111031-a
Flood abates; river reopens
TBO.com, Highlands Today – by Garry Pinnell
October 31, 2011
SEBRING - After weeks of flooding, the Kissimmee River was reopened to navigation on Thursday.
"We're still moving water from the previous storm," said Gabe Margasak, media relations representative for the South Florida Water Management District.
Rain fell from Oct. 8-10, averaging 8 inches in many areas. One rain gauge on the upper Kissimmee River recorded 17 inches.
The banks of Arbuckle Creek and the Kissimmee River overflowed, covering fishing camps and farmlands. Volunteers helped Sandy Tyrell rescue almost 100 animals at Lakeside Stables, northeast of Spring Lake.
The floodwaters have receded, but another 1 to 1.5 inches was expected in the Heartland over the weekend, with a local maximum of three inches, Margasak said.
"The flood control system is operating normally in the Kissimmee area and continues to move basin runoff from recent storms," Margasak said.
Canal levels have been lowered to make room for expected stormwater runoff.
The wettest areas are the lakes northeast of the Upper Kissimmee and Myrtle, Margasak said. Lakes Preston and Joel are still above schedule and continue to recede slowly.
"All other lakes and creeks have peaked and water levels are returning to more normal late wet season levels," Margasak said.
Even so, said Robin Felix of the Southwest Florida Water Management District, the 40 inches of 2011 rainfall is still 5 inches behind normal in the South region, which includes Charlotte, Hardee, Highlands, Manatee and Sarasota counties.
Lake levels along the Lake Wales Ridge have risen 1.5 inches, but they're still 2.5 inches below normal.
For that reason, SWFWMD's board of governors voted on Tuesday to extend watering restrictions

111031-b
Rick Scott magically creates more water supply
Jacksonville.com - by Ron Littlepage
 October 31, 2011
You may recall that not so long ago the Floridan aquifer was on the precipice of disaster.
Saltwater intrusion, dry lakes, ruined springs — those were in North and Central Florida's future if the aquifer kept being drained to quench the thirst of more and more development.
That was the position of the St. Johns River Water Management District, charged with protecting water supplies, as the agency began telling utilities to prepare to change their ways.
Instead of taking more water from the aquifer, more expensive alternative water supplies such as desalinization and using water from the St. Johns River were on the table.
Then Rick Scott became governor, and the management district said never mind, first giving JEA a 20-year permit to pump even more water from the aquifer than it was currently using.
Now more utilities are lining up to do the same thing. Kevin Spear of the Orlando Sentinel has explained what's at stake. You can read his report here. Scott may only be governor for four years — we can only hope — but the damage he is doing to Florida will last far longer.
COMMENT by John Malseed:
What most in the General Public do not know is that Georgia Pacific is not using water from the Saint Johns River for their chemical processes.
What Georgia Pacific is doing is pumping 28 million gallons per day of Potable Water from deep wells in the aquifer. Then dumping the polluted water in the Saint Johns River through Rice Creek.
Perhaps we should withdraw their pumping permit and make them use water from the Saint Johns and restore it to the quality of the water they drew from the river.

111030-a
Corps' new plan should speed central Everglades cleanup
The Palm Beach Post - by Christine Stapleton
October 30, 2011
Restoring the central Everglades — long considered the missing link and step-child in clean-up efforts — is the centerpiece of a radical new process for deciding which projects are most important and making sure they get done as quickly as possible.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers unveiled the new plan last week at a meeting of the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Task Force. The presentation is the latest in a recent series of unexpected moves and unlikely collaborations between state, federal, tribal and environmental groups involved in the restoration.
Two weeks ago, Gov. Rick Scott presented his own restoration plan to officials including Ken Salazar, the U.S. interior secretary, and Lisa Jackson, administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
In a standing-room only auditorium filled with the biggest names in the restoration's history, Stu Appelbaum, the Corps' chief of planning and policy, picked apart the Corps' prior approach to restoration and laid out a new plan.
Appelbaum conceded the Corps' planning process is "overly detailed, expensive and takes a long time" and that the time and data being invested in studies does not result in better decisions. The new plan will cut the preparation and study process to two years from six.
"Perfect is the enemy of good," Appelbaum said. "We need timely and good decisions, not perfect decisions."
The Corps, along with the South Florida Water Management District, is responsible for Everglades restoration. Its plan, unveiled in 1999, includes 68 projects. Those constructed since then have concentrated on restoring the Kissimmee River, north of Lake Okeechobee, and uncorking the bottom of the Everglades, dammed at the Tamiami Trail in Miami-Dade County.
Environmentalists lined up to praise the new plan. Eric Draper, executive director of Audubon of Florida, called it "historic." Also in attendance was Herschel Vinyard, the secretary of the state Department of Environmental Protection.
"The key word you heard [at the meeting] was momentum," Vinyard said. "We have a lot of folks talking with each other."

111030-b
St. Johns water district eases permitting to tap aquifer
 Orlando Sentinel - by Kevin Spear,
October 30, 2011
Daytona Beach and the region's main water authority went to war last year over whether the city was pumping the life out of a state forest.
The St. Johns River Water Management District feared the city's water wells were sucking dry the wetlands and lakes within Tiger Bay State Forest.
Denying blame for ailing swamps near its wells, the city sued the district, seeking to extend its right to pump 16 million gallons a day from the region's underground aquifer. A judge ordered the two sides to negotiate, and they agreed to start fresh this year on a new pumping permit.
But then newly elected Gov. Rick Scott, with the Legislature's help, cut the district's source of revenue by one-fourth and ordered it to ease up in its dealings with water utilities.
Now Daytona Beach is pressing for a permit that would last twice as long as its current one — and wouldn't hold it accountable for what's happening west of the city in Tiger Bay State Forest.
Since the Scott administration's downsizing of the region's water-management district, the refocused agency has started making permit concessions that its staff previously would have rejected as potentially harmful to Florida's watery environment.
"I'm very concerned about the direction the district is going," said Pat Harden, an eight-year member of the agency's board in the 1990s and now on the advisory board of the Florida Springs Institute. "It appears little attention is being paid to long-term overuse of water."
No community in the district's 18-county territory, which stretches from Orlando to Jacksonville, has ever gone thirsty because it couldn't get a water permit; at issue is how those cities and counties obtain their water, and how much it ultimately costs them.
In seeking to protect the region's drinking water from saltwater intrusion, and its wetlands, springs, rivers and lakes from running dry, the district has become increasingly assertive in recent years in coaxing utilities to cap their already heavy reliance on low-cost but limited water supplies in the Floridan Aquifer — a layer of porous, underground rock replenished by rainfall — and instead tap more-expensive sources such as the St. Johns River and recycled sewage.
But those days may be over.
Case in point: JEA, Jacksonville's and Duval County's giant power-and-water utility, which in May had little trouble winning a permit that months earlier the district was prepared to block with a legal fight because of growing evidence that pumping from the aquifer has reached or even exceeded sustainable limits.
JEA's application for a new permit was under review in 2008-10 when new research by the district showed that the city's wells were playing a part in the dramatic drawdown of lakes in the interior of northeast Florida.
Also emerging were studies that the Suwannee and Santa Fe rivers were also in jeopardy because of falling aquifer levels contributed to by JEA's pumping.
Reacting to those findings, the district proposed declaring northeast Florida a "priority" water-caution area.
Central Florida was declared such a priority area in 2003, which set an aquifer-pumping limit and triggered much anxiety among local utilities as they made plans to tap the St. Johns River at a cost potentially totaling billions of dollars.
But utilities in northeast Florida fought the designation, which remains in draft form despite a 2010 deadline.
"We want you to know this is very devastating news," Ray Avery, executive director of the Clay County Utility Authority, said during a 2009 public hearing.
As recently as last December, district officials regarded JEA's permit application as still incomplete and riddled with "discrepancies." They braced for a legal fight against a team of water-wars lawyers hired by the utility.
But after Scott took office the following month, he appointed Melissa Meeker, a former South Florida Water Management District board member, to oversee the revamping of all five of the state's water districts.

111029-
Lake Worth officially opens new water plant
Palm Beach Post - by Pat Beall, Staff Writer
October29, 2011
LAKE WORTH — Lake Worth City Commissioner Jo-Ann Golden got a chilly reception when she first suggested the town build its own water treatment plant. "They called me every name in the book," recalled Golden. "They told me it would never happen."
Saturday, it did. Ten years of on-again, off-again wrangling over how best to deliver water in Lake Worth came to a close this morning when Golden and fellow commissioners snipped a ribbon marking the official opening of the Lake Worth Reverse Osmosis Plant.
"This is the future," Golden exulted.
The $24.9 million facility opened quietly in July, and has been producing about 1.5 million gallons of water a day since, well below its current capacity of 4.5 million gallons a day.
The plant draws salty water from the Floridan Aquifer and uses high pressure to press it through a series of filters. About 25 percent of a salty by-product is returned to the ground using deep injection wells, but 75 percent of the resulting water is drinkable.
Development has been a rocky road.
It started in 2001, when the South Florida Water Management District found salt water was migrating toward the city's network of shallow drinking-water wells. The city commission first decided to tap into the Floridan Aquifer, but abandoned the idea in 2007 in favor of buying water from Palm Beach County. In 2009, it decided against that plan, and chose instead to return to its original proposal.
The plant is one of only about 30 such public systems in South Florida.
"It's very forward thinking," said Joanne Davis, a community organizer with 1000 Friends of Florida, the environmental advocacy group. There's another plus, said Davis, a customer of the new water plant: "The water tastes better."

111028-a
BP Could Drill in Gulf Again
Care2.com - by Jake Richardson
Ocobert 28, 2011
British Petroleum’s plan to drill in the Gulf of Mexico again was approved by the Obama administration. It was their first oil drilling plan approved for the Gulf since the huge oil spill the company caused in 2010. Their newly approved plan calls for the drilling of four exploratory wells about two hundred miles from the Louisiana coast, but they still need to acquire a number of permits also in order to proceed. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is the new agency responsible for reviewing oil drilling plans and permits, and several weeks may be required to further review BP’s permit applications. The proposed BP wells would require drilling at about 6,000 feet.
It is shocking a company that caused so much damage to the Gulf’s ecology and regional economy would possibly be allowed to drill there again so soon after the destruction. “Comprehensive safety legislation hasn’t passed Congress, and BP hasn’t paid the fines they owe for their spill, yet BP is being given back the keys to drill in the gulf, said Congressman Edward J. Markey, from Massachusetts. (Source: biologicaldiversity.org)
Scientists who are trying to study the effects of the oil spill on the marine environment and wildlife are not getting much cooperation from British Petroleum on the oil samples they requested. Without the oil samples from BP they say they can’t conduct their research, “As an example, my colleague, Dr. Andrew Whitehead, received a letter from BP confirming that shipment of surrogate crude had been approved, and would be arriving soon. Seven months later, his group still has no oil, putting this federally funded research in serious jeopardy,” said LSU scientist Fernando Galvez. (Source: NOLA.com)
Congressman Markey addressed some of the safety and financials aspects of the situation, but what about the ongoing effects of the oil contamination in the Gulf ?  Shrimpers have been hit hard, and payments to them through a compensation fund may be increased. Oil has been said to still be washing up on beaches, “We have never stopped seeing oil and they have never cleaned it up.” (Source: NOLA.com)
It seems a sensible national policy would be to ban companies causing enormous oil spills, from drilling again in the same area where they first caused such a catastrophe, to show that large-scale environmental and economic destruction is completely unacceptable. Instead we just may allow them to do more of it, as Yogi Berra said, “It’s deja vu all over again.”
Related Links:
Oil Drilling to Resume in Gulf Again
Oil Found Deep in Gulf

111028-b
Ceremony marks start of work on C-44 project in Indiantown
TCPalm - by Jim Mayfield
October 28, 2011
INDIANTOWN — Almost five years after an initial groundbreaking on portions of the project, local, state and national officials gathered in western Martin County on Friday to ceremonially begin work on the C-44 Reservoir and Stormwater Treatment project.
A roughly $400 million component of the $2.13 billion Indian River Lagoon South Project designed to improve water quality into the Indian River Lagoon and Everglades, the C-44 effort was part of an expedited package of Everglades restoration projects originally announced by Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in October 2004.
Construction bids were to go out in 2007 with completion scheduled for 2009; however, the project stalled because no money was available.
Now that the project is finally starting, officials say construction will bolster the county's economy, and once completed the project will include a 3,400-acre aboveground reservoir, 6,300 acres of stormwater treatment area, a pump station capable of moving 1,100 cubic feet of water per second and 12,000 acres of new habitat and recreational opportunities.
The project site, 12,000 acres of former citrus land, was purchased in 2007 for $168 million, $27 million of which came from Martin County taxpayers through the one-cent sales tax for conservation lands, South Florida Water Management officials said. The property is south of the Allapattah Flats Wildlife Management Area near Indiantown.
Over the last year, the water management district has spent roughly $5 million to remove trees and rid the topsoil of copper deposits, officials said.
It is the stake held by Martin County taxpayers that makes the C-44 initiative different from many other projects run by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said Orlando Ramos, senior project manager for the Indian River Lagoon-South project.
"It is rare that people tax themselves, buy the land and get involved in a project like this," Ramos said Friday afternoon. "It makes a huge difference at every level."
Crews began moving dirt on the $32.4 million first phase of the 10-year, four-phase project in August, and Ramos said residents should begin seeing "huge, tangible construction" next month.
For the next two years, work will include access roads to the project, drainage canals, turning lanes and a bridge on Citrus Boulevard, but the initial anticipated environmental benefits await completion of the project's reservoir at the conclusion of phase II, Ramos said.
However, the project's economic impact should be felt much sooner, Ramos said. He added that the area should see about 1,000 jobs directly or indirectly connected to the project.
That news was taken as a good sign in the midst of hard times by Indiantown Marina owner Scott Watson.
"Aside from clean water and the environmental benefits, this is going to be a great boost to Indiantown over the next five years," Watson said.
While comparing notes with other local business people through the summer, Watson said recent times have been as hard as any he can remember in Indiantown.
"We've seen about a 35 percent drop in business this summer," Watson said. "We're really looking forward to this project."
Col. Al Pantano, commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Jacksonville District, exhorted those in attendance Friday to keep pushing the project forward.
"It's not stopped. It's not stalled. You've got the momentum, and good things are happening," Pantano said. "But you have to keep that momentum or it won't get done."
Keeping up momentum was one way to characterize the continued pressure on Congress necessary to fund subsequent phases of the work over the next decade.
Martin County Commissioner Sarah Heard had another way of putting it Friday.
"We are passionate partners, and we have to continue to show that we are partners," Heard said. "We always reach into our own pockets, and we will badger (Congress) to death."

111028-c
Fast-track Everglades restoration planned
Summit County Voice - by Bob Berwyn
October 28, 2011
Planning effort aims to restore critical flows and protect water quality.
SUMMIT COUNTY — A new fast-track planning effort involving state and federal agencies could speed recovery of the Everglades ecoystem — if Congress authorizes the effort.
Specifically the Central Everglades planning process will evaluate opportunities to use publicly owned lands to store and treat water in the Everglades Agricultural Area and move the water south to the Water Conservation Areas and Everglades National Park. That could help restore a more natural hydrological regime to the greater ecoystem.
There is a need to move water south and allow more flow in the Central Everglades and Everglades National Park which is extremely critical to the health of the entire Everglades ecosystem. In addition to this major planning effort, state and federal agencies are working on measures to ensure that existing waters flowing into the Everglades meet water quality standards.
“The Everglades is one of the world’s largest ecosystem restoration projects, and this planning effort will provide a roadmap for the next decade on how we restore the River of Grass in perpetuity.” said Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar.
“We are working to restore and protect not only a vital ecosystem, but also an important part of Florida’s history and culture. An important part of our ongoing and future restoration efforts will be protecting water quality.” said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. “The Everglades is an important environmental treasure, a major tourism attraction and an economic driver, this new process moves us closer to a lasting restoration.”
The collaborative planning includes the Department of the Army, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Department of the Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency and the State of Florida, including the South Florida Water Management District and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.
According to the Interior Department, the planning process will build on three years of unprecedented restoration progress between the federal government and the State of Florida including groundbreakings for six comprehensive Everglades restoration plan projects. This includes substantial construction progress on the first mile of bridging of Tamiami Trail, aimed at restoring natural flows.
The Central Everglades planning process will analyze alternatives that will reduce the discharge of water currently damaging the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie estuaries and provide more natural flow and depths of clean new water through the Central Everglades and the Everglades National Park.
The fast-tracked planning process is a pilot program that the Army Corps of Engineers is initiating elsewhere in the country, designed to yield restoration benefits at an efficient rate.
The planning effort responds directly to the 2008 and 2010 recommendations from the National Academy of Sciences and restoration scientists who recognize the need to address unnatural water levels in the water conservation areas and Everglades National Park as one of the biggest challenges facing restoration managers.
The Task Force meeting highlighted the many critical restoration efforts happening throughout the ecosystem, and the opportunities for next steps in restoration. In particular, major initiatives along the Tamiami Trail, Northern Everglades, and other initiatives have shown that there are opportunities to increase the flow of clean water into the Central Everglades, using a variety of project elements.
“The Central Everglades planning initiative provides Florida with an opportunity to build upon the significant investments we’ve already made toward protecting and preserving America’s Everglades.” said Rick Scott, Governor of Florida. “It also reaffirms the state’s commitment to working collaboratively with our federal partners to pursue a solution that sustains both our economy and our natural resources.”For more information on the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Task Force, visit: http://www.sfrestore.org/tf/documents/handouts_tf.html

111028-d
Giant 16-foot python found in Fla. Everglades
The Associated Press
October 28, 2011
EVERGLADES NATIONAL PARK, Fla. -- Water management contractors working in the Florida Everglades have captured and killed a giant Burmese python that had just consumed an adult deer.
Scott Hardin, exotic species coordinator for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission, says workers found the nearly 16-foot-long snake on Thursday.
The reptile was one of the largest ever found in South Florida.
Hardin says the python had recently consumed a female deer that still had hair and weighed 76 pounds. He added it was an important capture to help stop the spread of pythons further north.

111028-f
Task force expected to unveil plan to fast-track Everglades restoration
Florida Independent - by Virginia Chamlee
Everglades restoration getting the fast-track treatment
American Independent - by Virginia Chamlee
 October 28, 2011
An Everglades restoration task force meeting today is expected to unveil a new plan to fast-track restoration in South Florida’s “River of Grass.” According to McClatchy, the plan will look at ways to reduce pollution that is damaging the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie estuaries, and provide more natural flows throughout the Central Everglades.
The Everglades and its estuaries have born the brunt of nutrient pollution coming from industry effluent in the Everglades Agricultural Area. Nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen — along with mercury which, when coupled with sulfur, can be come especially dangerous — have led to a host of problems in the ecosystem, problems such as algal blooms and diminishing populations of certain native species. Fertilizers used in sugar fields and vegetable farms, as well as in South Florida suburban lawns, have contributed a sizable amount of the pollution that eventually makes its way into the Everglades.
Phosphorus cleanup in the Everglades (which requires reducing the flow of phosphorus to 10 parts of phosphorus per billion in the water) has experienced several delays. A 2006 deadline was established in 1994, but eventually pushed back to 2012 by the state Legislature. The Legislature has since pushed that deadline even further — to 2016.
The fast-track plan, which is a pilot program of the Army Corps of Engineers, will aim to speed up those restoration efforts.
Though he recently met with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to discuss Everglades restoration, Florida Gov. Rick Scott isn’t known as a champion of environmental restoration. According to Florida Environments, Salazar recently spoke with the Society of Environmental Journalists about his discussion with Scott, but said “the jury is still out” on his Everglades plan. Florida Environments also quoted author Carl Hiassen, who said that, following his win, Scott (wearing a pair of alligator boots) told journalists that “if it were up to him they would just shoot the alligators.”

Feds., Florida announce major effort to restore River of Grass
US Army
October 27, 2011
The South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Task Force, including representatives from the Army, announced a fast-track planning effort to improve the Central and Southern Everglades by putting more fresh and clean water into the River of Grass.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., Oct. 27, 2011 -- Senior policy officials from the Department of the Army, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Department of the Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency and the State of Florida, including the South Florida Water Management District and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection convened at the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Task Force (Task Force) meeting today.
They announced a fast-track planning effort for the next generation that will, when authorized by Congress, improve the Central and Southern Everglades by putting more fresh and clean water into the River of Grass.
The Army Corps of Engineers and the South Florida Water Management District announced the start of the Central Everglades planning process, which will incorporate updated science and maximize use of publicly owned lands to focus the next phase of Everglades Restoration on the Central and Southern Everglades. This planning process will build on three years of unprecedented restoration progress between the federal government and the State of Florida including groundbreakings for six Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan projects.
This includes substantial construction progress on the first mile of bridging of Tamiami Trail.
The Central Everglades planning process will analyze alternatives that will reduce the discharge of water currently damaging the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie estuaries and provide more natural flow and depths of clean new water through the Central Everglades and the Everglades National Park. This initiative will use a fast-tracked planning process, a pilot program that the Army Corps of Engineers is initiating elsewhere in the country, designed to yield restoration benefits at an efficient rate.
The planning effort responds directly to the 2008 and 2010 recommendations from the National Academy of Sciences and restoration scientists who recognize the need to address unnatural water levels in the water conservation areas and Everglades National Park as one of the biggest challenges facing restoration managers.
The Task Force meeting highlighted the many critical restoration efforts happening throughout the ecosystem, and the opportunities for next steps in restoration. In particular, major initiatives along the Tamiami Trail, Northern Everglades, and other initiatives have shown that there are opportunities to increase the flow of clean water into the Central Everglades, using a variety of project elements.
There is a need to move the water south and allow more flow in the Central Everglades and Everglades National Park which is extremely critical to the health of the entire Everglades ecosystem. In addition to this major planning effort, state and federal agencies are working on measures to ensure that existing waters flowing into the Everglades meet water quality standards.
Specifically the fast-track Central Everglades planning process will evaluate opportunities to use publicly owned lands to store and treat water in the Everglades Agricultural Area and move the water south to the Water Conservation Areas and Everglades National Park, to achieve a more natural hydrology. This approach will also tie together Decompartmentalization and Seepage Management with the State's work north of the conservation areas and Interior's Tamiami Trail improvements.
"The Administration is committed to this ecosystem and these restoration efforts. We want to profit from best practices and good science. Together with our partners in the state, we can do it. We have a responsibility to the people of Florida and this country to protect this international treasure," said Jo-Ellen Darcy, assistant secretary of the Army for Civil Works.
"The Everglades is one of the world's largest ecosystem restoration projects, and this planning effort will provide a roadmap for the next decade on how we restore the River of Grass in perpetuity," said Ken Salazar, secretary of the Interior.
"We are working to restore and protect not only a vital ecosystem, but also an important part of Florida's history and culture. An important part of our ongoing and future restoration efforts will be protecting water quality." said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. "The Everglades is an important environmental treasure, a major tourism attraction and an economic driver, this new process moves us closer to a lasting restoration."
"The Everglades are a treasured part of Florida's landscape and the Nation's natural heritage, and a vital economic engine for the State." said Nancy Sutley, Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. "This announcement builds on the Obama Administration's unprecedented progress toward restoring the Everglades and recognizes that we cannot rest in our commitment to work in partnership with the State of Florida to bring this critical ecosystem back to health."
"The Central Everglades planning initiative provides Florida with an opportunity to build upon the significant investments we've already made toward protecting and preserving America's Everglades." said Rick Scott, Governor of Florida. "It also reaffirms the state's commitment to working collaboratively with our federal partners to pursue a solution that sustains both our economy and our natural resources."
The Central Everglades planning process is being presented to the Task Force for the purpose of increasing public participation and diverse stakeholder involvement. The South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Task Force, which was established by Congress in 1996 to ensure consistent strategies among all the partners working towards Everglades' restoration, will appoint advisory boards to the Task Force to provide stakeholder input and public engagement.
For more information on the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Task Force, visit: http://www.sfrestore.org/tf/documents/handouts_tf.html

111027-ab
Feds announce plan to speed Everglades restoration
Miami Herald - by Erika Bolstad
More clean water for Everglades possible under proposed plan
October 27, 2011
A new fast-track plan could allow more clean water to flow into the Everglades, helping restoration efforts.
WASHINGTON -- An Everglades restoration task force that meets Thursday (Oct. 28, 2011) in West Palm Beach is expected to announce a fast-track planning effort, that if approved by Congress, will put more fresh and clean water into the central and southern portions of the River of Grass. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the South Florida Water Management District are expected to announce the start of a central Everglades planning process that will look at alternatives to reduce the discharge the agencies say is damaging the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie estuaries. The process also is expected to provide more natural flow and depths of clean new water through the Central Everglades and Everglades National Park.
The fast-track planning process, a pilot program of the Army Corps of Engineers, is designed to speed up restoration efforts, officials with the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Task Force say.
Cleaning up the pollution flowing into the Everglades requires reducing the flow of phosphorus to 10 parts of phosphorus per billion in the water. Anything higher won’t do enough to stop changes in plant and animal life of the Everglades.
Because of high levels of phosphorus, cattails have for decades been taking over the sawgrass in the Everglades. The pollutant has flowed from sugar and vegetable farms and the sprawling suburbs of South Florida.
The state was supposed to get to its phosphorus reduction goal by 2012, but the Legislature pushed the deadline back to 2016. Earlier this month, Florida Gov. Rick Scott met with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, and offered up some alternative plans for resolving some of the legal disputes over Everglades restoration -- but also said they’d need another six years.
The state's plans call for downsizing some construction projects and relying more on water storage on public and private lands. The plan, Scott said, puts to use land already in public ownership so that projects can be authorized and built promptly "at a reasonable cost to the taxpayers."
Specifically, they’ll be looking for opportunities to use publicly owned lands to store and treat water in the Everglades Agricultural Area and move the water south to water conservation areas and Everglades National Park. That’s expected to achieve a more natural hydrology -- and will tie together the state’s work north of the conservation areas and the Interior Department’s Tamiami Trail bridging project.
Last week, Salazar visited the Tamiami Trial project just a few miles west of Krome Avenue in Miami-Dade County. It’s one of the first bridges in a series of planned spans that could eventually restore the historic fresh water flow of the River of Grass to levels not seen in 80 years.
The federal government eventually would like to see 5.5 miles of bridges on Tamiami Trail, which would cost an estimated $324 million and be built over a period of four years. So far, it’s unclear whether the money will be budgeted for the bridges.
Friday, officials will break ground on a separate project: a 12,000-acre reservoir in western Martin County designed to improve the water quality of the St. Lucie Estuary and the southern portion of the Indian River Lagoon.

111027-c
This Everglades project is for real
Palm Beach Post - by Sally Swartz
October 27, 2011
At the first groundbreaking, there were party tents and a shuttle bus to tote officials, residents and reporters on tours of the land, a desolate expanse near Indiantown where oranges once grew.
Experts from Everglades restoration agencies talked about plans for the big new reservoir, a place to store and clean runoff from farms and cities before it shoots down the C-44 Canal to the St. Lucie River.
Yes, it seems like only yesterday that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the South Florida Water Management District, federal and state partners in restoring the Everglades, celebrated their grand plan.
But it was more than five years ago. The plan: To spend $330 million on a 3,400 acre reservoir and 6,200 acres of filter marshes. Today, the price tag is $10 million higher.
But the reservoir and marshes never were built, so this Friday’s groundbreaking ceremony is a rerun.
In July of 2006, the agencies already had spent $9 million on test reservoirs and marshes, with plans to rip them out and build the big reservoir from scratch. But there was no federal money. At one point, the water management district promised to bypass the feds and build the reservoir alone by 2009. That never happened.
This year’s ceremony is for real. This time, the feds provided their share of restoration money, nonexistent for eight years under President George W. Bush. The reservoir near Indiantown is the third Everglades restoration project the Obama administration has started. U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, long an Everglades restoration supporter, pushed to secure the federal money.
The Army Corps awarded the contract for almost $35 million to a Knoxville, Tenn., firm to build the reservoir and wetlands. The contractor estimates 40 to 50 new local jobs will be created. Corps sources say other economic impact will mean 490 more jobs the first year and 310 the second.
The Indiantown reservoir is particularly important to Treasure Coast residents concerned about the health of the St. Lucie Estuary and the Indian River Lagoon. It’s not a cure-all for the recurring problem of where to put Lake Okeechobee’s nutrient-packed overflow.
Now, water managers send excess lake water into the St. Lucie and Indian River Lagoon and out to sea. That has caused harmful algae blooms that make Martin waters unfit for fish and marine life and dangerous to people.
The reservoir, which will be about 10 feet deep, can’t store and clean up all the bad lake water, despite optimistic comments from federal officials.
But it is designed to take basin runoff from nearby farms and cities.
“Big lake releases would fill it in two days,” said Paul Millar, Martin County’s water resources manager. The reservoir and stormwater treatment areas will hold and clean runoff, and also create a natural area for residents to enjoy.
The plan, Mr. Millar said, is to open the area for biking, hiking and bird watching. He’s also hopeful that water managers will find an answer to a question he raised five years ago and continues to ask.
“What can we harvest to sell from this water as we clean it ?  Water hyacinths ?  Tilapia ?  Algae for biofuel? Cranberries ?  There’s got to be something.”
District and Corps officials continue to insist there’s no way to do that, but I think Mr. Millar’s correct. Eventually, some enterprising entrepreneur will come up with a profit-making idea that will help finance restoration projects.
Until that happens, however, it’s great that the feds finally are providing the money, so long delayed under the Bush administration, to help with Everglades restoration. That’s worth a second groundbreaking celebration.
Sally Swartz is a former member of The Post Editorial Board. Her e-mail address is sdswartz42@comcast.net

111027-d
Water management district to cut staff
TBO.com
October 27, 2011
The agency that oversees water resources in West Central Florida announced that its slashed budget will include doing away with as many as 150 of its 768 employees.
The Southwest Florida Water Management District governing board approved the restructuring plan at its meeting Tuesday. Of the positions to be eliminated, 40 are vacant or are contractors who are finishing up jobs.
Staff will be offered voluntary severance plans for 45 days. If the goals aren't met, involuntary layoffs will be imposed in January or February.
"We are blessed with smart and talented people. Unfortunately, we are caught in a situation driven by economic conditions," said district Executive Director Blake Guillory. "We need to be as thoughtful and helpful as we can during this process while also serving the taxpayers of our area."
The streamlined workforce at the district is the result of the governor this year slashing the budgets of all the state's water management districts.
"As an organization, we have to get leaner and more efficient," said Guillory, who was hired this year after longtime director Dave Moore resigned. "The more quickly we can get right-sized for our budget and workload, the faster we can move forward, secure in our jobs, to meet the water resource challenges of this district."
The district's current budget is 44 percent smaller than last year's, and managers will have to tap cash reserves to help get though the year. If the cuts remain in effect, the district could face a $30 million shortfall by October 2013, according to a news release issued this week.
"We either have to reduce our costs significantly or reduce our cooperative funding and ecosystem restoration efforts in the future," Guillory said in the release.

111026-a









See Climate Change
info web-page by
EvergladesHUB.com

111026-a
Climate change deniers may be washed away by rising seas
The Miami Herald – Commentary by Fred Grimm
October 26, 2011
The rising sea will wash across great swaths of South Florida. Salt water will contaminate the well fields. Roads and farmland and low-lying neighborhoods will be inundated. The soil will no longer absorb the kind of heavy rainfalls that drenched South Florida last weekend. Septic tanks will fail. Drainage canals won’t drain. Sewers will back up. Intense storms will pummel the beachfront. Mighty rainfalls, in between droughts, will bring more floods.
The economic losses and the mitigation costs associated with the effects of global warming over the next few decades will be overwhelming. It will cost a medium-sized town like Pompano Beach hundreds of millions just to salvage its water and sewage systems.
A sobering study released by Florida Atlantic University contemplated the effects of global warming in specific terms, particularly for South Florida, considered one of the more vulnerable metropolitan areas in the world, with six million residents clustered by the ocean, living barely above sea level.
The study from FAU’s Center for Urban and Environmental Solutions, adding to an overwhelming scientific consensus about the disastrous effects of global warming, and along with growing hard evidence that temperature changes are already altering the environment, ought to have sent tremors through the halls of government.
Except it didn’t. Perhaps the most peculiar phenomenon associated with global warming has been a burgeoning disdain for climate science even as scientific consensus grows more urgent. Forget the stickier question of whether global warming has been fueled by human activity (as an overwhelming percentage of climate scientists believe), a poll by the Pew last year found that only 59 percent of Americans will even acknowledge the earth is warming, compared to 79 percent just five years ago.
This peculiarly American phenomenon comes despite a decade of record high temperatures. And despite findings of a sustained global temperature increase from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Hadley Centre in England, and, just last week, the University of California’s Berkeley Earth project, which compiled more than a billion temperature records dating back to the 1800s from 15 sources around the world.
If a billion temperature readings and a record-breaking drought this summer in Texas and Oklahoma weren’t convincing enough, global warming should be as plain as the Google Earth satellite photos of polar icecaps.
“It is really quite an unbelievable time,” said Harold Wanless, chairman of the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Miami. Wanless, who contributed to the FAU study, described the “dramatically accelerating melt from the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica.” He said, “We have forced the greenhouse gasses to levels that have not been reached since sea level was about 100 feet higher than present.”
And yet, Wanless lamented, “The population and many politicians seem to be grabbing at whatever denial statements are tossed out. Seems a bit like smoker and alcohol addiction.”
Somehow, lamented FAU’s Ricardo Alvarez, an expert on structural vulnerabilities and hazard mitigation, denial of global warming has been absorbed into an ever more contentious competition between political convictions in the U.S. “It’s no a matter of belief. It’s not religion,” he said.
Climate is not politics. Not abortion. Not gun rights. Yet another Pew poll this spring found 75 percent of far right conservatives, 63 percent of libertarians and 55 percent of self-described “Main Street” Republicans did not “believe” in global warming. The denial doctrine seems to have been embraced by the contenders for the Republican presidential nomination, with the exception of Jon Huntsman, as a rite of passage.
Barry N. Heimlich, lead researcher on the FAU study, suggested Friday that the media has contributed to the gulf between science and the public. “By giving equal credence to positions that are not well supported by science, the media presents a confusing and distorted picture to the public,” he said. “I believe that the media has a responsibility to present all sides of a story, but it also has an obligation to emphasize the truth and provide people with the proper balance of information so they can make intelligent, informed choices based on information that is reliable, supported by facts and not manipulated by special interests.”
Yet Heimlich is something of an optimist. In a state dominated by right-wing politics, with a climate denier in the governor’s office, he said, South Florida has remained a relative island of climate enlightenment. Heimlich talked about the green initiatives by both the Broward and Miami-Dade county commissions and by city governments. He spoke of the sense of urgency among the 40 South Florida water managers he interviewed for the study.
Heimlich insisted that in the hundreds of talks he has given across the region, from schools to political groups to civic organizations, deniers are a diminishing presence. It could be that the utter specifics that Heimlich and his researchers have accumulated simply scare the skeptics into silence. Daunting facts just tumbled out of his mouth: add another six inches to the sea level, he said, and 15 of Miami-Dade’s 28 flood-gate structures lose their ability to drain the region. Those six inches are an imminent inevitablity.
The study (http://www.ces.fau.edu/files/projects/climate_change/Fl_ResilientCoast.pdf) uses a single city, Pompano Beach, to illustrate the coming hazards facing water managers and local government. Within the next few decades, Pompano Beach will need to relocate well fields, build pump stations, replace septic tanks with a modern sewage system, reclaim wastewater, build a saltwater conversion plant and perhaps relocate residents from lowlying areas. It won’t be cheap.
And then there’s the beachfront. The study warns of erosion and of the possibility of very intense hurricanes, with a devastating sea surge riding atop heightened sea levels. The oceanfront, once the very allure of South Florida, will come to seem a treacherous and risky stretch of real estate.
Stephen Leatherman, co-director of the Laboratory for Coastal Research, who contributed to the study, insisted the science here was settled. He said via e-mail, “My work on sea level rise is straightforward — global warming causes sea level to rise, and rising sea level results in land loss, especially beach erosion…. There are no scientists that disagree with this statement, albeit the public may still be confused or not willing to accept this situation,” he said. “Especially if they own beachfront property.”
The question becomes, as climate deniers flourish in inverse proportion to the actual evidence, whether there’ll still be enough sand enough left on South Florida’s beaches to bury our collective heads

111026-b
Florida voters petition against EPA water regulations
Southeast Farm Press - by the Fertilizer Institute
October 26, 2011
More than 5,700 Florida voters have signed a petition urging President Obama to halt U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) efforts to implement draconian water regulations in the state of Florida.  
The petition was inspired by the "We the People" initiative that was recently launched by the White House.  
By obtaining more than 5,000 signatures, the petition, which was started in the state of Florida in September, has met the signature threshold required to obtain a formal response from the White House, as well as assurance that White House staff will share the concerns raised by the petition with appropriate policy experts.
The language of the petition addresses the costs associated with EPA's numeric nutrient criteria rule, which several studies have estimated to be in the billions. Florida voters who signed the petition believe EPA's rule will have "grave consequences on job creation and economic growth in Florida."
The Fertilizer Institute (TFI), the national trade association representing the U.S. fertilizer industry, supports the arguments raised by the petition and has consistently expressed its opposition to EPA's actions in Florida.
"This rule has an enormous cost and little benefit and we are urging EPA to reconsider this action," said TFI President Ford West. "We advocate smart and targeted policies that address water quality without placing an undue economic burden on farmers and the industries that support them. Such policies can achieve both environmental and food security goals."
The federally derived nutrient rule signed by EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson on Nov. 14, 2010, and published in the Federal Register on Dec. 6 would replace the narrative nutrient criteria which were already being applied by Florida's Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) with arbitrary standards and questionable science.
With 10.7 percent unemployment and job recovery uncertain, this rule is a threat to many sectors of Florida's economy, including the fertilizer industry

111026-c
For some South Florida cities, rising seas will mean rising sewage
Miami Herald – by Fred Grimm
October 26, 2011
Down among the pipes and pumps and gauges, amid the incessant cacophony of the water works, talk of rising sea levels no longer resonates as some distant and esoteric political squabble, irrelevant to a city’s delivery of basic of public services.
Two more feet, said Hollywood City Commissioner Dick Blattner, and his city’s water plant no longer functions. Hollywood’s waste water treatment plant, he said, has 20, maybe 25 years before the projected sea level changes render it useless.
Those are the realities that ought to trump mindless chatter about global warming on cable television. Of course, city and county commissioners trying to fill the holes in this year’s piddling budgets aren’t particularly anxious to contemplate a massively expensive crisis a couple of decades away. Nor do they want to get drawn into the ferocious U.S. debate between climate scientists and climate deniers over whether the burning of fossil fuels has contributed to global warming.
Except, no matter the cause, the earth’s getting hotter. Ice caps are melting. The warming ocean’s expanding. South Florida, built to 20th Century sea level specifications, can’t simply ignore the water lapping at its infrastructure.
Just last week, Richard Muller, a physics professor at the University of California, a revered climate skeptic, funded in part by climate-denier sugar daddy Charles Koch, admitted that his Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature team’s study of global temperature readings had come up with findings that coincided with research he had previously doubted.
“Our biggest surprise was that the new results agreed so closely with the warmingÿ values published previously by other teams in the US and the UK.,” Muller wrote in the Wall Street Journal. “When we began our study, we felt that skeptics had raised legitimate issues, and we didn’t know what we’d find. Our results turned out to be close to those published by prior groups. We think that means that those groups had truly been very careful in their work, despite their inability to convince some skeptics of that.”
“Even if people don’t accept the science, there is plenty of evidence that something is going on. Just look at the facts,” said Blattner, a member of the Broward County Water Resources Task Force. “I have been bringing this up for months.”
The Hollywood commissioner said the older cities clustered along South Florida’s coastline must start planning for the inevitable problems. Low-lying neighborhoods will be inundated unless local governments find some new way to get rid of storm waters. Blattner worries that his city’s most prestigious neighborhood, the Lakes area, faces perpetual flooding.
Cities must find new well fields in the western reaches of South Florida before the encroaching sea pushes salt water into the local aquifer. “Plans should be developed now,” he said.
Without some planning, and soon, coastal cities like Hollywood, with waste-water plants on sites that were chosen back in the middle of the 20th century, are headed toward an utter dysfunctional system, without the means to treat or get rid of its own sewage.
Not much help will be coming from Tallahassee, where climate denial has been embraced as a political truism. But local governments can’t dawdle, hoping the skeptics are right and the thermometers are wrong.
Last week, Florida Atlantic University’s Center for Urban and Environmental Solutions released a study on the specific effects higher temperatures and the rising sea would have on coastal towns and on city services. FAU, using Pompano Beach as a model, calculated that the costs to salvage water and sewer services would be counted in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Hollywood may be even more vulnerable.
The water task force is composed of elected officials and technical experts from around the region. “The technical folks get it,” Blattner said. The politicians, he said: not so much.
Among the political leaders (with the notable exception, he said, of Broward County Commissioner Kristin Jacobs), “I have not seen any willingness to address this.” Blattner wants city and county governments in South Florida to devise regional water and sewer plants designed to deal with the rising sea levels. Instead, individual cities are planning and building separate utilities, oblivious to the coming crisis. His committee has seen plans for water treatment plants that will be located, he said, in areas that are clearly “doomed.”
“Buildings will go up, plaques will be installed to recognize the vision of local officials,” he said. Except that vision will be very short sighted.

111026-d
Rooney's offshore drilling proposal is making waves
TCPalm - by Eve Samples
October 26, 2011
It's one of Martin County's greatest political strengths.
When it comes to matters of the environment, Republicans, Democrats and shades in between are known to raise a unified voice.
We hear their chorus rise whenever toxic algae blooms on the St. Lucie River.
And we're hearing it again as U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney pushes a bill that supports offshore oil and natural gas exploration in Florida's waters.
Last week, the Republican from Tequesta unveiled a jobs proposal that would broaden the area where the state has authority over drilling (from 3 miles offshore on the east coast of Florida to 12 miles) and dangle a carrot before state lawmakers by promising Florida a percentage of the revenue from drilling leases.
Rooney's plan also mandates more leases for oil and natural gas drilling in the federally controlled outer continental shelf.
Though passage of the bill is a long shot in this divided Congress, Rooney's proposal sends a message that he supports drilling off Florida's coast — despite a two-decade-old state ban on the practice.
That is not sitting will with elected officials including Charles Falcone, a town commissioner for Jupiter Island.
"I just think that Florida best serves its residents, its millions of residents, with a ban on offshore drilling," Falcone, a registered Independent, told me.
"I'm just very disappointed with Congressman Rooney on this point," he added.
It should be noted that, even if he could get his jobs bill passed, Rooney doesn't have the power to lift Florida's ban on drilling.
That's something that the state Legislature would have to do — something it almost did in 2009 when the House voted to lift the ban. The Senate never followed suit, but legislative leaders have suggested they would be open to considering it in the future. Gov. Rick Scott has consistently supported the idea.
Rooney's proposal would give the state financial incentive to lift the ban.
That's a slap in the face to the elected commissions of Martin County, Jupiter Island, Sewall's Point and Stuart — all of which have passed resolutions opposing offshore oil and natural gas drilling.
Sewall's Point Mayor Jacqui Thurlow-Lippisch doesn't understand why Rooney wouldn't take those local opinions into account.
"Do we pass these resolutions just for fun and then forget about them?" Thurlow-Lippisch, also an Independent, asked.
For his part, Rooney points to a need to reduce the high cost of fuel — even though it's questionable whether drilling in Florida's waters would actually reduce gas prices at the pump.
In a statement his spokesman emailed me Wednesday, Rooney said: "I share my constituents' concern for Florida's environment, and I want to make sure that energy is produced in Florida or off our shores as safely as possible. I'm also adamant that Florida receive its share of revenue from drilling."
We heard similar pledges about safety before last year's BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
George Jones, head of the Indian Riverkeeper, a nonprofit advocacy group, also opposes Rooney's plan. He doesn't think it will do much to create jobs in Florida.
"It's just a bad proposal all the way around for a state whose economy depends on clean air and clean water," said Jones, who is a Republican.
Jones and Thurlow-Lippisch also were disappointed when Rooney tried to kill new water-quality regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency. They would rather see Rooney embrace Everglades restoration as an economic engine.
A study commissioned by the nonprofit Everglades Foundation projects that every $1 spent on Everglades restoration generates a $4 return. It also says executing the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan would create 442,000 jobs over 50 years — in fishing, tourism, construction and other industries.
"I happen to think that there's ways that we should be fiscally responsible," Jones said. "But we don't need to do it on the backs of all the folks who need clean air and clean water."

111026-e
Scientists now fret about heat, not just water
Reuters
October 26, 2011
Crop scientists in the United States, the world’s largest food exporter, are pondering an odd question: could the danger of global warming really be the heat?
For years, as scientists have assembled data on climate change and pointed with concern at melting glaciers and other visible changes in the life-giving water cycle, the impact on seasonal rains and irrigation has worried crop watchers most.
What would breadbaskets like the US Midwest, the Central Asian steppes, the north China Plain or Argentine and Brazilian crop lands be like without normal rains or water tables? Those were seen as longer-term issues of climate change.
But scientists now wonder if a more immediate issue is an unusual rise in day-time and, especially, night-time summer temperatures being seen in crop belts around the world.
Interviews with crop researchers at American universities paint the same picture: high temperatures have already shrunken output of many crops and vegetables.
“We don’t grow tomatoes in the deep South in the summer. Pollination fails,” said Ken Boote, a crop scientist with the University of Florida.
The same goes for snap beans, which can no longer be grown in Florida during the summer, he added.
“As temperatures rise we are going to have trouble maintaining the yields of crops that we already have,” said Gerald Nelson, an economist with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) who is leading a global project initially funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to identify new crop varieties adapted to climate change.
“When I go around the world, people are much less skeptical, much more concerned about climate change,” said David Lobell, a Stanford University agricultural scientist.
Lobell was one of three authors of a much-discussed 2011 climate study of world corn, wheat, soybean and rice yields over the last three decades (1980-2008). It concluded that heat, not rainfall, was affecting yields the most.
“The magnitude of recent temperature trends is larger than those for precipitation in most situations,” the study said.
“We took a pretty conservative approach and still found sizable impacts. They certainly are happening already and not just something that will or might happen in the future,” Lobell told Reuters in an interview.
Scientists at an annual meeting of US agronomists last week in San Antonio said the focus was climate change.
“Its impact on agriculture systems, impacts on crops, mitigation strategies with soil management—a whole range of questions was being asked about climate change,” said Jerry Hatfield, Laboratory Director at the National Soil Tilth Laboratory in Ames, Iowa.
“The biggest thing is high night-time temperatures have a negative impact on yield,” Hatfield added, noting that the heat affects evaporation and the life process of the crops.
Boote at the University of Florida found that rice and sorghum plants failed to produce grain, something he calls “pollen viability,” when the average 24-hour temperature is 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35 Celsius). That equates to highs of 104 F during the day and 86 F at night, he said.
The global seed industry has set a high bar to boost crop yields by 2050 to feed a hungry world. Scientists said that the impact of heat on plant growth needs more focus and study.
“We are responding with a number of initatives...the primary one is focusing on drought tolerance,” said John Soper, vice president in charge of global seed development for DuPont’s Pioneer Hi-Bred, a top US seed producer.

111026-f
State's proposed clean water rules draw concern
News-Press.com
October 26, 2011
The state's most recent attempt at developing standards for water quality in lakes, rivers and estuaries is under attack from critics who say the draft rules are too weak and won't satisfy the Federal Clean Water Act.
Members of the state Environmental Regulatory Commission next week are scheduled to review the Department of Environmental Protection's newest proposed rule to regulate the amount of allowable pollution in Florida fresh water. The proposed rules were updated earlier this month.
Among the most controversial issues is the use of water quality averages to determine whether a water body is in compliance or not. The rule requires multiple tests be taken at various times of the year from different locations. If the body exceeds the baseline standards two out of three years, the body is considered out of compliance.
The rules do not designate criteria for nutrient levels at the "end of the pipe", which means discharges of particular sources are not specifically monitored. Linda Young, of the Clean Water Network, said the lack of source-specific limits means that water bodies are turned into large mixing zones that literally dilute the harm caused by specific polluters.
"The state government’s single-minded focus in protecting the economic and political goals of the regulated interests in Florida is short-sighted and undemocratic," Young said in a response to the Oct. 6 revisions. "The citizens and taxpayers of Florida understand the importance of clean water to our health, economy and quality of life."
Water-quality standards have been a major issue in Florida during the past couple of years, as business groups and many state and local leaders have fought EPA efforts to impose stricter standards through what are known as "numeric nutrient criteria.''
A 2008 lawsuit argued that the EPA had failed to enforce provisions of the federal Clean Water Act, despite an agency ruling in 1998 ordering states to comply with its edict to set verifiable limits on nutrient discharges that are largely responsible for algae blooms and other degradation of Florida's inland waters. Opponents contend that the criteria would force costly upgrades of facilities such as sewage-treatment plants, which discharge water into rivers and streams. But supporters say the standards would help clean up the state's waterways, preventing health and environmental problems.
A number of industry groups say Florida's water quality issues are unique, and better suited to state regulation than to a one-size-fits-all federal mandate. They also argue that there's no scientific evidence for the EPA-proposed rules.
Typical of the favorable comments received on the proposed DEP rules is the comment from phosphate company CF Industries.
"CF Industries remains concerned that EPA’s controversial stream criteria, which CF and others have consistently maintained are not supported by science or appropriate for application as water quality standards in Florida," said Craig A. Kovach, director of environmental affairs for the company in a comment filed on the proposal.
Monica Reimer, an attorney for EarthJustice, which filed the lawsuit that forced EPA to enforce the clean water standards, said the proposed rules appear to contain a number of loopholes that will allow the state to acknowledge the federal standards while maintaining more flexible state standards.
"It appears they are saying that, we don't think there is a cause and effect relationship between nutrients and bad things happening in the stream," Reimer said.
The ERC has scheduled a public hearing to discuss the new standards and take public comment. Going forward, the commission is scheduled to take a vote on the new standards in December.

111026-g
Swiftmud to eliminate up to 150 employees
TBO.com
October 26, 2011
The agency that oversees water resources in West Central Florida announced this week that its slashed budget will include doing away with as many as 150 of its 768 employees.
The Southwest Florida Water Management District governing board approved the restructuring plan at its meeting on Tuesday. Of the positions to be eliminated, 40 are currently vacant or are contractors who are finishing up jobs.
The agency's staff will be offered voluntary severance plans for 45 days, if the goals aren't met, involuntary layoffs will be imposed in January or February.
"We are blessed with smart and talented people. Unfortunately, we are caught in a situation driven by economic conditions," said district Executive Director Blake Guillory. "We need to be as thoughtful and helpful as we can during this process while also serving the taxpayers of our area."
The streamlined workforce at the district is the result of the governor earlier this year slashing the budgets of all the state's water management districts.
"As an organization, we have to get leaner and more efficient," said Guillory, who was hired earlier this year after longtime director Dave Moore resigned. "The more quickly we can get right-sized for our budget and workload, the faster we can move forward, secure in our jobs, to meet the water resource challenges of this district."
The district's current budget is 44 percent lower than last year and managers will have to tap cash reserves to help get though the year, but if the cuts remain in effect, the district could face a $30 million shortfall by October 2013, according to a news release issued this week.
"We either have to reduce our costs significantly or reduce our cooperative funding and ecosystem restoration efforts in the future," Guillory said in the release.

111026-h
Tamiami Trail bridge restores flow to Everglades, but it won't be enough
TampaBay.com - by Craig Pittman, Times Staff Writer
October 26, 2011
ON THE TAMIAMI TRAIL — For nearly a century, the flow of the Everglades has been blocked by a bumpy, two-lane road. The Tamiami Trail, built in the 1920s to allow Model A Fords to travel across the Everglades, effectively dammed the River of Grass, starving what would become a national park and altering its flora and fauna.
Now, after two decades of struggling to get approval and funding, the road is rising to let the river run free. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is raising a mile of the Tamiami Trail so water can once again flow into Everglades National Park.
Last week Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, flanked by a squad of other federal officials, showed off the progress on the project to a group of journalists. The officials all donned hard hats and posed for pictures at the construction site, boasting about how the $95 million project first approved by Congress in 1989 would be completed by December 2013.
There's only one problem. Raising just a single mile of the highway "is not sufficient," said Stu Appelbaum, who's in charge of planning for the corps' Everglades restoration work. Saving the River of Grass requires more flow than what that one segment would allow.
"We'll put as much flow as we can through that opening," Appelbaum said. "But obviously more is better."
Last year the Interior Department, which oversees national parks, unveiled plans for raising another 5.5 miles of the highway. The plan called for using four different bridges, ranging in length from a third of a mile to 2.6 miles, to be built over four years at an estimated cost of $324 million.
"Now we need to find funding sources," said Salazar, speculating the cost may rise to $400 million. "We're at a crossroads."
He acknowledged that getting a Congress focused on reducing the federal deficit to put up so much money for bridges in Florida might be a tough sell. When a reporter asked Salazar if building the next set of bridges would take another 20 years, he said, "I certainly hope not."
Pinellas County's U.S. Rep. C.W. Bill Young has inserted language authorizing the next bridge project into a House bill, but so far there's nothing in the Senate, said Kirk Fordham, executive director of the Everglades Foundation. As for funding, he said, "my sense of it is that it will take at least another couple of years."
The Everglades once flowed without interruption from the region just south of Orlando through Lake Okeechobee and across the sawgrass marshes to Florida Bay. Then, in the early 1920s, big dredges arrived to scoop out the muck and build a 275-mile highway straight as a ruler across the marsh. Because it would link Tampa and Miami, the road that opened in 1928 was dubbed "Tamiami."
The places that had been dug up became flood-control canals. Where the dredges dumped the spoil became the roadbed. In 1923, Florida's chief Everglades drainage engineer sent a letter to sugar company employee Ernest "Cap" Graham — father of future governor and U.S. senator Bob Graham — acknowledging that the "road acts as a continuous dam across the Everglades preventing the natural flow of water" into a waterway called Shark River Slough.
Although there are 19 culverts under the Tamiami Trail, they can't match the original flow, explained Everglades National Park superintendent Dan Kimball. Before the road, the peak flow was 4,000 cubic feet of water per second meandering across a 10-mile-wide stretch. The culverts allow less than half that much, and it shoots through as if being sprayed out of a garden hose.
The loss of so much flow wreaked havoc on the Everglades. Marshy plants died off and wading birds flew away. The population of wading birds within the Everglades has decreased between 70 and 90 percent since the 1930s.
Scientists knew how to fix this problem, but even after Congress authorized raising the road it took two decades of studies, politics and legal battles. The Sierra Club pushed for an 11-mile elevated ''skyway,'' but federal officials dismissed the $1.6 billion proposal as far too expensive to be practical.
Instead they settled on the one-mile bridge, and also raising the water level in the adjacent L-29 canal so more water would flow through that opening but still prevent it from swamping the rest of the highway. Col. Al Pantano, the corps' commander in Florida, hailed the 2009 groundbreaking as "a major milestone along the journey to restore America's Everglades."
Without more millions, though, that milestone might mark the end of the restoration road. U.S. Rep. David Rivera, R-Miami, said he hopes to persuade Congress to come up with the cash for the next set of bridges just by telling them it's the only way to save the Everglades.
"My colleagues understand that protecting the Everglades is a national issue," Rivera said. "Everyone knows its importance to the world."
The one thing the bridge project has going for it in Congress is that it enjoys bipartisan support, said Fordham, a former congressional aide. But what everyone should remember, he said, is that "Everglades restoration isn't for short-term thinkers. You have to have patience and persistence."

111026-i
Underwater cities: Climate change begins to reshape the urban landscape
Grist magazine - by Tony Davis
October 26, 2011
Dan Kipness, a retired fishing boat captain and a 60-year Miami Beach resident, has a video that offers a glimpse of where this coastal city is headed. In it, cars and trucks kick floodwater into the air as they drive down Miami Beach's streets. This isn't rainwater -- the skies are at least partially sunny and blue. Instead, the waters seeped into the streets from underground storm sewers during high tide.
Kipness says he never saw such flooding until a decade ago, but now sees it up to twice a day during the fall, when tides are especially high. He says he's watched the undersides of $100,000 cars get rusted away by salt water.
This happens, many experts say, because of rising sea levels attributed to the melting of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica. We can expect to see more of the same across South Florida in the coming years, as a warming climate accelerates the faraway melting. Researchers are just now beginning to grapple with what this will mean for the inner workings of the city.
Miami is one of the world's most vulnerable cities to rising sea levels from climate change, according to the international Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development. Sea levels have risen nine to 12 inches here in the past century, and are expected to rise up to six more inches by 2030, 12 to 21 inches by 2060, and by three to five feet by 2100.
What will this look like? With a two-foot rise, water would cover 28 percent of South Florida and wetlands would be lost as far from the coast as Homestead, about a 125-mile drive from Key West. Miami would become a barrier island, Hal Wanless, chair of the University of Miami's geology department, told members of the Society of Environmental Journalists, which held its annual conference here last week.
With a four-foot rise, 48 percent of the land in South Florida would be soaked, the Everglades would become an estuary, and two proposed nuclear plants at Turkey Point along the eastern coast would be underwater. At five feet of rise, storm surges would flow in all directions. At six feet, 56 percent of the land would be gone and 73 percent of what's left would be less than two feet above sea level.
"In other words, you wouldn't want to live in it," says Wanless, who co-chairs a science committee for the Miami-Dade County climate change task force.
But while those scenarios have been well studied, another has barely peeped onto the experts' radar screen -- the potential for large-scale gentrification of lower-income, minority areas on higher ground by affluent, coastal residents who would buy and fix up aging homes there, pushing existing residents out.
Gentrification is already spreading in Miami's urban core with an increasing array of high-rise condo projects along Biscayne Boulevard north of downtown. As sea levels rise, development pressure is bound to push further, to the neighborhoods along the coastal ridge, standing 15 to 20 feet above sea level.
These ridge areas were settled as long ago as the 1920s and '30s, when blacks came to the Overtown area. After much of the area was drained to allow for development, Asians, Cubans, and Haitians settled on the ridge land.
"It's where they built the railroad -- nobody wanted to live along the railroad," says Kipness, the retired fishing captain. "It's the last place to flood."
In Little Haiti along Northeast 2nd Ave., starting a bit north of downtown, a large Haitian community has found a niche and opened stores with French and Creole names such as Jenin's Grocery, Pinan Bauta restaurant, and Libreri Mapou bookstore. A sign offers "unlimited calls to Haiti" for $39.99 a month.
Gentrification is already reshaping this and other inland areas, says Hugh Gladwin, an associate sociology-anthropology professor at Miami's Florida International University. "It's creating pressure on neighborhoods that have houses on high ground."
Gladwin, who doubles as director of Florida International's Institute of Public Opinion, is one of the few people in the region to publicly raise this issue of sea-level-driven gentrification. "Somebody's going to go there and it's probably going to be somebody with money," he says.
If tough decisions have to be made to relocate people from the coast, it will require higher densities in the urban core, said Nichole Hefty, climate change program coordinator for the Miami-Dade County government, at the Little Haiti Cultural Center. "How do you do that without immense human costs? What happens to a thriving community when you suddenly have to make these decisions?"
Gladwin predicts that if the Haitian-American community is driven from Little Haiti, they'll just go somewhere else because a goodly number of them are "U.S. citizens, hardworking and smart. The worst problems are going to be for Hispanics, particularly Cubans, who came here more recently and who don't speak English."
Other cities have installed floodgates to protect from storm surges and rising tides, but Miami is not the Netherlands, where authorities can stick walls into the ground to hold back the sea, says Jayantha Obeysekera, chief modeler for the six-county South Florida Water Management District. "Our groundwater system consists of limestone -- it's very porous, it's like Swiss cheese."
To cope with the rising seawater that seeps in through the ground, and with flooding created by stormwater runoff, authorities have built 28 pump stations in the region. But the water district's Obeysekera says pumps and other technological fixes won't protect everyone from higher seas. "If the sea level rise is two or three feet, water would come around structures into low-lying areas -- if you put as many pumps in as you want, it won't protect you," Obeysekera says.
Still, many in this city cling to the belief that technology can overcome the coming floods. Realtor Scott Diffender has lived in the Miami Beach area for nearly 20 years. He has watched high tide flooding increase and rust out more and more cars. But he doesn't think he'll have to leave.
"There's billions of dollars of real estate there," says Diffender, who runs a homeowners association on Belle Isle, a barrier island between Miami and Miami Beach. "I can't believe they can't protect it."
Tony Davis is a longtime environment reporter for the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson, and a regular contributor to High Country News.

111026-j
Water management district Swiftmud to shed up to 150 employees
TampaBay.com - by Craig Pittman, Times Staff Writer
October 26, 2011
The state agency that oversees water supplies in the 16 counties around Tampa Bay will shed 130 to 150 of its 768 employees by early next year, its board decided Tuesday.
Employees of the Southwest Florida Water Management District will be offered a voluntary separation plan that will be available for 45 days. If that doesn't work, then involuntary layoffs will follow in January or February, officials at the agency commonly known as Swiftmud announced.
The reason for the cutback: This spring, Gov. Rick Scott and the Legislature slashed how much Swiftmud could collect in taxes. As a result, the Brooksville-based agency has already cut its budget to 44 percent of what it was last year, but still faces a potential $30 million budget shortfall by 2013, agency officials say.
That means choosing between cutting environmental programs or cutting staff, according to newly hired Swiftmud executive director Blake Guillory. He chose to cut staff.
"The more quickly we can get right-sized for our budget and workload, the faster we can move forward, secure in our jobs, to meet the water resource challenges of this district," Guillory, an engineer with no previous experience running a government agency, said in a news release.
Guillory presented his plan for restructuring the agency to its governing board Tuesday, and the board approved it. The plan is expected to save Swiftmud more than $15 million per year.
Swiftmud is supposed to meet the water needs of current and future water users while protecting and preserving the water resources in an area that covers about 10,000 square miles of west-central Florida. It's one of the state's five water management districts — all of which have been undergoing major upheavals since Scott took office this year.
In August, after ordering cuts that totaled about $700 million from all five districts, Scott said he wanted the agencies to slash their budgets further. Scott ordered cuts at Swiftmud totaling $4.2 million more. He cut $2.4 million from Swiftmud's reserve fund and took the rest out of salaries.
The governor said then that those additional cuts "are just the first steps in ensuring that Florida's precious water resources are protected and managed in the most fiscally responsible way possible."
"It's a dark day for Florida's water resources," Audubon of Florida's Charles Lee said then.
The remaking of Swiftmud really took off with the arrival of Guillory, who started the first week of October. He immediately sent two of his deputy executive directors and the agency's longtime attorney packing, and then demoted a third deputy director.
Guillory himself has taken a pay cut. He was making $175,000 a year at the engineering firm Brown & Caldwell, but Scott has told all five water management districts he wants their executive directors' salaries capped at $165,000.

111026-k
Wetlands restoration panel worries over loss of money for monitoring
Palm Beach Post - by Christine Stapleton, Staff Writer
October 26, 2011
The monitoring programs that reveal how Everglades restoration plans are working -- or not -- have been slashed by 60 percent overall -- leaving gaping holes in programs that predict algal blooms, monitor pollution, provide real-time water level data and assess the survival rates of endangered species.
Gone altogether are programs that monitor the well-being of alligators, crocodiles and pink shrimp, indicator species that reveal the health of the entire ecosystem. Cuts to wading bird monitoring in Lake Okeechobee will leave scientists unable to accurately predict the start, peak and end of the nesting season -- benchmarks needed to establish a cause-and-effect relationship between restoration efforts and wildlife.
"Basically, the Everglades and Lake Okeechobee are like patients in an emergency room," said Paul Gray, science coordinator for Lake Okeechobee watershed programs at Audubon of Florida. "If you have a patient in the emergency room, the last thing you want to do is shut off all the monitoring equipment."
The proposed cuts, by agencies involved in restoration projects, will be discussed today at a meeting of the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Task Force, an interagency group of federal, state and tribal groups which was established by Congress in 1996 to develop consistent policies, exchange information, resolve conflicts and coordinate research.
Monitoring restoration efforts is the keystone of a decision-making process called "adaptive management," which governs Everglades restoration projects. "Adaptive management" allows decision makers to customize projects based on historical data -- what worked and what did not.
"Adaptive management is totally dependent on data," said John Marshall, chairman of the Florida Environmental Institute and nephew of late conservationist Arthur R. Marshall.
Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge covers 147,000 acres of remnant northern Everglades habitat, just west of urban neighborhoods that run from Southern Boulevard to Boca Raton. A 56 percent cut in an aerial monitoring program that tracks plant growth and water depth throughout the Everglades will completely eliminate vegetation sampling in the refuge.
That could cause serious problems in monitoring the spread of invasive plants, such as the Old World climbing fern, John Marshall said. The fern, which smothers native vegetation, infests tens of thousands of acres in the refuge.
"Without monitoring, how can you make a decision on what is producing the best results?" Marshall asked. "If you don't have monitoring, you don't know where you're at."
Also hard hit are programs that monitor the health of oysters -- barometers of estuary health -- in the Lake Worth Lagoon, Loxahatchee River and St. Lucie estuary. Unlike other sentinel species, oysters don't have the ability to move out of the way of pollution, giving researchers valuable data on water quality, especially salinity levels. The data are also used to schedule releases of fresh water from Lake Okeechobee."
Do you do quarterly monitoring – would that be good enough?" said John Scarpa, research professor in aquaculture at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute at Florida Atlantic University. Scarpa, who participated in an assessment of an oyster reef in the Lake Worth Lagoon several years ago, describes oysters as the "canary in the coal mine" for gauging the success of restoration programs.
"We still need to do something," Scarpa said. "Is the restoration going to get done if we keep pulling the plug on certain projects?"

111025-a
Fourth-generation Floridian becomes Hobe Sound National Wildlife Center manager
TCPalm - by Curt Devine
October 25, 2011
HOBE SOUND — As a fourth-generation Floridian, Bill Miller has fought for decades to protect the Sunshine State's natural environment.
"I remember as a young man, my grandma asked me, 'Bill, how will we conserve the Everglades?'" Miller explained. "Right then, I found my calling."
Hired as the new manager of the Hobe Sound National Wildlife Center, Miller plans to safeguard the 1,140-acre coastal preserve with richer habitats for endangered species and better opportunities for local volunteers.
He said managing a refuge in Hobe Sound is challenging because there are many external threats to the natural environment, such as beach erosion and exotic species.
"We have to provide the best quality habitats, otherwise these animals will not survive," said Miller, 45. "That is our first purpose."
The refuge shelters a wide variety of endangered species, including sea turtles, least terns, indigo snakes and West Indian manatees. Miller said he thinks replenishing the beach after erosion and conducting controlled forest fires will foster healthier populations.
Although prescribed fires can be controversial, he said they are a part of the refuge's long-term plan to enrich the sand scrub forest, which in turn cultivates a balanced ecosystem.
Additionally, Miller said volunteers play an important role in the refuge's success. Opportunities include monitoring animal populations, taking inventory, leading refuge hikes and educating the community on the importance of conservation.
"We have to have a dedicated set of supporters," he said. "If we don't get that right, then we will fall short."
To increase relevance in the community, Miller aims to refurbish the refuge trails and put up-to-date messages in all the kiosks. He also hopes in the future to use smartphone technology to send out messages.
Miller studied forestry at the University of Florida and later received a master's degree in earth science from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He worked as a project manager at the National Key Deer Refuge in the Florida Keys and as a biologist at the Loxahatchee refuge in Palm Beach County

111025-b
How Crony Capitalism Dominates the Sugar Business
GreenBiz.com - by Marc Gunther
October 25, 2011
Next time I unwrap a candy bar, I'll think about sugar, free markets, the Florida Everglades and Monica Lewinsky.
Why ?  Because although the sugar in that candy bar may be natural, its price is entirely artificial -- depending, as it does, on government trade barriers, price supports and subsidized water, as well as the fact that the sugar industry is paying only a fraction of the costs of cleaning up pollution in the Everglades.
Put simply, crony capitalism is alive and well in the sugar business.
"The sugar industry doesn't make its money from agriculture," declares David Guest, a lawyer with Earthjustice and an outspoken critic of Big Sugar. "They make it from government."
That's an exaggeration, of course. The Florida industry grows lots of sugar, invests hundreds of millions of dollars in new equipment and employs thousands of people, as I learned last week during a day-long tour of the Lake Okeechobee region of south Florida, as part of the Society of Environmental Journalists conference in Miami. We met Guest from Earthjustice ("because the earth needs a good lawyer"), officials from Florida water agencies and the Army Corps of Engineers, an Audubon society biologist and, most interestingly, Judy Sanchez, senior director of public affairs for the U.S. Sugar Corp.
U.S. Sugar and Florida Crystals, which is owned by Fanjul family -- once described by Time magazine as the "First Family of Corporate Welfare" -- are the two biggest producers of sugar in south Florida. U.S. Sugar produces about 700,000 tons of sugar a year, about 8 percent of U.S. production. Sugar comes from sugar beets grown in the upper midwest, gives the industry political muscle from Miami to Minnesota.
Sugarcane is, for the most part, an environmentally friendly crop. It's a perennial that requires little in the way of fertilizers and pesticide. When pest controls are needed, they are usually natural, such as owls that are encouraged to nest in the fields because they can eat up to 1,000 times their weight in rodents each year. No part of the plant is wasted -- leaves and stalks are burned to generate the electricity that powers the sugar refinery.
"Sugarcane needs basically two things -- sunshine and rain," Sanchez said. Florida has lots of both. So far, so good.
The trouble is, the rain is not evenly distributed throughout the year; it rains almost every day from June through October, and not much at all in the winter. During the dry season, farmers water for irrigation out of Lake Okeechobee to the north, after which the water flows south into the Everglades. As a result -- and this is a simple summary of a complicated story, about which books have been written -- the lake water contains high levels of phosphorus, a fertilizer, which threatens the Everglades, which are undergoing an $8 billion ecosystem restoration project, the largest in American history.
Sugar farmers, as part of the restoration plan, have been ordered to adopt best management practices to avoid the unnecessary use of fertilizers. On average, they have reduced the amount of phosphorus in their runoff by 55 percent, according to the South Florida Water Management District. But they're still adding to the problem, and discharging water that needs extensive and expensive treatment.
More than 52,000 acres of land south of Lake Okeechobee have been converted into man-made wetlands to treat the water, at a cost of about $1.5 billion so far. While the growers pay an "agricultural privilege tax" to support the project, it covers just a fraction of the cost, about $17 million a year. To be sure, upstream cattle and dairy farmers and property owners who fertilizer their lawns generate even more of the excess nutrients. Allocating the costs of cleaning pollution is never easy; in this case taxpayers foot most of the bill.
This is just one way that taxpayers support the industry. The federal government also sets a floor under market prices by providing loans to growers that can be paid back by turning sugar over to the government. Growers haven't had to rely on those supports lately because demand for sugar has been robust. "Since the economy has gone down, sugar consumption has gone up in the United States," Sanchez said.
Then there's what Sanchez called "border protection." No, this isn't about smugglers or illegal immigrants. What's being stopped at the border by by import quotas imposed by Congress is sugar from countries in the developing world, India, Thailand and especially Brazil, which grows more sugar at a lower cost than the U.S.
This is a sweet deal for Big Sugar and a sour one for the rest of us. Americans pay more for sugar -- two to three times more, according to a 2010 report from Citizens Against Government Waste, which opposes trade barriers. Even worse, candy makers have shifted production and jobs overseas to get access to lower priced sugar, according to a trade group called the Sweetener User Association.
I asked Sanchez how the quotas can be justified. She said they don't cost consumers much and protect an important domestic industry: "Sugar goes into all of our processed foods." America depends on other countries for oil and, she said, "the government doesn't want us doing that in sugar." Besides, she told me, other countries subsidize their own growers.
"We would love a free global market," Sanchez said. "Until we have across the board free trade, we don't see why the U.S. should dismantle its food production, which is the safest and most efficient in the world, and creates American jobs."
But if other countries want to subsidize sugar and sell it to us, why object? In effect, they're giving us a gift. If prices rise over time, we'll adjust. Who knows? People might eat less sugar.
The bottom line, though, is that while the U.S. is said to be a market economy, that's not so for sugar. And the rest of agriculture, and energy, and health care…but we digress.
And Monica Lewinsky ?  
Well, on Presidents' Day in 1996, Bill Clinton told her that he "no longer felt right about their intimate relationship, and he had to put a stop to it," according to the Starr report. Later, Lewinsky recalled, this was the moment when the president got a phone call from a man named "Fanuli." White House records identified the caller as Florida sugar magnate Alfonso Fanjul Jr. Clinton and Fanjul spoke for 22 minutes, most likely about the fact that a few hours before, Vice President Gore had called for a penny-a-pound tax on Florida sugar growers to help restore the Everglades.
Says Guest: "That gives you a sense of the political influence they have -- to be able to interrupt the president at a moment like that."
The tax was never passed.

111025-c
Salazar Calls for Coverage
The Observatory - by Curtis Brainard
October 25, 2011
Interior Secretary highlights underreported environment stories
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar had a few tips for environmental journalists last week about under-covered stories on their beat.
Speaking at the Society of Environmental Journalists’ twenty-first annual conference here in Miami, Salazar said that the Gulf of Mexico oil spill in 2010 revealed that Americans were “hungry” for news about its causes and consequences, and that they care “deeply” about land, water, and wildlife.
The spill also laid bare a larger truth about the importance of journalism, he said:
“A second lesson from the coverage of Deepwater Horizon is that Americans aren’t just passionate about conservation, they also demand knowledge and information about the natural world and how it’s changing.
Yes, our attention spans are shorter in the digital age. And yes, there is a demand for sound bites, bulletins, and punditry. But Deepwater Horizon proved that there is also a huge appetite—and appreciation—for complicated information, scientific perspectives, and nuanced reporting.
How else do you explain that “loop current,” “blowout preventer,” and “hydrates” became familiar terms in American households? The oil spill put a premium on good reporting. It put a premium on good reporters.”
Complimenting spill coverage by NBC’s Anne Thompson and the Houston Chronicle’s Jennifer Dlouhy, he asked journalists to pay more attention to three other “big” environmental stories.
The first was “the countless locally-driven, consensus-based conservation efforts that have taken root across the country,” he said. “They don’t get much attention because there’s often no conflict involved, but what’s happening along the rivers of America, what’s happening in the Dakota Grasslands and the Flint Hills of Kansas, and what’s happening right here in the Everglades, is nothing short of a revolution.”
Salazar explained that the following day he would lay four planks on a boardwalk at the Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge near Vero Beach, Florida inlaid with the names of the four latest areas to join the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s conservation system: the Flint Hills Legacy Conservation Area of Kansas, the Dakota Grassland Conservation Area of South Dakota and North Dakota, the Cherry Valley National Wildlife Refuge of Pennsylvania, and the Tulare Basin Wildlife Management Area of California.
The second story that the Secretary said deserves more attention is “the inextricable connection between the health of land and water and the health of our economy” evinced by the Gulf oil spill.
“The fact is: America’s great outdoors are a massive economic engine for our nation,” he said. “The extent to which our land, water, and wildlife fuel our economy is not adequately understood or reported—and, unfortunately, that knowledge gap can have real consequences when people make decisions about investments and fiscal priorities.”
Lastly, Salazar asked for reporters’ “help explaining what is at stake for conservation at this moment in our history.” He highlighted the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, saying that over the last two years, the Obama administration had “moved mountains to provide additional funding and to move Everglades restoration from planning to on-the-ground results.”
The following day, the Secretary toured the Tamiami Trail Bridge Project where construction is under way on a one-mile bridge, to be completed by 2013, which will help restore water flows to the Everglades. Such conservation projects, in the Everglades and around the country, are “in jeopardy,” Salazar said.
“It’s not simply a matter of budgets, although the House Republican budget would force the closure of an estimated 100 national wildlife refuges to the public,” he said. “It’s also about a fundamentally different vision of who we are as a nation and what we can do as a people.”
Indeed, as The Washington Post’s Juliet Eilperin recently reported, House Republicans have targeted the Land and Water Conservation Fund for “drastic cuts,” yet resistance to environmental goals extends far beyond Capitol Hill.
Florida governor Rick Scott travelled to Washington, DC in early October for a two-hour meeting with Salazar, during which he asked for more time and money to reach a clean-water target for the Everglades, according to an article by Miami Herald reporter Erika Bolstad and St. Petersburg Times reporter Craig Pittman. Originally, the state was supposed to cut the flow of phosphorous into the Glades to ten parts per billion by 2012, but the state legislature pushed the deadline back to 2016. Scott said he now needs another six years on top of that, requesting that the deadline be extended to 2022.
Asked about Scott’s request in Miami, Salazar said:
“The state of Florida in our last three years has a very effective partner with us in accomplishing what we’ve been able to accomplish. We hope that the same thing happens with the new governor, but I will saying honestly that the jury is still out, and the plan that he has presented is a plan which we are currently evaluating … But we are encouraged that we have a positive dialogue moving with Gov. Scott, but we’ll see where that takes us over the next several weeks.”
Salazar’s hint of skepticism notwithstanding, he caught a bit of flak from author and Miami Herald columnist Carl Hiaasen, who spoke after him and called the Secretary’s optimism about working with Scott “somewhat amusing.”
“This is the same guy who only shortly after taking office was interviewed wearing a pair of alligator-skin boots, announcing that if it were up to him, he would just shoot the alligators,” said Hiaasen, a native Floridian. “This is who is now custodian of the future of the Everglades in Florida. Every time I think about giving up the column to just work on these novels that I write—mostly as psychotherapy—Florida does something like Rick Scott, and how could I possibly sit on the sidelines for the next four years?”
Indeed, in introducing him, University of Miami president Donna Shalala called Hiaasen “South Florida’s rakish champion of the environment and scourge of the wrongdoer,” adding that, “no one wants to be exposed in a Hiaasen column.”

111025-d
South Florida water levels rising, but watering restrictions remain
Sun Sentinel - by Andy Reid
October 25, 2011
South Florida water levels keep rising, but that doesn’t mean drought-triggered watering restrictions for homes and businesses are going away any time soon.
Heavy October rains have boosted water levels from the Everglades to Lake Okeechobee as well as underground water supplies.
On Tuesday, Lake Okeechobee – South Florida’s primary back-up water supply – rose above what is considered the “water shortage” level.
Despite the improved conditions, the South Florida Water Management District plans to maintain the twice-a-week landscape watering restrictions, imposed in March from Orlando to the Keys.
Also, farming irrigation restrictions remain – requiring 45 percent watering use cutbacks for some growers, including sugar cane.
While water levels may be on the rise now at the tail end of South Florida’s rainy season, projections for a drier than normal winter-to-spring dry season mean this could just be a temporary water supply reprieve.
"Even if the lake rises above the water shortage management zone, it is not expected to stay above the line during the dry season, so conservation will remain critical," district spokesman Gabe Margasak said.
South Florida has averaged more than 6 inches of rain so far in October, which is more than 3 inches above normal.
Lake Okeechobee on Tuesday was 12.93 feet above sea level. That’s about 1 foot higher than just one week ago, but still more than 2 feet below normal.
The effects of this year’s drought were amplified by decisions in 2010 to drain more than 300 billion gallons of Lake Okeechobee water out to sea to lessen the strain on the dike that protects lakeside communities from flooding.
Audubon of Florida and other environmental groups have called for the district to impose tougher watering restrictions, arguing that conservation boosts water supplies for urban areas and wetlands alike.
Twice-a-week watering was already the law of the land for most of Broward and Miami-Dade counties, but Palm Beach County and other areas had been allowing watering up to three times per week before the district imposed the “temporary,” districtwide watering restrictions.
West Palm Beach, Palm Beach, South Palm Beach and Lake Worth remain under once-a-week watering restrictions due to heightened concerns about their water supplies.
About half of the public water supply ends up getting used for landscape irrigation, according to the water management district.

111024-
Scott pledges to come clean
Palm Beach Post – by - Randy Schultz,
October 24, 2011
If Gov. Scott deserves credit for proposing a new Everglades rescue plan, two other people deserve more credit.
Alan Gold and Federico Moreno are federal judges in Miami supervising lawsuits against the state for failing to clean water that flows into the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge and Everglades National Park. Judges Gold and Moreno show no indication of easing off. We don't know how much Gov. Scott loves the Everglades, but we know that he hates lawsuits.
So nine days ago, the governor led a delegation that met in Washington with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson participated over the phone. Gov. Scott laid out a plan to remove enough pollution by 2022 to keep water from harming the refuge and the park.
The details can get very technical very quickly. Simply put, though, the South Florida Water Management District would make the system store more water and clean it more thoroughly. This effort began in 1994, when the Legislature passed the Everglades Forever Act in response to a lawsuit by the Department of Justice. Runoff from sugar farms, the primary source of pollution, is much cleaner but not clean enough.
So the news is that Gov. Scott has agreed to the pollution standard of 10 parts per billion of phosphorus and has committed to meeting it. As Audubon of Florida Vice President Eric Draper points out, though, the plan takes the "most optimistic view" and assumes that everything will go right between now and 2022. What if the water district, though, can't get the best land? What if the district has to demand more anti-pollution efforts from farmers or buy more of their land ? Can the district meet this goal after Gov. Scott ordered the district to cut $128 million from its budget?
Executive Director Melissa Meeker says the district is negotiating with landowners to swap some of the land purchased from U.S. Sugar. By going "slower and shallower," she says, treatment areas will clean runoff better. She also notes, correctly, that "this is not the governor's plan for the future of the Everglades." Indeed, this plan is about water quality, not getting more fresh water to the Everglades. That's the 68-project Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan. One of those projects will break ground next week in Martin County. Florida, though, is not being sued over water quantity, just water quality.
Gov. Scott has proposed a serious plan, and the state is stressing cooperation with Washington over confrontation. Ms. Meeker and Shannon Estenoz, who directs the Interior Department's Everglades restoration task force, served together on the water district board. If the governor can satisfy the judges, there will be reason for optimism.

111023-
Short-term water fixes cost more in long run
Palm Beach Post - Letters to the Editor by John A. Marshall
October 23, 2011
Virtually all people with knowledge of water supply variables in South Florida admit that the long-term solution is restoration of wetlands and historic sheet flow as part of Everglades restoration ("Rain's relief from drought expected to dry up quickly.")
Unfortunately, most managers address short-term fixes to handle the next drought. Short-term fixes are costing taxpayers more than the long-term solution. Additional folly comes from those calling for desalinization (salt removal from sea water). With all the rainfall in South Florida, desal ought to be the last consideration.
After typical construction delays and cost overruns, desal plants never run at projected efficiencies. They require enormous amounts of power, give off more carbon emissions, are subject to future rises in energy costs, maintenance costs, and other unforeseen consequences, and the resulting brine must be disposed of at still more costs.
A classic example of doing it right comes from New York City. Leaders ascertained that it would about cost $1 billion to restore and enhance the Catskills watershed, versus building a water supply treatment plant at an estimated cost of $6 billion. Florida needs to go in this direction.
We can't afford to lose any more wetlands to roads and infrastructure. Wetlands provide fresh water supply. Compare the value of wetlands to the cost of road extensions and destruction of wetlands. Compare the value of more environmentally friendly solutions to big reservoirs and massive pumps.
A 2012 drought could be more serious than the 2011 drought. While managing the next water shortage crisis, let's give more consideration to the long-term fix: Everglades restoration. Short-term alternatives are not sustainable.
JOHN ARTHUR MARSHALL, Lake Worth, FL
Editor's note: John Arthur Marshall is chairman of the Arthur R. Marshall Foundation, whose stated mission is to "develop, promote, and deliver science-based education and public outreach programs central to restoration of the greater Everglades ecosystem."

111021-
Study: Climate change threat grows in South Florida
WPTV.com, NewsChannel5 – by Evan Axelbank - VIDEO
October 21, 2011
BOCA RATON, Fla. - The system is simple: stormwater is collected in Palm Beach County's 1,600 miles of canal.
The drainage keeps neighborhoods dry as the water flows through floodgates and into the Atlantic.
"This system has been very effective," said Barry Heimlich, a researcher at Florida Atlantic University.
But scientists at FAU say the system is on its last legs.
A report released Wednesday says global warming will cause sea levels in South Florida to rise up to seven inches in 20 years.
The pressure in this lock would be neutralized from the other side, causing saltwater to invade our drinking supply.
An even bigger problem?
"Serious flooding during heavy rain events like the kind of rainfall we've been having," said Heimlich.
And even worse, Heimlich said fixing the problem won't be free.
Scientists expect that the gates will have to be replaced with bigger ones that have pumps, a huge undertaking when you consider that there are dozens in South Florida.
The total cost is enough to increase utility bills by $100 a month for every taxpayer.
"A big challenge is where is this money going to come from? For just the drainage system, we are going to need a billion and a quarter dollars over the next 40 years," said Heimlich.
He says sea levels might not raise as much as expected if immediate and aggressive steps were taken to lessen climate change.
If not, Heimlich says, South Florida - in just 20 years - could be underwater every time it rains, if the reengineering doesn't start soon.
"We can all be ostriches and keep our head in the sand and not see what's coming. But here in South Florida, if we do that, our heads are going to get wet," said Heimlich.
Scientists at FAU started this study in 2009 at the request of a group in Washington, The Bipartisan Policy Center.
This is the same group behind the 9/11 Commission Report.

111020-a
Study: Rising sea levels will hit hard in South Florida
Sun Sentinel - by David Fleshler
October 20, 2011
A sea-level rise of just a few inches will bring flooding to South Florida cities, contaminate sources of drinking water and lead to sharp increases in utility bills over the next 20 or 30 years, according a study released Wednesday by Florida Atlantic University.
The study found that projected sea level increases of 3 to 6 inches by 2030, due to global warming, could overwhelm flood-control systems that in many areas are more than 50 years old. The authors provided a list of steps to be taken in the coming decades, from moving drinking-water wells inland to installing more pump stations, that could help the region cope with the higher water.
 "Unprecedented sea level rise and other climate change impacts are likely to result in serious threats to the water supply, increased risks of flooding, hurricane damage, huge infrastructure investments and other consequences both known and unknown at this time," states the study, conducted by researchers at the university's Charles E. Schmidt College of Science and College of Engineering and Computer Science.
Global warming causes sea levels to rise because water expands as it increases in temperature and because glaciers melt. In the past century, sea levels have risen 4.8 to 8.8 inches, largely due to global warming, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Higher sea levels will increase the intrusion of saltwater into underground sources of drinking water, forcing cities to abandon wells near the ocean and drill new ones, according to the report.
As a case study, the report used Pompano Beach, where the city is fighting — so far successfully — to keep saltwater intrusion from its eastern wellfield. Although most of the city stands on relatively high ground, low-level coastal areas would be inundated.
By 2030 the city will have to spend millions to upgrade water plant equipment, install pump stations in low-lying areas and upgrade its sewer system, passing the cost onto its customers, according to the report.
"Sea level is creeping up on us," said Barry Heimlich, a researcher at FAU, who led the study. "And in a few decades it could overwhelm our storm drainage system."
Randy Brown, Pompano's utilities director, said the study was basically accurate and the city was incorporating the need to accommodate sea-level rise into its various water plans. He said it would be impossible to estimate the impact on bills over the next 20 years. Although he's optimistic about protecting drinking water supplies, he's unsure whether the city will be able to prevent flooding of low-lying areas.
Frederick Bloetscher, associate professor in the FAU Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatics Engineering, says flooding during storms in eastern sections of South Florida cities provides the average citizen with the most powerful evidence for the reality of global warming.
"Ask people if anything's different," he said. "Ask them if their streets flood more. You do see more flooding when it rains, and people can relate to that. People's perceptions that things are different on the ground are right. It is reality."

111020-b
Three days of storms help Lake Okeechobee, South Florida water supplies
Sun Sentinel - by Andy Reid
October 20, 2011
Soggy South Florida emerged from three days of storms with improved water supplies, but lingering concerns about the fast-approaching dry season.
Rainfall has Lake Okeechobee, South Florida’s primary backup water supply, rising about 1.2 inches per day.
Lake Okeechobee’s rising water levels are good news for regional water supplies as well as welcome relief for dried-out marshes rimming the lake that provide key wildlife habitat.
The aquatic plants along the edge of the lake are foraging and nesting areas for the endangered Everglades snail kite and provide a home for wading birds, alligators and fish.
Steady rains Sunday through Wednesday brought an average of almost 3 inches of rainfall from Orlando to the Keys.
The biggest soaking came in the Keys, where a maximum of more than 21 inches of rain fell in some areas. Miami-Dade County received up to 7 inches in some areas.
Parts of Broward County saw almost 6 inches of rainfall and parts of Palm Beach County’s received more than 4 inches during the three-day.
This stretch of stormy weather didn’t hit Central Florida nearly has hard as record-setting rain earlier this month, which swelled the Kissimmee River and led to flooding in some nearby neighborhoods.
Stormwater from those rains continue to drain into Lake Okeechobee, boosting water levels that just a few weeks ago were low enough for wildfires to burn across exposed lake bed.
On Thursday, Lake Okeechobee was 12.52 feet above sea level. That’s still about 2.5 feet below normal and more than a foot lower than this time last year.
The lake is now in the 12.5 to 15.5 foot band that the Army Corps targets throughout the year, but water managers contend that it should be higher at the tail end of Florida’s wet season.
Long-term projects call for a drier than normal winter-to-spring dry season, which likely means continuing and possibly toughening watering restriction on agriculture as well as homes and businesses.
Lake Okeechobee hasn’t risen enough yet to prompt the kind of flood control concerns that lead to draining lake water out to sea.
Before this year’s drought, the Army Corps of Engineers in 2010 drained more than 300 billion gallons of Lake Okeechobee water out to sea to lessen the strain on the lake’s 70-year-old dike that is in the midst of a rehab project.
Without other water storage alternatives, Lake Okeechobee water through the years has routinely been drained out to sea for flood control. That worsens the effects of droughts and can have damaging environmental effects on coastal estuaries.
South of the lake, the South Florida Water Management District’s drainage canals – relied on to protect neighborhoods and farms from flooding – typically drain about 1.7 billion gallons of stormwater a day out to sea.
One of the consequences of delayed plans to build reservoirs and other water storage areas envisioned for Everglades restoration is wasting the rainfall South Florida does get, according to Jane Graham of Audubon of Florida.
"These weather events would have been golden opportunities to capture rain and save it for the dry season," Graham said. "However, in the mean time the only true solution is water conservation to save as much water as possible for our environment and economy in the dry season."

111020-c
Time to end farm and sugar subsidies, the fleecing of the taxpayer and further destruction of Florida Everglades
TCPalm - by Charles de Garmo of Sewall's Point, a graduate of Quinnipiac University with a Coast Guard master's license
October 20, 2011
Furthermore, power of sugar lobby leads to continual delays in restoring Florida's Everglades.
The history of farm subsidies goes back to the Great Depression days when small family farmers were struggling with crop failures due to weather and poor farming practices. What farm subsidies has evolved into is corporate welfare for large select farming interests like corn, milk, tobacco, peanuts, rice, soybeans and sugar. Sadly, the small farmer, who the programs were designed to help, has been replaced by financially successful mega-farms run by corporations who have outlived their need for taxpayer help.
Several past presidents have tried to end the subsidies and failed. It was George H.W. Bush who got the Freedom to Farm Act passed in 1996. It was supposed to phase out subsidies over seven years. It magically disappeared after Sept. 11, 2001, under the guise of needing to "secure" the prosperity of farming and the ability to feed our country. The Farm Security and Rural investment Act of 2002 assured the continuing "safety" of select crops and to date has cost the taxpayers $307 billion.
Then in 2008 the $288 billion Food Conservation and Energy Act was passed and gave birth to the boondoggle ethanol program to insure our energy independence and save the Earth from global warming. Coinciding with this was the Feedstock Flexibility Program, a $760 million (over 10 years) program that forced the government to purchase surplus sugar and then resell it to the ethanol producers. This program is one of the finest examples of Washington Wizardry because it was set up to hide the true cost to the taxpayer for the cost of the sugar support system and allow sugar growers to place ads claiming "no net cost" to the taxpayer for their welfare. It's no accident that every farm bill ever crafted and passed is interwoven with some perceived emergency or threat.
It costs the taxpayers $286 billion (2008-2012) for a plethora of farm policies that consists of subsidies, price quotes, tariffs and land use regulations, while increasing environmental pollution. Latest figures put the price tag at $2.4 billion a year received by just the sugar cane and beet processors alone.
In the job category, inflated U.S. sugar prices have forced confectionary manufactures to Canada and other countries where sugar is half the price, while costing 17,000 American jobs. Confectionary manufacturers estimate that for every sugar growing and harvesting job saved through inflated prices three confectionary jobs are lost. On the consumer side sugar prices have been kept 50 percent higher than world prices since the end of the War of 1812 by subsidies and government regulations. So if you can't win the lottery, grow sugar.
In Florida numerous plans have been developed over the years to repair the environmental damaged cause by sugar growing and most have been successfully blocked by the sugar industry through financially controlling political will. In 1996 sugar interests spent $25 million to successfully counter a Save Our Everglades program. In 1998 sugar spent $26 million on Jeb Bush's gubernatorial election. In 1990 and 1996 they spent $13 million on presidential and congressional elections. A leading critic of sugar subsidies, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., calls the federal sugar subsidy program "one of the most invidious, inefficient, Byzantine, special-interest, Depression-era programs ever devised."
So if there were ever a time to end farm subsidies that time is now. In a time of austerity and talk of cutting entitlements like Social Security and Medicare, how can our elected officials justify borrowing money to pay entitlements to the wealthy agribusinesses? Especially when they're getting record prices in the open market for their products (just look at your food bills) and our deficit is at $1.5 trillion. Call, write or email your representatives in Congress and let them know enough is enough. End the fleecing of the taxpayer in the 2012 Farm Bill.

111019-
Sugar's sweet deal on ropes ?
TBO.com - by MARGARET MENGE
October 19, 2011
Is it the same rhetoric we hear every five years, or the beginning of the end of the government's special support of the sugar industry?
No one can say for sure, but as Congress starts looking at the 2012 farm bill, there's a lot of noise coming out of Washington about repeal of the federal sugar program.
"Only Congress can lift the burden that current U.S. sugar policy has imposed on consumers, businesses and friendly neighboring countries for so long. The time to act is now," wrote former U.S. Trade Representative Bill Brock in a column published three weeks ago in The Hill, a Capitol Hill newspaper.
"The sugar program is one of the United States' oldest and most destructive protectionist policies," the head of Americans for Tax Reform, Grover Norquist, wrote in a letter to all U.S. senators in support of a bill introduced by Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., called the Free Sugar Act of 2011.
"The time for totally eliminating the sugar program may be now," reads a report commissioned by the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative-leaning think tank.
"Not so sweet: Sugar, Milk programs are Sour for Families," was the title of a panel discussion AEI held on Capitol Hill in July.
The National Confectioners Association, which represents close to 400 American candy companies, calls the sugar program "a decades-old subsidy that has repeatedly failed to provide adequate supplies of sugar to the U.S. market."
"Same old, same old," said Barbara Miedema of the Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida, referring to the calls to do away with the sugar program. "It's always a fight."
The sugar industry, she said, doesn't get a subsidy from the federal government as some people believe.
And that's true, but sugar is the only major agricultural commodity in the U.S. that benefits from import quotas. And those quotas, coupled with a federal loan program for sugar producers, create a guaranteed minimum price for sugar, and a much higher price for the American consumer.
And that price has been rapidly increasing.
The price of sugar, in fact, is up 9 percent since the beginning of this year, rising at about twice the rate of food inflation. The cost of sugar has more than doubled in just the past three years and is now at a 30-year high.
Sugar cane growers in Florida produce half the sugar consumed in the United States. About 75 percent of that sugar comes from cane grown in Palm Beach County. Most of it is produced by the 80-year-old U.S. Sugar Corp. based in Clewiston; by Florida Crystals, based in West Palm Beach; and by the smaller growers organized into the Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida.
The tariff rate quota system for sugar was set in the 1990 farm bill, with two tariffs on imported sugar: an in-quota tariff of 0.625 cents per pound and an over-quota tariff of 15.36 cents per pound. This quota system creates a price floor for sugar and guarantees American producers 85 percent of the domestic market.
The high price of sugar has agitated American candy makers and is lending urgency to the move to change U.S. sugar policy.
Larry Graham, head of the National Confectioners Association, represents about 400 candy makers and is chairing the Coalition for Sugar Reform, which organized last spring as a supergroup of business lobbyists and others, including the Everglades Trust, to push to repeal the quota system and loan program.
"We're really not trying to hurt the growers, because no matter what happens, we need sugar," he said.
The American family, says Daniel Griswold of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, is "ripped off every day" by inflated sugar prices.
Most of those speaking out on the sugar program have been at the table before, organizing lobbying efforts every five years, when Congress has to pass another farm bill.
But this year might be different, as the House of Representatives is stocked with new, tea party-supported members elected to slash government and corporate welfare programs.
"This is going to be a test," said Griswold. "If the tea party freshmen live up to their ideals, they would eliminate the sugar program."

111018-a
EMCOR Group, Inc. Subsidiary Awarded Contract by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for Herbert Hoover Dike Rehabilitation Project in Everglades
Business Wire
October 18, 2011
NORWALK, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--EMCOR Group, Inc. (NYSE: EME), a Fortune 500® leader in mechanical and electrical construction, energy infrastructure and facilities services for a diverse range of businesses, announced that its Harry Pepper & Associates, Inc. subsidiary has been awarded a contract by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for $42 million to replace two culverts that control water flow for Lake Okeechobee, part of the Herbert Hoover Dike Rehabilitation Project, located in Martin and Palm Beach Counties, Florida.
Harry Pepper & Associates (HPA) is responsible for the removal of two existing culverts (11 and 16) and replacing them with new water control structures, providing flood protection and irrigation to the surrounding community, as part of the Herbert Hoover Dike. HPA’s scope of work for the approximately three-year-long project will include demolition of two existing culverts, placing lengths of cutoff wall to close the existing gaps in the existing cutoff wall at the culvert locations, placement of new cast-in-place concrete culvert structures with gates and control systems at the same locations, and restoring the embankment. Scope of work will also include construction of cofferdams, de-watering, re-watering upon completion of the new culvert structures, removal of the cofferdams, and installation of new rip-rap at the culvert locations.
“We’re honored to work with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in our region,” stated David Pepper, President and CEO, Harry Pepper & Associates. “Our substantial and diverse experience working in the Everglades enables us to bring the unique and required skills to this very important project. We value our role in the preservation and restoration of the ecosystem in this part of Florida.”

111018-b
Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar to visit Miami-Dade on Wednesday
Miami Herald
October 18, 2011
U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar will be in Miami on Wednesday to address the Society of Environmental Journalists which is holding its annual convention at the Inter-Continental Hotel.
During his 6 p.m. remarks, Salazar will discuss the economic and environmental benefits behind the investment of landscape-scale conservation projects such as the restoration of the Florida Everglades. He will speak at the Grand Ballroom of the hotel at 100 Chopin Plaza.
Then at 9:15 a.m. Thursday, Salazar and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe will visit the Tamiami Trail Bridge Project in west Miami-Dade to check on the progress made to complete the one-mile bridge by December 2013.
Once completed, the bridge on U.S. 41 will help restore fresh water flows to Everglades National Park and the South Florida Ecosystem.
Later Wednesday, Salazar and Ashe will travel to just north of Vero Beach to install four new commemorative planks at Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge, marking the latest additions to the National Wildlife Refuge System on A1A.
Commemorative planks – one for each of the 555 units of the National Wildlife Refuge System – form a walkway at Pelican Island, the first national wildlife refuge, established in 1903 by President Theodore Roosevelt.

111017-a
Draining Florida dry
PNJ.com - Editorial
October 17, 2011
"The water wars are back" in Florida, the Gainesville Sun reported last week. To that we would add that, well, they never went away.
At least as far back as Bob Graham's governorship in the late 1970s, there has been concern that Florida's reckless growth policies were leading to damaging competition between regions for the state's water. Basically, those areas with a lot of water feared it would be stolen (politically, anyway) by more populous regions that had allowed rampant growth with no concern for the future.
In fact, it is the need for water that has actually driven the state's heavy investment in restoring the Everglades. It would be nice to say that business and political leaders across Florida — especially South Florida — finally came to their senses and recognized the environmental value of the Everglades, and thus supported restoration.
It's more likely that many of them realized that without a functioning Everglades and its ability to store water that growth across large areas of Florida might be forced to a screeching halt when the water finally ran out.
But with droughts (don't mention climate change), falling aquifers and stressed rivers continuing to plague much of the state, we're going to see more regional conflicts focused on supply. Especially with the state rapidly cutting back the budgets of water management districts tasked with maintaining those supplies.
The Sun reported growing concern in North Central Florida about regulators allowing the Jacksonville area to suck growing amounts of water from the underground aquifer the two areas share. A Jacksonville-area utility has been granted a permit to use millions of gallons of groundwater a day for cooling equipment.
The concern is that falling goundwater levels threaten to dry up Florida icons like White Springs, along with wells, wetlands and streams across the region.
Lawmakers around the Gainesville area say Jacksonville should be looking at desalination rather than groundwater for such uses. They blame the dispute in part on the fact different water management districts use different scientific models.
Florida has pretended for far too long that its water problems are less serious than they are. The day the taps run dry will be too late to start working on a realistic solution.

111017-b
Stetson University adopts ‘water sustainability’ theme for the year
FloridaCourier.com
October 17, 2011
Deland, FL- Stetson University is dedicating the 2011-2012 academic year to one of life’s most precious natural resources: water. The central Florida university has adopted “water sustainability” as its theme this year as part of its broader commitment to environmental responsibility.
“Water sustainability is a critical issue in Florida,” said Dr. William J. Ball, visiting associate professor of political science. ”We think of this as a place with an abundance of water. However, rapid and water-intensive development has imperiled our water resources. Individually and collectively, we’ve been treating water as something that has little value rather than recognizing it as one of our key assets.
“The current pause in new pressures on water due to the slowdown in growth is the perfect time to re-examine what we are doing with water and implement strategies for preserving the natural environment around water and plan for future economic change that has water sustainability as a core value,” he said. “We all can learn to be more thoughtful about water.”
Highlights of Stetson’s water theme include field study, surveys on water usage, water-themed academic courses, public education, student and faculty research, guest lecturers and films, and student and employee volunteerism focused on protecting natural water resources such as Blue Spring, the St. Johns River and the Atlantic Ocean. Water sustainability is the inaugural theme from a constellation of environmental practices and initiatives known as “Stetson GREEN.”
“We have had many people working independently on water conservation issues for many years, through faculty research, student research, faculty-student service projects and programs to increase water-use efficiency on campus,” said Dr. Kirsten Work, associate professor of biology. “Through Stetson GREEN this year, people from all over Stetson have come together to plan water conservation-themed activities that allow students to be part of something bigger than one class activity.”
“The thrust is teaching the community about the importance of sustainable water use, how to help protect this vital resource, and how water, nature and humans are interconnected,” added Dr. Melissa Gibbs, associate professor of biology.
Stetson will host a public forum on “Water Sustainability Issues in Central Florida” on the evening of Tuesday, Nov. 1. The event will focus on groundwater use and surface water pollution. Details can be found in a separate release, also dated 10/17/11, https://www.stetson.edu/secure/apps/wordpress/?p=17215.
Other activities planned for October and November include a cleanup ofBlue Spring State Park, invasive species removal at Spruce Creek and Rose Bay, restoration work at the Marine Discovery Center and a cleanup at BicentennialYouth Park. Many current academic courses in DeLand and at the College of Lawin Gulfport/St. Petersburg relate to water conservation issues.
Earlier this semester, students in Gibbs’ Aquatic and Marine Biology class took a two-hour eco-tour and explored the fish, birds and aquatic insects in the St. Johns River to kick off the school year. Marketing Professor Michelle DeMoss’ Consumer Dynamics class and Work’s Biology II and Conservation Biology classes cleaned a section of New Smyrna Beach as part of the Ocean Conservancy’s Coastal Cleanup in September.
Malissa Dillon of the St. Johns River Water Management District’s Community and Intergovernmental Program visited Stetson to talk with students about water use and educational campaigns on reducing water consumption. Students in several classes in the Natural Sciences Division are working together on a survey that will measure Stetson students’ and employees’ attitudes, understanding and practices regarding water use. Work’s Conservation Biology class is conducting a community-based research project to determine the best way to reintroduce eel grass into Blue Spring. The many water-related classes this year include Oceanography, Nature Writing, Sustainable Communities, Conservation Biology, Sustainability Studies, Ocean & Coastal Law & Policy and Environmental Law.
A brochure filled with energy and water conservation tips was provided to students at the start of school. Renovations, including this summer’s improvements in the Carson-Hollis residence halls, use water-saving plumbing fixtures. A comprehensive study has been conducted to help Stetson reduce water consumption overall.
At the College of Law, former director of Everglades restoration for the U.S. Dept. of the Interior Michael L. Davis recently spoke to Stetson Law students about planning for the future of the Florida Keys. In 2010, Stetson Law became the first law school in the world to sign a memorandum of cooperation with the Switzerland-based Ramsar Secretariat, assisting the international treaty organization that works to conserve wetlands. Interim Dean Royal C. Gardner, director of Stetson's Institute for Biodiversity Law and Policy, recently published the book Lawyers, Swamps, and Money: U.S. Wetland Law, Policy, and Politics, which proposes approaches to protect sensitive aquatic resources. Gardner and law students camped, canoed and kayaked at Everglades National Park in the spring to learn more about the park. Stetson Law students regularly participate in cleanup projects, most recently at Weedon Island Preserve in St. Petersburg and Clam Bayou Nature Preserve in Gulfport.
Stetson GREEN is one of Stetson’s new Constellations of Excellence.“Constellations” are areas where Stetson’s interdisciplinary strengths and expertise can be focused, built and celebrated across the university’s four colleges and schools and four campuses or centers, said Dr. Elizabeth “Beth” Paul, provost and vice president for academic affairs.
Also being developed as a Stetson constellation at this time is the Off-Center for Creative Practice, an interdisciplinary effort for increased interaction by students and faculty in the university’s creative disciplines – art, theater, digital arts, creative writing and music composition.
For more information on this year’s water theme, contact green@stetson.edu. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

111017-c
Wet weather will linger for a few more days
Bradenton.com - by CURTIS MORGAN and CAMMY CLARK, The Miami Herald
October 17, 2011
A cold front should move across South Florida by Thursday, but in the meantime, it’s going to stay wet and windy
Flooding closed the Key West Airport for several hours, gale-force winds churned seas on both coasts and steady, sometimes intense rain made for a slow and dangerous commute Monday just about everywhere across South Florida.
The nasty weather won’t be going away for a few days and might even get worse, as a big, broad and blustery mess of storms in the Gulf of Mexico creeps north, stalled in a classic atmospheric “squeeze play’’ that forecasters say will continue wringing lots of its moisture through most of Wednesday.
The low-pressure system is getting mashed by an approaching front — packing plenty of cool, dry air — that will sweep into South Florida and drop highs into the refreshing high 70s by Thursday. In the interim, it’s going to stay dreary and wet — very wet in some places.
“We’re in a big cone of high moisture and it’s sandwiched,” said Alan Albanese, meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Key West. He said such squeeze plays are common in South Florida in October, when “autumn and winter want to come in and summer doesn’t want to give up.”
The National Hurricane Center was monitoring the system but lowered the chances of its developing into the next named storm, which would be Rina, to 30 percent after a hurricane hunter plane found no circulation. Spokesman Dennis Feltgen said there was only a short window for strengthening before the approaching front begins to draw the system generally northward toward Florida
Miami-Dade, Broward and Monroe counties could see several more inches of rain over the next few days. Southwest and Central Florida may see more, up to five inches. It also will be breezy, with at 17 to 24 mph winds and some gusts into the low 30 mph range. The seas on both the Atlantic and Gulf coasts will be nasty as well, with the National Weather Service also issuing rip tide and small-craft advisories.
The heaviest rains so far have been in the Keys.
Flooding forced police to blockade some roads in Key West; the Monroe County School District canceled all after-school activities. The Key West airport closed from 6:45 to 9:40 a.m. due to a flooded taxiway. Crew were pumping water off the taxiway and expected to keep at it through the night.
Flights resumed, but Delta and Airtran both canceled flights for the rest of the day, said Peter Horton, director of operations at the airport. “We were a seaplane base for a while,” he said.
From midnight Sunday to 12:30 p.m. Monday, 6.10 inches of rain fell on the Key West airport, adding to 2.2 inches that fell on Sunday. In the Middle Keys, 2.57 inches of rain had fallen since midnight, adding to a downfall of .96 inches on Sunday. The two-day total for Key Largo stood at 4.20 inches.
The National Weather Service issued a flood watch for Miami-Dade and Broward counties on Monday but so far there were reports of only typical street flooding. Water managers had begun dropping drainage-canal levels in both counties in anticipation of the second unseasonable deluge the last two weeks.
Lake Okeechobee, the region’s water barrel, has risen nearly a foot over the last week as runoff from record rains across the Kissimmee River basin continues to pour south. More rain could push it above a water-shortage elevation and pretty much erase the lingering deficits of a severe drought.
It’s the second unexpected October deluge in a week. The South Florida Water Management District reported that Saturday, Oct. 8, was the wettest single day in 100 years in the upper and lower Kissimmee basins combined. Last week’s storm dropped an average of 6.05 inches of rain, with some spots topping 14 inches.
If the storm system does develop into a tropical depression it’s expected to drift toward Northwest or West Central Florida, but much of its most intense cells are to the north east, meaning plenty of rain across much of the state.

111016-a
Talks to jump start Everglades cleanup are just that, a start
Sun Sentinel
October 16, 2011
Give Gov. Rick Scott credit for meeting with officials of the U.S. Department of Interior to seek a way to salvage Florida Everglades restoration. Unfortunately, the governor's plan falls short in quickly addressing the prevailing problem facing the River of Grass — water-quality standards, particularly the high levels of phosphorus that continue to plague the Everglades.
Instead, the governor proposed an alternative that would redirect restoration efforts and relieve the state of some of the massive public works project's costs.
The governor's proposal includes a sensible provision to swap state-owned land for private properties closer to areas targeted for water storage and treatment. Such a move has merit, given the fact that Florida's $197 million land deal with U.S. Sugar Corp. contains significant parcels that are still used as citrus groves and sugar cane fields.
But the governor also wants the federal government to agree to extend the 2016 deadline to improve water-quality levels — to 2022. Given the state's budgetary realities, six years is reasonable.
For many, though, the extension understandably comes across as simple foot dragging, an idea that might not pass muster with the two federal court judges who have been monitoring Florida's water-quality woes for some time now, especially since the state fought those standards and deadlines when times were good.
Earlier this year, U.S. District Judge Alan Gold gave federal regulators a greater role in issuing water permits, a move state officials say will cost Florida $1.5 billion. Just this month, U.S. District Judge Federico Moreno chided the state for not doing enough to address phosphorus pollution, even though he stopped short of ruling that the state violated the 1992 consent degree that established the very water-quality standards that are the basis for restoring the Everglades.
Still, the governor's overtures should be seen as a positive turn and a change from earlier signals — including the delay in implementing water-quality regulations and the deep cuts to the South Florida Water Management District, the lead state agency in restoring the Everglades.
To seal the deal, Gov. Scott should tweak his plan by moving more aggressively in cleaning the waters flowing into the Everglades to show the state is serious about meeting federal water-quality standards.

111016-b
West Palm Beach's water supply could dry up by spring
Sun Sentinel - by Christine Stapleton, Palm Beach Post
October 16, 2011
The source of West Palm Beach's drinking water "will probably be exhausted" by March and the city will not be allowed to pull water from its well field in violation of its permit, as it did to weather this year's drought, regional water managers warned the City Commission last week.
"I think you need to approach this with the concept that you're facing a significant event and do everything you can and we're going to do everything we can do to help," said Scott Burns, the water shortage incident commander at the South Florida Water Management District. "I think you need to plan on alternatives and that those sources won't be there."
City Utilities Director David Hanks offered alternatives: partnering with Florida Atlantic University on a study to drill horizontal wells; fixing the troubled Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant that's supposed to replenish the city's well field; resurrecting plans to inject water into a well for storage; and extending intake pipes to the deepest sections of Clear Lake, the reservoir that feeds water to the neighboring treatment plant.
But those plans could not be put in place by March, Hanks and Burns said. The only immediate, but short-term, fix would be to pump water from the C-17 Canal that lines Congress Avenue into the M Canal, which feeds Clear Lake.
But even if the board approves a plan and installs pumps, by March the C-17 Canal would likely be too low to use, Burns said.
Hanks said the best the city can do is keep water levels as high as possible at its water sources: the Grassy Waters Preserve, Lake Mangonia and Clear Lake. The way to do that: use less water.
"Our best solution is if we can decrease demand on the system," Hanks said.
Palm Beach County's Water Utilities Department director, Bevin Beaudet, recently sent district officials an 18-page letter threatening to sue the city if it continued to draw more water from the city's emergency well field than the city's permit allows.
Drawing down the city well field threatens the county's nearby water supply, he wrote.
In August the district cited but did not fine the city for violating its water-use permit by siphoning millions of gallons from the city well field without replenishing more than a fraction of what it was required to.
The permit requires that for every gallon the city draws from the well field, it must give back a gallon of cleansed water from the plant to keep the county's well field from running low.
But the $37 million sewage treatment plant is operating far below capacity and has been shut down for repairs so often that it could not produce enough water to replace the amount the city withdrew from its well.
The district wants to resolve the violation by having the city sign a formal agreement, called a consent order, promising to abide by the permit and find alternative water sources or face fines. The county has offered to sell the city its water at a discounted rate, as it did during the most recent drought.
However, little mention was made of that alternative during last week's meeting. City officials last year estimated the cost of buying enough water from the county to tide the city over during drought could come to $10,000 a day.
Instead, the district's deputy executive director, Bob Brown, told commissioners that the district wants to work with the city to resolve the violation and ensure there is enough water during the upcoming dry season rather than impose fines for the violations.
"We don't come here with a hammer, we come here to work with the city with the understanding that the city is going to work with the district," Brown said. "It's a two-way street."

111016-c
What transportation research should be done and why ?
Marconews.com - by Duke Vasey
October 16, 2011
It wasn’t long ago that the clamor was to stop the destruction of wetlands. Year in and year out the greatest destroyer of wetlands in Florida was the state itself--or rather, one agency: the Florida Department of Transportation, commonly known as the FDOT.
FDOT oversees more than 12,000 miles of highways. It can condemn property and force the owners to move. And every year that Denver J. Stutler was secretary (July 2005 — January 2007), it killed lots of wetlands and assiduously worked “to open up corridors for potential growth.” In other words, development followed the roads as the price Florida pays for continued growth.
"To me, transportation is the backbone of our economy," Stutler told FDOT employees in a 2005 speech in Sarasota. "And it takes a strong economy to afford the environmentalism we ascribe to here in Florida." At the time of secretary Stutler’s comments, it was common knowledge that FDOT officials did not keep track of all the wetlands they destroyed each year. They were too busy building new roads.
Does that sound a lot like the conversation over the proposed I-75 Interchange at Everglades Boulevard now being dressed up like an access issue for residents of the eastern portion of Collier County? Asking other questions might lead to different innovations and alternative understandings of policy problems and their potential solutions but they will also, if history is a guide, require extensive mitigation at taxpayer expense.
FDOT has to go through the same permitting process as the average developer and thus has repeatedly tried to make up for the damage it does through mitigation. To get better visibility, Florida’s Efficient Transportation Decision Making (ETDM) process was adopted to insure that FDOT incorporated environmental decisions into the planning process as early as possible; considered the full-range of consequences of actions on the environment; avoided or minimize adverse consequences that accumulate over time, and influenced land use and transportation planning. What’s not to like about ETDM or the Cumulative Effects Evaluation Study for the Proposed I-75 Interchange at Everglades Boulevard?
Because regional problems are highly vulnerable to small decision effects, FDOT must produce an optimal solution and generate a clear ecological understanding of their options. The ecological integrity of the Florida Everglades has suffered, not from a single adverse decision but from a multitude of small pin pricks. These include a series of independent choices to add one more drainage canal, one more roadway, one more retirement village and one more water well to provide Miami with drinking water. No one chose to reduce the annual surface flow of water into the Everglades National Park, to intensify the effects of droughts, or to encourage unnaturally hot, destructive fires.
Yet all of these things have happened, and, at this point, you have really got to ask, “Why is this issue getting so much hype at the moment?" Has the mantra of “development follows the roads as the price Florida pays for continued growth” been revived?
Let’s complete the Cumulative Effects Evaluation Study for the Proposed I-75 Interchange so we can really create a strong economy and retain our ecology.

111015-a
Keys host four-county climate-change summit
KeysNet.com - by RYAN McCARTHY
October 15, 2011
Monroe County plays host this year to a regional climate summit conference involving South Florida's four counties.
The annual gathering of the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact, creating in 2009 by Broward County officials and comprising Monroe, Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach, is set for Dec. 8 and 9 in Key Largo.
Broward hosted the conference in 2009 and Miami-Dade in 2010.
The summit covers numerous topics, but Monroe County Administrator Roman Gastesi said its "biggest accomplishment" has been a peer review and coordination on a four-county estimate on sea-level rise.
A "technical working group" for the four analyzed data from sea-level-rise projections done by Florida Atlantic University, the South Florida Water Management District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Broward County.
The group was made up of Glenn Landers of the Corps, Jayantha Obeysekera and Joseph Park from the Water Management District, John Van Leer of the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, and Harold Wanleff of UM's Department of Geological Science.
"For 18 months, we had scientists review the data and we came up with the 9-inch to 24-inch estimate" over 50 years, Gastesi said. "It's a big to-do because we can use that for planning purposes.
"The example I like to give is the Stock Island fire station. It's a 75- to 80-year building and if we know [sea level] could go up as much as 2 feet, we'll make the base elevation that much higher," he said.
Rhonda Haag, the county's sustainable-initiatives project coordinator, said the conference agenda isn't complete yet but that the following are among scheduled topics:
●  The effects of expected sea-level rise.
●  Panel discussions on how businesses can help prepare communities for impacts from climate change.
●  A workshop on energy financing programs for homeowners and businesses called the Property Assessed Clean Energy, or PACE.
"A homeowner or business, if they want to install solar panels, instead of a bank loan, they get a loan and pay it back on their tax bill," Haag said.
Haag also said the counties are working on an action plan that will be presented at the summit. She said it would address energy and climate change related to transportation, the environment and buildings. Monroe County Mayor Heather Carruthers has pushed for a toll for U.S. 1 in the Keys to help finance elevation of the road in anticipation of sea-level rise.
The summit is scheduled to take place at the Murray E. Nelson Government and Cultural Center near mile marker 102. It'll include, besides the science discussions, vendors and an eco-cruise.
It's designed for elected officials, businesses and local governments but anyone can participate. To find out more, go to www.monroecounty-fl.gov.

111015-b
Viewpoint: Troubled water under DEP rule
PNJ.com – Opinion by Paula Montgomery, co-president of the League of Women Voters Pensacola Bay Area.
October 15, 2011
Sometimes the problems we face as a nation and even as a world seem too huge for any of us to have much impact. Examples include: the global economy, the local economy, joblessness, global warming, local pollution with its health and quality of life consequences, political focus on partisanship instead of the good of the people ... the list is depressingly long. So what is an individual to do?
What we cannot afford to do is to leave it up to others to take care of it all. To quote Edmund Burke, "All that is required for the triumph of evil, is for good men to do nothing."
The evil I want to focus on, and encourage action on, is pollution. We all know the consequences of pollution. It leads to increases in health problems from asthma to cancer, and thus is a burden on individuals and society.
The federal government, in an effort to protect us and our environment, created the Environmental Protection Agency under President Nixon. The purpose of this and related agencies was and is to protect the people (us) from the health effects of pollution caused by unregulated disposal of industrial byproducts and other waste, whether in air, water or the ground.
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection is charged with keeping Florida's waterways, air and ground clean of dangerous pollutants. However, a recent rule drafted by DEP is a source of great concern.
The Florida League of Women Voters warns us that if adopted, the rule will "allow the continued discharge of sewage, animal manure and fertilizer pollution into most of the state's water resources." Furthermore, it does not set numeric standards for safety. It will also keep the burden of prevention and clean-up costs on taxpayers and off industrial polluters. And it will give the Florida Legislature control of issues related to nutrient (nitrogen and phosphorus) pollution.
DEP is currently collecting public comments before deciding on the rule. The Florida League of Women Voters opposes this rule as being unhealthy for the waterways of Florida on which we all depend. We encourage all to contact DEP to let them know that they need to require standards for clean water that include numerical limits on nutrient contaminants.
We have seen what happens to local waterways when unregulated or poorly regulated pollution is allowed. The clean-up of Bayou Chico is still ongoing after 10 years. Bayou Texar is generally not safe for swimming.
It is poor planning to permit our waterways to become unhealthy before we take action. It is not right that we taxpayers should have to use our tax dollars to clean up the pollution caused by others, or that we should suffer the health consequences of careless disposal of waste.
Please contact the DEP on their website at http://floridadep.nutrient-criteria-rule-feedback.sgizmo.com/s3/ or by phone at (850) 245- 8336 before Tuesday to let them know that you oppose their proposed nutrient criteria rule.
Paula Montgomery is co-president of the League of Women Voters Pensacola Bay Area.

111014-a
Florida lawmakers urge deficit panel not to cut Everglades money
Miami Herald – by Erika Bolstad
October 13, 2011
Calling it an "important job-creating program," a bipartisan group of Florida lawmakers wrote a letter to the so-called "supercommittee" that's looking at federal budget cuts. The Floridians asked them to give careful consideration to the state-federal Everglades restoration partnership -- even in the face of "immense challenges" and competing prioirites.
The Florida lawmakers promised the restoration  project would create 22,966 short-to-midterm jobs, the lawmakers wrote. Over the next 50 years, they said, it could create as many as 442,644 jobs, according to one economic estimate. 
The letter was penned by Reps. Alcee L. Hastings, D-Miramar; Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Miami; David Rivera, R-Miami; Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton; Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston; and Frederica Wilson, D-Miami. It went to the co-chairs of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction: Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-TExas, and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.
They called the restoration project "much-needed," and with a "demonstrable level of success." It's vital to the well-being of Florida's communities, environment and economy, the letter said. 
"Implementing the Everglades restoration program no only has ecological benefits, but would provide a boost to our economy and reduce unemployment," the lawmakers wrote. 

(mouse-over to enlarge):

During the 2011 drought,
LO was at an almost
record low level.
At the end of the draught,
it still is well below its
average stage.

111014-b
Lake Okeechobee water levels rising, helping South Florida water supplies
Sun Sentinel - by Andy Reid
October 14, 2011
Lake may still be too low headed into dry season.
Lake Okeechobee water levels are getting a big boost from recent heavy rains, which could help — but not solve — South Florida's water-supply strain.
The lake, South Florida's primary backup water supply, is expected to rise as much as two feet because of water draining in from storms in Central Florida.
Just a few weeks after wildfires burned across Lake Okeechobee's exposed lake bed, a weekend of record-setting rain produced water flows that have the lake on the rise.
"The good news is all of this water is making its way to Lake Okeechobee," said Tommy Strowd, South Florida Water Management District director of operations. "We expect to see water levels continue to rise."
Oct. 8 turned into the wettest day in nearly 100 years for areas near the Kissimmee River, which drains into Lake Okeechobee. Rainfall averaged about 6 inches across 3,000 square miles, with some areas getting as much as 14 inches.
The volume of water flowing in the Kissimmee River is about six times greater in some areas than it was before the storms.
That increases the amount of water in Lake Okeechobee available for regional needs.
"I've never seen it come up that fast," district Board Chairman Joe Collins said about Arbuckle Creek, north of Lake Okeechobee.
Also, water is reclaiming more of the dried out marshes rimming the lake that recently were burning. Those marshes are vital to fish, wading birds and other wildlife.
"We have had quite a dramatic change," said Linda Lindstrom of the water management district. "The lake levels have been creeping up slowly."
The problem is that the lake remains nearly 4 feet below normal, which this influx of water may not fix.
The district projects a 50 percent chance that Lake Okeechobee levels will stay in the water-shortage range going into the next dry season.
On Friday the lake was 11.67 feet above sea level, more than 2 feet lower than this time last year.
Lake levels this year dropped below 10 feet for the first time since 2008.
That left less water to boost South Florida's drought-strained supplies, prompting watering restrictions that reached from farms to homes and businesses.
Lack of water also dried out marshes rimming the lake that provide habitat for wildlife, such as the endangered Everglades snail kite.
Lake Okeechobee's water-level drop came amid the driest October-to-June stretch on record, and the effects of that drought were worsened by past water-management decisions.
During 2010, the Army Corps of Engineers drained more than 300 billion gallons of Lake Okeechobee water out to sea because of flood-control concerns. The Army Corps releases water to ease the strain on the lake's 70-year-old dike, where work is underway on a decades-long rehab to strengthen the earthen structure that guards against flooding.
Also, the South Florida Water Management District and the corps remain behind schedule on plans to build reservoirs intended to store stormwater for future needs.
South Florida drainage canals dump about 1.7 billion gallons of water out to sea each day after a summer rainstorm to avoid flooding towns and farms built on former wetlands.
While Lake Okeechobee levels are on the rise, Florida's winter-to-spring dry season is fast approaching.
Long-term forecasts for a return of La Niña could mean a drier-than-normal dry season, according to the district.
The water now flowing into Lake Okeechobee was "an answer to our prayers," but the lake still likely will be too low headed into the dry season, according to Jane Graham of Audubon of Florida.
The water management district should turn to tougher watering restrictions soon to help stretch water supplies, Graham said.
"Water conservation is key," she said.
The South Florida Water Management District board in November will discuss possible policy changes to address projections for dry conditions to come, Executive Director Melissa Meeker said.
That could include changes in watering restrictions as well as how to divvy up Lake Okeechobee water.
The water now flowing into Lake Okeechobee makes the outlook for dry season less dire.
Before the recent big rains hit Central Florida, the water management district projected that Lake Okeechobee next year could dip to the 7-foot range.
The tail end of hurricane season still could bring more water supply relief for Lake Okeechobee and South Florida.
"We are in better shape," Strowd said. "The wet season is not over yet."

111014-c
Scott Pledges to Restore Everglades
The Famuan - by S'nisha Wilcox, Correspondent
Last week, Florida Governor Rick Scott traveled to Washington, D.C., to confirm the state would be continuing its efforts to restore the Everglades National Park.
According to a press release from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Scott, FLDEP Secretary Herschel Vinyard and South Florida Water Management Executive Director Melissa Meeker met with federal officials on Oct. 6.
"Today, I traveled to Washington, D.C. to ask our federal and state Everglades restoration partners to agree on a strategy that puts the ecosystem first and prevents costly, ongoing litigation from derailing our mutual progress toward restoration," Scott said.
In the meeting with U.S. Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Deputy Secretary of Civil Works Jo Ellen Darcy and U.S. Department of Justice Assistant Attorney General Ignacia Moreno, the state leaders discussed the "long-standing commitment" to "restore America's Everglades."
Scott also talked about creating a "strong Florida partnership" to improve water quality and the delivery of cleaner water to the southern regions' ecosystem. He said the strategy would protect jobs and Florida's economy.
The strategy of building a partnership includes the DEP and SFWMD working closely together to ensure the goals of restoration are being completed.
The organizations plan to focus on promoting the quality and quantity of water that flows into and through the Everglades while saving taxpayer dollars. Michael Grunwald, author of "The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise," discussed the statewide debate.
"For decades, Florida has been trying to wriggle out of its legal responsibilities to protect the Everglades from dirty water," Grunwald said. "That's why the federal government sued Florida in 1989, and that's why there's a consent decree requiring Florida to comply with the Clean Water Act."
Joyce Harold, a physical education student, said restoring and protecting the Everglades is a great idea.
"This is a great step forward for the restoration of America's Everglades," Harold said. "I like to participate in many outside activities and value the use of our outdoor resources."

111014-d
Water Management District unanimously approves Everglades projects
Florida Independent - by Virginia Chamlee
October 14, 2011
The governing board of the South Florida Water Management District yesterday voted unanimously to move forward with eight public/private partnership projects to store water in the Northern Everglades.
The projects, which are known as dispersed water management, involve enlisting private landowners in solutions to help restore the Everglades and its tributaries. The district describes (.pdf) it simply as “shallow water distributed across parcel landscapes using relatively simple structures.”
Several state conservation groups have been vocal advocates of the projects, which they say could provide benefits to both water storage and water quality. Audubon of Florida proposed a similar project (.pdf) in 2010, saying that retrofitting canals and ditches with relatively small water control structures would allow for increased water retention for miles upstream.
The structures are also more cost effective than stormwater treatment areas or reservoirs, which can take over a decade to build and can cost as much as $76 million. Dispersed water management projects, on the other hand, can be completed in a couple years for less than half the cost.
One of the ancillary benefits of the projects is phosphorus reduction in Lake Okeechobee, which flows into the larger Caloosahatchee River. Nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen often lead to large-scale algal blooms that choke off oxygen to other marine species, causing fish and mammal kills and doing a number on local economies.
Water storage on Florida ranches may be beneficial to both state ranchers and the environment, but it hasn’t been without controversy. Last month, water management board member Joe Collins got caught in the crosshairs of a decision to store 34,000 acre-feet of water on Lykes Brothers ranch in Glades County. (Collins is vice president of Lykes’ ranching division.) Though Collins did not vote on the deal, which would span 10 years, many alleged a conflict of interest. The district later announced it would stick with the deal, and Collins himself said he would not resign because of it.
“These projects are cost efficient, can be implemented quickly, and build relationships with landowners,” said Audubon Everglades Policy Associate Jane Graham in response to the vote. “This is a bold step toward progress in the northern Everglades.”

111013-a
Audubon of Florida to honor Florida senator
Florida Independent - by Virginia Chamlee
October 13, 2011
Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., will accept an award for his conservation efforts at an assembly this Friday in Lake Mary.
Audubon of Florida’s Theodore Roosevelt Award goes to lawmakers whose conservation efforts have made a notable impact on Florida’s ecosystems and wildlife. Roosevelt was one of the founding members of the Florida Audubon Society and established the first National Wildlife Refuge at Pelican Island.
“The very name Theodore Roosevelt stands for resilience, resolve and courage in the face of fire,” said Audubon Executive Director Eric Draper in a press release. “No public figure in Florida embodies those values like Senator Bill Nelson.”
Nelson has been vocal about protecting Florida’s coasts from offshore oil drilling in Cuba, and has worked to restore the Everglades. In a press release, Audubon called him “the most reliable champion of Florida’s environment” for the past three decades, “willing to stand up to oil companies and other powerful interests while bringing leaders from across the country to view the Everglades and elicit widespread support for protecting Florida’s environment.”
Nelson has also been a leading advocate for the RESTORE Act (.pdf), which requires that 80 percent of Clean Water Act fines paid by BP and other parties responsible for last year’s oil spill go directly to restoring the health of the Gulf Coast. Typically, Clean Water Act fines go directly into the U.S. treasury, where they are then used for a variety of projects.
Sixty percent of the funds will go to the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Council, 35 percent will be equally divided among the five Gulf Coast states and 5 percent will go toward a science and fisheries program. Republican Sen. Marco Rubio also played a role in getting that legislation to the Senate floor.

111013-b
Big Cypress swamp buggy plan draws lawsuit
Miami Herald - by CURTIS MORGAN
October 13, 2011
Charging that the National Park Service put the interests of off-road-vehicle riders over wildlife protection and other users, a group files suit to halt expanded access to the Big Cypress National Preserve
MIAMI - - Accusing managers of the Big Cypress National Preserve of ignoring science and bending rules, an environmental group on Wednesday sued to block plans to open a previously off-limits section to swamp buggies.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Fort Myers by the National Parks Conservation Association, is the latest skirmish in a 17-year legal battle over off-road vehicle activity in the sprawling 729,000-acre preserve in eastern Collier County.
Unlike nearby Everglades National Park and other national parks, the preserve was created in 1974 under broader rules that allow privately owned hunting camps as well as historical pursuits like hunting deer and hogs and drilling for oil and gas. But widespread damage from free-roaming off-road vehicles, which left vast prairies crisscrossed with deep muddy ruts, led to a series of lawsuits in the 1990s and, in 2000, a plan that limited buggies to some 400 miles of designated trails.
But in February the National Park Service issued a new decision that would for the first time allow buggies and other off-road vehicles into a pristine 147,000-section known as “the addition lands’’ because they were added to the existing preserve in 1988. The plan calls for building 130 more miles of trails there and also for issuing some 600 new permits to off-road vehicles.
Among numerous contentions, the conservation group contends the National Park Service stacked an advisory committee that favored broader access for buggies, improperly lifted a proposed “wildlife designation’’ that would have banned ORVs from some 40,000 acres of the area and failed to analyze impacts on land that is prime habitat for the endangered Florida panther and an important source of water to the Everglades.
John Adornato, regional director of the conservation group and a member of the preserve’s ORV committee, said the decision to put a priority on ORV riders was a violation of park service policy and came at the expense of wildlife and other users who seek a quiet outdoor experience, such as birdwatchers and hikers.
“The park service must put conservation over recreation.’’ he said.
Preserve Superintendent Pedro Ramos said he had just received a copy of the 65-page lawsuit, which names the park service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S. Interior Department, and will need time to fully review it. But Ramos defended the decision to expand ORV access, which he said was reached after an 11-year process that collected more than 25,000 comments from the public and adhered to federal environmental laws.
Ramos said ORV use remained a source of “extreme disagreement’’ between hunters, whose passion and political clout were instrumental in creating the preserve, and other users. His goal, he said, was to try to balance the competing interests. Though two-thirds of the addition lands were opened to potential buggy use, riders would be confined to trails, and another 47,000 acres would retain “wilderness” designation that would keep them out.
Managing the preserve, he said, posed some unique challenges.
“As I tell people, it’s a formula that doesn’t give everything to anybody but gives everybody a lot,’’ he said.
For now, nobody is lining up to ride in the new area. Ramos said work on the primary trail system was largely completed last month but he doesn’t expect ORVs would be allowed into the additional lands until around 2013, pending any court decision.

(mouse-over to enlarge):

During the 2011 drought,
LO was at an almost
record low level.
At the end of the draught,
it still is well below its
average stage.

111013-c
Lake Okeechobee level likely too low to avert West Palm Beach drought
Palm Beach Post - by Christine Stapleton, Staff Writer
October 13, 2011
Even as regional water managers warned West Palm Beach to fix its water system to prepare for likely drought, weekend downpours 100 miles north had the Kissimmee River surging so fast that five navigation locks were closed Tuesday to protect boaters.
The heaviest rains - as much as 15 inches in some areas - left the South Florida Water Management District officials hoping for a major trickle-down effect into Lake Okeechobee.
For West Palm Beach, the lake's level is crucial. During the worst of the drought this year, Lake Okeechobee was so low that gravity would not pull its water into the canals and wetlands that feed Lake Mangonia and Clear Lake - the final stops before the water is treated at the city's treatment plant on Australian Avenue.
As water from last weekend's storm flows into tributaries, streams and creeks around the Kissimmee Chain of Lakes, water managers expect the lake to rise as much as 2 feet in the next two weeks, said Scott Burns, the district's water shortage incident commander. The question is, how much is enough?
On Tuesday, the lake was at 11.24 feet above sea level, about 38 inches lower than at this time last year - the start of a dry season that saw Lake Okeechobee hit its lowest recorded level: 8.82 feet.
If water levels do rise 2 feet in the coming weeks, that would at least put the lake at the same level it was last year, but with another drought that may not be good enough. And water managers can't be sure it will rise that much, because they can't predict how much water will be absorbed by the parched land near the lake or seep from canals and wetlands as the water moves south.
So as the region heads further into dry season, district officials on Tuesday were warning the city commission that the city's sources of water could be exhausted by March despite the weekend downpours.
"These are some of the most stressful and rare events in South Florida - back-to-back droughts," Burns said. "In the last couple of years we've had several doozies," he said.
"I think this is kind of like a Category 4 hurricane that has a centerline headed right for West Palm Beach but it's three days away but there is a cone of uncertainty with it," Burns told the commission Tuesday, urging them to prepare. "Even if it stays within the band, you're still going to get hit with a Category 2. You need to approach this with the concept that you're facing a significant event."

111012-a
Conservationists sue over off-road vehicle trails in Big Cypress
Sun Sentinel - by David Fleshler
October 12, 2011
A conservation group filed suit Wednesday to exclude swamp buggies and other off-road vehicles from part of Big Cypress National Preserve. It's the latest in a long-running battle that pits the traditional Everglades hunting culture against the values of modern environmentalism.
The National Parks Conservation Association alleges the National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Interior Department violated the law by agreeing to 130 miles of off-road vehicle trails in a section of the preserve called the Addition Lands.
Added in 1988, the Addition Lands are among the most heavily contested pieces of real estate in South Florida. Hunters want to use their off-road vehicles on the lands to shoot deer, hogs, wild turkey and other game. But environmentalists say the land, which straddles Interstate 75 just west of the Broward County line, is vital to the Florida panther and other endangered species.
They say the park service failed to adequately study the impact on the Florida panther and on the water flowing toward Everglades National Park.
"The park service disregarded its responsibility to protect the resources of Big Cypress National Preserve," said John Adornato, director of the National Parks Conservation Association's Sun Coast regional office in Hollywood. "The park service chose recreation over preservation, which is a violation of their own policies."
Pedro Ramos, superintendent of Big Cypress, said the park service has studied the impact of off-road vehicles on panthers and found it to be insignificant. The panther has undergone a resurgence since the 1970s, he said, with numbers rising from 20 or 30 to well over 100, and that took place despite widespread off-road vehicle use at Big Cypress.
"Our decision was based on a number of things, including the best available science, the law that established Big Cypress National Preserve and the tremendous amount of input we've received over 11 years," he said.
Hunters were also disappointed with the park service's decision in November, saying the trails weren't sufficient to penetrate remote areas. They also threatened to sue.

111012-b
Conservation group sues over Big Cypress vehicles
The Associated Press
October 12, 2011
FORT MYERS, Fla. -- A conservation group is suing the National Park Service to stop a planned increase in off-road vehicle use in Florida's Big Cypress preserve.
The National Parks Conservation Association said in the lawsuit filed Wednesday in Fort Myers federal court that the plan would allow vehicles into a 147,000-acre tract where they had been prohibited.
The lawsuit claims that could threaten habitat for the endangered Florida panther and the quality of water flowing south into the Everglades.
The group also says an advisory committee on off-road uses in the Big Cypress is unfairly tilted in favor of off-road vehicle proponents. The lawsuit contends the committee should have more balance.
The Park Service did not immediately reply to an email seeking comment.

111012-c
Destin Water Users GM says EPA rules ‘woefully short’ of defensible science
Florida Indpendent - by Virginia Chamlee
October 12, 2011
In an interview with Brown and Caldwell’s “Water News” e-newsletter, Destin Water Users General Manager Richard Griswold says that a set of federally mandated water pollution standards for the state of Florida have gone “from strange to real strange” and are “woefully short” of being scientifically defensible.
The EPA’s “numeric nutrient criteria,” which will restrict pollution in state estuaries, lakes and streams, have been hotly debated.
“EPA has no guidelines for permitting, compliance or enforcement and has steadfastly refused to develop any,” Griswold says. “Although EPA has said that it is up to [the Florida Department of Environmental Protection] to develop compliance and enforcement regulations, FDEP cannot do that. Under the Florida Administrative Procedures Act, a standard must be scientifically defensible. The EPA standards fall woefully short of that. Now FDEP is hurrying to develop something meaningful and in the short time they have, we all fear FDEP falling short.”
This isn’t Griswold’s first time speaking out against the criteria, which environmentalists say could help thwart costly algal blooms and fish kills in state waterways. Griswold penned an article (.pdf) titled “EPA vs. Floridians” for Destin Water Users’ summer 2011 newsletter, in which he argued that the costs of complying with the rule would be “exorbitant,” but that his real concern is the harm the rule would do to the environment. According to Griswold, “limits are being established for water bodies for which little is known of their current water quality” and the EPA is “trying to trash [the state's current] successful program  for one with little chance of helping our environment.”
In his interview with Brown and Caldwell, Griswold says that the EPA is “a pure political animal” whose “pronouncements are based solely on what side of the bed some bureaucrat woke up on that morning.”
“If the question is whether they will rescind their necessity determination, I am fairly sure they will not do that since that would be an admission of error on their part. … I have never heard of the federal government repealing one of their own laws so this could set a precedent,” he says. “Well wait, they did repeal that one amendment about drinking. Thank goodness, or I would have never made it through college. So there is some hope that EPA will change. ”
Environmentalists, and many Florida residents, likely disagree with Griswold’s view that Florida’s current standards have proven successful.
Under the current standard, the state has been inundated with algal blooms that choke off oxygen to marine species — including fish and even large mammals. Belly-up fish and noxious algae have even hurt the bottom line in some waterfront communities that rely on clean water for recreation and tourism.
But according to Griswold, the “environmental cults fall short on all those yet they chant their mantra of ‘people bad, EPA good.’” The issue of nutrient regulation, he says, “is as much a PR campaign as it is a water quality improvement campaign.”
In addition to acting as general manager of Destin Water Users, Griswold sits on the board of the Florida Water Environment Association Utility Council — a group that has vehemently opposed the implementation of the nutrient rules, and has cited extravagant cost estimates for their implementation. Unsurprisingly, several of the the association’s board members moonlight as utility execs, all of whom would be affected by more stringent water rules. (An examination of Department of Environmental Protection emails revealed that the association supplied those industry-created numbers to state lawmakers.)
So what happens should a utility not comply with the EPA rule ? “Well, what happens is, EPA writes you a bunch of nasty-grams and then they put someone in prison,” says Griswold. “For my utility that someone would probably be me. For me, going to federal prison might not be that bad of a retirement plan, but since they closed the prison at Eglin here, I would probably serve my time out of state. Which means I would be the first person to ever retire OUT of Florida.”

111012-a
Everglades Headwaters proposal critical to future success
TCPalm – Letter by Charles Lee, director of advocacy for Audubon of Florida
October 12, 2011
Your Sept. 27 editorial, "New wildlife refuge and conservation area north of Lake Okeechobee may be great idea, but what are state's priorities?" regarding the Everglades Headwaters Refuge and Conservation Area makes a good point when it says "Maybe it's time to prioritize the most important Everglades restoration projects — and fund and complete them, in order, before launching new projects."
That is precisely why we think moving forward with the Everglades Headwaters Refuge and Conservation Area now is so important. The very first Everglades effort was the Kissimmee River Restoration, authorized by Congress almost 20 years ago in 1992. The Everglades Headwaters Refuge and Conservation Area proposal helps the long-awaited Kissimmee River Restoration project succeed by assuring that land surrounding the restored river will be maintained in conservation, and provide water storage and cleansing opportunities rather than slipping toward development.
The Everglades Headwaters proposal got its start in cooperative discussions with ranchers who were genuinely concerned that the marginal economics of ranching would soon put many ranches on the auction block. Enlisting ranchers as partners and compensating them for important environmental services keeps them in business, retains land on the tax rolls, and achieves restoration benefits at far less cost than traditional public works projects. The easements and selective land purchases that will result from the Headwaters proposal will be key building blocks in reaching those goals.
The editorial included some erroneous and outdated information about the Headwaters Refuge, and other aspects of Everglades Restoration.
First, the statement that "There is no money to pay for" the Headwaters Refuge and Conservation Area is not quite correct. Each year the Land and Water Conservation Fund set up by Congress receives hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue from offshore oil and gas leases and royalties. In 2010, the LWCF received $450 million. These funds are available for National Wildlife Refuge and Conservation Area purchases if Congress allocates them to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. This is how most modern refuge lands have been acquired, and how the Headwaters Refuge and Conservation Area can be funded.
Next, some of the editorial's information about Everglades Projects approved but not completed is outdated. For example, the 2009 Earth Magazine report cited said the Tamiami Trail Bridge Project has been "derailed by contentious politics "
Well guess what — if you go down to the Tamiami Trail today you will find that the bridge project is actually under construction and is rapidly nearing completion. Others projects nearing the finish line are the crucial C-111 restoration project and components of the Biscayne Bay Coastal Wetlands in Miami Dade County likely to be finished by year's end. The Picayune Strand restoration project in Collier County is already producing pronounced benefits.
Yes, there have been engineering problems with some projects. The leaky Ten Mile Creek reservoir is an example. But no one ever suggested that Everglades restoration would be easy. Restoration of the Everglades is truly a pioneering project. Being a pioneer means making some mistakes and moving forward anyway through "adaptive management." When Congress authorized the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Project in 2000, directives to engage in adaptive management were specifically included just because these situations were wisely anticipated.
One of the things learned through "adaptive management" is that taking advantage of natural, low-tech opportunities to store and clean water is often a much more cost-effective way to proceed with Everglades Restoration. These are tried and true methods that we know will work.
That is where the Everglades Headwaters Refuge and Conservation Area proposal really shines. Because Everglades waters flow downstream from the Kissimmee River through Lake Okeechobee, the Headwaters proposal will deliver major benefits to the entirety of the Everglades and South Florida.

111012-b
Hans Tanzler III is Scaled Back St. Johns Water Management District’s New Director
FlaglerLive.com
October 12, 2011
The St. Johns River Water Management District Governing Board on Tuesday (Oct. 11) voted unanimously to hire Hans G. Tanzler III of Jacksonville as its new executive director effective immediately. Tanzler’s tenure will dovetail with Gov. Rick Scott’s directive to make the district a friend rather than a regulator of big water users and applicants, such as utilities, developers and large landowners.
Tanzler, 59, a certified public accountant and long-time member of the Florida Bar, will be paid a base salary of $165,000. He served as the district’s attorney since July, after having served two years on the district’s governing board. The 18-county St. Johns Water Management District includes Flagler, whose residents fund the district through their property taxes–about $50 a year for a house with a taxable value of $150,000.
Under orders from Scott, the state’s water management districts reduced tax rates, slashed budgets and scaled back regulatory responsibilities. The St. Johns district cut its budget by about $46 million and eliminated close to 150 positions through lay-offs, buy-outs and the scrapping of vacant positions
“Mr. Tanzler brings extensive experience leading large organizations with a well formulated and fiscally conservative approach,” said Governing Board Chairman Leonard Wood. “He has a very balanced background in the public and private sectors, and I am pleased that we will be able to benefit from his leadership skills and experience.”
An Orlando Sentinel editorial on the day of the appointment was less flattering, warning that while the district has too often “shirked its role as guardian of Central Florida’s water supply, permissively handing out permits like candy to applicants such as Niagara Bottling Co., and failing to impose or enforce meaningful conservation measures.” Things could get much worse, the editorial continued, if Tanzler “acts more like a water boy than water manager when developers and utilities come knocking.”
Several senior water management staffers in charge of reviewing permitting applications and regulating wetlands conservation were fired, essentially removing a regulatory hurdle between industry and the district.
Tanzler received law degrees from the University of Florida. He worked as an assistant U.S. attorney, an Internal Revenue Service attorney, an attorney in private practice, and a senior corporate business executive.
Tanzler has been active for more than 20 years with volunteer and community activities, currently serving on the boards of the University of Florida Foundation and The Conservation Trust of Florida. He previously served as chairman of the Jacksonville Zoological Society and commissioner for the Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commission.
“I am extremely honored that the Board has entrusted this position to me, and I am looking forward to leading this agency,” Tanzler said. “I come in with one agenda – to effect good government. The district has accomplished much in preserving and protecting our region’s water resources, and I look forward to continuing that work, with additional emphasis on good customer service.”
The search committee – made up of Board members Lad Daniels, John Miklos and Maryam Ghyabi – was created in August and held five public meetings to identify the search criteria, evaluate the 21 applicants, and interview the committee’s top three candidates.
Tanzler, whose appointment is subject to confirmation by Florida’s governor and Senate, replaces Kirby B. Green III, who retired Oct. 3 after 10 years as District executive director.

111012-f







Charlie CRIST
former FL governor

See the SUGARLAND
web-page by the
EvergladesHUB.com

111012-f
Happy Anniversary, Charlie Crist: Thanks a Bunch for U.S. Sugar Deal
Sunshine State News - Nancy Smith's blog
October 12, 2011 11:18 PM
Congrats, Charlie, it's your anniversary.
Yes, it's been one year exactly since Florida completed its $197 million land deal with U.S. Sugar Corp., when Gov. Charlie Crist bought Floridians what amounts to a draft pick to be named later.
Let's see. You got 26,800 acres of farmland that are what? Citrus groves and sugar cane? And it's pretty much the wrong land to create a flowway and move Everglades restoration forward? An awful lot of people tried to tell you and the South Florida Water Management District Board that you wouldn't have enough money left after the purchase.
Sounds like you've got to make a trade for something better.
Well, Charlie, look at it this way. You don't have to worry your white head over it anymore. Rick Scott, the new governor, proposes swapping much of that land for private property in order to build new reservoirs closer to existing stormwater treatment areas. That's the draft pick to be named later. It could include trading much of the Palm Beach County portion of the former U.S. Sugar Corp. land.
While state officials continue to scratch their heads over how to use the 26,800 acres, U.S. Sugar keeps farming it. What a deal for the Everglades, tan man. Thanks.
The deal allows U.S. Sugar Corp. to keep using the citrus land rent free until the district is ready to take it over.
Meanwhile, the district is trying hard to find a paying tenant.
Great legacy, Charlie.

111012-g
One year after U.S. Sugar land deal, property still waiting for Everglades restoration
Sun Sentinel - by Andy Reid
October 12, 2011
One year after Florida’s $197 million land deal with U.S. Sugar Corp., the 26,800 acres of farmland that was supposed to mean a new direction for Everglades restoration remains citrus groves and sugar cane.
The South Florida Water Management District on Oct. 12, 2010 overcame two years of economic hurdles and legal fights to acquire farmland from U.S. Sugar that had long been off limits to Everglades restoration.
Environmentalists hailed the deal as an opportunity to get strategically located land to help build reservoirs and treatment areas to clean polluted stormwater needed to replenish the Everglades.
Critics of the deal, including the Miccosukee Tribe and U.S. Sugar rival Florida Crystals, argued that the land deal cost too much and would delay other Everglades restoration efforts.
The deal allows U.S. Sugar to keep farming the land until the district is ready to put it to use. The deal enabled the district to begin using much the land for restoration in 2012, but so far there are no plans to start building.
"The biggest concern is that it looks like the land is not being put to use," said Drew Martin of the Sierra Club, which supported the land deal. "There’s still a great deal of need."
The 26,800 acres includes two big pieces: 17,900 acres of citrus land in Hendry County, beside existing stormwater-treatment areas; and 8,900 acres of sugar cane land in Palm Beach County, east of Lake Okeechobee.
The deal, pushed by then-Gov. Charlie Crist, also included a 10-year option for the water management district to buy the rest of U.S. Sugar’s remaining 153,000 acres.
Crist originally proposed a nearly $2 billion deal to buy all of U.S. Sugar’s land, but Florida’s souring economy resulted in the water management district opting for a scaled-down version.
Florida’s economic woes, as well as a change in state leadership, squashed plans for buying more U.S. Sugar land and also left construction plans for the land on hold.
Gov. Rick Scott opposed the land deal when he was a candidate and since taking office has changed the leadership at the district and pushed for cutting the agency’s budget by 30 percent.
Scott’s new Everglades plan, which he proposed last week, could result in offering some of the former U.S. Sugar land as trade bait.
The proposal envisions swapping state land for private property in order to build new reservoirs closer to existing stormwater treatment areas. That could include trading much of Palm Beach County portion of the former U.S. Sugar land.
Scott’s plan also potentially makes use of an unfinished reservoir in southwestern Palm Beach County, which already cost South Florida tax payers nearly $280 million. It could now be used to build a new water storage facility that could feed neighboring stormwater treatment areas.
The district shelved that reservoir while pursuing the U.S. Sugar deal and Florida Crystals contends that the unfinished reservoir is an example of how the U.S. Sugar deal derailed Everglades restoration.
The reservoir, "should never have been stopped in the first place," Florida Crystals Vice President Gaston Cantens said. "They could have been storing water there."
While state officials continue to weigh how to use the 26,800 acres, U.S. Sugar keeps farming the land.
The deal allows U.S. Sugar to keep using the citrus land rent free - while continuing to pay property taxes - until the district is ready to take possession. The district is pursuing finding a paying tenant, which could end up being U.S. Sugar, to use the land until it’s needed for construction.
U.S. Sugar pays $150 per acre per year to lease the sugar cane property. According to the deal, the earliest that land would be available to the district is May 2013.
Buying the U.S. Sugar land was a worthwhile investment that will eventually pay off for the Everglades, said Everglades Foundation CEO Kirk Fordham.
"Land purchases rarely pay off overnight," Fordham said. "In the long run, the land acquisition will have proven its usefulness."

111012-h
Sugar deal going sour
TBO.com – by Margaret Menge
October 12, 2011
Lack of state money has left restoration project in limbo.
CLEWISTON - In June 2008, Gov. Charlie Crist announced that the state of Florida was buying out the U.S. Sugar Corporation for $1.75 billion with the intention to use the land for Everglades restoration.
The chief executive officer of U.S. Sugar, Bob Buker, said the state would get everything the company owned: the land, the mill, two refineries, the railroad, the headquarters in Clewiston … everything, right down to "the half-eaten pastrami sandwich in the refrigerator."
But it didn't.
After twice amending the deal over two years, the South Florida Water Management District ended up buying just 26,791 acres of U.S. Sugar for $197 million, not the full 187,000 acres, not the mill, not the railroad, not its headquarters in Clewiston and not any part of any pastrami sandwich.
What happened?
Eric Buermann, who was chairman of the district's board when the deal was made, said it's simple: The economy took a downward turn and the state didn't have the money to buy all of the land.
"It ultimately had to be scaled back to a more affordable version," he said, before correcting himself, saying the 2008 deal was not really scaled back but "phased," the way the developer of a shopping center does a project in phases, pointing to the state's 10-year option to purchase another 153,209 acres.
But Gov. Rick Scott has indicated he's not interested in acquiring any more land for Everglades restoration and the South Florida Water Management District's budget has been cut in half — from $1.07 billion to $576 million for 2012— with the biggest cuts from the money available for land acquisition and restoration projects. So it's unclear when another phase might get under way.
And no one is talking about what might be done and when with the U.S. Sugar land that was acquired in October of last year — the 26,791 acres in Hendry and Palm Beach counties.
Staff at the South Florida Water Management District did not return calls requesting information and comment, and the district's website only has a vague mention of "construction opportunities for environmental and water quality improvements" on a map showing the River of Grass land acquisition.
"As for where it is now, we've been asking the same question," said Jane Graham, who works on Everglades policy for the Florida Audubon Society.
She said Audubon is hopeful that the water district will be able to use the land for water treatment. Eventually.
U.S. Sugar is still farming the land, having leased it back from the state as part of the agreement with the South Florida Water Management District.
So, there are no plans to use the land for Everglades restoration, and no money to execute any plan that might be devised. But this, said former water district board member Mike Collins, is the least of it.
Collins, a fishing guide in the Florida Keys who was appointed to the board by former Gov. Jeb Bush, was the only member of the water district's board to vote against the U.S. Sugar deal in 2008.
"They didn't need that land. We own 300 million acres of the Everglades. When do you own enough ?" he asked last week at his office in the Upper Keys.
"They just sold out the whole Everglades restoration," he said, pointing to a number of Everglades restoration projects the water district stopped working on to fund the purchase of U.S. Sugar land.
The New York Times reported in March 2010, in an article headlined "A Deal to Save the Everglades May Help U.S. Sugar Firm," that more than $280 million had been spent on the reservoir in Palm Beach County that was to be the largest man-made reservoir in the world.
Work on the reservoir, the paper reported, was stopped so that the state could buy the U.S. Sugar land. The penalty paid to the contractor for stopping work: $25 million a month.
But to some, the money isn't the main thing.
Buermann, a real estate lawyer by trade, said the state had to take the opportunity to acquire the land.
"Property in that bulk has never been available in this century," he said of the Everglades. "It just has never come on the market."
He said all of the board members of the South Florida Water Management District knew when they approved the deal that U.S. Sugar was more than $500 million in debt. Buermann said he doesn't think the company would have been willing to sell otherwise.
But instead of getting the land at bargain basement prices, the state agreed to pay more than $7,000 per acre, a price that U.S. Sugar is not likely to agree to renegotiate as the price of sugar is up and the company's position improved.
"It really was a rip-off," said Barbara Miedema, the spokesperson for the Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative. The cooperative was staunchly opposed to the state's purchase of U.S. Sugar, calling it a "bailout" and complaining the land was never worth what the state agreed to pay for it.
And three years after reports of its demise, U.S. Sugar is alive and well. Buker gave an interview to the Palm Beach Post on the occasion of the company's 80th anniversary in April, saying that he expects the company to be around another 80 years.

111012-i
Tanzler to head St. Johns River Water Management District
JaxDailyRecord.com
October 12, 2011
The St. Johns River Water Management District Governing Board voted Tuesday to hire its general counsel, Hans G. Tanzler III, as executive director.
Tanzler has served as general counsel since July after serving two years on the governing board.
Tanzler replaces Kirby Green III, who retired Oct. 3 after 10 years as executive director.
Tanzler’s appointment is subject to confirmation by Gov. Rick Scott and the state Senate.
The board search committee, consisting of members Lad Daniels, John Miklos and Maryam Ghyabi, was created in August and held five public meetings to identify the search criteria, according to the district.
The committee evaluated 21 applicants and interviewed its top three candidates.
“Mr. Tanzler brings extensive experience leading large organizations with a well-formulated and fiscally conservative approach,” said board Chairman Leonard Wood in a news release.
Tanzler has been a member of The Florida Bar for more than 30 years. He is a certified public accountant and has been as an assistant U.S. attorney, an Internal Revenue Service attorney, an attorney in private practice and a senior corporate business executive, according to the district.
“I come in with one agenda – to effect good government,” Tanzler said in the news release.
“The district has accomplished much in preserving and protecting our region’s water resour-ces, and I look forward to continuing that work, with additional emphasis on good customer service,” he said.
The district is a regional agency of the state. It is responsible for managing groundwater and surface water resources in all or part of 18 counties in Northeast and East-Central Florida, including Alachua, Baker, Bradford, Brevard, Clay, Duval, Flagler, Indian River, Lake, Marion, Nassau, Okeechobee, Orange, Osceola, Putnam, St. Johns, Seminole and  Volusia counties.
It is governed by a nine-member board appointed by Florida’s governor.

111011-a







- water -
- water -
- water - - -

111011-a
Caloosahatchee woes begin with corrupt pro-farm policy
News-Press.com – Guest Opinion by John Cassani, member of the Southwest Florida Watershed Council
Oct. 11, 2011
The recent News-Press article on the Caloosahatchee flow issue was a welcome review on this ongoing problem. However, one important process issue was not addressed in regard to the quantity of consumptive use permits issued, the volume of water they represent and their periodic renewal.
At least every 20 years, state law requires that these permits be renewed, and as part of the renewal all of the permits are evaluated for cumulative impacts to the resource and environment. This process represents Florida water law meant to prevent over-allocation of public waters so that Florida waterways and the environment are not damaged from overconsumption.
The latest renewal process started in 2008 and finished last year. It was evident at that time that the Caloosahatchee River had undergone significant harm in preceding years as a result of receiving too little water during the dry season and too much water in the wet season. To comply with statute and rule regarding the renewals, the South Florida Water Management District must base its decision to renew or modify the permits on available water versus the total volume of permits to be granted and in the context of past and potential damage to public waters from excessive withdrawals.
In anticipation of at least some resolution to this problem, the SFWMD was asked in 2009 how much additional "discretionary" water would be freed up to supply the Caloosahatchee and other public waters as a result of the 20-year permit renewal. District staff responded by saying that they did not yet have a "ledger sheet" worked out to calculate the answers to those questions and would not until the permits had been renewed. Subsequently, district staff refused to even talk about "the ledger," and emails regarding "the ledger" were obtained only after a public records lawsuit.
The district's policy of renewing all the permits and then after the fact figuring out how much water was actually permitted is backward logic, at best. The whole exercise was essentially a shell game to guarantee that there would be no change to the "over-allocation" problem. The result of this charade was that more consumptive use permits and demand were added to the cumulative total, further aggravating a serious problem.
To effectively block reform of this corrupt policy, legislators, including some of those supposedly representing Southwest Florida, went as far as giving the SFWMD executive director authority to renew the permits prior to governing board review without the requirement for a public hearing before the decision on their renewal. This change was camouflaged and labeled as "No Farmer Left Behind." A seemingly righteous and even charitable sounding action similar to other "spins" coming from our policy makers in recent years.
There was even an attempt by at least one local legislator to extend the life of CUPs beyond the current 20 years.
Get the picture?
Farmers are entitled and deserve their fair share of available water, but when their demands exceed what can be sustained, and damage the very resource we all depend on, then changes need to be made to protect the public resource.
John Cassani is a member of the Southwest Florida Watershed Council.

111011-b
Gov. wants to delay water cleanup in Everglades
WINK News
October 11, 2011
COLLIER COUNTY, Fla. - A project that's been held up for more than two decades may finally make some progress, restoring the Everglades.  The governor's new plan could affect your environment, your wallet, and even your drinking water.
Governor Rick Scott wants to spend millions more to clean up the water in the Everglades, and extend the deadline by six years.
"Whether you enjoy spoon bills and panthers, or whether you like to drink water, this is your issue," Brad Cornell with the Collier County Audubon Society tells WINK News.
He's part of a large group of environmentalists concerned with the governor's plan to extend the deadline for the Everglades restoration from 2016 to 2022.  The extension leaves room for more pollution.
"The spoon bills are leaving, the snail kite is spiraling into extinction.  It's really alarming.  Plus, this is our water supply for South Florida, seven and a half million people," Cornell adds.
However, he sees the governor's talks with Washington as progress, "We're waiting to see, and look forward to seeing, what detailed restoration work comes out of this dialog."
There's no exact total for the extension, but based on previous numbers it could cost tax payers more than $660 million dollars.
Part of the restoration falls in Commissioner Jim Coletta's district.
"I'd love to see it come in below budget, I'd love to see it finish on time, but we have to be realistic in this world," Coletta says.
With the restoration being such a large project, he sees the governor's ideas as headway and an economic boost.
"We have to remember that this is a tremendous economic driving engine for that whole area of the county.  It employs hundreds of people," Coletta explains.
Although some see the latest development from the governor as progress in the project, others wonder how much progress can really come from it.  Scott recently made drastic cuts in the budget of the agency in charge of the restoration.
In order for the deadline extension to be approved, a U.S. district judge must approve it.

111010-
Scott pleases Everglades activists with restoration plan
WTSP-Ch10news
October 10, 2011
TALLAHASSEE (CBS4) - Some environmentalists expressed optimism Friday at a proposal by Gov. Rick Scott aimed at trying to resolve a years-long dispute over restoring the Everglades, despite the state's assertion that it needs several more years to get the ecosystem clean.
According to The News Service of Florida, the state needs an additional six years beyond the 2016 deadline that had been set out for cleaning up the water flowing into the Everglades, the Scott administration said during a meeting with U.S. Department of Interior officials in Washington on Thursday.
While some environmental groups slammed the proposed delay, the head of the Everglades Foundation said Friday that the proposal by Scott to get the restoration project moving again with a counter offer to federal demands for specific clean up benchmarks represents a "fairly significant change in the governor's posture from combative to cooperative.
"We are frankly very optimistic about the direction that things are now moving," said Kirk Fordham, CEO of the Everglades Foundation. "There is some hope that we could see some significant movement forward."
Fordham did express some concern about the proposal to take until 2022 to accomplish the restoration, but said the state of the economyhas to be acknowledged.
"The timetable is a concern," Fordham said during a conference call a day after Scott went to Washington for talks with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and unceremoniously announced he proffered a new state suggestion for how the restoration could be accomplished. But, Fordham said, "we're realistic....It's unlikely we're going to hit the 2016 timeline (anyway)."
The plan laid out by Florida officials is an alternative to one put forth by a federal judge who blasted the state earlier this year for taking too long to clean up the ecosystem. Lawmakers have already once lengthened the timeline for reaching a certain level of nutrients in the system, extending it to 2016 after it had originally been 2012. The goal is no more than 10 parts per billion of phosphorous going into the system.
The Scott plan would also shift some plans for construction projects from private land to state-held land, which could help get them started sooner. The question of how to clean up the ecosystem has been the subject of litigation for years, and Scott said in a statement that it was time to hammer out some sort of compromise.
"Today, I traveled to Washington, D.C., to ask our federal and state Everglades restoration partners to agree on a strategy that puts the ecosystem first and prevents costly, ongoing litigation from derailing our mutual progress toward restoration," Scott said late Thursday.
"....This plan puts to use strategic lands already in public ownership so that these projects can be authorized and built promptly, in the right locations and at a reasonable cost to the taxpayers," Scott said. "A healthy Everglades is part of a healthy economy. Yet it is also one of America's treasures. It fully deserves our best efforts to resolve differences, re-focus on our goals and deliver results. This strategy can make that happen."
Federal officials didn't agree to any specifics, and a new date for getting the ecosystem clean would likely require approval from U.S. District Judge Alan Gold, who earlier ordered the state to speed up the restoration effort.
Joining Scott in Washington were Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Herschel T. Vinyard Jr. and South Florida Water Management District Executive Director Melissa Meeker. In addition to Salazar, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Deputy Secretary of Civil Works Jo Ellen Darcy and U.S. Department of Justice Assistant Attorney General Ignacia Moreno were in the meeting.
"DEP and the SFWMD will continue to work closely with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to identify and implement projects that will treat water to ultra-low levels of phosphorus," DEP said in a statement.
Fordham said environmental activists would need more information about the details of what's in the proposal before they could fully support it, and noted that the administration hasn't said how it would be paid for.
Fordham also said sugar companies - agriculture is the source of much of the phosphorous, though the companies argue they already do much to reduce pollution - should be required to pay, not taxpayers, which may be unrealistic anyway given the anti-tax mood of the moment.
"That certainly is a non-starter," Fordham said of the prospect of asking taxpayers to foot the bill.

111009-a

Barron COLLIER

111009-a
Exclusive: Oil drilling in preserve ? It's not new
News-Press.com
Oct.ober 9, 2011
Big Cypress wells were first erected in 1943; new rigs started up in 2010
A dirt road twists and turns to the future of oil drilling deep in the heart of the Big Cypress National Preserve.
It ends at Raccoon Point, a remote area in the 729,000-acre preserve, where a rotating pipe from a derrick towering about 100 feet grinds its bit slowly, inexorably, more than 2 miles into the earth.
This new oil well began operating about two weeks ago, and it’s one of five that have been drilled at Raccoon Point since February 2010.
More are to come.
The fact new drilling has been going on for more than a year makes Gov. Rick Scott’s recent comments about proceeding cautiously with future drilling in the Everglades less than prophetic, and more of a heads-up that the battle between environmentalists and drilling interests is reigniting.
Florida has produced more than 600 million barrels of oil since oil was discovered in Sunniland Field, about 12 miles south of Immokalee, in 1943, according to state Department of Environmental Protection statistics.
In South Florida, more than 107 million barrels have been produced.
“That’s not a drop in the bucket,” said David Mica, executive director of the Florida Petroleum Council. At $50 a barrel, it would be over $30 billion, he said.
A fee to state
The oil industry provided $10 million in royalty fees to the state last year, just in production, Mica said. The fee is like a tax on the quantity of oil produced.
There are an estimated 370 million more barrels of undiscovered oil in South Florida, according to the most recent United States Geological Survey oil reserve estimate.
A 2008 federal Department of the Interior study forecasting oil and gas exploration over the next 10 years says:
“It can be expected that there is a significant potential for new drilling and development in the state of Florida. It can further be expected that new drilling will be located near existing oil and gas fields.”
The Big Cypress is the western end of the Everglades ecosystem. Drilling has been going on there for decades. The first well was discovered by Barron Collier, land baron and founder of Collier County, 68 years ago.
But new drilling had been dormant for at least 10 years.
The recent expansion is courtesy of Collier Resources, run by descendants of Barron Collier. The company owns 400,000 acres of mineral rights in the Big Cypress.
Company officials declined to be interviewed, but the expansion is trumpeted on the company website.
“We believe there are significant new oil and gas resources within the Big Cypress National Preserve and we are committed to locating and developing them to help meet America’s energy needs,” it reads.
The production from Raccoon Point and Bear Island, another Collier oil field in the preserve, will continue until they are no longer profitable, the website states.
The oil field at Raccoon Point includes 13 wells, eight producing, said Don Hargrove, environmental protection specialist for the Big Cypress.
Hargrove randomly visits the site to check the operations, as do state inspectors.
“The Florida oil and gas industry is one that is kind of low-key, out of sight, out of mind,” Hargrove said. “But it is happening.”
What critics think
Environmentalists decry drilling in the preserve, which:
• Provides 42 percent of the water flowing into Everglades National Park.
• Is the recharge area for the aquifers that supply Floridians and the agriculture industry with potable water.
• Is home to about 30 species federally listed as endangered or threatened or listed by the state as species of special concern, including the Florida panther and wood stork.
And 100 plant species are listed in need of protection by the state.
There are thousands more animal and plant species.
“The richness of species in the Big Cypress is second to none in the continental United States,” said Matthew Schwartz, executive director of the South Florida Wildlands Association.
“Certainly the potential exists for damaged wildlife habitat from exploration,” said Andrew McElwaine, president and CEO of the Conservancy of Southwest Florida. The National Park Service also has documented some damage to water resources, he said.
Oil business interests say opponents need to realize and accept drilling is a legal and economic reality, a land use supported by the law that created the preserve in 1974.
Mica has served on the Big Cypress Advisory Committee that assisted in the siting of oil exploration. The amount produced by Florida wells may pale in comparison to the U.S. oil appetite — 20 million barrels a day — but any oil that isn’t produced here has to come from overseas, he said.
“The production of oil brings us jobs, brings money to government and brings us American oil and gas resources that, regardless of how small they may be, help reduce our dependence on foreign sources,” he said.
The National Park Service does a balancing act, charged with protecting the preserve’s resources while respecting the legal rights of the companies that drill here.
“Our efforts are not focused on trying to stop the operation,” said Pedro Ramos, preserve superintendent.
Less than 1 percent of preserve acreage is affected by oil and gas operations, Ramos said.
“We are very pleased and believe the ecosystem here is thriving,” he said.
The Everglades Foundation recognizes the Collier family retains those mineral rights “and the idea of blocking any additional exploration may be challenging,” said Kirk Fordham, foundation CEO.
Any future permit applications will be scrutinized, he said.
“Our goal will be to work with the Colliers to direct them in their exploration efforts, to minimize impacts on wildlife habitat and the people’s water supply,” Fordham said.
The federal and state departments of environmental protection regulations for oil permitting and drilling are exhaustive. Monitoring is required, as is reclaiming the land after an oil well is abandoned.
There have been no significant problems at the preserve, said Ron Clark, chief of the resource management division at Big Cypress.
“I would characterize it as, if the operation complies with all the regulations in place then it can be conducted without a detrimental impact to the environment,” he said.
The primary issue is the disturbance of the surface of the land, not the actual drilling, Clark said.
“In order to drill for oil and gas in this ecosystem you have to create a suitable area to stage all the equipment,” he said. That means bringing in fill material to create drilling pads, building access roads, using pipelines and trucks to transport the oil.
“Human presence is a concern,” he said. “Noise is a concern.”
Drilling and production activities in Big Cypress have created a large environmental footprint, according to the 2008 Big Cypress National Preserve Geologic Resource Evaluation Report by the National Park Service.
“The pads and roads left behind when a well is plugged and abandoned leave a large scar on the landscape and affect the hydrologic system at Big Cypress,” the report said.
The National Park Service website says there are 37 abandoned oil and gas sites scattered across the preserve.
Collier owns the majority of mineral rights in the Big Cypress, but the original preserve boundaries had about 40,000 private property owners, Clark said.
“Just about all of them had mineral rights and they still do,” he said.
However, the acreage is so tiny the only way it would be economically feasible to explore for oil is for all the owners to collaborate on a single operation, he said.
Collier Resources owns 800,000 acres of private mineral rights across Lee, Collier and Hendry counties, making it the largest private mineral owner in Florida.
Some of the acreage is in the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge and the Ten Thousand Islands National Wildlife Refuge, Hargrove said.
“They may own the rights but then they have to get access to them,” McElwaine said. “That’s a tall order. Certainly there would be one heck of a fight.”
Scott’s comments
There also are private mineral rights owned in Everglades National Park, Hargrove said, but he doesn’t know how much acreage or who the owners are.
The observation tower at the national park’s Shark Valley Visitor Center is a former oil derrick, Clark said.
No drilling is being done in the park, or in either wildlife refuge.
Adam Fetcher, a spokesman for the federal Department of the Interior, said in an email: “We are not aware of any other privately held mineral rights within Department of the Interior lands in the Everglades region where oil and gas development would be viable.” There are mineral rights, but it is not economically practical to drill on them.
After Scott made his comments about possible drilling, his office hastily backpedaled.
“Gov. Scott has not called for an expansion of drilling in the Everglades, said spokeswoman Amy Graham. “That discussion is not on the table.”
Nothing has changed, Brian Burgess, the governor’s chief spokesman, said this week.
“That’s doesn’t fit within the governor’s economic agenda, ”Burgess said. “It’s just not part of his game plan. He’s got a vision of how to create private-sector jobs, and that’s not part of it.
Mica believes more drilling in the Everglades should be on the table.
“I think if you put the same kind of safeguards as we have in the Big Cypress toward Everglades National Park and our other national parks, yes, our domestic resource can be extracted in an environmentally sensitive manner,” Mica said.
The opposite view?
“My comment on that would be, if there ever surfaces an attempt to drill for oil in Everglades National Park, it would essentially open up a battle that would make the Crusades look like patty-cake,” Fordham said.

111009-b








Cynthia BARNETT
Gainesville author

111009-b
Water woes need new solutions, Gainesville author says
Gainesville.com - by Fred Hiers, Staff writer
October 9, 2011
The solution to Florida's dwindling water supply goes beyond less lawn irrigation or shorter showers. It requires a water ethic and a new way of thinking about the disappearing resource.
Gainesville author Cynthia Barnett is in the midst of her Florida book tour and talked this week about “Blue Revolution: Unmaking America's Water Crisis” (Beacon Press, $26.95, hardcover).
Barnett, who also wrote the 2007 award-winning “Mirage: Florida and the Vanishing Water of the Eastern U.S.,” said her latest book was written for ordinary residents to get the word out about water shortage, possible solutions and the need for leaders and the public to create water-use guidelines.
“If we Southerners knew as much about how our forbearers altered rivers and wetlands as we do about the Civil War, we'd have great appreciation for the natural waters that are left,” said Barnett, who spoke at the College of Central Florida in Ocala this week.
She said much of the problem is that governments and utilities reroute and dam water to create the illusion that there's water to spare, when, in fact, springs are disappearing, and groundwater tables are shrinking.
“That is our illusion of water abundance,” she said.
“The … resulting ethos has helped lead us to insufficient supplies, unsustainable consumption of energy to move water around, financially unstable utilities and other problems,” she said.
Each community is unique, Barnett said, “but one solution stands out above these others. It is the cheapest. It is the easiest. It fulfills our obligation to the future. This is the embrace of a water ethic.”
But defining the state's water ethic is a challenge. One definition: to make the protection of freshwater ecosystems a central goal of all that we do, said Barnett, citing another author.
“Yet, it's clear that protecting freshwater … is not central in all we do,” Barnett said.
That's because most people don't understand where their water comes from, who is in charge of it or what it costs to send it through their taps, she said.
Citing “Blue Revolution,” Barnett gave examples of how communities facing droughts have cut per-capita water use by half and have political leadership “ultra-focused on water.”
A similar national focus has worked in the past, Barnett said, citing the country's anti-litter campaign, which began in the 1970s.
In 1969, half of Americans said they littered. Following a national anti-litter marketing campaign, that figure dropped to 15 percent in 2009. The decline was mostly due to a community-wide judgment about cleanliness, she said, not penalties.
The solution no longer rests with water professionals, but every resident and his or her ability to change behavior, pressure others and elect leaders who have the same water conservation goals.
“Water managers are no longer enough. Environmentalists are no longer enough,” she said.

111009-c
Worlds collide in preserve
News-Press.com – by Mary Wozniak
October 9, 2011 
At Raccoon Point, the wilderness shares space with the workings of an oil field
The turnoff to the access road for the Raccoon Point oil field comes up abruptly on the Tamiami Trail, 50 miles east of Naples.
A News-Press reporter and photographer visited the site nine days ago with Ron Clark, chief of the resource management division at Big National Cypress Preserve.
A chain-link fence with an open gate marks the spot, leading to a dirt road beyond. A sign warns visitors to keep out.
What lies 11 miles inside is a clash between the worlds of industry and wilderness.
A guard is posted 24 hours a day at a trailer just inside the entrance. He keeps track of those who enter and exit.
Raccoon Point is the largest and most productive of the Collier Resources oil fields. Five new wells have been drilled since February 2010.
That increases the number of wells at the site to 13, with nine producing, said Bob Hargrove, the Big Cypress environmental protection specialist.
The single-lane road twists and turns to avoid sensitive habitats such as cypress domes, Clark said. That is one of several habitats — including grass prairie, cypress prairie and pine flatwoods — one travels through to get to the pads.
First sighted is a great blue heron flying off the side of the road, then an egret perched in a tree. The orange flash of a queen butterfly flits by.
The road is an impediment to the preserve’s natural sheet flow, but water flows underneath through culverts, Clark said.
Separate roads that lead to the five oil pads fan out from the main road like tree branches.
Each pad is a cleared area. There are several portable trailers at each as well as equipment such as trucks and bulldozers.
The first operating oil well appears nothing more than large, pale green utility pipes sticking up about 4 feet up from a small concrete platform.
That platform is the actual oil pad, Clark said.
“The oil here is under very low pressure,” Clark said.
It’s being pumped out with an electric pump, the reason you’ll never see a gusher there, he said.
“We actually have to suck it out of the ground,” Clark said.
A network of above- ground pipelines snake along of the road, carrying oil from the wells to the production pad. Each pipe represents a single well, Clark said.
The production facility has a row of large cylindrical “heater-treater” tanks. The oil, which comes out of the ground mixed with corrosive water and gas, is separated out.
The oil goes into holding tanks. Then it’s sent more than a mile through a pipeline to a truck-loading facility called Devil’s Garden, and then on to the Port of the Everglades and Gulf refineries.
There’s a racket at Pad No. 5, where a new well is being drilled from an existing pad. This is the typical derrick, about 100 feet tall.
Five men in green jumpsuits work the well, including the “doghouse” at the base of the well platform, where drilling is controlled.
One worker straddles an arm of metal latticework sticking out from the derrick near the top, dangling his legs. A 5-foot alligator lies motionless behind a pile of pipes at the edge of the cleared area, watching.
On the way out, Clark stops at a pad and points to an area that has been reclaimed. You could not have known it was there, amid trees and plant life.
In federally owned areas where oil is drilled, the Big Cypress is considered a model for the National Park Service, Clark said.
“If you want to run an operation, this is how you do it,” he said.

111008-a








Kirk FORDHAM, CEO,
Everglades Foundation

111008-a
Everglades Advocates Cautiously Praise Scott's Offer
News Service of Florida - by David Royse
October 8, 2011
Some environmentalists expressed optimism Friday at a proposal by Gov. Rick Scott aimed at trying to resolve a years-long dispute over restoring the Everglades, despite the state's assertion that it needs several more years to get the ecosystem clean.
THE CAPITAL, TALLAHASSEE, FL -- Oct.8, 2011
Some environmentalists expressed optimism Friday at a proposal by Gov. Rick Scott aimed at trying to resolve a years-long dispute over restoring the Everglades, despite the state's assertion that it needs several more years to get the ecosystem clean.
Florida needs an additional six years beyond the 2016 deadline that had been set out for cleaning up the water flowing into the Everglades, the Scott administration said during a meeting with U.S. Department of Interior officials in Washington on Thursday.
While some environmental groups slammed the proposed delay, the head of the Everglades Foundation said Friday that the proposal by Scott to get the restoration project moving again with a counter offer to federal demands for specific clean up benchmarks represents a "fairly significant change in the governor's posture from combative to cooperative.
"We are frankly very optimistic about the direction that things are now moving," said Kirk Fordham, CEO of the Everglades Foundation. "There is some hope that we could see some significant movement forward."
Fordham did express some concern about the proposal to take until 2022 to accomplish the restoration, but said the state of the economy has to be acknowledged.
"The timetable is a concern," Fordham said during a conference call a day after Scott went to Washington for talks with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and unceremoniously announced he proffered a new state suggestion for how the restoration could be accomplished. But, Fordham said, "we're realistic.It's unlikely we're going to hit the 2016 timeline (anyway)."
The plan laid out by Florida officials is an alternative to one put forth by a federal judge who blasted the state earlier this year for taking too long to clean up the ecosystem. Lawmakers have already once lengthened the timeline for reaching a certain level of nutrients in the system, extending it to 2016 after it had originally been 2012. The goal is no more than 10 parts per billion of phosphorous going into the system.
The Scott plan would also shift some plans for construction projects from private land to state-held land, which could help get them started sooner. The question of how to clean up the ecosystem has been the subject of litigation for years, and Scott said in a statement that it was time to hammer out some sort of compromise.
Today, I traveled to Washington, D.C., to ask our federal and state Everglades restoration partners to agree on a strategy that puts the ecosystem first and prevents costly, ongoing litigation from derailing our mutual progress toward restoration," Scott said late Thursday.
".This plan puts to use strategic lands already in public ownership so that these projects can be authorized and built promptly, in the right locations and at a reasonable cost to the taxpayers," Scott said. "A healthy Everglades is part of a healthy economy. Yet it is also one of Americas treasures. It fully deserves our best efforts to resolve differences, re-focus on our goals and deliver results. This strategy can make that happen."
Federal officials didn't agree to any specifics, and a new date for getting the ecosystem clean would likely require approval from U.S. District Judge Alan Gold, who earlier ordered the state to speed up the restoration effort.
Joining Scott in Washington were Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Herschel T. Vinyard Jr. and South Florida Water Management District Executive Director Melissa Meeker. In addition to Salazar, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Deputy Secretary of Civil Works Jo Ellen Darcy and U.S. Department of Justice Assistant Attorney General Ignacia Moreno were in the meeting.
"DEP and the SFWMD will continue to work closely with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to identify and implement projects that will treat water to ultra-low levels of phosphorus," DEP said in a statement.
Fordham said environmental activists would need more information about the details of what's in the proposal before they could fully support it, and noted that the administration hasn't said how it would be paid for.
Fordham also said sugar companies agriculture is the source of much of the phosphorous, though the companies argue they already do much to reduce pollution - should be required to pay, not taxpayers, which may be unrealistic anyway given the anti-tax mood of the moment.
"That certainly is a non-starter," Fordham said of the prospect of asking taxpayers to foot the bill.

111008-b








         ???

111008-b
Governor seeks Everglades delay
The Associated Press
October 08, 2011
WEST PALM BEACH --  An important deadline in Everglades restoration efforts — already pushed back four years — would be postponed six more years under a proposal by Gov. Rick Scott.
In a Washington meeting with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Thursday, Scott laid out a plan to put off a deadline to reduce the amount of phosphorous flowing into the Everglades to 10 parts per billion. The deadline was originally set for next year but was put off until 2016. Under the governor's proposal, the state would have until 2022.
That change would require the approval of U.S. District Court Judge Alan Gold, who has expressed dissatisfaction with Florida's restoration efforts.
In an April ruling, he said the state has "not been true stewards of protecting the Everglades in recent years."
Reducing phosphorous levels requires building 22,000 acres of stormwater treatment areas to filter water flowing southward.
The proposed delay was not met with applause by environmentalists. David Guest of Earthjustice, one of the environmental groups that has sued the state over the Everglades, was blunt in his assessment: "This is terrible," he told The Miami Herald.
But Scott insisted, "Florida remains steadfast in its commitment to restoring America's Everglades."

111008-c
No lie: Florida’s governor is just misunderstood
The Miami Herald - Opinion by Myriam Marquez
October 8, 2011
Let me set the record straight.
Gov. Rick Scott is no Tricky Dick. The poor man is misunderstood. People, particularly the media (yes, we’re people too) are out to get him. Only Fox understands his zeal for freedom.
Freedom. What does it mean to Scott?
Let’s start with regulations. Bad for freedom. This is why Scott felt compelled to gut the Department of Community Affairs, the state agency charged with helping Florida residents maintain their quality of life by ensuring cities and counties steer new subdivisions or businesses to areas that will not jam already-packed roads, water and sewer services and schools.
Let local officials and the lobbyists who court them with campaign cash figure it out. Not our problem, the governor and Legislature agreed after the lobbyists drafted the new law.
And if you are a resident who wants to appeal such a development because it will make your already crammed area roads worse or strain your community’s water supply? Your options are limited, unless you are prepared to bankroll the developer’s lawyers if you lose.
How about the water we drink and the health of the River of Grass and Lake Okeechobee, which collect and store our lifeblood?
Scott and the GOP-led Legislature figured the state’s water management districts were overtaxing Florida ’s cash-strapped, recession weary residents. So even crucial dollars to study what projects are working to improve water quality and restore the natural ecosystem (before farming and sugar-growing practices and stormwater pollution from nearby developments caused havoc) were cut from this year’s budget. The savings for a typical homeowner is peanuts, but, by golly, Scott promised us freedom and he is delivering.
He just needs a little more time to clean up the mess.
So he ventured to Obamaland (Washington) and begged Interior Secretary Ken Salazar for six more years to meet a federal court mandate to clean up the dirty water flowing into the Everglades.
The current deadline is 2016 and state officials have been dragging their feet as if this were a trail of tears instead of the river’s Road to Recovery.
U.S. District Judge Alan Gold, already ticked off with years of the state’s stonewalling, would have to give the nod. And if he doesn’t we’ll likely be told the judge is an enemy of freedom. And a jobs killer, to boot.
You see, this all started when a thin guy with a shaved head popped in between our favorite TV shows, showed his pearly whites and introduced himself. “I’m Rick Scott. Let’s get to work!”
He promised to ignite the economy and attract 700,000 jobs to Florida in seven years. At the time economists pointed out the state would likely have one million more jobs in seven years’ time without doing much of anything.
But Scott campaigned on corporate tax cuts to spur job growth, and again he delivered for freedom’s sake. Now there seems to be a misunderstanding about his math skills or his memory. At least twice cameras captured him saying the 700,000 were on top of one million. Then he told the Herald/Times bureau in Tallahassee that the one million wasn’t part of the deal.
Not a flip-flop, of course. He couldn’t even remember who made the claim about 1.7 million jobs, he told the Associated Press. Then his memory seemed to kick in (even as his transition emails have disappeared ) and by Friday he was setting the record straight, for freedom’s sake:
“Instead of focusing on hypotheticals, I’m focused on what I know will be accomplished through my 7-7-7 plan — the creation of 700,000 jobs over seven years regardless of what the economy might otherwise gain or lose,” Scott said. “Floridians will judge me not on what an economist in Tallahassee predicts, but on actual job growth each month.”
Here’s what we know so far: The state’s unemployment rate has dipped, though that began happening without any new laws or tax cuts. Since Scott took office in January, Florida has 71,000 more jobs. So we’re on our way, if slowly, to somewhere, with corporate interests in the driver’s seat.
Let freedom ring!

111008-d
Rick Scott Deserves a Chance to Restart Everglades Restoration
SunshineStateNews.com - by Nancy Smith
October 8, 2011
Hasn't the Florida Everglades had about all it can stand of an egocentric governor looking to build a legacy on the back of the state's greatest natural treasure?
I'm talking here about former Gov. Charlie Crist, whose self-aggrandising legacy quest set back Everglades restoration as much as a decade.
How? By abandoning many projects within the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, giving up on Acceler8, and stopping the plan to restore the northern Everglades.
Crist, darling of Florida environmentalists, was going to assure his legacy by buying out South Florida's subtropical watershed system -- 187,000 acres of it, anyway, the lock, stock and barrel holdings of U.S. Sugar Corp., for $1.7 billion.
In 2008, the Chicago Tribune, in a story about the U.S. Sugar deal, quoted Crist as telling a friend, "I could become a great national environmental hero when this is done."
That never happened, of course. The money dried up like an August creekbed. Crist didn't become an environmental hero. And he didn't save the Everglades. What he did was dismantle and delay a bipartisan plan for restoration that was actually working.
I was reminded of Crist's lust for a legacy during an Everglades Foundation teleconference Friday afternoon. Kirk Fordham, chief executive officer of the Everglades Foundation, gave the press his spin on Gov. Rick Scott's new restoration plan -- and in so doing, dangled the legacy carrot in Scott's face.
"We are frankly very optimistic about the direction things are now moving," Fordham told the press. "... This represents a significant change for the governor. ... I'm sure he can see the possibilities for a real legacy in Everglades restoration."
I sure hope not.
More legacy building is not what the been-there-done-that Everglades needs.
And it seems doubtful Scott is looking to thump his chest over some imagined Everglades success at this point. He's trying to pull a rabbit out of a hat, trying to avert litigation, make good things happen with no money, find water for residents and agriculture, keep progress on restoration coming.
What this governor doesn't want the state to do is buy any more land. He wants to downsize some construction projects and rely more on storing water on public and private lands. Some of his ideas, incidentally, bear a strong resemblance to the ones Crist trashed in 2008.
To do it economically, Scott is asking for more time -- six more years, until 2022 instead of the virtually impossible 2016.
That was the basis of the plan he presented in Washington Thursday, when he and state Department of Environmental Secretary Herschel T. Vinyard Jr. and South Florida Water Management District Director Melissa Meeker met with President Barack Obama's environmental team. Will it work ? It's too early to tell. But he built a bridge with the federal government. Stakeholders are looking for common ground.
Scott didn't ask to have this mess thrust upon him. Nor does he deserve the usual gaggle of environmental naysayers -- same ones who cheered Crist's lalaland-buy plan -- showing up at the doorstep of the White House to take potshots at him.
I'd like to see him get the time he asks, dreams of legacy aside, to implement a plan that can get Everglades restoration back on track in these sour economic times.

111008-e
Says hypocrisy trumps tolerance and trust
St. Augustine.com - Letter by HENRY B. LANGE
October 8, 2011
St. Augustine, Editor:
Remember when this governor promised, if elected, he would create 700,000 jobs in Florida? He now brags that Florida laid off 15,000 workers in state and local positions. That’s a unique way to create jobs. By the way, Republican-controlled states laid off 500,000 workers on the way to job creation. That’s a unique way to create jobs.
This same governor says it is OK to drill in the Everglades which are critical to the aquifer for all of the Florida Peninsular. Florida has a water problem, he says, then cuts funding for all water management groups.    
At recent Conservative Political Action Conference meeting, people were cheering the execution of incurable ill people, gay and lesbians, even those who are fighting our wars. At a another meeting people booed Gov.  Rick Perry for his compassion toward children of illegal residents. For those who don’t know these were the acts employed by the ultra-righters  in Europe  on their way to gain power. We all know what they gave the world.
Now Perry’s Texas has the highest level of uninsured for health in the nation. It also ranks sixth in the nation of percentage at or below the poverty level. Three cities have poverty levels at 38 percent. He talks about job creation but these jobs are below or at minimum wage.
Then U.S. Rep. John Boehner said that it is easier to start and run a business in China than South Carolina. With more than 12 years of involvement with an American firm in China, I know he is patently so wrong it is pure hypocrisy.  It’s true, however, if people and businesses  in South Carolina would work for $3 an hour, have no insurance for accidents on the job, give up their proprietary technology and withstand payoffs so common that the next leader of China has said he will stop the practice.
We Americans are witnessing a movement  to distort the facts over and over again until they become the truth. Tolerance and truth are not an option with this crowd. But you can stop it.

111007-a
Feds encouraged by Scott’s Everglades plan
Sun Sentinel - by William Gibson
October 7, 2011
Federal officials and some environmentalists say they are encouraged by Gov. Rick Scott’s willingness to address water-quality concerns while tying it to the next stage of Everglades restoration work.
Though federal agencies have not signed off on the governor’s concept, their high-level meeting in DC this week cleared the way for the state to develop plans that link water cleanup with restoration.
One federal official knowledgeable of these issues, who declined to be quoted by name, said Scott did not appear to be evading or delaying water-quality deadlines so much as coming to grips with the fact that the state is hopelessly behind and must confront the problem.
“We are going to analyze this, we are going to think about it. And we are committed to working on it in partnership,” the official said of the governor's plan. “We are pleased by this responsive, collaborative approach. It’s a breath of fresh air from the Florida capital.
“Frankly, his predecessors dragged their feet and repudiated their responsibilities. And Gov. Scott has come in and basically overturned the last eight years of Florida governors’ (inaction) to say, `You know what, I’m going to admit that we haven’t done enough, and here’s my plan to get us there.”’
Audubon of Florida was also pleased at signs that Florida will remain committed to restoration while trying to draw together water quality and distribution.
“The governor’s proposal looks at these things as one whole. That is so encouraging,” said Julie Hill-Gabriel, who tracks federal Everglades spending for Audubon of Florida. “We’re looking forward to working with (state officials) and seeing how it gets finalized.”

111007-b
Florida governor's Everglades cleanup plan met with optimism
New-Press.com
October 7, 2011
TALLAHASSEE — Some environmentalists expressed optimism Friday at a proposal by Gov. Rick Scott aimed at trying to resolve a years-long dispute over restoring the Everglades, despite the state’s assertion that it needs several more years to get the ecosystem clean.
Florida needs an additional six years beyond the 2016 deadline that had been set out for cleaning up the water flowing into the Everglades, the Scott administration said during a Thursday meeting with U.S. Department of Interior officials in Washington.
While some environmental groups slammed the proposed delay, the head of the Everglades Foundation said Friday that the proposal by Scott to get the restoration project moving again with a counter offer to federal demands for specific clean-up benchmarks represents a “fairly significant change in the governor’s posture from combative to cooperative.”
“We are frankly very optimistic about the direction that things are now moving,” said Kirk Fordham, CEO of the Everglades Foundation. “There is some hope that we could see some significant movement forward.”
Fordham did express some concern about the proposal to take until 2022 to accomplish the restoration, but said the state of the economy has to be acknowledged.
The plan laid out by Florida officials is an alternative to one put forth by a federal judge who blasted the state earlier this year for taking too long to clean up the ecosystem. Lawmakers have already once lengthened the timeline for reaching a certain level of nutrients in the system, extending it to 2016 after it had originally been 2012.
The goal is no more than 10 parts per billion of phosphorous going into the system.
The Scott plan would also shift some plans for construction projects from private land to state-held land, which could help get them started sooner. The question of how to clean up the ecosystem has been the subject of litigation for years, and Scott said that it was time to hammer out some sort of compromise.
“The only way it will work is if we work with the federal government, with the Army Corps of Engineers, the EPA, the Interior Department,” Scott said Friday during a stop in Fort Myers at The News-Press.
“I think we will get there. I am very optimistic. I think they will do the right thing.”
Federal officials didn’t agree to any specifics, and a new date for getting the ecosystem clean would likely require approval from U.S. District Judge Alan Gold, who earlier ordered the state to speed up the restoration effort.
Fordham said environmental activists would need more information about the details of what’s in the proposal before they could fully support it, and noted that the administration hasn’t said how it would be paid for.
Fordham also said sugar companies — agriculture is the source of much of the phosphorous, though the companies argue they already do much to reduce pollution — should be required to pay, not taxpayers, which may be unrealistic anyway given the anti-tax mood of the moment.
“That certainly is a non-starter,” Fordham said of the prospect of asking taxpayers to foot the bill.

111007-c
Gov. Scott Presents Plan for Everglades Restoration -- Meaning More Engineering
BrowardPalmBeach.com -by Stefan Kamph
October 7, 2011
The Everglades is too far gone for anyone to let it take its natural course. South Florida's entire inland economy depends on a water system that stays around the same level all year long, avoids flooding communities (cough, Weston, cough) that are stupidly built in the natural flow of water from Lake Okeechobee south to Florida Bay, and hydrates sensitive natural areas like Everglades National Park.
So when Rick Scott presented his plan yesterday for "restoring" the Everglades, the most recent salvo in a century-long backpedal from when Napoleon Bonaparte Broward decided to drain the whole damn thing, it wasn't about leaving anything alone.
Instead, he was lobbying federal agencies to proceed with a "strategy" concocted by state officials, including the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, to construct more water-control projects on public lands.
Yes, that means bucks for somebody. The state's press release cites the governor's desire to "put the ecosystem first and prevent costly, ongoing litigation." That probably means sympathetic regulation of whatever projects proceed.
Some of this is important work that started in the Clinton era to return the Everglades to some semblance of sustainability. Phosphorus leached into the water by heavy fertilizer use in the agricultural area southeast of Lake O needs to be soaked up by "filter marshes," reducing the phosphorus level to below 10 ppm, ideally.
Scott's plan includes such phosphorus control, and other water management projects to be done hand-in-hand with the South Florida Water Management District, which is responsible for flood control and water conservation. 
But in the end of the day, it's construction. And that, maybe, means jobs -- at least Scott told the secretary of the interior, the head of the EPA, and others that it did. 
"This plan puts to use strategic lands already in public ownership so that these projects can be authorized and built promptly," the governor said.
Hey, at least they're not golf courses. Yet.

111007-d
Scott's Everglades plan faces cost, timetable concerns
Sun Sentinel - by Andy Reid
October 7, 2011
Would mean another delay for meeting water quality standards.
Construction on new Everglades restoration projects could start next year, but meeting water quality standards would take a decade under Gov. Rick Scott's revamped plan unveiled Thursday.
While already-delayed state Everglades restoration plans set a 2016 deadline for achieving pollution reduction requirements, Scott's new proposal calls for meeting that threshold by 2022.
Scott proposes cutting restoration costs by avoiding buying more land to build reservoirs and treatment areas needed to clean stormwater that flows to the Everglades
Environmental groups Friday expressed cautious optimism over Scott's new Everglades emphasis, but warned that more delays hurt the ecosystem and South Florida's water supply.
"It's easy to put something on paper," Dawn Shirreffs, Everglades Coalition co-chair, said about the new plan. "We are kind of running out of time."
Scott's bid to revamp Everglades restoration is intended to resolve lingering litigation over Florida's failure to meet water quality standards – without paying as much as $1.5 billion under a federal Everglades restoration plan.
The Environmental Protection Agency last year called for Florida to almost double the 50,000 acres of man-made filter marshes that use aquatic plants to absorb polluting phosphorus washing off agricultural land and development to the north.
Scott's alternative approach uses state land to build new reservoirs intended to make better use of existing stormwater treatment areas, while also adding some new treatment areas.
Scott would swap some of the 26,800 acres the state acquired from U.S. Sugar Corp. for $197 million last year, before Scott took office, for private land closer to existing treatment areas.
State officials contend that the federal restoration plan also fails to meet the 2016 deadline to reduce phosphorus.
The money to pay for the plan would initially come from $170 million in reserves at the South Florida Water Management District, which leads Everglades restoration for the state.
State officials say they don't know how much Scott's new plan would cost, but that it would be much less than the $1.5 billion federal proposal.
Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla. – who wasn't included in Scott's meeting with federal officials Thursday – earlier this year urged Scott to become more engaged in restoration planing. "The fact that this meeting occurred seems to signal the governor is engaged, and maybe this is a positive step," said Nelson spokesman Bryan Gulley.
Scott's plan should aim for meeting phosphorus reduction thresholds by 2016 and make Big Sugar and other agriculture do more to clean up water that flows off farmland south of Lake Okeechobee, according to the Everglades Foundation.
However, Scott's new Everglades push is a welcome change after the governor's "hostile" relationship with President Obama's administration over health care and other issues, according to Kirk Fordham, Everglades Foundation CEO.
"This is a fairly significant change in the governor's posture from combative to cooperative," Fordham said. "It's not too late to turn the corner."

111007-e
Tampa Bay Water screws up settlement and blows millions of public dollars
WTSP - Channel 10 News
October 7, 2011
Tampa, Florida -- Tampa's $120 million C. W. "Bill" Young Reservoir helps supply water for the Bay area, but it isn't all it was cracked up to be. 
Actually, it's more cracked up than it was supposed to be. In fact, it is so full of cracks that it needs millions of dollars in repairs and guess who's on the hook to pay for those repairs? You the taxpayer!
"It has never worked. We bought it to work a certain way, it has never worked according to the plans we purchased," said Pinellas County Commissioner Neil Brickfield, who is a Tampa Bay Water Board member.
"The evidence is overwhelming, including an internal email from the engineering firm saying 'we messed up,'" said Brickfield.
The agency filed suit against the engineering firm HDR, and the agency's attorney Richard Harrison that has billed taxpayers $8 million for this case said it was strong case.
"The engineers' firm clearly wanted to settle and we saw them behind the scenes go from $10 million to $12 million to $20 million to $30 million and the attorney relayed to us he wasn't confident he could get much more than $30 million and the risk of going to trial might outweigh the $30 million," said Brickfield.
St. Petersburg City Council Member Karl Nurse, who is also a Tampa Bay Water Board member, was part of the 4-3 vote to accept the settlement. He is not pleased with the $30 million settlement offer, which would force taxpayers to pick up $57 million more to fix the reservoir. 
"It's a mess. What's tough is that it is a complicated case. You end up having hired experts who will tell the jury opposite of one another," said Nurse.
Attorney Richard Harrison, the $8 million hired gun, told the engineering firm Tampa Bay Water would accept the agreement.
"Our contract attorney then went to federal court and filed a petition that said both sides have agreed to a settlement and with that the judge dismissed the case," said Brickfield.
What the members of Tampa Bay Water didn't know was that their own rules required five members to vote for the settlement. Now the issue has to be reconsidered so members who weren't present at the first vote will get to vote.
Also in the works is a push to go ahead with the lawsuit and reject the settlement, which may not be possible.
"It is awkward. It doesn't give us much room to maneuver. It's like putting your cards on the table when you're playing poker,"  said Nurse.
The elected officials who make up the Tampa Bay Water board are upset with the settlement offer and the company that built the reservoir and they agree taxpayers have every right to be even more upset. They know that between the board and the engineering firm that millions and millions and millions and millions of your tax dollars have been wasted.
"I'm not sure that someone needs to be fired over this, but let's be honest that it is badly handled," said Nurse.
That bad handling means after paying the $8 million in legal costs, the settlement has taxpayers holding the bag.
"At best we're getting $22 million out of a $120 million. That's not a fair settlement to the people who pay the bills around here... the taxpayers," said Brickfield.
When it comes to Tampa Bay Water, taxpayers are used to having the agency spend millions on a project that doesn't work and footing the bill to fix it. 
You may recall took a low ball settlement on the desalination plant that cost more than $100 million to build and didn't work as promised.

(mouse-over to enlarge):

During the 2011 drought,
LO was at an almost
record low level.
At the end of the draught,
it still is well below its
average stage.

111006-a
Big Sugar's 'good year' a fraction above disaster
Palm Beach Post – Letters: by JUDY C. SANCHEZ
October 6, 2011
Throughout history, good crops have been a reason to rejoice. Apparently Audubon of Florida's Jane Graham is an exception. Only a farming disaster will satisfy her. ("Sugar growers have no valid water complaints," Tuesday letter.)
We need a sustainable society, but that includes balanced environmentalism. Unbalanced environmental policies are one of the top five reasons we have lost manufacturing in our country. Do we want to lose farming as well?
South Florida sugar farmers suffered tens of millions of dollars in crop losses due to extreme drought. Merely doing better than a disastrous prior year that was hit by 13 days of below freezing temperatures does not equate to "increasing production." Sadly, we are not going to have a great crop this year. However, we are rejoicing because we may have again escaped disaster.
To put sugar production numbers in perspective, Florida normally could produce around 2 million tons of sugar a year. Nearly continuous weather disasters since the 2004 hurricanes have dramatically decreased our subsequent crops and yields. Florida's projected 1.63 million tons of sugar for the upcoming season is still nearly 400,000 tons short. No rational business person would consider that a "good" year.
To make matters worse, Lake Okeechobee is still several feet below normal as the rainy season ends. Area farmers are still under Phase - 45 percent - water restrictions. Farmers will have to make Herculean efforts, combining technology, ingenuity, prayers and a lot of hard work, just to maintain their crops during this prolonged drought.
Since no one can control the weather, we must make better efforts to control water resources throughout the Everglades ecosystem. Storing water in Lake Okeechobee is the cheapest water storage we have, and flushing fresh water to tide squanders this limited resource with dramatic consequences to both the environment and the economy.
JUDY C. SANCHEZ, Clewiston, FL,  a senior director of corporate communications and public affairs for U.S. Sugar Corp

111006-b
Environmental groups win ruling against rock-mining expansion in Palm Beach County
The Palm Beach Post - by Jennifer Sorentrue
October 6, 2011
Environmentalists seeking to block expansion of rock-mining south of Lake Okeechobee won a favorable appellate court ruling against Palm Beach County on Wednesday.
The environmental groups 1000 Friends of Florida and the Sierra Club have challenged a 2008 decision that allowed a rock mine south of Lake Okeechobee to expand its operation. The 4th District Court of Appeal on Wednesday denied the county's request for a rehearing in the case.
The County Commission in 2008 approved the 470-acre expansion planned by Bergeron Sand and Rock Mine Aggregates. But the appeals court ruled on Aug. 3 that the proposed expansion did not meet criteria spelled out in the county's comprehensive plan, a long-term blueprint for growth and development.
The county's plan requires that the land be used for mining only if the mined rock is for public road projects, agriculture or water management and the appeals court has now ruled that the project did not meet those criteria.
The environmental groups have filed legal challenges against three county mining approvals, including the Bergeron expansion. Two cases are still pending.
"We are very pleased with the ruling," said Joanne Davis of 1000 Friends. "We had hoped that is what it would be."
Local environmentalists say the decision could have far reaching effects on the future of mining in the county's Everglades Agricultural Area.
Owners of other recently approved mines could be forced to show that rock from their projects will be used for public roads, agriculture and water management, regardless of whether the approvals were challenged in court, environmentalists say.
But the County Attorney's Office has said the decision might not be that sweeping.
A hearing challenging the commission's decision to let Rinker Materials and Florida Rock Industries dig 10,500 acres of new mines will be held next month, the county attorney's office said.

111006-c
Everglades restoration work raises concerns over flooding, clean water
Sun Sentinel - by David Fleshler and Andy Reid
October 06, 2011
A $300 million slice of the massive Everglades restoration project has design and construction deficiencies that have allowed polluted water into a wildlife refuge and raised flood-control concerns for nearby neighborhoods.
The South Florida Water Management District this year threatened to sue the Army Corps of Engineers over the "many outstanding issues associated with the design, construction and functionality" of the 29-mile levee system in the northern Everglades. A subcontractor has filed suit against one of the contractors, accusing it of doing shoddy work and using inferior materials that has left levees in one section vulnerable to collapse.
Outside inspectors for the Army Corps last year found erosion, missing sod cover, wheel rutting and deteriorated culverts in Stormwater Treatment Area 1 East, part of an arc of treatment marshes that filter phosphorus and other pollutants from water as it flows south
The levee problems have caused concern in the nearby town of Wellington, where town officials worry the flooding risk could raise property insurance costs. John Bonde, Wellington's deputy village manager, said the Corps and water management district "need to get a handle on this."
In addition to the flooding concerns, the water management district says problems with culverts, the depths of treatment cells and other deficiencies have resulted in a 40 percent loss of treatment capacity for water flowing into the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge, threatening to degrade wildlife habitat.
"You get a sea of cattails with nothing else able to fit in," said Nick Aumen, an ecologist for Everglades National Park who works at Loxahatchee. "It's no longer good habitat for wading birds, fish and other species we commonly associate with the Everglades."
A lawsuit has been filed against Bell Constructors Inc., which held contracts from the Army Corps of Engineers to build levees and pump stations in the stormwater treatment area. Gene Klusmeier, co-owner of Nu-Way Lawns Inc., which had a $175,000 subcontract to spread grass seed on the levees to help strengthen them, accuses Bell of defrauding the federal government by using inferior materials for the levees and submitting claims for work that was not performed as agreed.

111006-d
Fla. public workshop highlights poor regulation of chemicals that cause algal blooms
American Independent - by Virginia Chamlee
October 6, 2011
An all-day public workshop on Florida’s hotly contested water pollution standards held Tuesday brought up several concerns about the efficacy, and accuracy, of the state’s proposed rule.
It’s becoming increasingly obvious that Florida needs stricter rules to govern pollution in its waterways — nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen (which come from failing septic tanks, home fertilizers and industry effluent) lead to wide-scale algal blooms, which choke off oxygen to other marine life, and lead to widespread fish kills and no-swim zones. But the question of where the stricter standards will come from — the state or the feds? — has yet to be answered.
During Tuesday’s public workshop, state environmental regulators were pressed about the portion of the proposal that would affect estuaries. The state Department of Environmental Protection is hoping to finalize its standards in time to get approval from the EPA, who has drafted its own set of standards, which some argue would be too expensive to implement.
Via Naples News:
Environmental advocates questioned whether the proposed DEP nutrient standards for estuaries from Tampa Bay to the Florida Keys, including in Collier and Lee counties, were strict enough; local government officials wanted to know how they would be required to comply with them.
In response to criticism about how the standards were derived, DEP officials suggested some estuaries - including Naples Bay - might not get numeric limits proposed just yet.
“We’re not planning to move forward until we have scientifically defensible criteria,” said DEP bureau chief Daryll Joyner.
Some environmentalists present at the workshop shared their worries that the nutrient rules wouldn’t be enough to thwart unhealthy conditions in waterbodies. Others said they feel the department’s proposal to allow one violation every five years based on an annual average and allow no violations based on a five-year average simply isn’t enough.
Certain waterbodies, like the St. Johns and Caloosahatchee rivers, have been particularly susceptible to algal blooms and fish kills. This past summer saw a massive algal blooms so bad that many residents complained it lowered property values and hurt the bottom line of small businesses in the area. (Though the bloom has since dissipated, officials warned residents against swimming and fishing in the river.)
In its electronically submitted feedback (.pdf) on the proposal, Lee County reps expressed concerns about the accuracy of some portions of the proposal.
“Lee County believes that the biological and other evaluation tools used to define Nutrient Water Regions (‘NWR’) is incomplete, and possibly inaccurate,” they write. “There have been no stream condition or lake vegetation indices developed for South Florida. Moreover, wetland health indices have not been developed. While South Florida has a number of canals that must be accounted for there are many natural stream, wetland, coastal marsh and tidal mangrove areas that have not been considered. As a result, these natural areas have no paired biological data for developing numeric nutrient criteria.”
One of the so-called Nutrient Water Regions is the Caloosahatchee, which Lee County suggests is not an appropriate designation:
It is Lee County’s contention that the Caloosahatchee River has not been placed in an appropriate NWR because there are no valid biological evaluation tools available for the watershed. Lee County does not believe that the existing Peninsular NWR evaluation criteria are applicable to the Caloosahatchee River because of the lack of these tools. As such, the Caloosahatchee basin should be part of the South Florida NWR.
The Department of Environmental Protection’s numeric nutrient criteria will be submitted to the state’s Environmental Resource Commission for review in November, voted on in December and then sent to the Legislature for ratification during the upcoming 2012 legislative session.

111006-e
Florida asks for more time for Everglades cleanup
Miami Herald - by Erika Bolstad and Craig Pittman
October 6, 2011
Gov. Scott met with federal officials Thursday and asked for an additional six years to clean out pollution in the River of Grass. Any delay needs the approval of a federal judge.
WASHINGTON -- Florida needs another six years and millions of dollars in new treatment facilities to clean out the pollution now flowing into the Everglades, Gov. Rick Scott told federal leaders Thursday.
The timetable may trouble environmentalists, but Scott’s visit to Washington and his two-hour meeting with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and other federal officials appeared to be a significant step in resolving more than two decades of legal disputes over Everglades restoration.
In their meeting Thursday, Florida officials laid out an alternative to plans ordered by a federal judge. The state’s plans call for downsizing some construction projects and relying more on water storage on public and private lands.
Scott said the plan presented Thursday puts to use land already in public ownership so that projects can be authorized and built promptly “at a reasonable cost to the taxpayers.”
“A healthy Everglades is part of a healthy economy,” he said in a statement. “Yet it is also one of America’s treasures. It fully deserves our best efforts to resolve differences, refocus on our goals and deliver results. This strategy can make that happen.”
Officials offered few details of the meeting in Washington, saying little more than that the time the governor and the Interior secretary spent on it reflects the importance of the project to both the state and the federal government. They also described it as a good opportunity for the head honchos — Salazar and Scott — to touch base on mutual goals for Everglades restoration.
“Florida and the U.S. government regularly coordinate on these types of issues at all levels and we look forward to continuing this important partnership,” said Salazar spokesman Adam Fetcher.
The state currently faces a 2016 deadline for cleaning up the water flowing into the Everglades. The new 2022 deadline would require a green light from U.S. District Judge Alan Gold, who’s already unhappy with the state.
Environmentalists are unhappy with the proposed extension.
“This is terrible,” said David Guest of Earthjustice, one of the environmental groups that has sued the state over the Everglades.
In a ruling in April, Gold said he was tired of the state’s foot-dragging approach to cleaning up the River of Grass, noting it has “not been true stewards of protecting the Everglades in recent years.”
For decades, cattails have been taking over the sawgrass in the Everglades because of phosphorus, a pollutant that for decades has flowed from sugar and vegetable farms and the sprawling suburbs of South Florida.
To clean up the pollution flowing into the Everglades requires cutting the flow of phosphorus down to the point that there are only 10 parts of phosphorus per billion in the water. Anything higher will continue to slowly alter the plant and animal life in the Everglades.
Originally the state was supposed to get to that 10 ppb point by 2012, but then the Legislature pushed the deadline back to 2016. Now the state is saying it needs another six years.
To make even that deadline will require building another 22,000 acres of stormwater treatment areas — in effect, manmade wetlands — to filter the water flowing southward. State officials have no estimate as to how much that might cost, but say the average in the past — they have already built 52,000 acres of similar treatment areas — has worked out to $30,000 per acre.

111006-f
Scott pushes revamped Everglades restoration plan
Sun Sentinel - by Andy Reid
October 06, 2011
Gov. Rick Scott went to Washington on Thursday, seeking to redirect Everglades restoration while reining in costs.
Scott met with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and other officials to lay out his plan to get overdue restoration back on track, while trying to avoid the $1.5 billion the state estimates the latest federal proposal would cost.
"We know that more needs to be done," said Melissa Meeker, executive director for the South Florida Water Management District, who traveled with Scott. "The state is fully committed to Everglades restoration."
The Environmental Protection Agency last year called for the state to almost double the 50,000 acres of man-made filter marshes that use aquatic plants to absorb phosphorus washing off agricultural land and development to the north. State officials have said they can't afford that.
On Thursday, Scott suggested an alternative that includes building additional treatment areas on state land, but focuses on storing water in proposed reservoirs to make better use of existing treatment areas, Meeker said.
That could include swapping state land for private properties closer to areas targeted for water storage and treatment.
Federal officials said they agreed to nothing at the meeting but talked about concepts for creating a "southern outlet" to move water from Lake Okeechobee south into the Everglades rather than channel it east or west to the sea. Those concepts would likely include sugar land and other publicly acquired land.
"We're just working on a way to move this forward. We're not on the cusp of some big deal," said Terrence "Rock" Salt, deputy assistant secretary of the Army Corps of Engineers.
Scott's new proposal comes after the governor and the Florida Legislature faced criticism this year for slashing the water management district's budget by 30 percent, raising concerns that the cutbacks would set back Everglades restoration.

111006-g
Scott seeks delay on Everglades cleanup deadline
The Associated Press
October 6, 2011
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- An important deadline in Everglades restoration efforts - already pushed back four years - would be postponed another six years under a proposal made Thursday by Gov. Rick Scott.
In a meeting in Washington with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Scott laid out a plan to put off a deadline to reduce the amount of phosphorous flowing in the Everglades to 10 parts per billion. The deadline was originally set for next year, but was put off until 2016. Under the governor's proposal, the state would have until 2022.
That change would require the approval of U.S. District Court Judge Alan Gold, who has already expressed dissatisfaction with Florida's restoration efforts.
In an April ruling, he said the state has "not been true stewards of protecting the Everglades in recent years."
Reducing phosphorous levels requires building 22,000 acres of stormwater treatment areas to filter water flowing southward.
The proposed delay was not met with applause by environmentalists. David Guest of Earthjustice, one of the environmental groups that has sued the state over the Everglades, was blunt in his assessment: "This is terrible," he told the Miami Herald.
But Scott insisted "Florida remains steadfast in its commitment to restoring America's Everglades."
In a statement, the Republican governor also said his plan is "a strategy that puts the ecosystem first and prevents costly, ongoing litigation from derailing our mutual progress toward restoration."

111006-h
Scott to pitch feds on Everglades plan
Miami Herald - blog by M.C. Bender
October 6, 2011
Gov. Rick Scott is in Washington D.C. this morning meeting asking Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar for sign-off on a new state plan to meet water quality standards for the Everglades. The meeting coems just days after a federal judge ruled Florida was not doing enough to protect the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge in the Everglades from runoff polluted with too much phosphorus.
Scott is joined by state Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Herschel Vinyard and South Florida Water Management District Director Mellisa Meeker.
"Gov. Scott believes it's important to partner with the EPA so that Florida can navigate a practical path to Everglades restoration," Scott spokesman Brian Burgess said.
Details of Scott's plan have not been provided. It sounds like Scott will not seek changes to any restoration goals, instead he'll ask for leeway on how the state reaches those goals. Scott will also offer the state's help for a federal project in the Central Everglades related to water flow.
After Scott spent much of his campaign and first few months in office bashing President Barack Obama, he's been on the charm offensive with the Obama Administration reaching out to Salazar, Attorney General Eric Holder and Obama chief of staff Bill Daley.

111006-i
Scott Travels to Washington in Support of Florida's Everglades
Sunshinestatenews.com - byJim Turner's blog
October 6, 2011
Gov. Rick Scott, along with the state Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Herschel Vinyard Jr. and the South Florida Water Management District Executive Director Melissa Meeker, traveled to Washington on Thursday in support of Florida’s Everglades.
During a meeting of state and federal principals, Scott presented the state’s restoration efforts on lands already in public ownership and offered to help with federal water flow projects in the Everglades, the governor's office reported.
“We have a conceptual path forward for one of our longstanding challenges, and I am extremely optimistic that through cooperation and collaboration we will deliver measurable and permanent results,” Vinyard stated in a release.
While in Washington they met with U.S. Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Deputy Secretary of Civil Works Jo Ellen Darcy and U.S. Department of Justice Assistant Attorney General Ignacia Moreno.
The full release from Scott’s office is below:
“Florida remains steadfast in its commitment to restoring America’s Everglades. The state has invested significant resources to improving water quality and supply for this unique ecosystem and South Florida’s 7.7 million residents. Yet we recognize there is more work to do.
“Today, I traveled to Washington, D.C., to ask our federal and state Everglades restoration partners to agree on a strategy that puts the ecosystem first and prevents costly, ongoing litigation from derailing our mutual progress toward restoration. A strong Florida partnership will help usher in the next generation of projects that will improve water quality in South Florida, while still protecting jobs and the state’s economy.
“The proposed plan directs the Department of Environmental Protection and the South Florida Water Management District to build on the state’s $1.8 billion investment in water quality improvements and move forward with additional remedies that will achieve the stringent water quality requirements established for the Everglades.
“This plan puts to use strategic lands already in public ownership so that these projects can be authorized and built promptly, in the right locations and at a reasonable cost to the taxpayers. A healthy Everglades is part of a healthy economy. Yet it is also one of America’s treasures. It fully deserves our best efforts to resolve differences, refocus on our goals and deliver results. This strategy can make that happen.”

111005-a
Florida Audubon off mission and something must change
News-Press.com - Guest opinion by Ellen Peterson
October 5, 2011
Florida Audubon is so far from its core mission under the leadership of Executive Director Eric Draper, that either he or the organization should go.
Mr. Draper's letter supporting Lykes Brothers' plan for the conversion of Nicodemus Slough into a shallow holding tank for industrial-strength polluted water from Lake Okeechobee shows his true colors. He will sacrifice the migratory roosting site of the rare swallow-tail kites, caracara nesting sites and other habitat in the Everglades to support his power base, Lykes Brothers and other developers.
Supporting development projects regardless of the environmental cost has been a strong pattern of Mr. Draper. He and Lykes Brothers are the authors of the placement of dams in Fisheating Creek, formerly the last unimpeded waterway in South Florida. Local environmental advocates fighting development are often faced with this question from their commissioners: "Why doesn't Florida Audubon object to this?"
One can speculate: Why does Mr. Draper curry favor from large wealthy landowners? Is he going to want their continued support to make another run for agriculture commissioner? Is the Lykes Brothers-connected member of the Florida Audubon board of directors paying his salary?
What is clear is that under Draper's leadership, Florida Audubon has moved its mission from preserving and restoring natural habitats to industrializing them and calling it a victory. Draper boldly stated to the newspaper that the Nicodemus Slough project represents a "very sound investment in storing and cleaning water."
In fact, it is a step backwards for water quality, quantity and the environment.
The amount of water to be stored is so small that neither Lake Okeechobee nor the Caloosahatchee will benefit, but the loss of over 16,000 acres of wildlife habitat will be forever. The 11 billion gallons of projected storage are equal to only one day of high flow on the Caloosahatchee River during peak discharge. A new downstream point source of pollution will be created for receiving Lee County waters !
As for Lake Okeechobee, there is no plan to clean the water or return it to the lake. The amount taken from this 730 square mile lake is insignificant. Between drought and over-allocation, will there ever be enough water to store at Nicodemus Slough?
As for benefiting Fisheating Creek, there is no connection to Fisheating Creek since the Herbert Hoover Dike severed this arm of the creek from its natural flow.
Nicodemus Slough was once so important to the state of Florida that it was part of a public "Save Our Rivers" purchase from Lykes. It is currently identified as a top priority for Florida Forever funds and was a park open to the public. It was later horse-traded back to Lykes in a deal without meaningful public input.
Now the public will pay three times for this ill-advised project: first for the loss of the environment, second for initial and ongoing costs, and third, when Lykes gets the infrastructure back at the end of the 10-year lease.
Decades of ditching, diking and damming have only led us to the need for more. SFWMD should have learned from its dismal track record of failed environmental interventions. If state efforts and resources were put toward cleaning up water pollution at its source rather than sacrificing downstream environments, then real solutions to these problems could be found.
Creating unnatural impoundments got us here in the first place. Let's send SFWMD back to the drawing board and save Nicodemus Slough.
Ellen Peterson of Estero is an award-winning environmental activist. She is president of Save Our Creeks Inc., Chair of the Sierra Club Calusa Group, and founder and director of HappehatcheeSpiritualCenter.

111005-b
Florida Department of Agriculture rep testifies against EPA
American Independent - by Virginia Chamlee
October 5, 2011
Environmentalists say the EPA’s numeric nutrient criteria would help alleviate algal blooms and fish kills that overtake many state waterways. Affected industries, however, see it differently — arguing that the cost of the criteria would far outweigh the benefits.
“DACS, working in cooperation with the University of Florida Food and Resource Economics Department, estimated the implementation costs of EPA’s numeric nutrient criteria just for agricultural land uses at between $900 million and $1.6 billion annually,” said Budell in his testimony to the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Water and Wildlife. “This could result in the loss of over 14,000 jobs for the state of Florida.”
While the EPA has estimated the costs to implement the criteria at around $236 million annually, other agencies (many of whom performed their economic analyses for industries likely to be financially affected by the criteria) have estimated annual costs to be up to $4 billion.
Budell went on to criticize the methods used by the EPA to construct the rule, stating that they were “inconsistent with EPA’s own guidance documents and the advice of EPA’s Science Advisory Board.” Because the Agency inappropriately applied the methods it did use, said Budell, the rule could deem healthy waters impaired.
“From an agricultural perspective, I can tell you without question that virtually no sector of Florida agriculture can comply with the final EPA nutrient criteria without the implementation of costly edge-of-farm water detention and treatment,” said Budell.
Budell did concede that Florida has a nutrient pollution problem, but argued that Florida is being singled out with the implementation of the criteria. “The question is not whether there is a nutrient pollution problem,” he said, “but whether the federal government is justified in hand-selecting one state in the nation on which to impose federal regulations that impart costs on all households.”
According to the EPA, however, it isn’t just a Florida-specific problem. In fact, 49 states have listed more than 10,000 nutrient and nutrient-related water quality impairments. “Consequently, EPA has encouraged all states to accelerate adoption of numeric nutrient criteria or numeric translators for narrative standards for all waters that contribute nutrient loadings to the Nation’s waterways,” reads the EPA website.
In response to cost concerns over the EPA’s criteria, Commissioner of Agriculture Adam Putnam, joined by Attorney General Pam Bondi, filed a complaint on Dec. 7, 2010, in federal court challenging the rule. More than 30 other entities have since filed similar federal complaints against the EPA criteria.
Read Budell’s full testimony here.

111005-c
Milking the land
TBO.com, Highlands Today - by GARY PINNELL
October 5, 2011
SEBRING - In 1987, Florida had 1,073 dairies. Four years ago — just a generation later — there were about 400. How many will survive for the next generation?
Ask two Hardee and Highlands County dairymen, whose 1,300-cow farms are just 45 miles apart. Joe Wright's and Bob Butler's answers are instructive, but completely different.
On Aug. 11, the South Florida Water Management District said phosphorus flowing from Everglades Agricultural Area farmlands was lower for the 16th straight year. That meant farmers in the C-139 basin were doing an increasingly better job with pasturelands, row crops, citrus and sugar cane production.
"This is an important commitment made by our region's agriculture community," said SFWMD chair Joe Collins. A media request to speak with one of those farmers produced one name: Bob Butler.
Butler's grandfather, Ben Butler, built his first milking barn in 1935 and marketed to the Miami area. Urban sprawl forced Butler Oaks Farm into Florida's heartland.
After hurricanes rolled across their dairy, the Butlers had to rebuild. Their options: downsize because EPA regulations would reduce the herd size, or convert from open grazing to a new system.
A third choice: sell out and leave agriculture. That's what 651 dairy families did between 1987 and 2007.
Twenty-four years ago, according to Amada Bevis, a spokesperson for Fresh from Florida statistics, there were 176,933 milk cows on 1,073 farms.
"That appears to be the peak," said Bevis. In 2007, there were 422 farms and 119,856 cows, a 32-percent drop.
In the past decade alone, milk production cash receipts in Florida ranged from $329 million in 2003 to $464 million in 2008. The 2010 cash receipts were $439 million.
Bottom line: 60 percent fewer farms, 32 percent fewer cows, but today's farms are supporting 70 percent larger herds.
Butler called a family meeting. His sons not only wanted to stay in the dairy business, they chose free-stall barns and voluntarily participated in SFWMD's water quality program — a confinement system to control runoff.
Their free-stall barn has a 500-foot long metal roof. The sides are open; floors are sand with concrete curbs.
"These are working animals," Butler said. They remain in the barn 24 hours a day, 10 months a year. They can stand, lie on cool sandy beds, or socialize with the herd.
After the barn is flushed, water is reused for conservation. Soiled sand is removed. Solids go into concrete vats; treated water is moved to the fields. Urine and fecal nutrients are absorbed by crops, which the cows eat. It's a circle of life.
In the 1960s, the free-stall and milking parlor concept of dairy cattle management changed the way cows were managed. Many dairies, like Joe Wright's V&W Farms, tried the idea.
However, because his farm is in the Southwest Florida Water Management District, because the topsoil is lined with a clay base, because the water table is lower, and because phosphates aren't as big a concern in Hardee County, which mines phosphorus, Wright went back to open pastures.
"Corn was the final factor," Wright said. When soaring corn prices contributed to $4.25 per gallon gasoline, costlier food and other goods three years ago, Wright returned his cattle to the pasture.
"We're doing rotational grazing," he said. In the winter, cows get mixed feed and graze in 10-acre paddocks. When grass grows slowly, they get hay.
"We cut our electrical costs in half," Wright said.
Wright, the president of Southeast Milk Inc., a cooperative whose annual gross sales total $900 million, thinks the future of the diary industry might be in free-range cattle anyway.
"RBST hasn't been used in Florida since 2007," he said. "I can't say our cows eat only grass, but if they're not in the barn getting fed, they're outside on the grass. It's more environmentally friendly."
By contrast, Butler Oaks meets its cows' total daily diet.
Butler sees another advantage to free-stall barns — the biggest problem the dairy industry faces every day: perception.
After milking, cattle walk a few feet to get misted and cooled. "Of course, the fans are always blowing on her. A cow doesn't sweat, so this keeps her cool."
Remember Elsie from the Borden commercials? "Milk from contented cows." Butler is a believer, and he thinks life under a roof also improves longevity.
"Florida is a harsher environment over a longer period of the year," he said.
"We put her into the position to produce more milk. But," he added, "there is more management. It costs to remove defecated sand and to add more sand."
Before mothers calve, they go outside for a two-month vacation on the grass.
Wright takes a different view: instead of a cool barn, he has ponds, where cows wade belly high.
They also see differently on the proposed Everglades Headwaters Wildlife Refuge and Conservation Area. Butler sees great benefit to the conservation easements.
Wright ? Not so much. "In theory, it's a good thing, but I don't know how much dairymen will use it," Wright said. "The government has proven to be a poor manager of rangeland and pastureland. They really need cows to eat it down; otherwise, there's too much trash growth."
Both dairymen stay involved in government. Wright voluntarily annexed his residence into Avon Park so he could successfully run for city council.
Butler is one of Florida's former Outstanding Young Dairy Farmers, past president of Dairy Farmers Inc. and a University of Florida student of agricultural economics, and a spokesperson for his industry. Butler Oaks is open for tours; he demonstrates Best Management Practices; he educates legislators, bureaucrats, regulators, food activists, the media, and students about environmental technology and where food comes from.
Why has Butler taken extraordinary efforts to improve the quality of his water? Butler's grandfather was a good steward of the land, and he's passed along those ideas to his children, who cannot forget that the water from their farm would drain into the Kissimmee River, Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades.
Another reason why South Florida Water Management District gives Butler's name: in a joint deal with Bob's brother, Roger, Butler Oaks Farms operates an edge-of-farm catchment system. The Butlers encircled the production pastures with a moat, surrounded by berms, that can withstand 25-year flood. Even if a flood flows over the berms, it's chemically treated water, he said.
Should every farmer do what Butler's done?
With the soil and the geology of his farm, Wright doesn't need berms and a moat.
"I'm not going to say every farm," Butler said, "but it's definitely something they should look at. On the smaller farms, it may be the easiest thing to do. It doesn't take a total ditch and moat around the farm to do it. We were a bit of a guinea pig, they wanted to see what would happen, and they've been happy with the results. That's why when you contact them, they give you our name.

111005-d
New Swiftmud director pares top staff
The Ledger.com - by Tom Palmer
October 5th, 2011
I got confirmation today that three long-time executives at the Southwest Florida Water Management are on the way out under orders of Blake Guillory, the agency’s new executive director, who started work this week.
Heading out the door are Bruce Wirth, deputy director for resource management; Richard Owen, deputy director for regulation; and Bill Bilenky, the agency’s general counsel.
Guillorydiscussed his plans with at least some of the agency’s Governing Board members before going through with them. He was given a charge to reorganize the regional water agency and some of that apparently involved thinning out the hierarchy. The positions are being eliminated from what I understand. All three men are eligible to retire.
Polk County government went through somehing like this in recent years in response to the decline in revenue and a need to streamline its organizational structure.
Another part of the reorganization involves the appointment of Dave Rathke, who has handled legislative affairs, as Guillory’s chief of staff.
I was told there may be more changes ahead. Stay tuned.

111005-e
Small group does not represent all
Newsun.com – by the Editor
October 5, 2011
I have a couple of questions about the letter on the disruptive people at the meeting for the proposed Everglades Headwaters National Wildlife Refuge and Conservation Area.
First, if the very reasonable ground rules were laid out at the beginning of the meeting, I would have expected that whoever was in charge would ask disruptive people to leave. Isn't that what we should do for people acting like children?
Secondly, I take great issue with deciding that three people represent an entire movement. I am not a member of the Tea Party nor have I ever attended one of their meetings or rallies. I went to their website at teaparty.net to see what they stand for. According to their website, they believe in: 1. Limited Federal government. 2. Individual freedoms. 3. Personal responsibility. 4. A free market. 5. Returning political power to the states and to the people. I believe in these things, too and believe me no one who knows me would ever consider me disruptive.
I wondered. Because I'm a Christian and believe in life for everyone from the unborn to the old, feeble and sick; would I be labeled in the same "general" group as the unbalanced person who bombs abortion clinics ? Believe me, the Jesus I serve would never want that. Or, how about the Muslim student who quietly goes about getting his college education being lumped together with the "all Muslims are extremists and therefore terrorists" belief. Or how about, "all Mexicans are lazy and don't bother to watch their kids" because a Mexican child accidentally drowned in one of our lakes in front of his family? Or how about, "if you own a gun, you must be a Timothy McVeigh type, or a gun totting, tobacco chewing, cheats on his wife, redneck? Or, let's try, if you're an out-of-work black man, you must be a good-for-nothing cheater of the welfare system. Or what I get; "You look fine to me. Why do you get a handicapped sticker and aren't most of the people on disability just trying to short-change the government and are too shiftless to work?"
Have I slandered enough people groups to get the message across that because a small group does something, accidentally or on purpose, they do not represent their entire community? Oh wait! I forgot one! All elderly people who dress like tourists must be ... 'snowbirds' !
Sandy Lankford , Sebring, FL

111005-f
Water author speaks at CF
Ocala.com - by Fred Hiers, Staff writer
October 5, 2011
Barnett kicked off her Florida book tour on Tuesday, talking about “Blue Revolution: Unmaking America's Water Crisis,” at the College of Central Florida. A crowd of 150 attended the event, which also featured a question-and-answer period.
Barnett, who also wrote the 2007 award winning “Mirage: Florida and the Vanishing Water of the Eastern U.S.,” said her latest book was written for ordinary citizens to get the word out about water shortage, possible solutions and the need for leaders and the public to create water-use guidelines.
“If we Southerners knew as much about how our forbearers altered rivers and wetlands as we do about the Civil War, we'd have great appreciation for the natural waters that are left,” Barnett told the audience.
She said much of the problem is that governments and utilities reroute and dam water to create the illusion that there's water to spare, when in fact springs are disappearing and groundwater tables are shrinking.
“That is our illusion of water abundance,” she said.
“The … resulting ethos has helped lead us to insufficient supplies, unsustainable consumption of energy to move water around, financially unstable utilities and other problems,” she said.
Each community is unique, Barnett said, “but one solution stands out above these others. It is the cheapest. It is the easiest. It fulfills our obligation to the future. This is the embrace of a water ethic.”
But defining the state's water ethic is a challenge. One definition: to make the protection of freshwater ecosystems a central goal of all that we do, Barnett said, citing another author.
“Yet it's clear that protecting freshwater … is not central in all we do,” Barnett said.
That's because most people don't understand where there water comes from, who is in charge of it or what it costs to send it through their taps, she said. Citing “Blue Revolution,” Barnett gave examples of how communities facing droughts have cut per capita water use by half and have political leadership “ultra-focused on water.”
A similar national focus has worked in the past, Barnett said, citing the country's anti-litter campaign, which began in the 1970s. In 1969, half of Americans said they littered. Following a national anti-litter marketing scheme, that dropped to 15 percent in 2009. The decline was mostly due to a community-wide judgment about cleanliness, she said, not penalties.
The solution no longer rests with water professionals, but every citizen and his or her ability to change behavior, pressure others, and elect leaders who have the same water conservation goals.
“Water managers are no longer enough. Environmentalists are no longer enough,” she said.
Amanda Concha-Holmes, a University of Florida researcher who attended the event, said Barnett's examples and photos helped the presentation and made it understandable for the general public.
Concha-Holmes also said Barnett's book shouldn't be the end of a discussion; rather, it should inspire more education about, and attention to, water shortage solutions.

111005-g









Rock mining
expansion turned
down:
See also sections by
EvergladesHUB.com:
"Rock Mining"
"LEGAL"

111005-g
1000 Friends of Florida, Inc.. v. Palm Beach County
Leagle.com
October 5, 2011
1000 FRIENDS OF FLORIDA, INC. and SIERRA CLUB, INC., Appellants,
v.
PALM BEACH COUNTY and BERGERON SAND & ROCK MINE AGGREGATES, INC., Appellees.
No. 4D10-60.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fourth District.
October 5, 2011.
Robert N. Hartsell and Richard Grosso of Everglades Law Center, Inc., Fort Lauderdale, for appellants.
Robert P. Banks and Leonard Berger, Senior Assistant County Attorneys, West Palm Beach, for appellee Palm Beach County.
Robert P. Diffenderfer, Andrew J. Baumann and Tara W. Duhy of Lewis, Longman & Walker, P.A., West Palm Beach, for appellee Bergeron Sand, Rock and Aggregate, Inc.
ON MOTION FOR REHEARING
LEVINE, J.
We deny appellees' motions for rehearing, but withdraw our prior opinion and substitute the following in its place.
The issue presented for our review is whether the trial court erred in upholding a development order issued by the Palm Beach County Commission permitting mining in the Everglades. The trial court interpreted the relevant land use policy in the comprehensive plan as non-exclusive, thereby permitting mining in an area zoned for agriculture for a purpose that was not enumerated in the land use policy. We find the trial court erred by failing to define "only" as restrictive and thereby failing to limit mining to the purposes enumerated in the future land use element policy. We reverse.
The Palm Beach County Commission issued a development order to Bergeron Sand and Rock Mine Aggregates, Inc., granting the corporation the right to mine within the "Everglades Agricultural Area" in western Palm Beach County. Bergeron sought to expand its mining operations on property designated as "agricultural production" in the comprehensive plan. After a public hearing, the Palm Beach County Commission unanimously granted conditional approval for the development order and subsequently adopted Bergeron's application, finding the mining proposal to be consistent with the comprehensive plan.
After the order issued, appellants filed a complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief to challenge the development order, claiming that the order was inconsistent with a Future Land Use Element ("FLUE") policy of the comprehensive plan. The specific FLUE policy, 2.3-e.3, states that "[m]ining and excavation activities, as applicable, shall be restricted" as follows:
Within the Agricultural Production Future Land Use designation, mining may be permitted only to support public roadway projects or agricultural activities or water management projects associated with ecosystem restoration, regional water supply or flood protection, on sites identified by the South Florida Water Management District or the U.S. Army Corps of engineers where such uses provide viable alternate technologies for water management.
Both at the public hearing and later at trial, the parties admitted that aggregate mined from the property designated as agricultural production within the Everglades Agricultural Area could be used for purposes other than to "support public roadway projects."1 The county submitted to the trial court a staff analysis which stated that "limestone aggregate from the subject property will be marketed to FDOT for road building and construction." The staff analysis further recommended that Bergeron be required to report annually regarding the amount of material mined and that Bergeron be required to provide "[d]ocumentation as to the intended use of the material" and whether the usage of the material "complies with the County requirements, such as but not limited to the quarry's status with FDOT and other usages for the mined aggregate." When the county commission approved the application, it adopted the staff recommendation that Bergeron submit such an annual report documenting compliance with the comprehensive plan.
Appellants argued at trial that Bergeron intended to sell the aggregate mined from the property on the open market. Lonnie Bergeron, in his deposition, conceded that he had no control over whether the material excavated would, in fact, be used for the construction of public highways. Appellants argued that the sale of the excavated material on the open markets without any controls, runs afoul of the comprehensive plan. Because any development order issued by a local government "shall be consistent" with the comprehensive plan, appellants sought to have the development order quashed. § 163.3194(1)(a), Fla. Stat.
The trial court entered a final summary judgment concluding that the proposed mining was proper since "some portion of the material produced by the proposed mine will be FDOT certified material that will be used in road projects." The court concluded that the use of some material by FDOT was sufficient to "support" public road construction. This appeal ensues from the trial court's granting of a final summary judgment on behalf of the county and Bergeron.
We review de novo an order on a motion for summary judgment. Volusia County v. Aberdeen at Ormond Beach, L.P., 760 So.2d 126, 130 (Fla. 2000). Summary judgment is proper if there is no genuine issue of material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Id.
The trial court need not defer to the county's interpretation of the comprehensive plan. Pinecrest Lakes, Inc. v. Shidel, 795 So.2d 191, 197-98 (Fla. 4th DCA 2001). The parties have agreed that the order permitting Bergeron's conditional use of the agricultural property in the Everglades is a development order.2 The parties have further agreed that the sole issue on appeal is whether the development order, authorizing Bergeron's mining of the "agricultural production" area in the Everglades Agricultural Area, is consistent with FLUE policy 2.3-e.3, which states that mining may be permitted "only to support" public roadways, agricultural activities, or water management projects.
In order to determine if the development order is consistent with the policy of the comprehensive plan, we have to look at the plain language of the policy. We apply the same rules of construction to a comprehensive plan that we would apply to other statutes. Rinker Materials Corp. v. City of N. Miami, 286 So.2d 552, 553 (Fla. 1973). If the terms of the comprehensive plan are not defined, then the language of the plan "should usually be given its plain and ordinary meaning." Fla. Birth-Related Neurological Injury Comp. Ass'n v. Fla. Div. of Admin. Hearings, 686 So.2d 1349, 1354 (Fla. 1997).3The plain and ordinary meaning of "only" has been explained as "[s]olely; merely; for no other purpose; at no other time; in no otherwise; along; of or by itself; without anything more; exclusive; nothing else or more." Black's Law Dictionary 982 (5th ed. 1979). "It is appropriate to refer to dictionary definitions when construing statutes or rules." Barco v. Sch. Bd. of Pinellas Cnty., 975 So.2d 1116, 1122 (Fla. 2008).
The Florida Supreme Court has determined in a case involving restrictive covenants on real property that "only" can mean "solely" and "nothing else." Moore v. Stevens, 106 So. 901, 904 (Fla. 1925). In Moore, the Florida Supreme Court found that the covenant, "to be used for residence purposes only," meant that the residence can be used solely for one type of occupancy. Id. "The word `only' is a limiting term which qualifies the word with which it is grammatically connected. ... It qualifies the phrase `to be used,' with like effect as if the covenant had read that the property `is to be used only for residence purposes.'" Id.
As recognized in other Florida cases, "the word `only' is synonymous with the word `solely' and is the equivalent of the phrase `and nothing else.'" White v. Metro. Dade County, 563 So.2d 117, 124 (Fla. 3d DCA 1990) (quoting Thompson v. Squibb, 183 So.2d 30, 32 (Fla. 2d DCA 1966)). In the present case, the word "only" limits mining in the Everglades Agricultural Area to the three enumerated activities: public roadway projects, agricultural activities, and water management projects.
We are persuaded that mining is permitted "only" to support the restricted and exclusive list of activities outlined in the FLUE within the comprehensive plan.4 As aptly stated by another court, "[o]nly means only." Union Station Assocs., LLC v. Puget Sound Energy, Inc., 238 F.Supp.2d 1218, 1225 (W.D. Wash. 2002); accord Nicklos Drilling Co. v. Cowart, 907 F.2d 1552, 1554 (5th Cir. 1990).
The plain language of the text is controlling. "A text should not be construed strictly, and it should not be construed leniently; it should be construed reasonably, to contain all that it fairly means." Scalia, supra, at 23. At oral argument, the county argued that the language requiring mined aggregate to be used "only to support" public roadway projects would conceivably allow mining where only one percent of aggregate is used for public roads (or another enumerated use). We find that particular interpretation of the text in the FLUE policy of the comprehensive plan to be unreasonable in light of the plain language of the text. It would undercut the plain language, as well as the spirit, of the comprehensive plan if only one percent of the aggregate would need to go to public roads while the other ninety-nine percent could go to non-enumerated activities. This construct of the comprehensive plan would eviscerate the clear restrictions outlined in the text, denoted by the word "only."
We find the plain language controlling, but we also point to the canons of construction for further support. One rule of construction, for example, is "expressio unius est exclusio alterius" or "to express or include one thing implies the exclusion of the other." Black's Law Dictionary (9th ed. 2009). This maxim supports the argument that the comprehensive plan lists a restrictive and exclusive list of three activities, which excludes other activities by virtue of the fact they were not included in the enumerated list. Thus, if the FLUE policy permitted mining in the Everglades Agricultural Area to support private building construction, policy 2.3-e.3 would explicitly reference private building construction. Because private construction is not listed in the policy, we assume it is not permissible by the fact that it is not enumerated or listed.
Further, "[a]s a fundamental rule of statutory interpretation, `courts should avoid readings that would render part of a statute meaningless.'" Unruh v. State, 669 So.2d 242, 245 (Fla. 1996) (citation omitted). If we accepted the trial court's interpretation, then the word "only" would be superfluous, since "mining may be permitted ... to support" public roadways, agricultural activities, or water management projects. The removal of the word "only" would make the list of activities non-exclusive since mining would only be required to "support" the enumerated activities.
In summary, we find the development order permitting mining in the agricultural production area of the Everglades Agricultural Area is inconsistent with FLUE policy 2.3-e.3 of the comprehensive plan. As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes concluded over one hundred years ago, "[w]hatever the consequences, we must accept the plain meaning of plain words." United States v. Brown, 206 U.S. 240, 244 (1907). Therefore, we reverse the judgment in favor of appellees and remand with instructions for the trial court to declare the development order inconsistent with the comprehensive plan and to enjoin enforcement of the order.
Reversed and remanded with instructions.

111004-a








Hans TANZLER
recommended as a
new Exec. Director
of the SJRWMD

111004-a
Committee recommends Jacksonville attorney to head St. Johns water district
Daytona Beach News Journal - by Dinah Voyles-Pulver
October 4, 2011
MAITLAND -- A search committee voted unanimously Monday to recommend Hans Tanzler III, the St. Johns River Water Management District's general counsel, for the district's top job.
The district is searching for a replacement for Kirby Green, who retired as executive director on Monday after serving in the position for 10 years.
A committee of three district governing board members interviewed three finalists at the district offices Monday: Tanzler, a CPA and attorney; Orlando land use attorney Duke Woodson; and Deena Reppen, chief of staff for the South Florida Water Management District.
After the interviews, committee members lauded all three applicants.
"I think we had three great candidates," said board member Maryam Ghyabi of Ormond Beach.
Committee members said they were particularly impressed with Tanzler and Reppen and briefly discussed trying to find a way to hire all three candidates to work for the district in some capacity.
But ultimately, it was the person rumored to be in line for the job all along who was selected as the top candidate.
The recommendation to hire Tanzler, a Jacksonville resident, will be placed on the agenda for the Oct. 11 board meeting in Palatka, where he will be available for a board interview. The position carries an annual salary of $165,000.
It has been a quick few months of transition for Tanzler, who was serving as a board member and working with his family's company in early July. At the July 13 board meeting, Tanzler, a member of the Florida Bar for 30 years, resigned from the board to take the position of general counsel.
Reppen gave what board members described as a very "dynamic" interview, demonstrating her previous career experience in communications.
Afterwards, Ghyabi, who pushed for the public hiring process, said she was torn between Reppen and Tanzler and asked to hear from the other board members.
"She has the interest. She has the energy," Ghyabi said. "She has that fire, that fire I didn't see in the other two."
Ghyabi's board colleagues, John Miklos and Lad Daniels, said they also thought Reppen was a great candidate, but gave the edge to Tanzler, 60, for his previous career experience at the helm of large organizations. Miklos credited Tanzler with providing important stability through the summer.
Ghyabi moved to recommend Tanzler for the position and the panel voted unanimously.
"Hans is a quality, quality man," Ghyabi said.
All three board members and board member Chuck Drake, who was in the audience, indicated they would support recommending Tanzler hire Reppen in a senior staff member capacity, possibly to be groomed to become the next executive director.
Ghyabi and others suggested Woodson could fill Tanzler's position as general counsel.
When asked why he wanted the job, Tanzler told the group he looked at the job as "an opportunity to give back to the state, to be meaningfully involved and engaged in important decisions." He said it wasn't for financial gain or quality of life.
"It's an extremely tough job. It's a demanding job," he said. "We have a short time on Earth and you want to do all you can while you're here."
Tanzler said he is "approaching the back nine of his life and playing for 27."
"I don't have an ambition other than good government and I don't have an agenda other than good government," he said.
Reppen was quizzed extensively about all the management changes and budget cuts made this year at the South Florida water district.
"This was an effort to reset the agencies back to what they were originally designed to do," she said. "Now we can get back to the business of water management and we can think about operating in these new parameters.
"It's a lean time in the state, and we ought to be respectful of that and operating in the same way," Reppen said.
All were asked about restoring morale for employees after massive budget cuts and layoffs and resignations of more than 100 colleagues and how they would continue on the course set by Governor Rick Scott and the Legislature toward greater efficiency and a return to the districts' core mission.
"I think you can be engaged in communication and dialogue about where we are headed and you can bring the staff into that as well," Reppen said. "Your goal is to provide clear and very concise direction and guidance every step of the way."
When asked why she wanted the job, Reppen said when someone asked her five years ago what she would like to be doing in five years, she had replied that she'd like to be working for the St. Johns district. Reppen said she'd always had a love for the region and its resources.
"These opportunities come along once in a lifetime. and I feel like you have to seize the day," Reppen said.
During the interviews, Ghyabi asked both Woodson and Tanzler about the mission for the district's general counsel, emphasizing she would like to see the legal staff consider mediation over litigation when possible.
Woodson said the focus in his mind would be to clear the deck and "figure out a way to get it done." Sometimes, he said, with government lawyers, there's no compunction to resolve issues.

111004-b
Palm Beach County balks at water deal with Broward utilities
Sun Sentinel - by Andy Reid
October 4, 2011
Cost, past reservoir controversies pose hurdles.
Palm Beach County commissioners on Tuesday refused to sign onto a push for a new reservoir and water-sharing deal with utilities in Broward County.
For more than two years a collection of utilities in Broward and Palm Beach counties have been exploring building another reservoir west of Royal Palm Beach that could store water from the C-51 canal and use it to supplement drinking water supplies.
Cost concerns, past reservoir controversies as well as the politics of how to divvy up water have plagued the proposal to try to take a regional approach to boosting water supplies.
The Palm Beach County Commission on Tuesday was asked to join a nonbinding agreement with Fort Lauderdale and the South Florida Water Management District to move ahead with planning for a new reservoir and delivering water south to utilities in Palm Beach and Broward counties.
The County Commission Tuesday agreed to allow staffers to keep talking about the proposal, but there wasn't a majority of commissioners willing to approve the agreement.
"There's a whole lot of ifs to this," Commission Chairwoman Karen Marcus said
The idea is to store stormwater now drained out to sea for flood control and redirect that water through canals to boost drinking water supplies in Palm Beach and Broward counties.
Significant hurdles include how to pay for a reservoir, expected to cost more than $300 million, and how to deal with the politically touchy issue of sharing the water.
Controversy that dogged past reservoir projects in Palm Beach County adds to the hurdles for the latest plan.
The South Florida Water Management District spent $217 million to turn old rock mines at Palm Beach Aggregates west of Royal Palm Beach into a 15 billion-gallon reservoir. The reservoir was completed in 2008, but the district has yet to finish the $60 million pumps needed to use the water to replenish the Loxahatchee River and boost community drinking water supplies.
In addition, an Everglades restoration reservoir in southwestern Palm Beach County remains unfinished after the district shelved the project in favor of pursuing a land deal with U.S. Sugar Corp.
South Florida taxpayers have already invested $280 million in the unfinished reservoir.
Drew Martin, of the Sierra Club, called pursuing a new reservoir a potential "boondoggle" that "doesn't sound like a good investment."
The water-sharing proposal isn't dead, but Marcus said the water management district should try to make better use of an existing reservoir west of Palm Beach County.

111004-c
Raising 'Sugar-Cane': Investigative Report Follows the Money Trail
PublicNewsService.org – by Les Coleman
October 4, 2011
This is Part Two of a two-part series that began Monday, October 3
BELLE GLADE, Fla. - In South Florida, sugar cane is king. Courting political favors is high on the sugar agenda, led by Flo-Sun, a holding company for Domino Sugar. Les Coleman provides this investigative report.
Flo-Sun is controlled by the Fanjul family, who came to Florida from Cuba after the revolution that ended in 1959. Brothers Pepe' and Alfonso have doled out thousands of dollars to support Florida congressional and state office holders who have sweetened the sugar bottom line. Former Florida GOP Congressman Adam Putnam received $61,000.
When Putnam was named State Agriculture Commissioner, he voted to delay a ban on sugary drinks in Florida public schools.
David Guest, Florida managing attorney (regional director) for the public interest law firm Earthjustice, has been tracking Big Sugar's influence in Florida politics, and says it has long been a major one.
"Historically, there has always been a close connection with one of the biggest industries in the state, surely the most concentrated, very influential. During Rick Scott's inauguration, right there is the front row was Bob Coker from U.S. Sugar."
Robert E. Coker is vice-president for public affairs at the United States Sugar Corporation
After taking office last January, Governor Scott opposed an Army Corp of Engineers project in the Everglades that would take back land from sugar cane growers.
So far in 2011, the Fanjul family's Flo-Sun company has spent $345,000 lobbying while U.S. Sugar has spent $80,000.
Florida sugar interests have proven skillful at getting their way, especially when it comes to the U.S. Farm Bill. David Guest says they get a very good price for their product.
"Well, I know one fact, that sugar's so high it's well above the price support system. The sugar companies would sell to the federal government any sugar that they couldn't sell, at the rate of 22 cents a pound. At the time the world price was 10 cents a pound."
Florida sugar has good reason to sweeten the political campaign process with contributions. As we previously reported, the move by the industry to produce biofuel ethanol, in competition with U.S. Midwest corn producers, could drive up sugar prices worldwide and make Florida-based sugar cane growers and processors, like the Fanjul brothers, very happy.
This investigative report by Les Coleman was produced with cooperation from The American Independent News Network:
tainews.org

(mouse-over to enlarge):

During the 2011 drought,
LO was at an almost
record low level.
At the end of the draught,
it still is well below its
average stage.

111004-d
Sugar growers have no valid water complaints
Palm Beach Post - by Letters to the Editor
October 4, 2011
Thanks to generous deliveries of public water from Lake Okeechobee, sugar cane growers had a good year. While this year's drought parched the Everglades and people's lawns, Big Sugar did not seem to suffer at all. Last week's article, "Watch for smoke in the west: U.S. Sugar to begin cane harvest," reported that U.S. Sugar, Florida Crystals and the Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida are forecast to produce 1.63 million tons of sugar, up from 1.43 million tons last season.
This means that during a severe drought, sugar producers managed to increase production by about 14 percent. Not bad for a record drought year. This was not just an ordinary dry season but a drought in which West Palm Beach was within weeks of running out of water supplies, and Lake Okeechobee's endangered wildlife suffered significant harm from low water levels.
Yet the article quoted a U.S. Sugar spokesperson claiming that the drought was exacerbated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers deliberately flushing fresh water from Lake Okeechobee. Yes, less than one-tenth of the water sugar received was released to the Caloosahatchee, a system that urgently needed the water to sustain its fish and tourism industries.
Moreover, at the taxpayers' expense, temporary forward pumps were installed to deliver water to Big Sugar in late May, further depleting Lake Okeechobee's levels at a critical time for nesting endangered Everglade snail kites, the indicator species for the health of the Everglades. As we enter yet another dry season with Lake Okeechobee more than 2 feet below normal, it is urgent that we balance water supplies so that one user does not profit when another suffers.
JANE GRAHAM, Miami
Editor's note: Jane Graham is Everglades policy associate at Audubon of Florida.
Another interesting Letter:
U.S. lets China horn in on Afghanistan's mineral wealth
The U.S. Geological Survey and the Pentagon have found huge stores of natural-resource wealth in Afghanistan: niobium, aluminum, gold, phosphorus, zinc, magnesium, cobalt, copper, oil and an estimated $420 billion in iron. A Pentagon memo calls Afghanistan the "Saudi Arabia of lithium," which is used in batteries powering computers, cellphones and electric automobiles.
Estimates range from $1 trillion to $3 trillion in mineral wealth and the rare-earth resources that the world needs to fuel the 21st-century economy. Afghanistan's problem is its overall instability ("Violence intensifies in Afghanistan"). But China is ready to take that chance. Beijing won the rights to develop a copper mine south of Kabul by bribing officials with $30 million.
Given China's stranglehold on the rare-earth market and America's commitment in blood and treasure to Afghanistan's future, allowing China to stroll in and harvest Afghanistan's rare-earth riches seems both unwise and unfair. What kind of leadership do we have in Washington anyhow ?  I guess allowing China to control the American-built-and-paid-for canal in Panama answers the question.
JAMES R. McCLEAN, West Palm Beach, FL

111003-a
Amid state-induced budget squeeze, water districts scrambling
Orlando Sentinel - by Kevin Spear
October 3, 2011
The powerful agency regulating Central and North Florida’s water supply has sustained a more than 25 percent cut in its tax revenue, its employees say morale is the lowest in memory, and orders from the governor to adhere to its “core mission” have perplexed even agency veterans.
Amid that turmoil, three members of the board that governs the St. Johns River Water Management District and which ousted the agency’s executive director, effective today, begin choosing a replacement for him from among three finalists, also today.
The Palatka-based agency, whose territory stretches from south of Melbourne to north of Jacksonville, operates with revenue from property taxes. The owner of a $200,000 house with a $50,000 homestead exemption now pays $49.70 a year in taxes to the district.
South Florida Water Management District Budget cuts ordered by Gov. Rick Scott and state lawmakers earlier this year resulted in more than 130 jobs being eliminated, with a tax savings for a typical homeowner of about $10 a year.

111003-b
Raising 'Sugar-Cane': Investigative Report
PublicNewsService.org – by Les Coleman
October 3, 2011
BELLE GLADE, Fla. - A battle being waged in the ethanol industry pits sugar against corn, and it reaches from Florida to the Midwest to Latin America. Florida is at the center of this "energy war," and this investigative report by Les Coleman examines the history, business and political links between sugarcane-based ethanol and ethanol distilled from corn.
The long arm of Florida "big sugar" reaches far outside the state and across international frontiers. Flo-Sun, through subsidiaries such as Florida Crystals and Domino Foods, has milling and refining operations around the world. The rulers of Flo-Sun are brothers Pepe and Alfonso Fanjul, based in Palm Beach, whose father came to the U.S. on the heels of the Cuban Revolution more than a half-century ago.
The Fanjuls, naturally, have their eye on Latin America. So do their close friend and neighbor, David Koch, and his brother, Charles, who head Koch Industries. Their common goal: the importation of sugarcane-based ethanol.
Brian Jennings, executive vice president of the Midwest-corn-dominated American Ethanol Association, says cane ethanol is not domestic and escapes domestic taxes.
"We don't have any sugarcane members, to my knowledge. A lot of sugar ethanol that makes its way into the United States comes through the Caribbean-based initiative, which does escape the tariff, the secondary tariff."
That's a 54-cent-per-gallon tax break for imported sugar ethanol. One recent piece of legislation before the U.S. Senate was an effort to repeal the fuel subsidy for corn-based ethanol exclusively produced in the U.S. - an effort backed by "big sugar" and the Koch brothers.
The Kochs are billionaires and are key backers of the Tea Party movement and its pro-free-market, small-government ideology. But Jennings says that preserving the free market may not be what is behind the Kochs' move into the ethanol business.
"I think it's disturbing that Koch is lobbying to kill the ethanol tax incentive at the same time the company owns shares in ethanol. Koch will continue to fight U.S. ethanol, I'm sure, even though they have ownership interest. I'm not surprised to hear they are involved in Brazilian sugar ethanol production, either."
The Kochs' pot of ethanol gold may not be at the end of some Iowa cornfield rainbow, but in Paranagua, Brazil, where one of their companies, Koch Fertilizer, has built a 57,000-cubic-ton warehouse to provide fuel for the booming Brazilian sugar cane ethanol industry. Koch Fertilizer is produced offshore, in Trinidad and Tobago, and Jennings doesn't much like it.
"I'm a little bit jaded when it comes to a company like Koch. Unfortunately, this type of thing has been happening for years, when it comes to farmers and ranchers trying to get a fair price for their product."
Republican Florida Gov. Rick Scott wants to expand South Florida ports to accommodate sugar ethanol imports. Florida sugar producers gave Rick Scott $100,000 in his successful bid for governor.
Part 2 in the series Tuesday will feature an examination of the sugar industry's campaign money trail.
This investigative report was produced with cooperation from The American Independent News Network:  tainews.org

111003-c
Should C-44 water be fed through Hobe Grove development into Loxahatchee River ?
TCPalm - by George Andreassi
October 3, 2011
HOBE SOUND — The plans for the Hobe Grove development's drainage system include water treatment areas and restored wetlands that could provide clean fresh water to the Loxahatchee River, proponents of the project say.
The Hobe Grove drainage system could send water from the St. Lucie River Watershed, which at times has too much water from pollution-laden Lake Okeechobee, into the Loxahatchee River Watershed, which suffers from a lack of fresh water, said Tom Hurley, CEO of Becker Holding Corp. and Hobe Grove Community, and other members of the project's development team.
"We have some very important plumbing in the system that connects us to two very important watersheds..." said Hurley. "We can provide more than 50 percent of the water that the Loxahatchee River needs under the driest of circumstances. We're going to be able to give the community a massive benefit for no expense."
Developing a drainage system that restores wetlands and provides clean water to the Loxahatchee River would be an important public benefit of the Hobe Grove project, which calls for 4,300 houses and 4.5 million square feet of business and education space, Hurley said.
But the water quality must be high and the timing must be during the dry season to help the fresh-water-starved Loxahatchee River and truly benefit the public, said Martin County and Loxahatchee River District officials.
Directly connecting the St. Lucie Watershed to the Loxahatchee Watershed could hurt the Loxahatchee River during massive discharges of polluted water from Lake Okeechobee into the Okeechobee Waterway, which is also known as the C-44 Canal, said Paul Millar, Martin County's water resource manager.
"We're very concerned about water quality. The quality of the water coming out of C-44 is quite bad," Millar said. "It would (need) some substantial cleanup in order to be able to meet the ... standards for the Loxahatchee River particularly in terms of nitrogen and phosphorus.
"The other concern we would have is the time when the river needs the water the most, i.e., during the dry season, the water will probably not be available from the (South Florida) Water Management District due to competition with agricultural and urban users who rely on Lake Okeechobee."
But Hurley and Ed Weinberg, an environmental consultant working on the Hobe Grove project, said there is already a connection between the two watersheds so polluted water from Lake Okeechobee can flow through the C-44 Canal and reach the Loxahatchee River.
The Hobe Grove storm water drainage and treatment system created would clean the polluted water before it reaches the Loxahatchee River, Hurley and Weinberg said.
"What this project is proposing is a lake and wetland treatment system that will increase, clean up that water and meet the water quality goals established by the Loxahatchee River Management Coordinating Council," Weinberg said. "That's what drives this acreage and this design of the wetland treatment system. Of the 2,800 acres of the project site, 1,400, give or take, 50 percent will be conservation, habitat restoration and open space.
"This isn't theory. These canals are here, these pumps are here today. So the opportunity (exists) to remove excess water from the St. Lucie Basin, from the C-44, treat that water, clean it up and deliver it to the Loxahatchee River where more water is needed."
Miller and Albrey Arrington, executive director of the Loxahatchee River District said they are interested in seeing all the details of Hobe Grove's stormwater drainage and treatment facilities.
"I think the most pressing issue affecting the river right now is too little water," Arrington said. "So, on that front I think they have hypothetically a strong case. But the real question is can they provide the supplemental flows during the time that they are needed and of a quality that is needed?"
Martin County Commissioner Patrick Hayes, whose district includes Hobe Grove, questioned the wisdom of allowing polluted water from the C-44 Canal to flow into wetlands in southern Martin County and ultimately into the Loxahatchee River. Hayes also expressed doubts about whether taking water from the C-44 for an environmental use would be permitted.
State and county development rules would require Hobe Grove's stormwater drainage system to improve the quality of the water flowing into the Loxahatchee River because the standards for urban development are higher than for agricultural activities, Hayes said.
"Once you remove the crop and start putting development in, a whole 'nother set of criteria and drivers go into what's happening," Hayes said. "They're obligated to do what they are saying they will be doing and it will be a benefit. They're right; it will be a benefit because there is absolutely no obligation to be a benefit if your drivers are all agricultural and crop."
HOBE GROVE:
Location: West of Florida's Turnpike, south of Bridge Road, east of Pratt-Whitney road
Site size: 2,823 acres
Mixed-use research, office education: 3.9 million square feet
Town center: 650,000 million square feet
Hotel: 180 rooms
Residential: 4,300 houses; 1,450 single-family and 2,850 multi-family
Open space, conservation, habitat restoration: 1,420 acres
Projected employment: 11,000 jobs
Projected population: 9,604

111003-d
Speaker at UF to discuss ability to trust Fla. climate model projections
University of Florida Announcement
October 3, 2011
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Atmospheric scientist Katharine Hayhoe will look at the climate projections for Florida in a lecture Thursday at the University of Florida.
Hayhoe, a research associate professor at Texas Tech University, will speak at 3:30 p.m. in Room 209, Emerson Alumni Hall.
The seminar titled “Climate Projections for Florida: Can we trust the models” is co-sponsored by the Florida Climate Institute and the UF Water Institute. It’s free and open to the public. It will be streamed live at http://video.ufl.edu/service2/public/pub_showMain.php?id=31924.
Because global models are not yet capable of resolving many of the processes and dynamics that affect climate over Florida and other regions, Hayhoe will examine the extent to which it is possible to quantify confidence in climate projections through combining critical analysis of global models with advanced downscaling approaches.
She will first evaluate the ability of the current generation of global climate models to reproduce key features of climate over Florida, including annual cycles in temperature and precipitation, as well as observed relationships between natural modes of variability, such as ENSO, and climate anomalies. Second, Hayhoe will present an approach for removing model uncertainty due to climate sensitivity from future projections, and discuss the implications of these projections for Florida’s future climate.
Her areas of expertise include greenhouse gas emissions and control policies, numerical modeling of the earth-atmosphere systems, and regional assessments of climate change impacts across a range of sectors including water resources, human health, agriculture and natural ecosystems.
Katharine served as a lead author on the federal USGCRP report, “Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States,” and is serving on the National Academy of Science committee, “Stabilization Targets for Atmospheric Greenhouse Gas Concentrations.”
In addition to these projects, she has participated in and led multi-disciplinary teams to assess the effects of climate change on regions including the Great Lakes, the state of California, the U.S. Northeast, the Midwest, the city of Chicago and, most recently, the eastern Mediterranean region.
These assessments, accompanied by briefings to government, stakeholder, and industry groups, have resulted in her work being cited in the IPCC Assessment Reports, presented before Congress, and highlighted by state and federal agencies as motivation for the implementation of policies to reduce human emissions of greenhouse gases.

111002-a
FDEP Asks How Clean You Want Your Water ?
Thebradentontimes.com - by John Rehill
October 2, 2011
Regional Public Hearing will be on Tuesday, Oct.4, 2011.
BRADENTON -- If the wars of the future are going to be fought over water, in Florida, the lines in the sand are being drawn now. The Florida Department Environmental Protection (FDEP) failed to respond to a request by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), that the FDEP revise their fresh and marine water nutrient discharge limits. That request was over a decade ago. The FDEP has the responsibility to protect the quality of Florida's lakes, rivers, springs, wetlands and beaches, as well as our drinking water. 
In January of 2009, the EPA declared that they would impose a stricter nutrient criteria on the state's waterways if the FDEP did not expedite rules to bring the nutrient pollution problems under control. Florida's Attorney General, Pam Bondi, along with Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam, filed a law suit asking the courts to block enforcement of the EPA's water quality standards.  
Much of Florida's 11,000 miles of waterways and 7,700 lakes are in peril. Its rivers, marsh, swamp, wetlands and springs - all the way to its estuaries - have suffered from nutrient pollution (phosphorus and nitrogen), primarily from phosphate mining and agriculture. FDEP is looking to relax their current criteria, while the EPA is suggesting they tighten it up. Republicans, as well as some Democrats, have joined Bondi and Putnam's pursuit to reduce regulations so that businesses would find Florida more attractive. This has been Governor Rick Scott's mantra since he has taken office. 
State Representative Cliff Stearns and David Richardson of Gainesville Regional Utilities have joined to support Scott's efforts to challenge EPA's will to bring Florida's waters into compliance with the Clean Water Act (CWA) standards. In an August speech, at the University of Central Florida, Stearns said, "Numerous studies in Florida have indicated that the Washington-imposed standards will have a devastating impact on Florida's job creation, economy and certain agencies." Many opponents argue that budget cuts of $700 million and the 4,500 jobs that went with them, is what is devastating to Florida's economy, considering the state already suffers from over 10.4 percent unemployment.  
Former Florida Governor Bob Graham recently said, "We don't have a steel or auto industry in Florida. Our economy is so intertwined with our natural resources and our environment that if we allow that to be deteriorated, then we're really sacrificing our economic growth." Environmental groups throughout the state believe that under the current administration, Florida's waters will continue to fall below acceptable standards. 
To counter the EPA's attempt to apply stricter rules FDEP has come up with their own draft of revisions. As expected, these rules have been embraced by industry and rejected by the EPA and environmental groups. The broad-based objections to the draft take that position for reasons of: 
1- It would allow continued discharge of sewage, animal manure and fertilizer pollution into most of the states water resources.
2- It would keep the burden of prevention and clean-up cost on the tax payer and off industry polluters.
3 - It would give the state legislature control of the nutrient pollution issue.
FDEP officials have said that for any and all decisions to go forward in terms of setting the nutrient criteria, they will depend on the public's support and input. They have asked for submissions of public comment. The FDEP claims they want the public to state their expectations to just what is acceptable and what is not. 
They also ask for participation in a public workshop to be held: Tuesday Oct. 4, 2011, 9:00 a.m. at Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, Auditorium, 300 Tower Road, Naples, Florida. (map)
Environmental groups believe a large turnout will be essential to relating just how important our water sources are to the public. They have claimed phosphate companies and other polluters bus employees to these events to overwhelm opposition.
Development of Numeric Nutrient Criteria for Florida’s Waters (FDEP)

111002-b
Fla. water managers may sell off local land
Ocala.com - by Bill Thompson, Staff writer
October 2, 2011
Swiftmud will soon weigh the future of Halpata Tastanaki Preserve in Marion County.
The Southwest Florida Water Management District Governing Board has embarked on a review of nearly 450,000 acres of publicly held land within its 16-county region to determine if the properties still meet the district's conservation needs.
In Marion County, Swiftmud, as the agency is commonly known, will soon weigh the future of the 8,146-acre Halpata Tastanaki Preserve, district spokeswoman Robyn Felix said.
The property sits between County Road 484 and State Road 200, southeast of Dunnellon.
Swiftmud obtained the site by acquiring four different parcels, with the majority of the land being purchased in 1994 and 1995, Felix said.
In all, the deals cost Swiftmud $13.5 million.
Much of the land borders the Withlacoochee River, and part of the reason the state acquired it was to preserve the forests of the river's floodplains.
The property also contains some wetlands and significant uplands that serve as valuable recharge areas for the aquifer.
The Halpata Tastanaki Preserve — named for a Seminole warrior who, along with Osceola, led the tribe's army against U.S. forces during the Second Seminole Indian War in the 1830s — also is a recreation area.
Hikers, cyclists and equestrians can utilize its 17-mile-long network of trails, while anglers can fish in the Withlacoochee.
Swiftmud's governors ordered the review of its lands in order to help cut costs.
Earlier this year, Gov. Rick Scott slashed hundreds of millions of dollars from the water districts' collective budgets.
For 2012, Swiftmud axed $124.3 million from its budget to meet Scott's directive — a 44 percent drop from its 2011 spending plan.
District officials reduced property taxes by $57 million, spent down another $34 million from savings from prior years, and witnessed a $29 million plunge in revenues when state lawmakers zeroed out the Florida Forever and Water Management Lands trust funds, used to acquire environmentally sensitive property.
Felix said it's still early in the process, and that the staff is still determining how the lands will be evaluated.
Swiftmud would host three public meetings around the district to explain the evaluation process once it's ironed out, she added.
What is known so far, Felix noted, is that Swiftmud will begin its review in the southern end of the district and work north.
Properties that Swiftmud, which oversees water usage in Marion County west of Interstate 75, wholly owns and manages will be considered first for sale.
The Halpata Tastanaki Preserve is among those, Felix said. The evaluation of the preserve could be complete by spring 2012.
She said Swiftmud is modeling its program after the method used by the Suwannee River Water Management District, which has gotten the most interest from the agricultural industry.
But, she noted of the Marion land, “Anybody would have an opportunity to purchase it.”
The question then arises as to what could be done with it.
According to Chris Rison, a senior planner with Marion County, the Halpata Tastanaki Preserve was once the Flying P Ranch property, a one-time thoroughbred farm formerly owned by a St. Petersburg heart surgeon, Crayton Pruitt.
The property is surrounded by other state-owned lands and one privately held conservation area, called Drake Ranch.
But the property also wraps around the Bel Lago subdivision off State Road 200, which is near another residential subdivision, Spruce Creek Preserve, Rison noted.
Rison also pointed out that the preserve, as part of the Withlacoochee River watershed, is “significantly impacted” by floodplains and wetlands.
In the past, the property carried a rural land-use designation, which entitled it to one single-family home per 10 acres. When the county updated its comprehensive land-use plan earlier this year, that designation was changed to natural reservation to reflect Swiftmud's ownership.
Thus, any other use would require a County Commission-approved comp plan amendment.
A spokesman for the St. Johns River Water Management District, Hank Largin, said that at this point the district's governors had not discussed the liquidation of public lands in its 18-county region.
But, he added, a review of the district's land inventory would likely occur at some point during the new fiscal year, which started Saturday, to identify any properties that are no longer needed for conservation purposes.
St. Johns regulates water use in Marion east of I-75, and within the county, the district owns the 6,077-acre Ocklawaha Prairie Restoration Area, located five miles east of Ocala and southwest of County Road 314A, and south of the Silver River State Park.
The district also owns the Sunnyhill Restoration Area, a 4,405-acre tract north of County Road 42 and east of Lake Weir, as well as the Orange Creek Restoration Area, which spans 3,512 acres east of Orange Lake. Most of that property lies in Alachua County, but the site includes several hundred acres in Marion.
Like Swiftmud, St. Johns made massive cuts to its budget.
The district's 2012 budget was about $205 million, or $50 million less than the spending plan approved for 2011.

111002-c
Refuge plan for Everglades good for wildlife, and for Florida's water future
TCPalm – Letter by Jenny Conner Nelms, Director of federal government relations for the Nature Conservancy, Palm City, FL
October 2, 2011
Letter: Refuge plan for Everglades good for wildlife, and for Florida's water future
This newspaper's editorial endorsement of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plan for a new refuge and conservation area in the Northern Everglades is welcome.
Looking to the future, we must find a way to keep roof tops from tipping the balance to the point where our environment and water systems can no longer provide for our growing number of inhabitants.
In Florida, our economy is made of tourism and agriculture. Water is the heart of both. I see this strategy to store more water in the Northern Everglades not as jumping ahead of other hard-fought and widely supported projects but as a complement to Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan projects, when they are completed, like those to restore the St. Lucie River system and the Indian River Lagoon.
Especially challenging in the current financial and political economy, many CERP projects rely mostly on engineered structures, while the less costly and immediately feasible Northern Everglades strategy relies on natural, dispersed storage and a variety of supportive and willing seller landowners.
If the funds are made available from existing offshore drilling royalties — the source for the Land and Water Conservation Fund which pays for wildlife refuges — then this proposal can move forward and will offer incremental benefits that will grow with every acre of protection.
The beauty of the new proposal for the Northern Everglades is the use of easements to permanently protect a majority of the land, which leaves management in the hands of the landowner while providing water storage, keeping land on local tax rolls and in most cases in agricultural production
Water will remain one of the most critical concerns to Floridians, here on the Treasure Coast and throughout the state. Let's work together to focus our energy and resources on solutions that are available today while continuing to strategically move forward on long-term commitments.
Jenny Conner Nelms is director of federal government relations for the Nature Conservancy.

111002-d
St. Johns water district to pick top executive
Orlando Sentinel - by Kevin Spear
October 2, 2011
The powerful agency regulating Central and North Florida's water supply has sustained a more than 25 percent cut in its tax revenue, its employees say morale is the lowest in memory, and orders from the governor to adhere to its "core mission" have perplexed even agency veterans.
Amid that turmoil, three members of the board that governs the St. Johns River Water Management District and which ousted the agency's executive director, effective today, begin choosing a replacement for him from among three finalists, also today.
The Palatka-based agency, whose territory stretches from south of Melbourne to north of Jacksonville, operates with revenue from property taxes. The owner of a $200,000 house with a $50,000 homestead exemption now pays $49.70 a year in taxes to the district.
Budget cuts ordered by Gov. Rick Scott and state lawmakers earlier this year resulted in more than 130 jobs being eliminated, with a tax savings for a typical homeowner of about $10 a year.
The agency regulates impacts to wetlands by developers, allocates water withdrawn from aquifers by utilities, and owns thousands of acres of conservation lands.
The finalists for executive director, all experienced in managing Florida waters, were chosen by the three board members from among 21 applicants. The finalists are:
• Deena M. Reppen, 42, of Jupiter, chief of staff at the South Florida Water Management District and previously a Florida Department of Environmental Protection executive and a press secretary for Gov. Jeb Bush. She declined a request to be interviewed for this report.
• Hans G. Tanzler III of Jacksonville, lead lawyer for the St. Johns district and previously an agency board member and a top executive at industrial and financial companies. "I've recently turned 60 and have a lot of game left in me," Tanzler said. "The opportunity to motivate, organize and lead 500 people, within limited resources, I think I'm uniquely qualified for that opportunity."
• R. Duke Woodson, 60, an Orlando lawyer who specializes in environmental law and real-estate development and previously a faculty member in the University of Florida's Center for Governmental Responsibility and, during the 1980s, the district's regulatory director. "I'm at a point in my life where I could continue to practice law and be a happy camper," Woodson said. "But I am concerned enough about the future of the district and the future of Florida to want to try to turn things around and make some changes. I think I can make a difference."
The job's compensation package will include a base annual salary of $165,000 — the maximum allowed under a cap set recently by the governor — health and retirement benefits, a district car, and as much as $3,000 a year for professional and civic-group memberships.
The annual base salary for Kirby Green, who leaves today after 10 years as executive director, was $195,000 this year.
Until this year, the water district had been widely perceived as having a high degree of independence from the state capital.
Those days are over, said Neil Armingeon of St. Johns Riverkeeper, an environmental group. "The executive director, in my opinion, is strictly a figurehead," he said. "Who is running the district is Rick Scott and [DEP Secretary] Herschel Vinyard."
Bill Kerr, a district board member from 1999 to 2008 and an environmental consultant in Melbourne, agrees that the governor has shaken up the organization.
"I think it's a difficult time to be a leader at the district," Kerr said. "The Legislature wants change, the governor wants change, and so people are trying to figure out what changes are really wanted — because nobody is clearly telling them."
Woodson said in his application that the district's priorities — water supply, flood protection and water quality — have been established by Scott.
"It will be critical for the new executive director to establish strong relationships with the staff in the governor's office, the Department of Environmental Protection, and the four other water-management districts," he said.
Tanzler said in his application for the job that his first priority includes motivating employees with a vision for the future.
"Explaining the basic core mission is fairly easy," he said. "Implementation of the core mission is the challenging part, especially with an organization that is in the process of 'right-sizing.' "
Reppen said in her application that a top priority would be cutting costs by coordinating business and personnel practices among the state's five water districts.
She said she also would establish a "thorough review of the agency's regulatory programs to streamline processes, eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy and enhance customer service."
The three-member committee is to recommend one of the finalists to the seven-member district board at its regular, monthly meeting on Oct. 11.
"I want someone who can manage a large number of people, delegate authority appropriately, work with a budget, particularly one that's going to be constrained in years moving forward," said John Miklos, one of the committee members. "I think our three candidates are heads and shoulders above any of the other candidates."

111002-e
State DEP expediting water quality rules for Collier and Lee, meeting this week
Naples Daily News - by ERIC STAATS
October 2, 2011
NAPLES _ Florida is rushing new water quality standards for estuaries from Tampa Bay to the Florida Keys, including Southwest Florida, to beat federal regulators to the punch, conservation groups say.
The criticism comes on the eve of a Florida Department of Environmental Protection public workshop this week at Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve to hash out the details.
The proposed standards would put a specific numeric limit on nutrients, like nitrogen and phosphorus, that trigger algae blooms that can smother sensitive ecosystems. Florida’s existing, more general standard requires only that nutrients not upset the natural balance of a water body.
Nutrient standards have been at the center of a political tug-of-war between Florida and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which stepped in to propose its own limits after conservation groups said Florida wasn’t doing enough.
After Florida petitioned the EPA earlier this year to back off, the EPA in June opened the door to withdrawing its proposal and letting Florida set its own limits.
The DEP had been moving forward with its own proposal for limits in freshwater lakes and rivers, but now has proposed folding in estuarine rules, Conservancy of Southwest Florida natural resources policy director Jennifer Hecker said.
“Some of that really has not been properly vetted,” Hecker said. “I think a lot of people feel this is rushed and (the DEP) should slow down and get it right.”
After Tuesday’s workshop, the DEP is allowing a two-week written comment period before it finalizes the proposed standard for submittal to the state’s Environmental Resource Commission for review in November.
The Environmental Resource Commission would take a final vote in December, sending it to the state Legislature for ratification during the 2012 session that begins in January.
That DEP timetable coincides with a March 2012 effective date for EPA nutrient standards for inland waters, announced 15 months ago but delayed to give Florida time to prepare for them. The EPA’s deadline for proposing nutrient standards for estuaries is November 2011.
Fast facts
After Tuesday’s workshop, the DEP is allowing a two-week written comment period before it finalizes the proposed standard for submittal to the state’s Environmental Resource Commission for review in November.
The Environmental Resource Commission would take a final vote in December, sending it to the state Legislature for ratification during the 2012 session that begins in January.
In its letter to the DEP in June, the EPA said the effective date of the inland standards could be further delayed and the deadline for estuarine standards could be postponed if the state is moving forward with its own rules.
“That time frame does compress deliberation (of the DEP proposal),” said Drew Bartlett, director of the DEP’s Division of Environmental Assessment and Restoration.
Bartlett said the DEP has been working with the Charlotte Harbor National Estuary Program and other estuary programs to devise nutrient standards for their estuaries.
“We know we have the science and information ready on those now,” Bartlett said.
He said a final decision hasn’t been made on whether to move forward with the estuary standards, which could be dropped “if it turns out there are issues.”
Conservation groups contend the standards aren’t strict enough and have too many loopholes to allow water bodies to escape cleanup requirements.
Industry groups, agricultural interests and cities and counties have assaulted the federal standards as overreaching, but say Florida’s standards are better because they have more safeguards to ensure water bodies aren’t mislabeled as polluted and natural conditions are taken into account.
“That’s the main thing, there has to be some flexibility there,” Florida Stormwater Association director Kurt Spitzer said.
Spitzer praised the state process as being more open and transparent than the EPA’s process of setting water quality standards.
“It’s sort of an evolving process,” he said. “They get input and things change. It’s very different than the federal process.”

111001-a






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111001-a
Federal judge rules for cleaner water in the Everglades
Florida Independent - by Virginia Chamlee
October 1, 2011
A federal judge has ruled that water coming from state-operated Stormwater Treatment Areas, and running south into the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge, has been exceeding pollution limits designed to protect the Florida Everglades.
The ruling is the result of a long-running dispute between the state of Florida and the federal government, which aruged that the state was allowing for too much pollution at Loxahatchee. In a 1992 consent decree, the state agreed to build Stormwater Treatment Areas to clean and filter pollution before it reaches Loxahatchee and Everglades National Park.
Though the Treatment Areas were specifically intended to reduce the total amount of phosphorus in the area, the ruling says the state must do more and should set even more protective limits on phosphorus, which often leads to algal blooms and fish kills.
“We know that too much phosphorus, which comes from agricultural pollution, upsets the delicate balance in the Everglades,” said attorney Alisa Coe, an attorney with environmental law firm Earthjustice, in a press release. “Judge Moreno affirmed what we’ve been saying – that the state limits must be met and pollution must be reduced.”
The Everglades has been inundated not only with pollution from phosphorus, but also with sulfate runoff and methylmercury pollution — which can have a host of dangerous effects on both animal and human life.
Federal judge rules Florida exceeding pollution limits in Everglades (The American Independent, Oct.3, 2011).

READ: Judge Moreno's decision dated Sept.28, 2011.

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Oyster beds thriving in St. Lucie and Loxahatchee estuaries
TCPalm - by Donald Rodrigue
October 1, 2011
MARTIN COUNTY — The more than 30 acres of oyster beds planted in Martin and Palm Beach counties with the help of a $4 million National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration grant are now thriving and reproducing on their own.
Martin County Water Quality Chief Gary Roderick says several organizations overseeing the estuary, including the South Florida Water Management District and the Florida Wildlife Research Institute, have lauded the success of the newly planted oysters.
"They told us the recruitment was very successful," he said. "They said the reefs have the highest densities since monitoring records have been kept."
The Martin County Oyster Reef restoration project was one of only four projects in Florida to be paid for by the NOAA grant. Only 50 similar projects nationwide received funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which was designed to put unemployed Americans back to work. Cleaning up the St. Lucie Estuary is one of the primary goals of the Indian River Lagoon South component of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan.
The local project provided more than 100 temporary jobs to area workers, who planted 10 clusters of oyster patch reefs in the St. Lucie Estuary between the Roosevelt Bridge and Sewall's Point between 2009 and 2010. They were aided by dozens of volunteers, who helped plant another six acres of oyster beds near the Stuart River Walk.
Workers also planted six acres in Palm Beach County's Loxahatchee Estuary, and oyster reproduction on the manmade reefs in both estuaries has surpassed that of natural reefs. Mark Perry, executive director of the Florida Oceanographic Society based on Hutchinson Island, says his organization has partnered with Martin County to measure the number of oysters per square meter in the newly planted areas.
"It's improved on the manmade reef conditions versus the natural reef conditions," Perry explained. "In the normal (natural) case, there are about 200-250 oysters per square meter. In the St. Lucie Estuary, It looks to be upwards of 300; in the Loxahatchee, they have had about 400 or 500 per square meter."
Roderick says the success of the manmade oyster patches can be partially attributed to the lack of significant freshwater discharges from Lake Okeechobee.
"The reason for that is we've been in a drought period, and we haven't had any major discharges since we deployed the oyster beds," he added.
Perry explained oysters can thrive in a certain amount of fresh water and the new beds would only be harmed in the case of a slow-moving hurricane or long period of heavy rain affecting the Kissimmee River Basin.
"If you get a freshwater discharge of 28 days or more, it would kill them," he said. "If it's less than 28, they're going to survive OK."
A single oyster can filter nutrients such as nitrates and phosphates out of the water at a rate of 40 gallons per day. Experts say oysters are a good barometer of a healthy estuary and believe as much as 75 percent of the oyster population in the St. Lucie has been lost over the last 60 years.
Perry says the reefs formed by the new oyster beds not only clean up the estuary waters but also provide homes for small marine life.
"When you have about 600,000 oysters per acre, you're talking about filtering 24 million gallons a day," he said. Filtering is a good aspect, but they also support about 300 species of shrimp, crabs and other marine life."
Harvesting shellfish is currently prohibited in the St. Lucie Estuary due to contamination, and Perry hopes the new oyster beds coupled with other measures can one day change that.
"Our goal in all of this is to get the waters clean enough to be able to harvest shellfish again," he said. "We've got a long road to go to stop the discharges, get the water cleaned up and get the muck out of there."

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Water fight: Nature vs. agriculture tussle for fresh water in Lee inches forward
Naples Daily News - by ERIC STAATS
October 1, 2011
FORT MYERS — A long-sought protection for the Caloosahatchee River has a new — but tentative — timeline for completion.
Called a water reservation, the rule would set aside water for the river that cuts through Lee and Hendry counties by making it unavailable to farms for irrigation or to urban areas for drinking water.
The health of the river has suffered because water managers don’t provide enough fresh water from Lake Okeechobee to keep downstream estuaries from getting too salty for sea grasses, oysters and crabs, river advocates say.
The South Florida Water Management District governing board, remade by Gov. Rick Scott in his first months in office, plans a workshop in October on water reservations; the Caloosahatchee River reservation is scheduled for 2012, district officials say.
The district officially started the process, called rulemaking, to create a water reservation for the river in December 2009, almost two years ago.
“The reservation for the Caloosahatchee hasn’t been moving as quickly as it was supposed to,” Collier County Audubon Society policy advocate Brad Cornell said. “They’re way behind.”
River advocates still are skeptical that the reservation is really on track, citing deep staff cuts to balance the budget and a regulatory plan the district’s Governing Board approved this summer.
The plan was prompted by an executive order Scott signed soon after he was sworn into office. The order required agencies’ requests for rulemaking to be reviewed by his office before they could move forward. A U.S. Court of Appeal last month overturned the order, saying Scott overstepped his authority.
The importance of estuaries
The district’s rulemaking plan sent to Scott included the Caloosahatchee River reservation, but river advocates worried about the tentative date listed to complete it.
An early version said that date was “to be determined by future Board direction.” After advocates complained, a subsequent version added a new tentative date of between March and June 2012.
The timetable isn’t the only worry river advocates have about the proposed reservation.
Instead of a reservation that would set aside existing river water, the district is moving forward only with a reservation for water that would be stored at a proposed reservoir to be built as part of Everglades restoration in Hendry County.
“You take it one step at a time,” said Terrie Bates, the district’s water resources director.
Everglades restoration rules require the reservation for the reservoir’s water be adopted before the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers can spend money to build it.
Congress has yet to authorize construction money for the $600 million project, which includes $100 million already spent to buy land and for project design.
The reservoir won’t store enough water to meet the river’s needs anyway, Conservancy of Southwest Florida natural resources policy director Jennifer Hecker said.
Fast facts
Agricultural interests say they want to see more science to prove that a reservation that would cut into their existing supply of water is needed for the environment.
“We can’t afford to wait,” she said. “We desperately need the district to acknowledge that we simply can’t wait.”
Agricultural interests say they want to see more science to prove that a reservation that would cut into their existing supply of water is needed for the environment.
“There’s an intricate balance, but I think it can be achieved and hopefully it can be achieved without drawing a line in the sand and making threats across that line,” said Charles Shinn, assistant government affairs director for the Florida Farm Bureau Federation.
The Conservancy petitioned the district in 2010 to use other legal mechanisms to get more water from Lake Okeechobee to downstream estuaries, but the district has balked.
In one case, the group asked the district to revise the rule that sets a minimum flow of freshwater down the river. The existing level is too low, and often isn’t met anyway, the Conservancy said.
Florida law requires that the level be set at the amount of water needed to “avoid significant harm” to the environment.
A water reservation, on the other hand, would be set at the level needed to “protect ecological health,” a higher standard of protection.
In a second petition, the Conservancy sought to kill a water-use rule that the group says puts agriculture’s irrigation needs above the health of the river.
“A water reservation would be one step closer to more equity and shared adversity when there is a shortage,” Hecker said.

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