29-February-04
Bush loses his easy mark
© Tallahassee
Democrat
Gov. Jeb Bush said last week
that he'll miss not having David Struhs around as the object of his wise
remarks at Cabinet meetings. As secretary of the Florida Department of
Environmental Protection, Struhs has had to field tough questions - and
wisecracks - from Bush about proposed state land buys. "Everyone
in this room has had to tolerate it for five years," Bush said.
Struhs left the DEP on Thursday to take a job with
International Paper
Co. in Memphis, Tenn. He was replaced Friday by Colleen Castille, who was
chief
Cabinet aide to Bush before she was named secretary of the Department of
Community Affairs in 2003. "I think David
was always surprised by my stealth attacks at Cabinet
meetings," Bush quipped. "I think Colleen will anticipate them
better. So I will have to work a little harder." Read
more
28-February-04
Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of
Freedom
By Michael Sexton
© Sydney Morning Herald
Love and a career in law went
by the way as FDR followed his script all the way to the White House.
The first question is how to read this book, which is
the size and weight of a house brick. Hardly in bed, and even an armchair
is a problem. A strong desk or table is recommended. This
raises a second question why another biography of FDR when there
are already scores of solid works? The best of these, for my money, is Ted
Morgan 's 1985 biography. The best book about the whole period is still
Arthur Schlesinger 's three-volume The Age of Roosevelt, finished in 1960.
But Conrad Black's book is an enormous collection of information and
mostly quite readable, despite its slightly overwrought subtitle and
sometimes over-heated prose. Black is
particularly good on Roosevelt's early life. Born in 1882 into one of the
hugely wealthy families that lived on the Hudson River, Roosevelt
was educated at home until he was 14 by his fiercely ambitious and
determined mother. Although he joined a law firm after Harvard, he never
really had any employment except politics, enjoying a meteoric rise from
the New York senate to be assistant secretary for the navy in Woodrow
Wilson's administration and then Democrat candidate for vice-president
at the 1920 elections. The Democrats had no chance in 1920, but Roosevelt
described the campaign as "a damned fine sail". And so it was
for him. He was ideally placed for the future Read
more
Link suggested between agriculture
practices, red tide
By CHAD GILLIS, cegillis@naplesnews.com
© Naples Daily News
Nutrient runoff has always
been a suspected culprit for increased red tide blooms in Southwest
Florida over the last few decades. A
presentation Friday sponsored by the Calusa Chapter of the Florida Sierra
Club suggested there's a direct connection between agriculture practices
and toxic blooms that kill thousands of fish and send tourists and
residents away from local beaches. The daylong
discussion, called "Gulf in Peril Day," was spurred by the
15- part "Deep Trouble: The Gulf in Peril" series published by
the Daily News last fall. The presentation at Miramar Beach Club in Bonita
Springs focused on red tide and black water, topics extensively explored
in the newspaper's probe of the health of the Gulf of Mexico. Scientists
from the University of Miami and the Florida Fish and Wildlife
Conservation Commission, along with local government officials, pointed
their collective finger at Lake Okeechobee releases and runoff when
targeting the cause of increased red tide events over the last 10 years. Read
more
27-February-04
VACCINATIONS UNDERWAY FOR VIRUS IN
PANTHERS
Press Release
Contact: Henry Cabbage (850)
488-8843
The Florida Fish and Wildlife
Conservation Commission (FWC) and the National Park Service (NPS) are
vaccinating Florida panthers against a potentially deadly disease in
Collier and Hendry counties. FWC scientists and
the agency’s wildlife veterinarian have detected
feline leukemia in four of the endangered cats, two of which later died
from complications of the disease. So far, the two agencies have
tranquilized and vaccinated 13 panthers and released them back into the
wild. They plan to vaccinate at least half the panther population
over the next two years. Feline leukemia is
common in domestic cats but normally rare in
large wild cats. It is no threat to humans. Read
more
26-February-04
Wetlands crisis gets national exposure
By AMY WOLD
© The
Advocate
For years, people involved in
Louisiana's coastal restoration efforts have stressed the importance of
making people outside the state aware of the problem of wetland loss.
That effort has been rewarded with books, articles in
national publications and videos that highlight the economic, cultural and
environmental loss to the country if Louisiana's wetlands are allowed to
disappear. Starting this fall, students around
the country will get a firsthand look
at the problems and possible solutions, thanks to a national group called
the "Jason Foundation for Education," a Massachusetts-based
nonprofit organization. Deborah Schultz, formal
education coordinator for the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary
Program, said about 2 million people will see the school curriculum
developed by the Jason Foundation. The curriculum will include videos,
information packets, teacher training and other resources for
classroom use. Read
more
Hotenfreude
by Michael Grunwald
© The New Republic
I hear it's been a brutal winter. I
hate to gloat, but I missed winter this year. I moved from Washington,
D.C., to Miami Beach in late fall, and it has been sunny and 75 degrees
just about every day since. Still, I think I can speak for my fellow
Floridians when I say the frigid weather our northern friends must endure
is never far from our thoughts. Just this morning, for example, I was
sitting by my building's pool reading a book about--well, I don't remember
exactly what it was about--when I happened to notice two nearby sunbathers
who, I must report, were neither unattractive nor fully attired. And I
couldn't help but think: Those young ladies would be quite cold if they
were in Washington. Read
more
25-February-04
New STA will help restoration
By Jose Jesus Zaragoza
© Okeechobee News
Representative Richard Machek, Senator Jeff Atwater and
Representative
Gayle Harrell took part in Monday's dedication ceremony
of the new Stormwater Treatment Area near South Bay.
Staff photo/Jose Zaragoza
SOUTH BAY - A gathering
of South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) representatives, state
officials and workers met at the recently finished $170 million Stormwater
Treatment Area 3/4. The area, coupled with a
pumping facility, is being called the world's largest constructed wetland.
At pump station G-370 on U.S. 27 on Monday, just
outside South Bay, the dedication of the facility was held and the
ceremonial switching of the
engines powering the pump station was done by Senator Jeff Atwater.
The main focus of the 26-square-mile STA is in
cleansing the water for restoration efforts. It works at eliminating
dangerous phosphorus levels and excess nutrients from the water through a
process involving the use of vegetation to naturally cleanse the water. Read
more
Tour shows ways farms try to ease lake
pollution
By Neil Santaniello
© TCPalm.com / The Sun-Sentinel
Armed with a new Lake Okeechobee
Protection Plan, and needing tens of millions of dollars to put it in
gear, state officials herded a group of Florida legislators together
Tuesday for a bus tour of cattle country and ranchers' lake-cleanup
efforts. The three-hour trip began just days
before the legislative session opens next Tuesday, and drew about 70
people, including eight state legislators, environmental regulators, water
managers, Florida Farm Bureau personnel and workers in the cattle
industry. It culminated in a lunch that packed
the Okeechobee County Civic Center with about 160 people. Organized
by Florida's three main Lake Okeechobee cleanup agencies -- the South
Florida Water Management District and state Department of Environmental
Protection and state Department of Agriculture -- the
two-bus tour focused on steps being taken by the dairy and beef industry
to keep agricultural sources of phosphorus, including cattle manure, out
of water draining from their land into Lake Okeechobee.
Oysters indicate estuary's health,
provide habitat
Water managers monitor them to control Lake O, restore Glades
By Suzanne Wentley
© Stuart News
ON THE ST. LUCIE RIVER —
Leaning over the boat anchored off Rio's river bank, state scientist Dan
Haunert pulled up a flat, metal crate filled with dirty oysters. He
dumped a dozen into a red cooler, then washed the muck off a large,
horseshoe-shaped cluster and held it up in the sun. "Here's
a good example of how important they are," said Haunert,
counting seven living oysters attached to empty shells hiding small crabs
and mussels. Healthy oysters provide habitat for
many of the estuary's small creatures, but scientists with the South
Florida Water Management District are studying the species for an even
greater value. Oysters — considered an
indicator species for the overall health of the estuary — are monitored
so water managers can decide how to control the level of Lake Okeechobee,
design local Everglades restoration work and improve the water quality of
the St. Lucie River.
Hendry poised for growth
Residents fear loss of lifestyle
By WENDY FULLERTON
© Ft. Myers
News-Press
Growth is tugging at the
rural heartstrings of Hendry County. Thousands
of citrus trees are being chopped down to make way for new development.
Cow pastures are destined to become golf courses. And
the county’s population of about 36,000 is expected to grow by at least
1,000 new residents every year for the next quarter of a century. “It’s
a stressful but exciting time for Hendry County,’’ county
administrator Lester Baird said. Many point to
the widening of State Road 80 — and the area’s Caloosahatchee
riverfront — as the impetus for all the growth. Once
completed, the road will act as a four-lane gateway between Fort Myers and
Palm Beach. Some even suggest LaBelle, the county seat and 40 miles from
Southwest Florida International Airport, will become a bedroom community
of Fort Myers, much like Cape Coral.
24-February-04
Chalifour heads to Washington D.C.
PRESS RELEASE
FOR MORE INFORMATION contact Brenda Lee Chalifour, Esq. 954-925-0300 or
305-281-8708
Brenda Lee Chalifour, Counsel to
Save Our Shoreline, Inc. and candidate for Mayor of Hollywood heads to
Washington, DC on Wednesday, February 25th "Our
coral reefs and offshore natural resources need to be protected from
negative impacts that threaten them. These are natural resources
that simply cannot be replaced, restored, or brought back once they are
harmed. Once they are harmed, they die, and they are gone. The
following projects
jeopardize the health of our coral reefs and offshore resources: (1)
the proposed natural gas pipelines coming to us from the Bahamas through
the ocean to Broward County, (2) irresponsible construction of beach
dredge and fill projects, (3) ocean dumping and pollution, (4) stormwater
runoff, and (5) overuse of sewage outfall facilities, and (6) other
threats. We need to be better stewards of our natural
resources." The United States Coral Reef
Task Force is accepting public testimony at its meeting on Wednesday,
February 25th in Washington, DC. For more information regarding the
Coral Reef Task Force go to www.coralreef.gov
Brenda Lee Chalifour, Esq. will give testimony to this
group in an effort to
ensure that our coral reefs and offshore resources get the protection they
need.
Everglades project hits home in Lee
Another pump station put online
By PAMELA SMITH HAYFORD
© Ft. Myers
News-Press
Florida Department of Environmental Protection
Secretary David Struhs watches
filtered water flow from Stormwater
Treatment Area 3/4 near South Bay in western
Palm Beach County after a
dedication ceremony on Monday. It is the newest facility
that will filter
phosphorus from Lake Okeechobee and surrounding farm lands before
the
water is released into the Everglades.
TODD STUBING/news-press.com
Water managers flicked a switch and
turned on the world’s largest constructed wetland Monday — paving the
way for the $8 billion Everglades restoration project. It
also brings them a step closer to eliminating large damaging releases to
the Caloosahatchee River. “We’re not at the
end of the road ,but we’re getting closer and closer every day,” said
Ernie Barnett, director of ecosystem projects for the Florida Department
of Environmental Protection. The agency was one
of several state and federal groups celebrating with the South Florida
Water Management District in dedicating a 3-story pump station about 20
miles south of Lake Okeechobee. The district
created this 26-square-mile swamp — about the size of Clearwater —
from sugar cane fields to filter excess nutrients and pollutants from
agriculture runoff and lake water before it hits the Everglades.
23-February-04
Everglades water treatment marsh on line
© Washington
Times
MIAMI, Feb. 23 (UPI) --
Florida began moving polluted water through the world's largest
water-treatment marsh Monday in what was called a major step toward
restoring the Everglades. However, people who
live in the Everglades -- the Miccosukee Indians -- said
it was more of a stumble than a step. The
congratulations and the criticisms were sparked by the first day of
operation of a 26-square-mile treatment marsh that uses plants to clean
pollution from water flowing into the Everglades. "Because
of the commitment of Governor (Jeb) Bush, restoration of America's
Everglades is ahead of schedule, under budget and exceeding
expectations," said David B. Struhs, secretary of the Florida
Department of
Environmental Protection.
Nader faces petition deadlines to get on
ballots
By PETER WALLSTEN
© Miami
Herald
MIAMI
- Democrats are fuming mad, but Ralph Nader still enjoys some loyal
support in Florida - enough to make President Bush's opponents nervous
that the consumer advocate could win votes and once again tilt the
election to Bush in a key swing state. Still,
one day after Nader denounced his deriders and launched his campaign anew,
it was immediately clear that those critics will not be his biggest
obstacle. Instead, Nader now faces the
daunting task of either joining up with a national party or gathering
hundreds of thousands of signatures to get his name on the ballots of
enough states to make a difference. And
he must do it in a hurry. In Florida, he
must submit 93,000 signatures from registered voters by July 15 - an
amount equal to the 1 percent of registered voters, required by state law.
That's a particular challenge given that, as of
Monday, Nader's new campaign office was still soliciting resumes for a
state director. "It
won't be easy," Nader conceded during a Washington press
conference. Read
more
That Florida Crystals sugar topping your
coffee may be from Mauritius
By Susan Salisbury
© Palm
Beach Post
If you’ve ever sprinkled a
pinch of golden sugar with a hint of molasses on top of a coffee drink, it
may have been Demerara sugar from the island of Mauritius, off the African
coast. And it could have made it to your talbe
through West Palm Beach-based Florida Crystals Corp. Mauritius
exports just 12,636 tons of sugar a year to the United States, but the
higher-priced market is important to the nation of 1.1 million, said Paul
Ryberg, Washington-based attorney for the Mauritius Sugar Syndicate and
president of the African Coalition for Trade. “Mauritius
produces a lone of 15 different products fo various sizes and
colors of crystals,” Ryberg said while attending a sweetener users
convention in Miami last week. “We sell to Florida Crystals. It’s not
worth it to them to do small quantities of certain sugars.”
22-February-04
Environmental cases hinge on limits of authority
By Traci Watson and Tom Kenworthy
© USA Today
WASHINGTON — As early as Tuesday, the Supreme Court could begin to issue decisions on four environmental cases with implications for improving water quality, cutting air pollution and protecting unscathed federal land in the West.
By the time the court term ends in June, justices will have ruled on eight cases bearing on the environment — the most heard in one term in a decade.
The court will not be ruling on the constitutionality of any environmental laws. Instead, it will decide who has the authority to make decisions or how far law extends in cases that affect water, air and land quality. How the justices decide a case involving the Clean Water Act, for example, could require officials in the West to obtain permits to move water from hundreds of reservoirs and canals.
Read more
EVERGLADES NATIONAL PARK
Water-treatment marsh filters out farm pollution
BY CURTIS MORGAN
© Miami Herald
The biggest part of the state's Everglades cleaning system, a sprawling
marsh
in southwestern Palm Beach County designed to suck up farm pollution,
goes on
line officially today.
How big is it?
Geographically, so big the towering pump house where dirty water enters
looks
like a bump on the horizon where cleaner water will eventually exit --
five
miles away to the south. Covering 26 square miles west of U.S. 27, the
wetlands
encircled by rock levees and mechanical gates holds the little-known
title of
world's largest treatment marsh.
Politically, it's also big enough that the South Florida Water
Management
District and Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the
agencies charged
with the cleanup, are trumpeting it for the second time in less than six
months. A dignitary-studded dedication today will mark water flowing out
for the
first time to the Everglades. It follows a celebration in October to
tout water
first flowing in.
''We are making important milestone accomplishments. We are trying to
let the
public know about the progress,'' said David Struhs, outgoing secretary
of
the DEP. He said the $197 million project is within budget and on time,
despite
a major contractor going belly up in the middle of construction.
New group seeks to help parks
The South Florida National Parks Trust has two major goals: raising money for the struggling national parks -- and raising interest in them.
BY CURTIS MORGAN
© Miami Herald
A new group hopes to help South Florida's struggling national parks with an infusion of private money.
The South Florida National Parks Trust, a nonprofit group affiliated with the National Parks Foundation, has two major goals: raising money and interest -- particularly among a blasé local population that makes up only a fraction of visitors to Everglades National Park.
''It's surprising how visitors from other countries look at what we take for granted,'' said Robert Chisholm, a Miami architect and urban planner who chairs the trust. ``They come here and they're totally awed by what they see.''
HEFTY START
The trust's 15-member board, which held its first meeting in September, already has a $1.8 million budget, awarded from environmental penalties paid by cruise lines in pollution cases -- a hefty start the trust hopes to build on by developing public and corporate support.
Read more
Rivals compete for Sierra Club control
Immigration turns into center of fierce
debate
© Ft.
Myers News-Press
A fierce battle is brewing
over the future of the Sierra Club, and an unlikely issue is at the center
of the debate: immigration. Southwest Florida
members worry that if an anti-immigration faction growing within the
national club wins, important environmental
issues here, such as urban sprawl and water quality, will get less of the
organization’s attention. A faction in the
nation’s most influential environmental group has urged a stronger
stance against immigration, calling the growing U.S. population and its
consumption of natural resources the biggest threat to the environment.
Past and present Sierra Club leaders say the
anti-immigrant faction has teamed up with animal rights activists in an
attempt to hijack the 112-year-old organization and its $100 million
annual budget.
21-February-04
Everglades filtering marsh startup set
© Palm Beach Post
Water managers will turn on the huge diesel pumps at the world's biggest pollution-filtering marsh Monday, marking a milestone in the $1.1 billion Everglades cleanup.
The 26-square-mile marsh along U.S. 27 in southwestern Palm Beach County is the last of five the South Florida Water Management District has built to cleanse phosphorus-laden runoff from sugar farms and Lake Okeechobee.
Speakers at the 10:30 a.m. ceremony will include David Struhs, outgoing secretary of the state Department of Environmental Protection, and his successor, Colleen
Castille.
Judge for Florida Everglades Case Removed from Earlier, Similar Case
By Curtis Morgan
© Miami Herald
Feb. 21 - Venerable federal judge William Hoeveler returned Friday to the Everglades, a place he has helped protect for more than 15 years.
The senior U.S. district judge never left his Miami courtroom but took his first steps into a lawsuit with implications for both Everglades restoration and drinking water quality in Miami-Dade County.
The suit was brought by environmental groups seeking to reverse a 2002 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' decision to allow limestone miners to gouge out another 5,409 acres of western Miami-Dade known as the Lake Belt.
The case was randomly assigned to Hoeveler five months after complaints of bias by the sugar industry led to Hoeveler's removal from a landmark 1988 case that forced Florida to reduce pollution flowing into the Everglades. Hoeveler was still monitoring clean-up progress under that still-active case.
The cases have some obvious parallels. This one also pits a politically influential industry -- rock miners -- against environmentalists who contend industry practices pose serious threats to water quality.
Read more
20-February-04
Sugar Subsidies Damage More than Environment
Economic impact of subsidies felt in U.S. manufacturing job losses.
© Florida Sportsman
Add conservative Washington Post columnist George Will to the list of those making complaints about the devastating impact of sugar subsidies. In a Feb. 12 article, Will argues that the commodity’s economic price to U.S. and world economies is too high to continue.
Citing the exodus of high-paying candy manufacturing jobs from Chicago, Will lays partial blame on the inflated price of domestic sugar fueled by protectionist subsidies. By moving operations to Canada and Mexico, companies like Brach’s and Life Savers have access to sugar on the world market at prices up to two-thirds below domestic prices. That reduction saves Life Savers, an American icon for 90 years that now resides in Canada, $10 million annually.
Will further points out that developed nations spend $1 billion a day on agricultural subsidies that prevent underdeveloped nations from competing on the world market and stymie their own self sufficiency. For dessert, consider that Big Sugar is devastating Florida’s Everglades.
Read more
19-February-04
Water World
by Michael Grunwald
© The New Republic
Tommy Strowd used to be the god of South Florida. He didn't look like a deity. He looked like a jolly chipmunk in dire need of dental work. But from his high-tech control room in West Palm Beach, Strowd decided the fate of just about every drop of water that landed on Florida's southern thumb, from Orlando all the way down to the Keys, which meant he decided the fate of seven million residents, 37 million tourists, 69 endangered species, America's largest sugar producers, America's craziest real estate market, and America's most degraded ecological treasure, the Florida Everglades.
Until this year, Strowd was the director of operations for the South Florida Water Management District, presiding over the world's most complex plumbing system.
Read more
Degree of protection?
Editorial
© Palm Beach Post
Gov. Bush has chosen a woman who has the trust and support of environmentalists to be Florida's next secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection. That's a hopeful sign, but the big question is whether the governor will allow Colleen Castille to do her job as the state's top regulator.
Ms. Castille, 44, has been secretary of the Department of Community Affairs, the state's growth-management agency. Her appointment drew immediate praise from Audubon of Florida, which named Ms. Castille the group's Conservationist of the Year for, among other things, her efforts to promote the building of a sewage line that would replace leaking septic tanks in the Keys. Gov. Bush will ask the Legislature for $18 million to start the project. She also urged DEP to commit $90 million for the purchase of environmentally sensitive lands and joined in negotiations to preserve the Wekiva River Basin in northeast Lake County.
Ms. Castille has experience in state government and is familiar with the state's major environmental issues.
18-February-04
World's Largest Constructed Wetland Dedication Set for Monday Feb. 23
Stormwater Treatment Area 3/4 a milestone in Florida's commitment to clean up, restore the Everglades
© Business Wire
Marking yet another milestone in the state's positive momentum and Florida's commitment to improve water quality in the Everglades, the South Florida Water Management District announces completion of Stormwater Treatment Area 3/4, one of six constructed wetlands and the fifth to be completed. The STA uses vegetation to naturally cleanse excess nutrients from water - a proven and effective weapon in the battle to improve Everglades water quality. Excess phosphorus causes an imbalance in the natural populations of the plant and animal life of the Everglades. STA-3/4 also includes a 100-acre periphyton-based treatment cell to help further reduce phosphorus levels in stormwater runoff. The 100-acre demonstration project at STA-3/4 is the first full-scale use of this advanced "green" technology.
The four stormwater treatment areas already in operation since 1994 have prevented nearly 350 metric tons of phosphorus from reaching the Everglades. Working in concert with changes in on-farm practices, phosphorus inputs have been reduced by more than 1,400 metric tons. This is better performance than was contemplated by the federal 1991 Settlement Agreement and the 1994 Everglades Forever Act.
17-February-04
FEF Announces Full-Time Executive Director
Press Release
© Florida Earth Foundation
On February 1, 2004, FEF Executive Director, Stan Bronson, assumed the
full-
time position for Florida Earth Foundation and moved into the FEF
office at
SFWMD. During the last several years of developing FEF, Bronson was on
the
extension faculty of IFAS, University of Florida. FEF is a
public-private
partnership consisting of over 70 agencies, universities, industries and
non-profits. The Foundation initiates, develops and funds education,
outreach and research programs and projects connected with ecosystem
restoration initiatives in South Florida. FEF offers a wide variety of
membership programs for corporate, community, family and individual
members. SUGAR IS PRESCRIBED TO CURE DUMP'S ILLS
A developer with plans for a Biscayne Bay condo project wants to clean up a dump's underground pollution with sugar and air, but critics aren't sweet on the untested process.
BY CURTIS MORGAN
© Miami Herald
The latest idea for cleaning the notorious Munisport dump in North Miami sounds like something Mary Poppins might conjure up if she pursued environmental engineering.
Take a spoonful of sugar -- barrels of it actually -- and inject it underground with water and air to make the nasty stuff go away.
That simple formula is the heart of an innovative proposal to clean one of South Florida's most polluted places. The process is called biological remediation, meaning the natural forces of air and subterranean bacteria fed by sugar would filter out the old landfill's single biggest threat, an underground plume of ammonia slowly seeping into a mangrove preserve in adjacent Oleta State Park and northern Biscayne Bay.
Developer Michael Swerdlow envisions a 5,000-unit condominium project, Biscayne Landing, atop the buried waste.
Read more
Developers' South Lee plans raise questions
By JANINE A. ZEITLIN
© Naples Daily News
Then, there were canopies of pines and cypress, wetlands far-flung from Bonita Springs, a spit of a pit stop between Miami and Fort Myers.
Now, there is a span of bald earth that once was tomato fields. Endangered wood storks forage for whatever fish they can find in the area that's just beyond development seeping east of Interstate 75.
Trucks stir dust tails where Bonita Beach Road turns to dirt. Florida panthers have roamed the land.
Later, there will be thousands, possibly ten thousand, people who will claim its address.
They'll bring their children, their cars, their golf clubs and their swimming pools. They'll need water, fire and police protection, roads and schools.
No doubt the 1,300 acres east of Bonita Springs and south of Bonita Beach Road is changing. The jury's out on how it should.
Read moreLawsuit says Miami-Dade rock mining threatens drinking water supply
By David Fleshler and Neil Santaniello
© Sun-Sentinel
Three environmental groups on Monday asked the federal government to suspend rock-mining along the Everglades in Miami-Dade County, saying a new study shows the mines could threaten the county's water supplies.
The mining companies hold permits to destroy up to 5,409 acres of wetlands along the fringes of the Everglades to extract limestone for use in cement, asphalt and other construction materials. The Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council and National Parks Conservation Association have filed suit to stop the work, saying it will destroy wildlife habitat and expose the region's groundwater to contamination.
The study released Monday says water flows much faster than expected through the underground aquifer. If true this would mean the county's west wellfield is more vulnerable to contamination from the mines because germs from the mines would still be alive by the time they reached the wells. The environmental groups say this means the mines should be set back at least five miles from the wells, putting a huge area out of reach of the mining companies.
16-February-04
Sweet addiction
Sugar subsidies continue with the U.S.-Aussie Trade Agreement
© The Free Lance-Star, VA
American sugar growers are high on subsidies.
THE UNITED STATES and Australia have announced a new trade agreement that opens the flow of commerce between the two allies, with a few exceptions--notably sugar, which will remain protected by U.S. quotas and tariffs. What a sweet deal.
Sugar, in fact, almost queered the negotiations, with the Aussies demanding the United States accept more of their product, a move that would have lowered prices for U.S. consumers. But American negotiators held firm; the commodity will remain protected. Which raises the question: Why do sugar producers get such a treat from Uncle Sam?
Agricultural subsidies began during the Great Depression as an effort to protect the family farm during those seriously hard times, but they continue today, when most agriculture is a corporate enterprise. Few continuing supports make less sense than the sugar subsidy. The government, through tariffs on imported sugar and various programs like non-recourse loans to growers (i.e., loans that can be "repaid" in unsold sugar), has essentially set the price of sugar since 1981 at about twice what the rest of the world pays. The results? Higher costs to Americans. Lost jobs. Environmental damage. Forfeited economic opportunities for Third World countries.
Read more
Everglades Mining Project Poses Greater Threat to Dade County's Drinking Water than Previously Thought, Government Studies Show
Environmental Groups Ask Corps of Engineers to Stop Mining
© Natural Resources Defense Council
MIAMI, FL (February 16, 2004) – Three environmental groups are releasing
the
results of recent government testing showing that a massive mining
project
surrounding Miami Dade County’s largest wellfield poses a significant
and
undisclosed threat to the area’s drinking water, as well as violates
wellfield protection laws. Dr. Stavros Papadopulos of S.S. Papadopulos
and
Associates, Inc. (SSP&A), an internationally-recognized expert on
wellfield
protection and groundwater systems, prepared the analysis of the
government
data for the groups, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Sierra
Club,
and National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA).
The S.S. Papadopulos report examined results from government tests on
the
ability of disease-causing organisms to travel from mining pits into the
drinking water pumps at the County’s Northwest Wellfield. In 2002, based
on
1985 data, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had approved permits
allowing
5,000 acres of mining within just ½ mile of the wellfield. The setback
was
intended to ensure that any pathogens, like the microorganisms
cryptosporidium and giardia, would no longer be alive by the time they reached
the drinking water supply.
Read more
Everglades, Big Cypress unharmed in budget plan
By Associated Press
© Naples Daily News
TALLAHASSEE — Two high-profile Florida conservation projects are set to get more or the same amount of federal money despite a large cut in President Bush's budget for the Environmental Protection Agency, a newspaper reported Sunday.
In the budget for the fiscal year that starts in October, Bush proposed cutting the EPA's funding next year by 7.2 percent to $7.8 billion. But he also proposed $67 million for Everglades restoration, up more than 70 percent from last year's funding of $39 million.
And for the second year in a row, Bush proposed spending $40 million to prevent oil exploration and drilling in the Big Cypress National Preserve in southwest Florida, The Tampa Tribune reported Sunday.
The money would be the first installment on the $120 million purchase of mineral rights under the preserve. Congress balked at the proposal last year as questions arose about whether the $120 million pricetag was too high.
Read more
14-February-04
Conservation
Preservationists on target with pursuit of 2 Lee sites
Editorial
© Naples Daily News
Good news for fans of nature — and historic preservation.
The Florida Forever project says it wants to purchase the Boomer Estate, the 100-acre, plantation-style spread across the Estero River from Koreshan State Preserve, home of the former Koreshan cult that envisioned launching a utopian mega-city there in the late 19th century.
The estate itself was home to early, wealthy Koreshan settlers. The asking price is $15 million. The Boomer land is a natural extension of the Koreshan park now enjoyed by the public for sightseeing, camping, hiking and canoeing.
It's usually too late to buy and preserve such properties when the inevitable development plans are announced.
Read more
12-February-04
County wildlife protection committee criticized by developer
By ERIC STAATS
© Naples Daily News
An informal advisory group that recommends rules for wildlife protection
in Collier County is coming under fire for not having to comply
with part of the state's open meetings law. By a 3-2 vote, county commissioners decided
Wednesday night to allow the so-called stakeholders group to continue
its work instead of appointing a more formal committee that would be
governed by the state's Sunshine Law. The
stakeholders group, often comprising developer representatives,
environmental groups and ordinary citizens, has been meeting with
county staff regularly for weeks to talk about ways to tighten county
rules on wildlife protection. Notices
of the group's meetings are e-mailed to people who have expressed an
interest in the topic, and the meetings are open to the public.
How sugar daddies got their sweet way - TRADE DEAL
BY Rodney Dalton
© The
Australian
Sugar was always in the too-hard basket, reports New York correspondent
Rodney Dalton. ROBERT Zoellick
was deadly serious when he told a North Dakota radio station on January
21 that sugar was non-negotiable. Zoellick had
received his riding instructions from the White House and no amount of
pressure from Mark Vaile's team was going to move him. Sugar
was always going to be a sticking point in the negotiations, with the
industry's powerful lobbying operation pulling out all stops to make
sure US growers remained wrapped in government cotton wool. The
sugar issue has been complicated this year by a November election and
the fact George W. Bush's brother Jeb is governor of Florida, the
largest sugar cane producing state and a key election battleground.
Florida is the home state of the "Sugar
Barons", Alfonso and his brother Jose "Pepe" Fanjul,
whose family fled the Cuban revolution in 1959. Alfonso
and Pepe run Florida Crystals, one of the nation's biggest sugar
cane growers and refiners, and the holding company Flo-Sun.
Glades renewal is put back on track
Upon further review, the federal agency in charge of Everglades restoration
says it won't slow or cut projects as part of a nationwide cutback.
BY CURTIS MORGAN
© Miami Herald
Just a week after the Army Corps of
Engineers said it would slow or postpone several Everglades restoration
projects as part of a nationwide cutback, the agency has done a sharp
about-face. In a letter released Wednesday, John
Paul Woodley Jr., the assistant
Army secretary in charge of civil works, called the $8 billion restoration a
''very high national priority'' for the Bush administration and said the
Corps would commit ''all funds necessary'' to keep 2004 projects on track.
The letter to David Struhs, secretary of the Florida
Department of Environmental Protection, followed a flurry of calls and
meetings after the
Corps' restoration program manager revealed the planned cuts during a
meeting in Miami last week. Struhs, along with
other officials from the state and the South Florida Water Management
District, flew to Washington to make a case to exempt the Everglades from a
22 percent cut that the Corps ordered nationwide because it doesn't have the
money to do all the work that Congress has ordered for this fiscal year.
''We made it very clear to them that these critical projects were authorized
years ago and the bids were ready to go out on
the street,'' said Kathy Copeland, director of policy and legislation for
the water management district, which is co-managing the project with the
Corps. Read
more
Letters to the Editor:
Environmentalists want to steal Florida Keys
Written by Hal O'Boyle
© Key
West Citizen
The dirty little secret of
environmental protection in the Florida Keys is not "lack of commitment
on the enforcement side" as [The Citizen] maintains in its editorial of
Feb. 7, "Weekend clear-cutters should pay higher price," but a
failure to admit that condemning private property without paying for it is
simply theft with a high-toned environmental coating. The
only difference between condemnation and confiscation is that the owner of
condemned property still has to pay rent, in the form of taxes, to the
outfit that stole his land. Your suggestion of
jail terms to end illegal lot clearing is an idea that both
"got-mine" environmentalists and power-seeking officials will
support enthusiastically. Once we accept the fascist notion that problems we
can't solve with fines, forfeitures or prison terms are not worth solving,
we are ready take the transcendental leap to bureaucratic Nirvana, where
everything not forbidden is compulsory. Read
more
U.S. candy industry: How sweet it was
By George Will
© Alameda Times-Star, California
SATURDAY, Valentine's Day, sweets will be showered on sweethearts -- a bonanza for candy makers. But the very next day all 242 Fannie May and Fanny Farmer chocolate candy stores will be closed.
They and many jobs -- 625 of them at the firm's 75-year-old Chicago manufacturing plant -- are, in part, casualties of that outdated facility, bad business decisions and high U.S. labor and other costs. But jobs in America's candy industry also are jeopardized by protectionism, which is always advertised as job-protection. In this case, the protectionism is an agriculture subsidy -- sugar import quotas.
Chicago is no longer Carl Sandburg's wheat stacker and hog butcher, but it remains America's candy capital, home of Tootsie Rolls and many other treats. But in 1970, employment by the city's candy manufacturers was 15,000. Today it is under 8,000, and falling.
Alpine Confections Inc., the Utah-based candy company, has bought Fannie May and Fanny Farmer and may continue some products. This is partly because the price of sugar is less important in soft chocolates than in hard candies.
11-February-04
Sugar left out of free trade pact
By Susan Salisbury
© Palm
Beach Post
While Florida sugar interests
and their U.S. colleagues breathed a collective sigh of relief about being
left out of a free trade agreement with Australia, their counterparts in the
beef and dairy industries were still assessing the potential damage. All
three industries fought hard to be excluded from the trade talks that
concluded Sunday. The agreement, which still faces congressional approval,
opens the U.S. border to increases in Australian beef and dairy
products, but not to sugar. The
proposed pact could boost sales of U.S. manufactured products by an
additional $2 billion a year, the U.S. trade representative's office said,
with 99 percent of manufactured exports becoming duty-free. Key agricultural
U.S. exports such as soups, soybeans, fresh fruits and others also could
benefit. "We are disappointed we did not get
the same deal as sugar," said Chris Galen, spokesman for the National
Milk Producers Federation in Arlington, Va., which represents 60,000 U.S.
dairy farmers.
A degree of dishonesty
Editorial
© Palm
Beach Post
Gov. Bush has provided
a dead-on assessment of a favorite candidate to replace the state's top
environmental regulator, David Struhs. Mr. Struhs is leaving to take a job
with a polluter for whom he cut a special deal for a low-interest government
loan. Kirby B. Green III, who wants to
replace Mr. Struhs as Department of Environmental Protection secretary, this
week was in the spotlight to explain false information on his job
application. Mr. Green denied that
he meant to imply he earned a civil engineering degree from the University
of Florida. A university spokesman disputes the attendance dates Mr. Green
lists and said Mr. Green did not receive a degree from UF, though he listed
"civil engineering" under the category "certificates/degrees
received" in a signed and notarized application he filed with the
governor's office last month. Mr. Green, who is executive director of the
St. Johns Water Management District, said he was trying to indicate that he
attended UF and studied civil engineering.
10-February-04
New federal study on wetlands destruction may
be challenged
By CHAD GILLIS
© Naples Daily News
A federal study intended to change
wetlands destruction permitting could soon be challenged by local environmental
groups, who say the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers still isn't doing enough to
protect wetland systems in Lee and Collier counties. The
most controversial planning study in recent Southwest Florida history, the
Environmental Impact Statement, or EIS, was started in the late 1990s and billed
as a way to address wetland destruction
permitted by the Army Corps. Many
environmental groups wanted to see the Corps place certain sensitive areas
off-limits to development. Building interests wanted the study to speed up
permit applications. Now that the study has
been finished and is being used to a degree
by the Corps, environmentalists have said the final version was diluted and does
little to keep protected lands from being converted to malls and golf course
communities.
Fragile commitment damages Everglades
restoration
© Key
West Citizen
It took years to put the coalition together. Everyone knew it was fragile.
The agriculture, development and
environmental interests that came together to turn the Comprehensive
Everglades Restoration Plan into a reality are not natural bedmates. But make
it happen they did.
Now the coalition is beginning to fall apart. Three years after Congress finally
initiated the Everglades restoration, Sierra Club has abandoned its support.
The environmental organization blames the Bush administration in Washington for
tipping the plan's balance between economic interests and the needs of the
Everglades with "a web of details representing the interests of urban
sprawl and big agriculture."
The Club cites the Bush administration in Tallahassee for its support of an
amendment passed by the Florida Legislature that "allows the sugar industry
to continue polluting the Everglades for at least 10 years." This is a
reference to last year's gutting of the Everglades Forever Act, a cornerstone of
water-quality protection, that came after the expenditure of millions of dollars
and the hiring of 40 lobbyists by the sugar industry. Read
more
Clewiston is a company town
© http://www.newszap.com
We are taking a look at yet another of our neighboring communities nestled along
the shoreline of Lake Okeechobee.
Located in Hendry County, Clewiston is the second of three incorporated
communities in Hendry County. The community is located on the southwestern
shoreline of Lake Okeechobee and has the major north/south U.S. Highway 27
running through the town.
Information used to compile this series of articles is taken from an anniversary
supplement to the Clewiston News from July 1998, A Cracker History of Okeechobee
by Lawrence E. Will, Lake Okeechobee: Wellspring of the Everglades by Alfred
Jackson and Kathryn Abbey Hanna.
In the last few segments of this series, we have been looking at the history and
development of United States Sugar Corporation and how that particular company
saved the community of Clewiston from failing in the early 1930s.
Now, we continue with the history of the company and its accomplishments that
have directly benefited Clewiston.
Read more
WCI sees hot-selling 4th quarter, flat
profits
Bonita-based builder blames weak economy for annual performance
By KATHRYN HELMKE
© Naples News
WCI Communities Inc. reported a
strong fourth quarter, but 2003 profits were flat due to a weakened economy
and a soft luxury home market.
The Bonita Springs-based luxury home builder said
it had a net income of $59.6 million in the fourth quarter, or $1.31 per
diluted share. That's up from $44.6 million, or 99 cents per share, during the
same period in 2002.
Revenue for the quarter was $575.2 million compared to $450.9 million in
2002's fourth quarter.
The company failed to meet
expectations, according to Reuters Research, which said analysts projected
fourth quarter earnings of $1.35 per share.
For the year, the
company had a net income of $105.6 million, or $2.34 per share. In 2002, the
company had a net income of $104.8 million, or $2.37 per share. From 2002 to
last year, the company experienced a 0.7 percent increase in earnings and a
1.3 percent decrease in earnings per share.
WCI had almost 1
million more outstanding shares in 2003 than in 2002, which accounts for the
increase in income and decrease in earnings per share. Read
more
09-February-04
South Florida Water Management District Awards
$296,000 Order to Sutron
STERLING, VA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 02/09/2004 -- The South Florida Water
Management District has awarded Sutron Corporation (NASDAQ: STRN) a 23-month,
$296,000 work order under a Science and Engineering Support Services Contract to
model performance of all the Storm Water Treatment Areas within SFWMD's
jurisdiction. The Storm Water Treatment Areas are part of the District's
objectives described in the Long-Term Plan for Achieving
Everglades Water Quality Goals. The goal of
the Everglades Program is to ensure that all waters discharged into the
Everglades comply, basin-by-basin, with all state water quality
standards by December 31, 2006. Based on basin-specific feasibility studies that
integrate information from research, regulation, and planning, the goal is to
determine an ideal combination of Best Management Practices, optimized
Stormwater Treatment Areas, advanced treatment technologies, and Water Preserve
Areas to meet the final water quality objectives for the Everglades. Sutron
was chosen to perform hydraulic modeling using Finite Element Surface Water
Modeling Systems software, developed at Brigham Young University in cooperation
with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Waterways Experiment Station and the U.S.
Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration along with the
Surface-Water Modeling System Version 7.0. The goal of this project is to gather
more in-depth information on STA hydraulics so that water managers can make
improved operational decisions.
Evidence Points to Pollution as Main Cause
of Much Coral Reef Destruction
Source: Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution
© Newswise.com
Newswise — Scientists agree that coral reefs are in an alarming global state
of decline. However, determining the main cause or causes of this decline has
proven a much more contentious issue. In the current edition of the Journal of
Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology (JEMBE), HARBOR BRANCH marine
scientist Dr.Brian Lapointe and colleagues present new evidence they hope will
help settle one major debate: whether pollution or
overfishing is the main cause of the coral-smothering spread of seaweed on
many reefs. The research suggests that pollution from such sources as sewage
and agricultural runoff is the main culprit, a conclusion that has major
repercussions for managers working to end the decline of reefs in South
Florida and around the world.
When seaweed, or macroalgae, spreads over coral reefs, a
problem becoming increasingly common, it can smother coral and prevent
important reef inhabitants such as fish and lobster from finding the food and
shelter
they require. The reef that remains is transformed into a dull mound with
little of its original vibrant life and color. The two main explanations for
such overgrowth are that nutrients in pollution fuel rapid, explosive seaweed
growth, or that overfishing and other problems remove key grazers such as fish
or sea urchins that would normally feed on the seaweed, keeping its growth and
spread in check.
Read
more
Bonita Springs ... cityhood backers didn't
plan on greater density
Editorial
© Naples Daily News
When
cities eye neighboring territory for annexation, talk centers on efficiency
— consolidation of fundamental municipal services such as water and sewer.
Some of the targeted areas object due to stringent
city zoning.
Goings-on in Bonita Springs and Lee County turn
tradition upside down. The city already has allowed heavier density than would
have been allowed by the county's master plan on one annexed tract, and three
more deals — spanning 4,000 acres or six square miles — are in the works.
No wonder Lee and conservation officials are taking notice.
The county sees the danger of growth where roads and other infrastructure were
not planned for heavy loads, and organizations such as The Conservancy of
Southwest Florida fear wildlife harm from easier rules. One annexed project
has ballooned from 644 county-approved units to nearly 2,000 units,
city-style, with less
environmental paperwork.
08-February-04
Those working to save Keys reef eye Everglades project
By CATHY ZOLLO
© Naples Daily News
BIG PINE KEY — Peter Bell broke the surface of the waters over the best
remaining parts of Looe Key National Marine Sanctuary early
in the week with sad news about the state of the reef
since he saw it last. That was eight
years ago for Bell, an Australian researcher whose focus has been assessing
nutrient pollution affecting the Great Barrier Reef. He
was in the Florida Keys this past week brainstorming with Brian Lapointe, senior
scientist at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution, on their independently
reached but strikingly similar theories on the nutrient levels that harm
delicate coral reefs here and half a world away. The
evidence lay below the water where a crumbling pile of coral had replaced a
once-thriving reef. The few stands of elkhorn
coral were dotted with disease, and macroalgae — large plants that thrive in
nutrient-polluted waters — were smothering much of the remaining coral. The
grazers were most plentiful. These are fish that eat the algae, but they have a
hard time keeping up here.
Professor fires back at critics of his
Florida panther research
By Chad Gillis
© Naples Daily News
Dave Maehr wants the critiques to end. He
wants years of Florida panther literature sporting his name to be exonerated
of recent criticisms from leading scientists from around the country. Most of
all, Maehr just wants to put the past year behind him. Once
considered the premier panther expert for this region, Maehr and his science
received a public beating in December when a group of independent scientists
suggested that much of his work was
flawed. The peer team said the data and assumptions Maehr made, and permitting
agencies used, were so erroneous that federal and state agencies overseeing
panther habitat should immediately stop using some of his panther models when
considering development in Southwest Florida. For
years many scientists, including experts from the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service, said Maehr's work was defective in that it suggested
panthers would not travel 300 feet from forest to forest. They also criticized
his use of day-time tracking locations to represent the entire range of a
nocturnal predator.
07-February-04
Joel Eskovitz: Renewed hopes
By JOEL ESKOVITZ
© Naples Daily News
Congress may have questions about a proposed plan to pay the Collier family
$120 million for the mineral rights under the Everglades, but the Bush
administration apparently does not.
In President Bush's budget proposal released this
month, the first $40 million payment is re-inserted into the budget; the
president included it in his proposal last year, only to see Congress remove
it during an Interior Department investigation into how the price was reached.
The budget even includes a pledge from the
administration: "Although the agreement between the department and the
Collier family for the acquisition of the mineral rights recently expired,
this request demonstrates the department's continued commitment to preventing
any new exploration or oil production in the (Big Cypress National) Preserve,
which is part of the larger Everglades ecosystem."
Of course, the Collier family is closing in on two
years of hearing commitments from the Bush administration on buying the
mineral
rights. Just last week, Collier Resources General Manager Bob Duncan said the
family would take another look at drilling under the 765,000 acres under the
preserve, Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge and Ten Thousand Islands
National Wildlife Refuge.
06-February-04
In remembrance
By Steve Waters
© Sun-Sentinel
Wayne Cone liked to say that he was just a good 'ol boy, but he was so much more than that.
He was a loyal friend, a talented welder, an inventor, a skilled topwater bass fisherman, a defender of the rights of hunters and anglers and a passionate protector of the Everglades.
Wayne died in October at the age of 62 after a long battle with lung cancer. This past Sunday, more than 100 airboaters came out to his beloved Everglades to remember him and place some of his ashes under a marker at one of the camps in the 'Glades.
Although it was a solemn event, it was hard not to smile. The day itself was reminiscent of Wayne, who could always see the bright side of even the gloomiest situations. Heavy rains and menacing storm clouds in the morning gave way to sunshine and bright blue skies by noon.
Cutbacks hit Glades plan
Everglades-related projects are
delayed for six months or more after the
Army Corps of Engineers is forced to cut funding.
BY CURTIS MORGAN
© Miami Herald
The federal agency in charge of Everglades restoration said Thursday that it
would slow ongoing construction and postpone work on at least two dozen other
projects because it doesn't have enough money for the work. The moves are the
result of massive and immediate cuts the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers ordered
for projects nationwide, said Dennis Duke,
the Corps program manager for restoration. The Corps said it was forced to take
the action because Congress overbooked but underfunded projects this year. When
a midyear budget
review uncovered the gap, Duke said, it triggered an across-the-board reduction
of 22 percent and a lot of shuffling to keep from killing any ongoing work. For
the Everglades and other South Florida projects, that meant a $138 million
allocation will be sliced by nearly a quarter. ''Basically, we're borrowing
money from certain projects to pay for other projects,'' said
Duke, who announced the cuts at a meeting of a water advisory commission in
Miami. Read
more
05-February-04
Bacteria levels are rising at Phil Foster Park and health officials don’t know why
Some people blame the large ships; others blame boaters
By Herb Sennett
© Weekday
Rising levels of Fecal bacteria are contaminating the water at Phil Foster Park’s beach, and the problem is getting worse.
County Health Department officials are frustrated because they have no idea why this is happening.
The “No Swimming” signs went up five weeks ago at the beach frequented by local residents and visitors. Now the owners of the boats anchored between the bridge and Peanut Island use it as a dinghy parking lot.
Local residents believe those boats are causing the problem. But a source at the U.S. Coast Guard station at Peanut Island said, “You would have to fill the basin with boats side by side and have them all dumping constantly to cause the contamination.”
State agencies see threat to water from Scripps plan
By Robert P. King,
© Palm Beach Post
WEST PALM BEACH -- Palm Beach County's plans for a biotech city on Mecca Farms could hamper efforts to restore the Loxahatchee River, state environmental advisers said Wednesday -- despite water managers' assurances that the two can coexist.
Echoing months of complaints from activists, advisers from the state Department of Environmental Protection and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said they're not yet convinced the river can get the water it needs without a large reservoir on Mecca.
They also objected to the speed the South Florida Water Management District showed last month in all but endorsing the county's plans to develop Mecca as the future home of The Scripps Research Institute.
"To make judgments about, 'Do we have sufficient storage in the basin,' based on the information we have -- I feel very uncomfortable," DEP representative Herb Zebuth said at a sometimes-testy restoration meeting that drew 60 people to the agency's West Palm Beach office. "I don't think we have the proper answers yet."
Money Flows To Everglades
Editorial
© The Ledger
President George W. Bush's proposed budget for the fiscal year starting
Oct. 1 totals $2.4 trillion, and has an optimistically projected deficit
of
$521 billion. Given the size of the overall budget, the amount set aside
for the federal government's share of cleaning up Florida's Everglades
is a
BB next to a bowling ball. It's $231 million. Put another way, for every
$1
spent on Everglades restoration, Uncle Sam will spend more than $103,000
on
other things.
Still, $231 million is no small sum, and in a year of budget reductions
for
many programs, it's even more surprising: It's nearly 8 percent more
than
is called for in current fiscal year spending.
Most of that spending increase, says a report in The Palm Beach Post,
comes
from the proposed purchase of subsurface oil and gas mineral rights in
the
Big Cypress National Preserve. Last year, the Bush administration asked
Congress for $40 million -the first of three installments -- to buy out
the
Collier Resources Co.'s mineral rights. Congress took no action.
Read more
In the cool Bush world, turmoil beneath the
surface
By Alan Farago
© Orlando Sentinel
The resignation of Florida's top environmental
officer, David Struhs -- who left to take a big corporate job with International
Paper -- provoked commentary across the state in various tones and decibels.
Struhs, a loyalist if there ever were one, departed
on a wave of Jeb
Bush's good will. Unlike his brother's former Treasury secretary, Paul O'Neill,
whose frank testimony peeled the façade from the George W. Bush White House,
Struhs maintained a poker face to the very end.
His letter to Florida Department of Environmental
Protection staff,
announcing his resignation, reads like a hymn -- touting great accomplishments
on the way to a better environmental future for Florida -- but resonates more
as a sermon than a truthful dialogue.
Struhs, like his boss the governor, never tolerated
two-way conversations very well. Nor did criticism, however well-founded, ever
deter a decision-making process that bears the unmistakable imprint of
pre-determined outcomes. Read
more
04-February-04
Struhs sold out Florida to cash in for himself
Editorial
© Palm Beach Post
He left by sending a news release, praising himself for protecting Florida's waters. David Struhs, who quit last week as the state's top environmental regulator, had good reason to avoid facing the public.
The Department of Environmental Protection secretary resigned to work for a polluter -- a polluter for whom he engineered a bailout with public money. Mr. Struhs' decision to become vice president of environmental affairs at International Paper Co., the $25 billion-a-year company that is the world's largest paper products firm, sums up his five-year record much more clearly than the happy-talk testimonial to himself and Gov. Bush, who hired him.
Mr. Struhs began working to help International Paper shortly after the firm bought a paper mill near Pensacola in 2000. The mill has not met state water-quality standards since 1989, discharging 24 million gallons of waste daily into area waterways. All along, DEP backed off from strict enforcement; the plant employs nearly 1,000 people, and politicians worried about how International Paper might react. Meanwhile, the water got dirtier.
Guest commentary: Common sense environmentalism
Some pseudo-environmentalists are endangering common sense with their assault on the Endangered Species Act.
By HENRY I. MILLER
© Naples Daily News
Over the past 30 years, the Endangered Species Act has helped more than a few species to survive. Unfortunately, it has taken a toll on common sense.
Lawsuits alleging violation of the act delayed completion of the Tellico Dam in Tennessee because it would harm an endangered fish called the snail darter, and logging in the Northwest has been hampered by spurious claims of damage to the habitat of the Northern spotted owl.
Since the Endangered Species Act was passed in 1973, most Americans have come to identify themselves as environmentalists. Unfortunately, over the years a small faction of the movement has drifted farther and farther away from the original goals of environmentalism. These pseudo-environmentalists now pursue an agenda that has less to do with conserving resources, reducing pollution and protecting wildlife than with attacking business and opposing certain products and technologies. Ironically, their efforts are often inimical to the protection of the environment — and to common sense, as well.
Read more
County wants agreement on future annexations by Bonita
By CHARLIE WHITEHEAD
© Naples Daily News
Lee County officials will try to strike an agreement on future annexations with Bonita Springs but won't try to delay applications already being considered — at least for now.
County commissioners are looking for an agreement that makes sure county environmental protections remain on land that becomes part of the city.
Environmentalists see a recent flurry of annexations as efforts by developers to sidestep county standards on how land can be used.
The city's first annexation was of 644 acres owned by Ronto Development south of east Bonita Beach Road. In the county comprehensive growth management plan, density on the land was capped at one home for every acre, and then only if developers adhered to five pages of specific environmental, buffering and open space requirements.
After the city annexed the land, though, the council amended its growth plan. The five pages of conditions were eliminated, and a density of as many as six homes per acre approved.
Read more
03-February-04
CERP needs help
Rep. Mark Foley needs to make restoration happen this year
Editorial
© Stuart News
Debate continues in Florida and in Washington over the massive, billion-dollar Everglades Restoration Program (CERP), despite hopes that all of the tweaking of the plan would have been done by now, and work started.
The Everglades Coalition, which has been campaigning for the cleanup for 19 years, now claims some serious mistakes have been made that need to be reversed by the Florida Legislature.
The major mistake highlighted by the coalition was the 10-year extension granted for reducing the level of phosphorus discharged into Lake Okeechobee. Instead of the reduction being in force in 2006, it has been put off until 2016, a move that primarily benefits the sugar industry. The Legislature needs to return the deadline to its original date, according to the coalition.
The other big mistake is the creation of "programmatic regulations," which the coalition says amount to nothing more than changing the program from a cleanup of the fragile Everglades to a water provision program for cities, counties and developers in South Florida.
Read moreCuts for veterans, beaches but not Glades
President Bush's budget plan calls for trims in some areas of importance to Florida, but funds for the Everglades restoration would remain at current levels.
BY FRANK DAVIES
© Miami Herald
WASHINGTON - Veterans may face some cutbacks and higher costs for medical care, and beach renourishment projects around Florida will receive less federal money if President Bush's proposed budget is enacted.
One expensive project in Florida, the 30-year, $8 billion plan to restore the Everglades, will continue to receive a full federal share of funding at current levels, according to the budget plan released Monday.
Bush's budget calls for $231 million for Everglades projects beginning Oct. 1, including $125 million in the Army Corps of Engineers budget and $106 million from the Interior Department.
The Army Corps budget identifies the Everglades restoration effort as one of 11 ''high-priority projects'' around the country.
''I'm pleased to see the administration remain steadfast in its dedication to this multiyear, federal-state partnership,'' said Rep. Clay Shaw, a Fort Lauderdale Republican.
Read more
Transferring water idea fails sniff test
Water-rich regions object, as they should
Editorial
© The News-Press (Ft. Myers)
Transferring water around Florida to meet demand is a very fishy idea, and people in Florida believed their noses.
The governor and legislative leaders have dropped the idea for now, stung by furious opposition in water-rich North Florida and virtually no support anywhere else. People just don’t like this idea, and with good reason.
The proposal to consider water transfers and possible privatization of water supplies was advanced by the Council of 100, a business group. Fairly or not, that helped make the idea seem like a special-interest move by industries eager to get their hands on water.
Gov. Jeb Bush and Senate President Jim King said last week that nothing approaching the Council of 100 study proposal would be pushed this year or next.
Bush had earlier said the ideas were at least worth looking at, and knocked editorial pages, environmentalists and others for their knee-jerk opposition.
02-February-04
Governor Needs To Get New Pal For Liar's Poker
By DANIEL RUTH
© Tampa Tribune
Oh, c'mon now, why all the fuss?
After all, if outgoing Florida Department of Environmental Protection Secretary David Struhs gave a possum's patootie about appearances, the Ichetucknee River wouldn't be in the process of being turned into a sluice gate for the Suwanee American Cement Co.
This much we can pretty well conclude about the tenure of Struhs at DEP, a wholly owned subsidiary of Big Sugar/Big Cement/Big Daddy/Big Pockets.
Good grief, Sad Sack has more self-respect.
What? You expected Struhs to go to work for the Sierra Club? That would be like the National Organization for Women hiring Andrew Dice Clay.
Like a basset hound rolling over for a cheesy treat, Struhs announced a few days ago that he was taking leave to go to work for a company he supposedly regulated as the state's alleged guardian of what's left of the environment.
01-February-04
Further corruption?
Re: Editorial headlined "Environmental groups — watchdogs still on guard."
Letter to the Editor By: Brian McMahon/Naples
© Naples Daily News
You support the fact that non-governmental organizations (NGOs) like the Florida Wildlife Federation and Audubon Society of Florida should act as watchdogs of our elected officials. Yes, every citizen has the right to speak his mind, but when we allow these special interest groups to "come to the table as policymakers and deal makers," it only proves we have lost control of our government to special-interest groups.
NGOs are non-elected and only represent themselves. When we allow them to dictate policy, the only word to describe it is corruption. The officials who gave them this power should be investigated with the same vigor as Stadium Naples. Nowhere in any state or local law can I find that we need their "approval" on any project. Intimidation through litigation is their battle cry.
As a licensed electrical contractor I realize development provides jobs, feeds families, and yes, even sells newspapers.
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Coalition is just beginning Everglades restoration effort
By Homer Perkins
© US Army Coprs of Engineers
Known as the "Rover of Grass" because of its
broad, slow moving water flow, the Everglades is a unique ecosystem, and a
coalition of federal, state, and local agaencies and organizations is
working to preserve and restore its health. (Photo courtesy of South
Florida Water Management District)
It was once a "River of Grass," both majestic and subtle. The Everglades' waters once spread in a shallow, slow-flowing "river" that covered much of the South Florida peninsula and was home to alligators, snakes, panthers, and a multitude of other animals and plants. An ecosystem like the Everglades existed nowhere else in the world.
But the Everglades are dying. During the past half-century, the health and size of the Everglades have steadily declined. Half of the Everglades have been lost to agriculture and development. Sixty-eight of the Everglades' plant and animal species are threatened or endangered. The wading bird population is down 90 percent. More than one million acres of the ecosystem are under health advisories for mercury contamination. More than 1.5 million acres are infested with invasive, exotic plants. And an average of 1.7 billion gallons of water per day are lost through discharge to the ocean or Gulf of Mexico.
It will be impossible to recreate the Everglades of a century ago. "Our challenge is to restore and preserve this important national treasure for future generations," said Lt. Gen. Robert B. Flowers, Chief of Engineers.
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