENCE, EXPLORING PASCUA DE FLORIDA. In EXPLORING PASCUA DE FLORIDA, Jeff travels south from Homosassa Springs in Northern Florida, to the city of Jupiter on the southeastern coast, to offer viewers an up-close look at Florida's fantastic fauna. The EXPERIENCE begins in a state conservation area outside of Homosassa Springs -- where he encounters North America's longest snake -- the Eastern indigo, capable of attaining nine feet in length. In another portion of this protected area, Jeff dons scuba gear to swim with manatees -- the distinctive aquatic animals that Christopher Columbus mistakenly identified as mermaids. 
Copyright Animal Planet © 2001 All rights reserved.

Wildlife, Wetlands, Environment Need Our Protection
While most of the attention since the Sept. 11 attacks has focused on Afghanistan, airports and anthrax, national environmental leaders are hoping wildlife, wetlands and the well-being of the environment aren't the next victims. "The terrorists who invaded our country may destroy our buildings, but they are not likely to destroy our wildlife and natural places. Only we can do that," wrote John Flicker, president of National Audubon Society, in the current issue of Audubon magazine. Flicker said one of the tests of how Americans will be viewed by future generations will be their conduct during the current crisis. "We hope they will not conclude that we sacrificed the very environmental values we should have defended for them," he said. Since Sept. 11, there have been seemingly opportunistic moves to drill for oil in environmental preserves, punch more logging roads on public lands and preserve the19th century subsidies for mining and grazing in the Western states, all under the guise of something high-sounding to obscure baser motives.

Copyright The Ledger © 2001 All rights reserved.

CORPS ASKS FOR INPUT ON WETLANDS MITIGATION
 After receiving harsh criticism for its new stance on wetlands mitigation, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is asking for input from other federal agencies. In November, the Corps issued new regulatory guidance regarding how developers will compensate for destroying wetlands. Critics said the policy would allow developers to offset losses of wetlands on one site by protecting wetlands, or even dry land, elsewhere, leading to a loss of wetlands nationwide. Conservation groups charged that the Corps ignored the national goal of achieving "no net loss" of wetlands, established during the first Bush administration. 
Copyright  © 2001.ENS. All rights reserved.

House proposes Everglades bond
Saying flexibility is critical, House leaders Tuesday unveiled a proposal to give the state yet another option to pay its share of the $8 billion project to restore portions of the Everglades. Facing a stagnant economy, a tight budget and re-election, House members led by House Speaker Tom Feeney, R-Oviedo, want to give themselves the authority to sell bonds to pay for Everglades land acquisition when times get tight or when they decide that borrowing is better than paying cash. "We are adding another tool to our tool box," said Rep. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland. If approved by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Jeb Bush, the plan would allow lawmakers to earmark up to $10 million a year in taxes collected from documentary stamps, a growing revenue stream that last year generated $1.3 billion. With $10 million in cash, lawmakers could leverage up to $125 million a year to spend on Everglades projects. 
Copyright  © 2001 Naples News  All rights reserved.

Lawmakers propose bonds to buy Everglades land
Saying Florida needs to buy land to protect the Everglades now before the price goes up, a group of state lawmakers on Tuesday proposed a new plan to borrow money to get the job done. The state would issue bonds for Everglades land buying, under a bill proposed by Rep. Paula Dockery, a Lakeland Republican. "The sooner you can buy, the cheaper you can get the land for," Dockery said at a news conference attended by a dozen House members and House Speaker Tom Feeney, a Republican from Oviedo. The proposal, dubbed "Bond as You Buy," would raise $125-million each year for eight years. But a spokesman for Gov. Jeb Bush said Tuesday that "the governor is concerned" about the state's getting into more debt. 
Copyright  © 2001 St. Petersburg Times  All rights reserved.

Plan to buy bonds is latest proposal for saving 'Glades
The state could borrow money to buy land in the Florida Everglades and protect it under a bill with bipartisan support announced Tuesday by House Speaker Tom Feeney, R-Oviedo. The plan to partly finance Everglades restoration by issuing bonds came after the South Florida Water Management District worried that the state's ability to pay its share of the cost was shaky. The proposal drew immediate praise from environmental groups, who said state ownership is the best way to preserve the region's sensitive ecology and water supply. 
Copyright  © 2001 Sun-Sentinel  All rights reserved.

 

18-Dec-01

'Ding' Darling wildlife refuge supporters hoping to get federal funding help

By CHAD GILLIS,

Standing on an elevated wooden patio overlooking the western shoreline of Tarpon Bay, several supporters of the J.N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge said Monday that more federal money is needed to keep the refuge's Center for Education open weekends.

 

Don Higgie, of North Carolina, looks over the displays at the education center at J.N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel Island on Monday. The center may be one of the programs that faces a reduction in hours if more federal money isn't allotted, supporters say. Cameron Gillie/Staff

Members of the "Ding" Darling Wildlife Society and other support and conservation groups held a news conference in an attempt to persuade residents, business owners and visitors to pressure Congress to cough up more funds for the refuge. More than 30 people turned out.

"We now have an education center ready to go and now we may find ourselves short of getting the lights turned on," Society president Jim Sprankle said.

Copyright  © 2001 Naples News  All rights reserved.

 

 

Ding Darling, other refuges seek funding Conservation group lobbies
government  

                                                   Photo
The J.N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel has its hand out, along with the rest of the National Wildlife Refuge System. So, the Cooperative Alliance for Refuge Enhancement (CARE), a coalition of 20 conservation and recreation organizations, is touring the country in an attempt to convince the federal government to increase the refuge system budget from $300 million to $700 million in 2003.  Ding Darling, where a $3 million education center was built with local donations, receives no federal money to operate the center and is facing the possibility of leaving staff positions vacant or closing the center on weekends.  Although the refuge system is run by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, many wildlife refuges are in financial straits because of the lack of federal aid. 
Copyright © 2001. The News-Press. All rights reserved.

A LINE IN THE SWAMP
BUILDERS AIM FOR SLIVER OF PROTECTED LAND
As the cheap developable land in Southwest Broward dwindles, some builders have started to eye what one day could become a battleground. At issue: 3,400 acres of prime real estate east of U.S. 27 that the federal government has designated for two water preserve areas. Half of the land is on Weston's western borders; the other half lies west of Pembroke Pines and Miramar. Federal officials managing the Everglades Restoration Project and state officials who guide the South Florida Water Management District want the land to remain undeveloped. They view it as a necessary buffer between suburbia and the Everglades, which lies west of U.S. 27 and a parallel levee that has long been regarded as an immovable line in the swamp -- the absolute cutoff for development.  
Copyright  © 2001 Miami Herald  All rights reserved.

Everglades property tax might not expire in 2003
South Florida property owners might have to pay a special tax for an extra year to make up a possible $5 million to $8 million shortfall in the state's Everglades cleanup. Water managers have not proposed any such extension of the Everglades tax, which applies to property owners in Palm Beach, Martin, St. Lucie and 12 other counties. In fact, they predict the $867 million cleanup will sport a modest $770,000 surplus by 2014. But the surplus doesn't include enough money to pay for finishing one of the Everglades cleanup's side projects: an effort to remove the bulk of the phosphorus-laden runoff that Lake Okeechobee receives from farming districts along its south end.  
Copyright  © 2001 Palm Beach Post  All rights reserved.

Letter
Environmental myths easily disproved
A new exotic species is threatening the restoration of the Everglades. This one is neither an invasive tree nor a walking fish, but its impact on the long-range health of the habitat may be more damaging than those better-known nuisances. This exotic species walk on two legs and it seems to be a hybrid between Rip Van Winkle and Chicken Little. It runs in circles, chirping cries of alarm about crises that were identified - and addressed - some 10 or even 20 years ago. It masquerades as an environmental expert, bit it seems not even to know of work that has long been completed. Like old Rip, it just missed all the activity of nearly a generation and doesn't know anything to do except shout, like Chicken Little, the same alarms it was shouting back then. How else to explain the recent diatribe distributed statewide by the Friends of the Everglades, unless perchance the letter was lost in the mail for 20 years? 
Copyright  © 2001 Key west Citizen All rights reserved.

14-Dec-01

Letter to the Editor
Appoint More Scientists as Indication of Everglades Commitment  
Many Florida citizens are in agreement with the Palm Beach Post comments on Secretary Norton's commitments reflected by her decision-making. We think the Post should take a poll on what the people of Florida want. Everglades restoration still lacks a science-focused advocate for the Everglades. An indicator of government interest in science-based restoration of the Everglades is the ratio of natural scientists to political scientists being appointed. Right now it appears the ratio is approaching zero. For nature to be commanded, it must be obeyed, i.e., nature cannot be legislated or engineered. Nor does nature understand mankind's laws. Everglades decisions made increasingly distant from the natural sciences are increasingly non-science. This distance has sealed the fate of the Everglades for the past 30 years, so it is alarming for many of us to observe the current regression from science portends to seal the fate for the next 30 years.  
Copyright  © 2001 Palm Beach Post  All rights reserved.

 

13-Dec-01

Editorial
Clean-water activists ask officials to buy land
Local water-quality advocates met with water managers this week to encourage the state to buy the agricultural land south of Lake Okeechobee as a natural way to restore Florida's water flow. The idea of a public purchase of the 450,000-acre Everglades  Agricultural Area is not new, but has failed to gain widespread support because of political and economic pressure from agricultural interests. Still, supporters hope, the concept will gain momentum with grass-roots lobbying spurred by the $7.8 billion Everglades restoration plan. "We've realized a lot of things we messed up over the years," said Mark Perry, executive director of the Florida Oceanographic Society. "Now we've got to make some changes, and that has to happen south of the lake too. We need to change it back to the saw grass communities."  Perry and Ed Fielding, a member of the Martin County Conservation Alliance, met with five staff members of the South Florida Water Management District on Tuesday to ask them to consider buying the land as a supplement to the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Project. 
Copyright  © 2001 TC Palm  All rights reserved.

<posted December 13, 2001> October 2, 1998

Testimony of The National Wetlands Coalition before the
National Coastal Wetlands Summit:
"Today's Successes, Tomorrow's Challenges"

By Robert G. Szabo, Executive Director & Counsel

My name is Robert G. Szabo. I am Executive Director & Counsel of the National Wetlands Council. The National Wetlands Coalition was incorporated on September 1, 1989 to engage in the national debate over the Federal wetlands regulatory policy. The national debate was initiated when the National Wetlands Policy Forum recommended a series of policies, including the national goal of "no overall net loss of wetlands". President Bush embraced the national goal and appointed a Task Force of the Domestic Policy Council of his Administration to recommend a program of policies that would achieve "no overall net loss of wetlands". Late in 1989, after the Coalition was established, the release of the 1989 Federal Manual for Identifying and Delineating Wetlands refocused the national debate on the Section 404 "wetlands" permitting program of the Clean Water Act and the thorny question of "what is a wetland?"  
The National Wetlands Coalition

12-Dec-01

Realtors just want to make sure developers don't get bogged down
It used to be a joke. Selling people swamp land in Florida.  Now, it's the subject of how-to seminars.  Today, the Realtors Association of the Palm Beaches is hosting what is being billed as a Realtors Wetlands Education Seminar. Hint: The emphasis won't be on keeping bulldozers away from environmentally sensitive land. Here's what the flier for the event says: "As Palm Beach County's population grows, prime housing sites dwindle and housing is forced to be located on sites once thought of as unbuildable . . ." (Translation: Don't let that big wet spot in the middle of the state scare you.)    
Copyright  © 2001 Palm Beach Post  All rights reserved.

Opinion
Israel has had them since 1956, England since 1958, Wildwood, N.J., since 1968. They are in Australia, Canada, India, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, the Netherlands and Spain. The world's largest is in Las Vegas, though Los Angeles soon will top it with a bigger one. Florida has had a few since 1983 and is about to begin a decade of testing to see whether the state's plan to use aquifer storage and recovery wells will work. Such wells are the key to the Everglades restoration plan, which calls for 333 of them to save water for the Everglades and 12 million future South Floridians. Over the next eight years, a dozen test wells will be built near Lake Okeechobee, the Caloosahatchee River, the Hillsboro Canal and at several sites in central and eastern Palm Beach County.   
Copyright  © 2001 Palm Beach Post  All rights reserved.

Sugar firm against lower levels for lake
Even if officials in the counties surrounding Lake Okeechobee support efforts to lower the lake's overall level, sugar industry executives still aren't convinced the old system needs to be changed. In an interview with The Stuart News/Port St. Lucie News on Tuesday, U.S. Sugar Corp. spokeswoman Judy Sanchez said the recent push to keep the lake between 13.5 and 15.5 feet above sea level is shortsighted. "We don't have a problem with the lake being 14 feet or the lake being 15 feet," she said. "What we have a problem with is saying, lower the lake to a certain level and then Mother Nature comes along with a drought and takes another four feet out of it." 
Copyright  © 2001 TC Palm  All rights reserved.

Chances drop for Stiltsville land deal.  Legal opinion frowns on swap
A proposed land swap to keep Stiltsville in private hands has run aground legally, a sign the long tussle over control of the homes in Biscayne Bay may finally be near an end. The Florida Cabinet was scheduled to consider the swap next week but the U.S. Department of Interior issued an opinion released Tuesday that may sink any chance for a deal. ``What Interior is saying is, you can't do this, which is from my perspective very good news,'' said U.S. Rep. Peter Deutsch, who along with U.S. Sen. Bob Graham has supported plans by the National Park Service to open the colorful cottages in Biscayne National Park to some sort of public use. Graham, who has held up several Interior nominations over concerns about Everglades restoration plans, also met with top department staffers to discuss Stiltsville's future.

Copyright  © 2001 Miami Herald  All rights reserved.

National Park Service Rejects Proposed Stiltsville Land Swap
The federal government rejected Tuesday a proposal to swap the federal land under Stiltsville - seven aging houses propped up in the shallow waters of Biscayne Bay - for state-owned land nearby. The National Park Service finding brought praise from U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, D-Florida, a proponent of keeping the tiny Biscayne National Park community in federal hands and ending decades of private ownership of the homes. "The land swap would have taken us in the wrong direction," Graham said in a statement. "Now we can focus on the right way of going about the preservation of these unique structures that have a special place in the hearts of so many Floridians."  
Copyright  © 2001 Tampa Tribune / Associated Press  All rights reserved.

Ex-water boss paid $77,000 but was asked to do little
Frank Finch walked away as South Florida's top water manager six months ago, but not empty-handed. Since he resigned under pressure June 13, Finch has received more than $77,000 as a consultant to his old employer, the South Florida Water Management District. But with a handful of exceptions, the district never asked him to consult. So he did almost nothing, aside from attending one daylong conference in Washington and speaking several times with his successor. Meanwhile, Finch continued receiving the same $150,092-a-year salary he was paid as executive director. The agreement expires Thursday.  
Copyright  © 2001 Palm Beach Post  All rights reserved.

Palm Beach County eyes rockpits as potential water reservoirs
20-MILE BEND -- With the turn of a valve, brown water tumbled and foamed into an 83-acre rock pit Tuesday, the gushing start to a series of tests to see if a mining area could become a huge water-delivery depot for Palm Beach County.  The flood of water, diverted from the nearby L-8 canal into the steep-walled rock pit west of West Palm Beach, followed a morning ribbon-cutting at the Palm Beach Aggregates quarry off Southern Boulevard. The event drew 100 people, including water managers, drainage officials, West Palm Beach and Palm Beach County officials and state legislators, many of whom scaled a grassy levee to watch the water pour thickly from twin 72-inch-wide aluminum pipes.
Copyright  © 2001 Sun-Sentinel  All rights reserved.

Pits might provide edge against drought
The roar of rushing water echoed over the flat land west of Lion Country Safari Tuesday as water managers sent a billion gallons cascading into a gargantuan rock pit.  Officials hope to end floods, alleviate a drought and help save the Everglades by using Palm Beach Aggregates' empty quarries near 20-Mile Bend. State and local governments hope to use the cavities to store water during the rainy season and release it back into canals during a drought. They'll test water quality in the first two pits over the next two years, then decide whether to buy the 18 pits miners will leave when they finish digging out the quarries a decade from now.

Copyright  © 2001 Palm Beach Post  All rights reserved.

Graham to lift 'hold' on nominee for wildlife service
After a meeting with key Interior Department officials Tuesday, Sen. Bob Graham said he was satisfied with their Everglades restoration work plans and would lift a "hold" he placed on the Bush administration's nominee to head the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.  "We reviewed the plan on a project-by-project basis, including the steps that will be taken by a variety of federal agencies, and the time-frames for completion of these individual building blocks for Everglades restoration," said Graham, D-Fla.  "It is my intent to work closely and collaboratively with Secretary Gale Norton and her colleagues at the Department of Interior to see that this, the most significant environmental restoration project in the history of the world, achieves restoration of the 'River of Grass' to its original functions and beauty."  
Copyright  © 2001 Palm Beach Post  All rights reserved.

Gov. Bush endorses tough anti-pollution rules for Everglades
State environmental officials and Gov. Jeb Bush on Tuesday endorsed a strict pollution limit sought by environmentalists for the Everglades.  The Florida Department of Environmental Protection told the state's Environmental Regulation Commission in Tallahassee that water entering the Everglades should contain no more than 10 parts per billion of phosphorus. That would require the water to be two to three times cleaner than what a current state program can achieve for agricultural storm water discharged into the marsh.  Judy Sanchez, a spokeswoman for U.S. Sugar Corp., which sends dirty farm field drainage water into the Everglades like other growers, said 10 parts per billion "is a pretty tough standard."    

Copyright  © 2001 Sun-Sentinel  All rights reserved.

State moves to impose lower phosphorus level
Gov. Jeb Bush's administration Tuesday recommended that a phosphorus standard for the Everglades be set at 10 parts per billion -- a level long applauded by environmentalists and long opposed by sugar growers. "Today is an important milestone," Department of Environmental Protection chief David Struhs told a meeting of the Environmental Regulation Commission. The group, by law, has until Dec. 31, 2003, to set a phosphorus standard. Three years after that, agricultural groups and residential communities that discharge water into the Everglades would be forced to abide by those restrictions and must meet all state pollution standards for water discharged into the Everglades. 
Copyright  © 2001 Palm Beach Post  All rights reserved

Editorial
Stalling a bad idea
The plan to build a commercial airport at Homestead Air Force Base suffered two welcome defeats last week. If the plan is dead, its demise will prevent potentially serious damage to nearby national parks. Last Thursday, Miami-Dade Metro commissioners voted 8-5 to drop out of a lawsuit against the federal government over its refusal to permit the airport. A day later, Air Force Secretary James Roche released a short memo stating that the Air Force's decision this year to reject the airport proposal was legitimate. The Department of the Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Marine Fisheries Service consistently have opposed the airport plans. They point out that air, noise and water pollution from a proposed cargo and passenger airport that might handle as many as 600 flights a day would devastate Everglades National Park, 8.5 miles to the west, and Biscayne National Park, just 1.5 miles to the east. With the state and federal governments spending $8.4 billion to preserve the Everglades, it makes even less sense to think of putting a jetport nearby.

 Copyright  © 2001 Palm Beach Post  All rights reserved.

Opinion
The jetport is dead; long live the parks
The Air Force has hammered another nail in the coffin of the misbegotten Homestead jetport, and even Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas is kicking dirt on the grave. After a seven-year fight, the insider deal to top all insider deals finally appears dead. In a memo shorter than a sneeze, Air Force Secretary James Roche affirmed an earlier decision killing the county's plan to develop part of the former Homestead Air Force Base as a major commercial jetport. The screwy scheme, a now-infamous giveaway that reeked of backroom smoke, had been approved in 1994 by the County Commission. Without seeking any competing bids, commissioners made a deal with an unlikely consortium called the Homestead Air Base Developers Inc.   Copyright  © 2001 Miami Herald  All rights reserved.

11-Dec-01

'Ecotourism' envisioned for Glades land
The future in this isolated corner of South Miami-Dade County rests on a concept dubbed ``Destination Everglades,'' but there's nothing around that remotely evokes the Everglades. No sawgrass, no water, no gators, not much of anything really, except weeds and rubbish. That's just one of the daunting challenges to turning 600 acres of scrub bordering Homestead Air Reserve Base into something anyone, particularly tourists, would visit. With plans for a controversial commercial airport dead, Miami-Dade is banking on a loosely defined ``ecotourism'' experience as the great hope for reviving what's been an economic dead zone since Hurricane Andrew battered the base in 1992. The proposal, one that envisions a bustling hub for tourists, scientists and soccer teams, is drawing mixed reviews so far, even from those who want it to succeed.

Copyright  © 2001 Miami Herald  All rights reserved.

USGS: Is Salty Groundwater in South Florida's Future?
Using a time-tested technique in a new way, scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) have been able to determine how quickly marine groundwater has encroached into South Florida's inland fresh water aquifers. Charles Holmes will explain the technique and findings at the AGU Annual 2001 Fall Meeting, scheduled for Dec. 10-14 in San Francisco, CA.  South Florida's aquifers are made mostly of limestone and other carbonate rocks, which tend to dissolve over time in water, making them porous. Groundwater travels relatively quickly in this regime. Where carbonate aquifers are near the coast, marine groundwater can begin to encroach landward, infiltrating freshwater aquifers, particularly where they are pumped for drinking water.   Copyright 2001. The USGS. All rights reserved.

10-Dec-01

Letter to the editor: 
Recovery is under way
Ten years ago, Gov. Lawton Chiles famously "surrendered" in federal court and agreed that Florida should clean the water going to the Everglades. Since then, a massive public and private effort (and about $500 million in spending) has been successfully implemented with virtually no public attention. The result is significantly cleaner water going into and improving the health of the Everglades. About 95 percent of the Everglades today, including all of the pristine areas and Everglades National Park, are at or near the water-quality goals set by scientists and believed to be impossible to reach just 10 years ago, when the Everglades ecosystem was pronounced in "critical" condition. The turnaround is a heartening story of private and public interests acting together to restore a precious national treasure.  

Copyright  © 2001 Sun-Sentinel  All rights reserved.

Picture tells story, ad doesn't
Clyde Butcher, famed for his black-and-white photographs of the Everglades, is a little upset about how one of his images is being used. Butcher said he gave Save Our Everglades Sugar permission to use his Splendid Isolation, a shot of a cypress tree in the Everglades' Big Cypress Swamp in Collier County, on the environmental group's bags of sugar.  Butcher said he was told the photo was being used to honor the late George Barley, an Orlando developer and sportsman who founded Save Our Everglades. That's fine, but he doesn't like the tone of the copy that runs with the picture. 
Copyright  © 2001 Palm Beach Post  All rights reserved.

WILDLIFE RECONNAISSANCE:
EVERGLADES NATIONAL PARK PROJECT
The southern Florida wilderness scenery is a study in halftones, not bright, broad strokes of a full brush as is the case of most of our other national parks. There are no knife-edged mountains protruding up into the sky. There are no valleys of any kind. No glaciers exist, no gaudy canyons, no geysers, no mighty trees unless we except the few royal palms, not even a rockbound coast with the spray of ocean waves -- none of the things we are used to seeing in our parks. Instead, there are lonely distances, intricate and monotonous waterways, birds, sky, and water. To put it crudely, there is nothing (and we include the bird rookeries) in the Everglades that will make Mr. Jonnie Q. Public suck in his breath. This is not an indictment against the Everglades as a national park, because "breath sucking" is still not the thing we are striving for in preserving wilderness areas.  
Copyright © 2001 The National Park Service.  All rights reserved.

<posted          >
May 31, 2001

Letter to the Editor
SUGAR FARMERS NOT AT FAULT
Citing the need for regional government in the Florida Keys, a reader somehow links his regional problems to sugar farmers100 miles to the north. Claims that sugar farmers are somehow responsible for water problems in the Keys and Florida Bay are simply not true. The consensus among the scientific community has long been that water from the Everglades Agricultural Area plays no role in Florida Bay's problems. Dr. Ron Jones of Florida International University, who gave expert witness testimony on the issue to the U.S. Justice Department in 1993, sated, "There is no evidence that anthropogenic nutrients, especially phosphorus, are entering Florida Bay from the agricultural and municipal areas to the North.  
Copyright  © 2001 Keys news  All rights reserved.

<posted    >
January 17, 2001

Environmentalism¹s quickly becoming a four-letter word -- but that¹s OK
It is distressing to read that, environmentally, the world still is going to heck in a hand basket.  A quarter of the world¹s coral reefs are dead or dying, and amphibians are croaking and growing extra limbs and all kinds of stuff in response to world ecological decline. One would think, being able to live on land or in the water, that the danged amphibians would be the last to go. But they apparently are very sensitive. I am trying to be sensitive myself, but I seem to grow more confused by the day. It used to be that one was either an environmentalist, or a dirty rotten chemical company with dead fish under your outflow pipes. Now the line in the sand has become blurred, partly because turkeys have been dusting on it. There are environmental extremists out there who don¹t want people to catch fish, even if all they plan to do is release them. They send a costumed character named Gil The Fish to fishing tournaments, where they hope they¹ll generate bad press for anglers torturing fish.  

Copyright © 2001. The News-Press. All rights reserved.

 

09-Dec-01

Species' endangered status at risk
Animal advocates say species such as the red-cockaded woodpecker could be virtually extinct before they gain protection
First, a proposal by the state's wildlife agency to lessen the level of protection for a controversial woodpecker set the feathers flying among bird experts. Now advocates of the manatee are jumping into the fray as well, teaming up with woodpecker experts to challenge the standards under which the state considers a species to be endangered. In the past three months, the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has agreed to consider lowering the protected status of both the manatee and the red-cockaded woodpecker, two controversial species, using a new set of criteria. Experts on the red-cockaded woodpecker and advocates for the manatee both contend that the state's new criteria are so restrictive that a species would have to be as dead as the dodo for officials to list it as needing protection. 
Copyright  © 2001 St. Petersburg Times  All rights reserved.

To cleanse Everglades, make standards tough
On Tuesday, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection will announce a number that should be no more than 10, as in 10 parts per billion. That figure should be the maximum amount of phosphorus -- found in runoff from cities and farms -- the state will allow in water that flows into the Everglades. In 1994, to settle the federal lawsuit over pollution entering Everglades National Park, the Legislature passed the Everglades Forever Act, a plan for restoring water quality to Florida's "river of grass." The first phase, designed to lower discharges to 50 parts per billion, has exceeded expectations. The second phase will set a permanent limit.  
Copyright  © 2001 Palm Beach Post  All rights reserved.

8-Dec-01

Politics ties up Kansan's confirmation to federal post
Steve Williams is a forestry expert, but even he would have trouble following the trail his nomination to head the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has taken. Williams' qualifications are not in doubt, but, as often happens, he's been sucked into a political whirlpool on Capitol Hill. More than 149 administration appointees still await confirmation. President Bush nominated Williams, Kansas secretary of wildlife and parks, in July. But the events of Sept. 11 delayed a routine Senate vote to confirm him. Then senators from different parts of the country clashed over the duck hunting regulations that he would oversee. Now another senator has delayed confirmation because he's upset over a plan for the Everglades.

Copyright © 2001 The Kansas City Star.  All rights reserved.

LOCAL PERSPECTIVES
Finally, a Miami-Dade County Commission majority came to its senses Thursday and dropped the lawsuit against the federal government over its rejection of a plan to build a commercial airport at former Homestead Air Force Base. Good for the seven commissioners who joined Commissioner Katy Sorenson's indefatigable fight to give up the legal battle. Then yesterday, Air Force Secretary James Roche announced that he had concluded that the initial decision to reject the airport proposal was legitimate. The airport plan can be declared officially dead. Now the county must concentrate on creating a sound, effective alternative. The one approved by the commission Thursday -- a sort of destination resort cum research center to draw eco-tourists -- is a good blueprint from which to create a practical request for proposals. This time, the county should seek responses from many bidders, as opposed to the unacceptable manner in which the commission awarded a no-bid contract to Homestead Air Base Developers, Inc. to build the airport. Understandably, that deal never sat well with either the public or the federal government.  It was environmental folly to site a busy airport between Biscayne Bay and Everglades national parks, posing far greater environmental threats than did the air base in its heyday. It's time to move on and give Homestead and Florida City new economic hope with the eco-tourism plan. 
Copyright  © 2001 Miami Herald  All rights reserved.

Water quality for 'Glades faces debate
The state's top environmental official said Friday his agency is going to endorse a pollution limit for the Everglades "at or near" that advocated by scientific consensus and the environmental community. But environmental groups did not immediately applaud. Audubon of Florida representative Charles Lee said he needs to see details expected to come next week on how the pollution standard would be measured. Those would indicate how seriously the state Department of Environmental Protection really wants to keep water clean in the Everglades, Lee said. 
Copyright  © 2001 Sun-Sentinel  All rights reserved.

Interior's Norton rebuts editorial
Your Dec. 4 editorial on the Interior Department's efforts to improve stewardship and streamline Everglades restoration overlooked three important points. First, President Bush is strongly committed to Everglades restoration. The administration shepherded through Congress a $31.4 million, or 37 percent, increase in the Interior Department's budget for Everglades restoration. Second, we will save $1.3 million in duplicative administrative overhead, which the department will redirect to important restoration projects at National Key Deer Wildlife Refuge and Arthur Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge.  
Copyright  © 2001 Sun-Sentinel  All rights reserved.

State backs low level for Everglades phosphorus
Thirteen years after being dragged into federal court, the state is finally endorsing a tough pollution limit for the Everglades.  But state regulators don't know how many extra hundreds of millions of dollars it will cost to meet that strict standard. Or who will pay. Or when the cleanup will be done -- except it probably won't be completely finished by the state's legal deadline of December 2006. Friday was a milestone nonetheless for the nation's most celebrated freshwater marsh: Gov. Jeb Bush's environmental aides announced they are siding with environmentalists, state scientists and federal researchers, who have long advocated a super-low limit for phosphorus pollution in the Everglades.  
Copyright  © 2001 Palm Beach Post  All rights reserved.

Terse letter ends airport fight
Air Force turns down Homestead
For the second time in a year, the Air Force struck down Friday a proposal to build a commercial airport at the former Homestead Air Reserve Base, ending a tumultuous chapter in Miami-Dade politics that entwined a national cast of characters, from the county mayor and the Mas Canosa dynasty to Washington lobbyists and environmental groups fighting to save the Everglades. In a two-sentence memo to the secretary of defense, Air Force Secretary James Roche concluded that the earlier decision to reject the airport proposal was legitimate.  

Copyright  © 2001 Miami Herald  All rights reserved

State targets Glades pollution
Water-cleanliness rules devised
After a decade of debate, Florida is ready to say how clean water flowing into the Everglades will have to be.  That's very clean -- cleaner, in fact, than anyone now knows how to make runoff from sugar cane fields, vegetable farms, cattle ranches and suburban streets. But it's also the level most scientists believe necessary to keep the River of Grass from turning into something else, such as a cattail marsh. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection will release its long- awaited pollution standard on Tuesday in Tallahassee.  Copyright  © 2001 Miami Herald  All rights reserved

 

7-Dec-01

Engineering the future
Most people here don't know Gregory May, but he will have much to do with South Florida's future. Luckily, his priorities are in order. Col. May is district engineer in Florida for the Army Corps of Engineers. Working out of the corps' office in Jacksonville, Col. May is in charge of the agency that will build the nearly four dozen structures that are part of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Project. Since the work is supposed to take at least 20 years, and district engineers serve three-year hitches, Col. May won't be around when the work is complete, even if he puts in a second shift. Having started last summer, however, he is around during the crucial early years. 
Copyright  © 2001 Palm Beach Post  All rights reserved.

 

6-Dec-01

Miami-Dade abandons commercial airport plan
Seven years after first approving the plan and prompting one of the region's biggest land-use battles, Miami-Dade County finally gave up on developing a commercial airport at the former Homestead Air Force Base Thursday when it voted to withdraw from a lawsuit trying to revive the proposal.  Against the recommendations of its staff, the county commission voted 8-5 to scrap its last tie to the faltering airport proposal, while approving a conceptual plan to transform the site into a destination for scientists and tourists visiting the Florida Keys and Biscayne and Everglades national parks.  
Copyright  © 2001 Miami Herald  All rights reserved.

 

5-Dec-01

Wildlife officials halt land contract
Federal wildlife managers say they want a better deal from the state before they agree to another 50 years of overseeing the northernmost Everglades in Palm Beach County.  That means the future of the Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge is in limbo again. South Florida water managers had been expected to approve a 50-year contract next week with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which has managed the 143,000-acre state-owned sanctuary since 1951. The service's current contract expires Dec. 31. But now federal officials want six more months to work on the contract that their staff in Palm Beach County had negotiated, spokesmen in Atlanta and Washington said Tuesday.

Copyright  © 2001 Palm Beach Post  All rights reserved.

Land swap is latest offer in fight for Stiltsville
The occupants of Stiltsville are trying to enlist Florida's Cabinet in their long-running battle to keep control of the famous bungalows in Biscayne National Park. The latest offer, a variation on one U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen previously floated without success in Congress, is a land swap: Florida would trade 74 acres of mostly barren Biscayne Bay bottom to the federal government in exchange for a thin, crooked strip of similar size stretching across lush grass flats and the seven home sites. While the pitch hasn't won over her colleagues in Washington, Ros-Lehtinen said the proposal has apparently been a hit in Tallahassee. Gov. Jeb Bush, Ros-Lehtinen said, had already told her he'd support it as did every other Cabinet member except one, who wanted more information. 
Copyright  © 2001 Miami Herald  All rights reserved.

 

4-Dec-01

Nature Conservancy boasts of saving 1 million acres in Florida
First, The Nature Conservancy's Florida chapter turned 40 this year. Then it cruised past a more meaningful milestone: the million-acre mark.  After completing a deal in October to protect a chunk of the Pinhook Swamp in north Florida, the non-profit can now boast it has helped preserve 1 million acres of undeveloped land across the state.  Incorporated in 1961, the chapter currently owns 42,000 acres of conservation it bought through fund-raising. It also has helped state, county and local governments and others negotiate deals to buy green space by the sometimes tens of thousands of acres. It also has temporarily owned approximately one-third of the million acres before they were sold to government custodians.

Copyright  © 2001 Sun-Sentinel  All rights reserved.

Adopt `Destination' Plan
Give South Miami-Dade Its Future
The economic-development plan called ``Destination Everglades'' on the Miami-Dade County Commission's agenda today should be adopted and forwarded to the Defense Department, along with the county's request for the conveyance of all 717 surplus acres of the former Homestead Air Force base. And while commissioners are on the subject, they should vote to drop the county's lawsuit against the federal government over its rejection of a proposed commercial airport at the base. 
Copyright  © 2001 Miami Herald  All rights reserved.

 

3-Dec-01

Farm Bill comes due in Glades
We have one urgent reason for asking Congress to eliminate the sugar subsidies in the Farm Bill: Government aid to the sugar industry is hampering government efforts to save the Everglades. The nation is preparing to spend more than $8 billion over 40 years to rescue Florida's vitally important Everglades. At the same time it is handing multimillions to the sugar-cane growers who primarily are responsible for the perilous condition of this ecosystem. The problem is not just the classic example of corporate welfare. The problem also is that federal handouts enable the farmers to stay in the Everglades and continue to threaten its demise. 
Copyright  © 2001 Sun-Sentinel  All rights reserved.

 

2-Dec-01

Future of Loxahatchee refuge hinges on lease
Palm Beach County's corner of the Everglades is no placid Garden of Eden. It's a place where herons and egrets devour writhing snakes and legless salamanders. Where red-shouldered hawks must guard their offspring from hungry horned owls. Where raptors munch on marsh rabbits. "Visitors will say this is the most peaceful place," said Ruth Baker, a longtime volunteer at the Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge. "And I'll say actually, it's a bloody battlefield." The refuge itself is seeing its share of conflict these days, as state and federal officials debate its future. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is less than a month from the end of its 50-year contract to manage the 147,0000-acre sanctuary, which sits almost entirely on state-owned land from west of Wellington to west of Boca Raton. 
Copyright  © 2001 Palm Beach Post  All rights reserved.

01-Dec 01

A spoonful of protest
After battling big sugar for years in the courts and at the polls, environmentalists with Save Our Everglades are now taking the fight to supermarket shelves throughout the region. nWith their own brightly packaged brand of pure cane sugar -- grown outside the Everglades in Texas and Louisiana -- stocked in Tampa Bay area grocery stores, the group also has launched an aggressive advertising campaign aimed at informing consumers of their new product and an old cause. Full-page magazine ads in Time, National Geographic, Southern Living, Cooking Light and Audubon tell consumers to "Help restore the Everglades to the harsh uninhabitable Hell nature intended it to be." Radio commercials began airing from Atlanta to the Florida Keys in late October when the campaign got under way.  
Copyright  © 2001 St. Petersburg Times  All rights reserved.

Revised:  11/14/03