160829-a
7 exotic pets wreaking havoc in the wild
MNN.com - by Michael d'Estries
August 29, 2016
What could possibly go wrong?
Have you ever thought of releasing an exotic pet into the wild? You're not alone. As state officials across the United States have discovered, some former pets have turned into massive invasive species, displacing and out-competing native flora and fauna.
The following are just seven of the invasive species that were released by humans into the wild with disastrous ramifications — as this battle between an alligator and a Burmese python in Everglades National Park makes clear.
Goldfish
Goldfish, those innocent pets of childhood once relegated to the fish bowl, are now taking over fresh waterways around the world. A member of the carp family, the species can grow to between 16 to 19 inches and weigh more than 2 pounds in the wild.
Due to a high rate of reproduction and a lack of natural predators, goldfish easily disrupt ecosystems by consuming resources, eating eggs of native species and spreading disease. Impact examples include the recent drainage of an artificial stream in Utah to remove thousands of illegally dumped goldfish, a lake under threat from a booming population in Colorado and giant versions of the species running amok in Australia.
The species is so prevalent in the warm, shallow waters of western Lake Erie that it's now a commercial catch with over 113,800 pounds of goldfish netted in 2015.
Argentine tegus
In 2009, as part of campaign to trap invasive species in South Florida, biologists captured 13 Argentine tegus. In 2015, they caught more than 500.
The black and white lizard, native to South America, is commonly found in pet stores throughout the United States. Because they can grow in excess of 5 feet, owners sometimes release them into Florida's copious swamps and waterways.
In the wild, they can survive for 15 to 20 years, gorging themselves on a diet of fruits, eggs and small mammals. In addition, they can also survive temperatures as low as 35 degrees and have the ability to reproduce extremely quickly; a nest can contain around 35 eggs.
"There is no debate about tegus," biologist Frank Mazzotti told the Orlando Sentinel. "All of Florida is at risk."
Snakehead
Snakehead, native to parts of Asia and Africa, are quickly making themselves at home in North America.
Discovered in Maryland pond in 2002 (pdf), the species has since been spotted in states such as Virginia, California, New York and Maine.
Not only can they grow over 3 feet long and weigh more than 12 pounds, but they also have the unique ability to migrate short distances over land thanks to specialized gills. Some have been known to flop on wet land to neighboring bodies of water. The species' population is difficult to control as it lacks natural predators and its females are capable of releasing more than 75,000 eggs each year.
Burmese python
With population estimates as high as 300,000 in southern Florida, the Burmese python has gone from exotic pet to established apex predator is as little as 30 years.
With an average length of 12 to 13 feet, pythons have few predators besides alligators and humans. In regions with established populations, sightings of raccoons, foxes, bobcats and other mammals declined between 88 and 100 percent. Even birds and deer have been found inside pythons killed by park officials.
"Burmese pythons are cracking the code on the Southwest Florida habitat, learning how to survive and breed locally," the Conservancy of Southwest Florida said in a press release.
A hunt earlier this year removed several dozen snakes from the wild, including one measuring more than 16 feet long.
Starling
In 1890, a New Yorker named Eugene Schieffelin acted on a plan to introduce in North America every bird mentioned in the works of the playwright William Shakespeare. After importing 60 starlings from Europe, he subsequently released them in Central Park.
Those original 60 have since turned into a population of more than 200 million.
While they may have hypnotic murmuration displays, Starlings have become a major invasive pest. Capable of devouring entire fields of wheat, they're also prone to kicking other birds out of their nests, killing eggs and fledglings in the process.
Red-eared slider
Originating from the warmer climates of the southeastern U.S., red-eared sliders have since proliferated around the world due to their popularity as pets. Feral populations now exist in areas such as Israel, Guam, Australia and the Caribbean Islands.
In Japan, a recent study estimated that red-eared sliders now outnumber native turtle species 8-to-1, consuming up to 320 tons of water weeds each week in a single region of the country.
Because of their larger body sizes (growing up to 1 foot in the wild) and higher reproductive rates, red-eared sliders quickly dominate native species, out-competing them for food and basking spots.
"Red-eared sliders are on the list of the 100 most invasive species in the world," Allison Begley of Fish, Wildlife and Parks told Independence Record. "They're omnivores. They eat anything, and they adapt to any habitat."
Pacu
Notable for its uncanny mouth of human-like teeth, the pacu is a popular pet store fish that has made its way into the lakes, ponds and creeks of at least 27 U.S. states.
While popular as juveniles, this South American native can grow aggressively, prompting owners to free them into local waterways. In the wild, the pacu can grow to more than 3 feet long and weigh up to 44 pounds. Their teeth, while humanoid in appearance, are used for grinding down tree nuts that fall into local waters.
While most pacu do not survive winter conditions in the U.S., there's a fear that a sizable population could take hold in warmer regions, leading to yet-another tip of the scales over native species for resources and habitat.

160829-b
Will current restoration projects sustain Florida ?
Tallahassee Democrat – My View by John Cassani
August 29, 2016
Public land ownership, including the perceived need to secure more land south of Lake Okeechobee to reduce destructive flows of polluted water to the east and west coast estuaries, was discussed at a recent James Madison Institute (JMI) session on “environmentalism versus property rights.”
Many participants, including Florida House Speaker Steve Crisafulli, R-Merritt Island, and Senator Alan Hayes, R-Umatilla, supported the concept that Florida has enough land in public ownership, despite the popular voter backed Amendment 1 that restores much of the funding previously spent on conservation lands.
Some policy makers argue that publicly held land takes property off the tax rolls and there is additional cost to manage the land. These can be valid points in some contexts but may be dangerously short sighted considering the threats that challenge Florida now and in the coming years.
Non-partisan researchers using current USGS and NOAA data have determined that 36 percent of the land in Florida coastal counties – representing critical green infrastructure – is protected, providing key ecosystem services for nutrient cycling, detoxification, flood control and economic drivers such as tourism. However, 26 percent of this land or 1.9 million acres would be inundated by a three-foot rise in sea level, offsetting Florida’s past investment in protecting these lands.
As conservation science continues to advance, it is becoming more apparent that it may not be enough. The accelerating threat of climate change and sea level rise is magnified in Florida by a population growth rate of 350,000 people per year, while losing at least 75,000 acres of rural land to new intensive development per year.
These ongoing drivers of growth and land conversion are largely responsible for the widespread impairment of Florida’s waters, with vast implications for the state’s economy and human health. Insufficient regulatory compliance and oversight and the dismantling of Florida’s growth management program in recent years has furthered the decline.
Publicly owned conservation land cleans water more efficiently, offsetting the cost of acquisition, management and tax revenue lost by providing numerous additional services associated with biodiversity, carbon sequestration, water recharge and supply, flood control, fisheries and a tourism based economy worth billions of dollars annually.
The corresponding cost-benefit of buying land to store more water south of Lake Okeechobee, in addition to other storage and treatment options as recommended by scientists from the University of Florida Water Institute, would offset the economic and ecological damage when considering a broader outlook and the current rate and cost of ecosystem decline.
At the recent JMI session, Sal Nuzzo, the vice president of JMI, made the analogy of diverting from existing plans to restore the Everglades and coastal estuaries was like “chasing this squirrel because that’s what running across our path right now.”
In a rapidly changing state and planet, with a government and electorate mired in partisan politics, that squirrel is starting to look more like an elephant, as some suggest waiting decades to stem the ongoing damage with existing restoration projects planned years ago.

160828-a
Hudson, Passidomo tangle in big-money battle
Naples Herald - by Lloyd Dunkelberger, NH Staff
August 28, 2016
Two Naples Republicans are locked in a costly primary battle to succeed state Sen. Garrett Richter, who has represented the Collier County area since 2008.
Rep. Matt Hudson, 50, who has led the House budget subcommittee on health-care spending for the last half-dozen years, is facing Rep. Kathleen Passidomo, 63, who chairs the House Civil Justice Subcommittee, in the primary Tuesday in Senate District 28.
The winner is virtually certain to replace Richter, a Naples Republican who is leaving the 40-member chamber because of term limits after serving as a top lieutenant to Senate President Andy Gardiner.
Senate District 28 includes all of Collier and Hendry counties and a chunk of Lee County. It is diverse, ranging from Naples, one of Florida’s wealthiest communities and the hometown of Gov. Rick Scott, to rural areas of Hendry County linked to Florida’s sugar and citrus industries.
“This has been a very, very tough campaign with two people who really want this position,” Passidomo said at a recent candidate forum hosted by the Naples Daily News.
The campaign has been tough, at least in part, because the candidates have used a blitz of television ads and campaign mailers to question each other’s conservative credentials, although each lawmaker has been well within the conservative mainstream of the Florida House.
Passidomo has been forced to defend a contribution by her husband to Democratic President Barack Obama’s campaign. She said her husband, who, like Passidomo, is a lawyer, did it at the request of a client who was a friend of Vice President Joe Biden, who was holding a fundraiser. She said she had nothing to do with the check, saying it was “chauvinistic” of Hudson to bring her husband into the campaign rather than focusing on her six-year House record.
Passidomo has also had to explain several votes against abortion bills, including opposition to a measure requiring women to have ultrasounds before the procedure. She said she was “misled” about the bill, assuming it was imposing a financial mandate on women. She said she would vote for the bill if she had another chance, while pointing out her support for another half-dozen measures placing restrictions on abortions, including requiring a 24-hour waiting period.
Hudson, a real-estate broker, has been criticized for voting for more than $2 billion in taxes and fees, including a $1-a-pack cigarette tax, as part of the 2009 state budget. Hudson said he was in the GOP majority in supporting the budget, which used motor-vehicle fees and the tobacco tax to make up for a deep revenue decline caused by the recession. Lawmakers later rolled back some of the vehicle fees as state finances improved.
Hudson has also been slammed for voting for some of former Gov. Charlie Crist’s climate-change legislation, including a bill to create a cap on greenhouse-gas emissions. Hudson said the measure never took effect because it was contingent on the adoption of regulations, which never occurred.
And he took umbrage at being linked to Crist, a former Republican who is now a Democrat, repeating his observation that Crist is “more devoid of principles than any other human I have ever met.”
The charges and countercharges are being amplified in the race because each candidate is well financed, with Hudson estimating a total of $3 million may be spent in the primary before it’s over. The winner of the primary will face only write-in opponents in November.
The candidates have combined to raise more than $1.1 million, with Passidomo at nearly $620,000 in contributions as of Thursday and Hudson at $520,000. Passidomo’s total included a personal $100,000 contribution, which she said she made to underscore her commitment to the race.
Those totals are bolstered by another $1.3 million in contributions flowing through political committees linked to the candidates. Hudson’s committee had raised $946,000 through Thursday, while Passidomo’s committee had raised $400,000.
On the issues, neither candidate has endorsed incoming Senate President Joe Negron’s proposal to buy specific tracts of land south of Lake Okeechobee to try to address problems with polluted water being discharged into rivers east and west of the lake.
Hudson said he would like to see other projects related to the Everglades and the lake completed before embarking on another major initiative.
“Why don’t we finish all the things we have started to see if, in fact, those things work,” he said.
He also noted the state’s commitment to provide $200 million in funding for Everglades restoration each year as part of the new “Legacy Florida” law, which he said the state can use to urge a greater financial commitment from the federal government for the projects.
Passidomo said she wants to see a “holistic approach,” with more cooperation and less “finger-pointing,” noting the lake and Everglades problems have evolved over a number of decades.
“There is not one silver bullet or magic bullet. We have to try a myriad of things,” she said.
Both candidates support a Richter bill that would have allowed the state to regulate “fracking” as a technology for extracting oil and gas in the state. The legislation, which faced heavy opposition from environmentalists who worried it could open the door to the controversial drilling method, failed narrowly in the Senate.
Hudson said he supports developing a Florida-based study of the chemicals used in the process to guide the regulations, while adding he views fracking as a “property rights” issue for landowners.
Passidomo said she supports fracking regulation along with allowing local governments to regulate the activity through zoning.
Both candidates oppose the expansion of Medicaid in the state under the federal Affordable Care Act, although Passidomo said she is interested in finding a way to provide health care to the “working poor” who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to use the federal health-care exchange.
Among his accomplishments in the Legislature, Hudson has been an advocate for programs aimed at helping Floridians with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementia conditions, saying state funding has increased by nearly 60 percent for those programs in the last six years. The state awarded $3 million in research funding last December as a result of legislation that Hudson supported.
Passidomo has played a major role in passing legislation to reform the state’s guardianship system, where seniors who cannot care for themselves end up with legal guardians. Along with Sen. Nancy Detert, R-Venice, Passidomo help craft bills in the last two sessions to improve the guardianship system and curb abuses.
Passidomo has won the support of key Senate leaders in her primary campaign, including Senate Majority Leader Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, and Sen. Wilton Simpson, R-Trilby, two potential future Senate presidents.
Although he has not formally endorsed her, Gov. Scott has appeared in a Passidomo commercial and has released a statement in support of her.

160828-b
Negron's gutsy water plan has merit
Sun Sentinel – by Paula Dockery, a syndicated columnist who served in the Florida Legislature for 16 years as a Republican from Lakeland
August 28, 2016
Before the Zika virus dominated the national news about Florida, the bluish-green algae on Florida's Treasure Coast did. The algae formed after massive releases of nutrient-laden water flowed into the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie rivers from Lake Okeechobee.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is responsible for releasing the water. The state is responsible for Florida's water quality. Fingers were pointed in both directions.
To be clear, the Army Corps controls releases based on its determination of how much Lake Okeechobee can safely hold without risking flooding. Complicating that decision is the questionable structural integrity of the Herbert Hoover Dike surrounding the lake. State and federal partners have known for many years that the system of dikes is degraded and in need of reinforcing.
The state has allowed polluted water to enter many of our lakes, rivers, bays and estuaries, including Lake Okeechobee.
A decade ago, the governor and other elected officials focused on water quality, Everglades' restoration and land acquisition by spending $300 million per year under Florida Forever. There was a long-term commitment to protect and restore Florida's natural resources and quality of life.
Despite warnings from scientists, local governments and the environmental community, there was a major shift in the mindset and actions of elected officials. Florida Forever funding disappeared, water management budgets were slashed and the Department of Community Affairs — overseeing sustainable growth management efforts — was abolished.
Improperly installed or maintained septic tanks have leached into our water bodies. Natural systems that filter polluted surface waters have been altered. Water treatment projects, restoration projects and land acquisition have slowed to a trickle. Regulations have been slashed, and the state has fought the federal government over water quality standards.
Angered by the state's blatant disregard of protecting our natural resources, Florida voters in 2014 overwhelmingly supported a constitutional amendment forcing the state to invest hundreds of millions of dollars annually in land acquisition and management and restoration projects. Last year alone, more than $750 million was supposed to be spent.
The Florida Legislature has found creative ways to ignore the intent of the voters and shift funds while still claiming to have legally complied.
We need environmental heroes in positions of power. It's not going to be the governor — not for at least two years, when voters get another chance to choose one.
Enter state Sen. Joe Negron, an experienced legislator from Stuart who will soon be sworn in as Senate president. Negron served in both the House and Senate and has been budget chairman in each chamber. Negron comes from the area most affected by the water releases and fish-killing algae bloom.
In June, Gov. Rick Scott declared a state of emergency and, other than demanding the federal government do something, offered little in the way of a long-term solution.
In August, Negron announced his plan to divert and store water south of Lake Okeechobee. It requires buying 60,000 acres of mostly sugar land and building a reservoir to hold 120 billion gallons of water. This would prevent polluted water from being released into the St Lucie and Caloosahatchee estuaries. It would also help keep Lake Okeechobee's water at a safe level for the Hoover dike to hold.
This is a bold and ambitious plan with a hefty price tag.
The cost is estimated at $2.4 billion. Negron wants the federal government to pay half — the first hurdle. The owners of the land don't appear to be willing sellers — his second hurdle. Scott does not seem to be on board — the third hurdle. Other players — the Army Corps, water management districts and the Florida House — are not yet showing enthusiasm for the plan.
Residents and businesses affected by the toxic algae bloom cheered Negron's plan, as did many in the environmental community.
It does have its merits. It protects fragile ecosystems, reduces potential flooding risks and provides storage from Lake Okeechobee releases, thus lessening the need to fortify the dikes.
The devil's in the details. Have we identified the best lands for storage? Are we looking at a fair price and not another sweetheart deal like we gave U.S. Sugar? Does it include any treatment or natural filtration to improve the quality of the water?
Negron's plan doesn't solve all of the state's water woes but it's a concrete proposal — more constructive than pointing fingers and shrugging shoulders.
Kudos to Negron for having the guts to tackle the problem and to incoming House Speaker Richard Corcoran for indicating a willingness to consider Negron's proposal.

160828-c
Water debate puts Florida's natural treasures at risk
Sun Sentinel – by Eric Draper, executive director of Audubon Florida
August 27, 2016
Recently I was in the Keys to inspect a bird colony. How great to see so many people catching lobsters and enjoying our state's favorite paradise.
The trip's highlight was seeing a school of baitfish, which signal healthy water and attract gamefish and water birds. Our boat captain said fish and birds are the measure and treasure of Everglades restoration.
Last year in another part of Florida Bay, a vast seagrass meadow was wiped out by hypersaline water. There were no fish, no birds and no one fishing or birdwatching. At the very end of the River of Grass that once flowed from Kissimmee to the Keys, virtually no fresh water entered the Bay.
Florida Bay's seagrass die-off preceded a different tragedy to the north. The St. Lucie River and estuary suffered horrible toxic algae blooms from the discharge of trillions of gallons of polluted water. Much of that water could have flowed south into the Everglades, sparing some of the damage to the Atlantic coast and benefiting the Florida Bay.
However, flow of water south to the Everglades is blocked by sugarcane production, which benefits from free government flood control and taxpayer funded irrigation. Everglades restoration depends on using some sugarcane land to store water that otherwise harms Atlantic and Gulf estuaries. Storage will allow more fresh water to be released to Florida Bay.
Recently, Florida state Sen. Joe Negron, from the heavily impacted town of Stuart, proposed buying some sugarcane land to store water to prevent future discharges of toxic algae and to benefit the Everglades and Florida Bay.
Negron is truly standing up for his constituents. He did his homework, spoke to all interest groups and concluded that storing water south of Lake Okeechobee is the best answer and that it will require the purchase of additional land.
Audubon Florida, along with the Everglades Foundation and many Florida businesses and citizens support following through on the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan approved by Congress in 2000 to allow more water from Lake Okeechobee to be stored, treated and sent south, using more of the land just south of the Lake.
Why send Lake Okeechobee's water south? That is where it originally went. While government agencies are sending some excess water south, without a major water storage feature south of the lake, the water is managed mostly to benefit sugarcane. Much of that water then ends up stacked too deep on conservation areas in Broward County, causing harm there, too.
Storing water south of Lake Okeechobee on sugarcane lands helps Florida Bay, prevents coastal algae blooms and helps restore Everglades habitats including Broward's conservation lands.
But acquiring land as Negron proposes will need legislative approval. Funds were approved by voters in 2014. Seventy five percent voted yes for Amendment 1, which clearly authorized purchase of lands south of Lake Okeechobee for Everglades restoration. Not surprisingly, the sugar industry is mobilizing an army of lobbyists with pockets full of cash to oppose Negron's idea.
Sugar is very profitable, so the industry is telling Negron's colleagues that using land for restoration hurts their bottom line. What about the businesses in coastal communities that depend on clean water? What about Florida residents who fish and enjoy eating fish from Florida waters?
Between now and the next legislative session a debate will take place about buying land to send water south to benefit the Everglades and help end the discharges of water that trigger toxic algae blooms.
On one side there will be the subsidized sugar industry. On the other side are people like me who grew up swimming and fishing in Florida's coastal waters — people like the boat captain who make their living helping others enjoy Florida's natural treasures.
Negron took a stand. I hope you will too. Find more at fl.audubon.org.

160827-a
Algae blooms a disaster many years in the making
Palm Beach Post – Point of View by Preston Robertson, vice president-general counsel of the Florida Wildlife Federation
August 27, 2016
Recent state and national headlines are full of the algal bloom disaster now unfolding in South Florida, especially along our east coast and in Martin County. A wave of green, smelly, toxic goop has invaded coastal areas, fouling water and suffocating aquatic species and manatees. This situation is not only upsetting, it is, unfortunately, completely predictable.
Since the Hoover Dike was completed in the 1960s, essentially making Lake Okeechobee into a giant bath tub, pollutant-laden water from agricultural and other sources have been deposited into the Kissimmee River and surrounding watersheds which has traveled south to the Lake. Nitrogen and phosphorous now degrade this once pristine water body, which had once been a fishery of great renown. Following completion of the dike, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, fearing a breach or overflow of the dike, has pulsed polluted water east and west, to the coasts. Prior to the dike, clean water had flowed slowly south, thereby creating the “River of Grass” and the Everglades. Today, millions of gallons polluted water are shunted to the St. Lucie Canal eastward or to the Caloosahatchee River westward.
Florida Wildlife Federation has been involved in efforts to rectify this horrendous situation for at least 20 years, pushing for action on the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan and taking private polluters, state agencies and the federal government to court when we believed our laws were being violated, especially the Clean Water Act. We have sued the South Florida Water Management District, which was backed by the sugar industry, over back-pumping of dirty water into Lake Okeechobee from agricultural land south of the lake. We have litigated against the Corps of Engineers when it shifted essential water resources from the Caloosahatchee River to irrigation projects. These cases take time, and even if we prevail at the trial level, lengthy appeals follow. Years of inaction go by as the problems get worse.
What is the solution? We need to stop the pollution at its source – especially run-off upstream from the lake. We need to halt back-pumping of dirty water into the lake. We need to move clean Lake Okeechobee water south. We need to put property owners on central sewer and eliminate septic tanks from sensitive areas (this goes for our coasts and our freshwater springs). We need to strongly support incoming Senate President Joe Negron’s efforts to purchase land south of the lake, and the Now or Neverglades petition.
It is well past time to stop kicking this can down the road if we are to save what makes Florida special, economically viable and ecologically sustainable.

160827-b
Glades communities speak out about Lake O
WFLX.com
August 27, 2016
The Glades communities are joining the table to talk Lake Okeechobee and they're not happy with some of the solutions for lake discharges floating in congress.
"What they did is blame other people for the problem, they did not admit their own problems," said Rick Roth, Roth Farms in Belle Glade.
Roth is a sugarcane grower and he's sticking up for other farmers he says are being blamed for the algae problem.
"The farmers have spent 500 million of their own money to clean the water," said Roth.
Dozens of farmers, business owners, and city leaders from the Glades communities say they are stepping up to make sure Senator Joe Negron's proposal to take 60,000 acres of farming land from the area for water storage doesn't happen. A project Senator Marco Rubio agrees would crush what fuels the local economy.
"There's a breaking point in this community, if you take away too much land it loses it's economic engine and once it does the Glades communities are going to become Ghost towns," said Senator Rubio.
Senator Rubio is pushing congress to pass the Central Everglades Planning Project which as a number of projects that would help with the discharges and algae problem. He's visited the Treasure Coast and has seen how locals and businesses there are hurting.
"The facts are that 97 percent of the water that's going into the lake is not coming from the south, it's coming from the north. We need to hold more water north of the lake, it needs to cleaner when it goes in and then we can create ways to get some of that water to go south in a cleaner form," added Rubio.
Locals understand taking up some of the land south of the lake is included in that plan as well, but they want to be a part of the discussion.
"We have to have a pro-business and pro-environment attitude," said Roth.
Rubio will be back in D.C. in 8 days and plans to push for the Central Everglades Planning Project.

160826-b
A simple solution
Cape Coral Daily Breeze - Letter by Bonnie Zink, Cape Coral, FL
August 26, 2016
I was born and raised in Miami 69 years ago, while growing up, I fished Lake Okeechobee, snorkeled the flats around a barge in "Stiltsville" in Key Biscayne, and vacationed in the Keys with my family. I have seen first hand the effects of Big Sugar on the degradation of the area south of Lake O - and now I see it as a homeowner living on a saltwater canal in Cape Coral.
The quickest and most powerful thing that could be done to start a return to cleansing the ecosystem would be to eliminate completely the sugar subsidies. Everglades Agricultural Area land prices would plummet and the fields would return to the marshy muck land that it used to be, allowing it to be bought up at reasonable prices for conservation and mitigation purposes. In this case, eminent domain would be a useful tool. This might not be a politically easy solution, but it could be implemented very quickly at no cost to the taxpayers. The money saved on subsidies could be used to buy the conservation land. As an added benefit, those American companies that had to move out of the U.S. to avoid paying almost three times the going world price for sugar would return to the US - employing more Americans.
This is a no-brainer idea and would not take decades to accomplish. Let the markets work, free of restrictions and the unfair advantage for those who are lining the pockets of the political class, both Democrat and Republican.

160826-c
Enviros' 'need' for SFWMD email list could backfire mightily
SunshineStateNews - by Nancy Smith
August 26, 2016
Submitting a public records request for the South Florida Water Management District's entire 5,000-strong email list? Risky move, environmentalists.
I would even call it stupid.
But that's what Lisa Interlandi, a lawyer with the nonprofit Everglades Law Center, did this week on behalf of a host of environmental groups.
Oh, I know she's entitled. We all are under Florida's Public Records Law and I wouldn't have it any other way. But now Interlandi, in a story headlined, "Message from South Florida water managers: Don't make us mad" has The Miami Herald fanning her flames.
The Herald  writes, Florida lawmakers read. Could some of those Florida lawmakers, some of the ones on the email list, decide to push back? Some legislators take their privacy personally. Can another assault on Chapter 119 of the Florida Statutes be far behind?
It's a genuine concern. Stupid move.
The outrage on Interlandi's part is sheer theater. The Water Management District didn't refuse to give up the email list. Staff complied with the request immediately, they know the law. But they believed they had an obligation to the people on that list to tell them their addresses were going to a third party.
District spokesman Randy Smith said no one at the District can remember a previous request for the SFWMD email list. Ever. Interlandi's ask was a first. The District fields regular requests for individual email exchanges on one subject or another, but parting with the whole list, which likely will be shared around any number of environmental organizations, was unprecedented.
"We felt an obligation to inform the people on that list," he said.
I fail to see how that is anything but a proper reaction from a state agency that does, in fact, have a greater obligation to the people of Florida than the environmentalists.
The underlying contention, the tug-of-war that got us to where we are today didn't happen overnight. It's been heating to a boil over the last year.  SFWMD officials have been dealing with an increasing amount of misinformation on the Everglades and a lack of civility among citizens who are swallowing it.  District governing board members have been threatened, their families intimidated. And after one board meeting, residents of the Glades communities were attacked, literally, in the hallway outside the meeting room. 
Show me where in Florida Statutes any water management district is prohibited from trying to set the record straight, or help Floridians separate fact from fiction. And that's all the District has been trying to do. 
Frankly, I've been glad to see District people fight back a little. Scientists and engineers and politicians are still bothering with the details, but everyone expert in any area of Everglades restoration agrees on one fact: You can't just "go back to nature." The population of Florida has spread out as it's grown over the past hundred years, and in many places these days there's no nature to go back to.
Environmentalists want to keep the money rolling in. 
"Bad news" is the big fundraiser for environmentalists and I know it's important for them to keep the fear alive. But the truth is, the Everglades -- what's left of it -- is not dying.  For decades, the world's largest wetlands have been diked, dammed, diverted, and drained. Now massive earthmoving, underground plumbing, and statistical modeling are getting what's left of this wonder back to something as good as it can possibly be. That's just a fact.
Other misinformation out there:
The Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie rivers are relief valves so the Everglades Agriculture Area (EAA) can keep the best growing conditions possible. No they're not.
SFWMD is back-pumping water in the EAA at the same time the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is working to respond to rising lake water. No, it's not.
Here's the biggee: More storage south will restore coastal estuaries, rehydrate the Everglades, recharge the Biscayne aquifer and protect private and public well fields. No, no, no and no. If that were true, explain how it would work during much of this year when the Everglades was several feet over its regulatory schedule, when wildlife and tree islands were threatened and state and federal agencies were calling on emergency procedures to get the water levels in the Everglades down. As the District repeats, more storage in the agriculture area would have helped the Everglades crisis, not the Lake or estuaries.
By the way, I personally have no problem if environmentalists have my email addresses (I have two of them). I'm thinking, maybe if they do, they'll send me information that will answer my questions. God knows they don't return phone calls.
Do you really think Lisa Interlandi needed the entire SFWMD email list?  To fire up the troops and loosen donors' purse strings, maybe -- it ultimately pays her way. But I hope in so doing she hasn't opened the door for another Public Records Law exemption.

160825-b
Expert: Sen. Negron’s reservoir plan needs more projects, policies to stop Lake Okeechobee discharges
TCPalm - by Tyler Treadway
August 25, 2016
STUART — A proposed reservoir south of Lake Okeechobee won't stop discharges to the St. Lucie River, not by itself at least.
Instead, the 60,000-acre reservoir envisioned by state Sen. Joe Negron of Stuart should be seen as the "centerpiece" of a series of projects and policies designed to store excess Lake Okeechobee water, clean it and send it south to the Everglades, members of the Rivers Coalition were told Thursday.
After the coalition voted to support Negron's plan, members heard what else would be needed to make the reservoir do the job of stopping discharges.
Negron is calling for a $2.4 billion state-federal project to buy land south of Lake O and build a reservoir to hold 120 billion gallons of water.
But a "static" reservoir won't stop the discharges, said Gary Goforth, a Stuart-based environmental engineer with more than 30 years of experience in large-scale ecosystem restoration projects.
So far this year, more than 170 billion gallons of Lake O water has been sent to the St. Lucie and 372 billion gallons to the Caloosahatchee River. That's a total of 542 billion gallons.
GET 'DYNAMIC'
Instead, a "dynamic" that constantly feeds water to stormwater treatment areas for cleaning and sending south would be able to store several times its static volume over the course of a year.
Accommodating the extra flow could mean building a new outlet from Lake O and about 5,000 acres of additional stormwater treatment areas south of the lake, Goforth said.
Negron's plan wisely calls for the reservoir to be built adjacent to existing stormwater treatment areas, Goforth said, but the 57,000 acres of treatment areas south of the lake now stay full, during the rainy season at least, of water drained off farmland south of the lake.
To better use the existing treatment areas, Goforth said, would require a policy of "moving water south from the lake 52 weeks a year" and not just during the rainy season.
Negron's plan calls for the state and the federal government to split the $2.4 billion cost to buy land for and build the reservoir. He'll propose in the 2017 legislative session, when he'll be president of the Senate, using $100 million in Amendment 1 funds each year over 20 years to generate the state's $1.2 billion share.
Also, Congress would have to add the plan to the water projects it approves every two years.
UPHILL BATTLE
Negron has admitted getting his proposal through the state Legislature, past Gov. Rick Scott's veto pen and into the federal appropriations bill will be difficult.
Negron has suggested the state's $1.2 billion share of the project could come from proceeds of Amendment 1, the measure overwhelmingly approved by voters to pay for acquiring conservation land.
Money for the federal government's share could come from the $2 billion earmarked for deep storage wells planned as part of the Comprehensive Everglades Planning Project, suggested coalition member Charles Grande.
Research has shown the 200-plus wells proposed for north of Lake O won't be able to store as much water as originally thought, Grande said. Scrapping the wells could pay for the reservoir with hundreds of millions of dollars to spare.
The politically influential sugar industry opposes Negron's plan, saying the loss of farmland will mean a loss of 1,000 or more jobs. On Wednesday, about 50 residents of communities south of Lake O protested against the proposal at Negron's Martin County office.
But Goforth suggested sugar farmers should get behind the plan because they could use water stored in the reservoir for irrigation.
"So the project would be beneficial to the sugar industry," he added, "and the more common ground we can find with the sugar industry, the better."
Judy Sanchez, spokeswoman for U.S. Sugar, countered that when Lake Okeechobee doesn't have water for irrigation, the reservoir won't, either.
When drought conditions drive Lake Okeechobee to low levels, "our canals are low, retention ponds are dry, the water conservation areas are dry and the Everglades is dry," Sanchez said. "If this proposed reservoir is designed to hold Lake Okeechobee water, it would most probably be as dry as everything else because you wouldn't have lake water to send."

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Seagrass in Everglades National Park is dying. Here's what's being done to save it.
CNN - by Chris Moody;
August 25, 2016
Everglades National Park, Florida (CNN)Balancing on the deck of a National Park Service skiff over Florida Bay, US Interior Secretary Sally Jewell held a clump of seagrass collected from the underwater meadow below.
The plants pulled from the shallow water were brown and appeared dead -- nothing like the lush, green seagrass that has grown in the same area for years.
"This is what we get when we don't take care of Florida Bay," Jewell said.
Everglades National Park is home to the bay, which juts out from the southern tip of the Florida peninsula. Over the past year, researchers from the National Park Service, which celebrates its centennial this year, have discovered a 40,000-acre section in rapid decline, putting animal and plant life in jeopardy, and the future of the region's multi-million-dollar fishing and recreational industry at risk.
The suspected culprits for this massive die-off are many: For the past 100 years, increasing development in Florida has disrupted the balance of the Everglades through the construction of homes, industry and roadways. In 1928, Floridians built a highway called the Tamiami Trail connecting Miami with Tampa and cut directly through the Everglades. The highway was acclaimed as an achievement of human progress, but the construction came with severe consequences for the area's natural ecosystem.
"We stopped the flow of the river of grass from the Everglades headwaters down to Florida Bay," Jewell said. "That's had a lot of consequences that we really are understanding now. It's kind of embarrassing that we've allowed this to happen."
Meanwhile, rising sea levels -- which scientists attribute to climate change -- have increased the salinity in the water, further causing disruption. That, mixed with a devastating drought in recent years, has worked to create a perfect storm that's threatening one of the nation's most prized natural wonders.
Efforts to restore the balance and flow of freshwater into the Everglades are underway. As part of a years-long project coordinated by federal and state agencies, officials are working to raise sections of the Tamiami Trail to allow water to flow. In 2013, the National Park Service celebrated the completion of a mile-long stretch, and have just begun a new project to raise another 2.5 miles of the highway as part of a project funded in part by the US Department of Transportation Federal Lands Highway Program and Florida's Department of Transportation. The construction is expected to be completed by 2020.
The Interior Department said the project is "one of the largest conservation projects ever undertaken" by the National Park Service.
"We now understand how important that river of grass was," Jewell said. "It's about our natural heritage; it's about our national heritage."

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Florida's natural filter: Everglades National Park
WLRN.org - by Caitie Switalski
August 24, 2016
Inside of The Everglades National Park  - deep into the Gumbo Limbo Trail - the namesake trees are jokingly referred to as "tourist trees" because the Gumbo Limbo is red and has peeling bark, like a sunburn. 
It's a hot August day - 91 degrees - and the humidity is palpable. More than one million people visit the Everglades every year, but silence is still a distinctive feature of this 1.5 million acres of protected wetlands. 
What else stands out along the hiking destination ? The water here.
Quietly, water throughout the national park here filters its way from Lake Okeechobee down to Florida Bay through nutrient-rich soil and becomes some of the most pure that nature can make.
Cara Capp, the Everglades restoration program manager at the National Parks Conservation Association, said even the water you buy at the grocery store would contaminate phosphorus levels.
“If you poured out a bottle of bottled drinking water, it would be a violation,” Capp said. “It’s nature’s perfect filtration system.”
The Biscayne Aquifer, which provides municipal drinking water for many Floridians, sits directly underneath the Everglades. So whether you know it or not, Capp said, you likely consume Everglades water every single time you turn on your tap.
“Two-thirds of Floridians get their drinking water from areas of the Everglades,” she said.
Over the last 100 years, urban development and sea level rise have changed this park’s natural filtration system. Now, there’s less of this very pure water than there used to be...as much as 50 percent less, according to the Everglades Foundation.
There’s also saltwater intrusion in the Biscayne Aquifer now because of sea-level rise. That’s where restoring the Everglades’ natural flow can be a solution, Capp said.
 “As we’re restoring the Everglades and stacking more fresh water on the land, it pushes back against that salt water intrusion,” she said.
It's nature's perfect filtration system.
Restoring the more natural flow of fresh water in the Everglades system will ultimately cut down on costs to desalinate drinking water, according to Everglades Foundation information.
The Everglades National Park was officially created in 1947 and it is the largest protected wilderness east of the Mississippi. Long before that, specifically since 1916, it had been the Royal Palm State Park. But there was little or no control of the water entering from the agricultural areas north of the park. 
Everglades Foundation CEO Eric Eikenberg  said that the restoration efforts got a major victory back in the 1980's from a lawsuit over polluted water entering the Everglades, long before the year 2000 when the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan was passed in Congress.
Another historic moment for supporting the Everglades, Eikenberg said, was the 2014 passage of Florida Amendment One, which provides more money for Everglades restoration. 
Eikenberg said everyday people should be more invested in seeing the protected wetlands restored, "If they don't want to lose the quality of life here in Florida." He went on to say that this restoration plan has an overall goal:
"To fix the sins of previous generations," he said. 
The actual restoration in that process comes from moving more water in Lake Okeechobee from its current flow out through estuaries east and west- to go south towards Florida Bay like it historically used to, before urban development. 
Eikenberg said the damage started back in 1906 with plans to drain the wetlands in order to build on Florida land. 
"Ultimately Everglades is storage," he said. "It's the lifeblood of South Florida and the South Florida economy."
Making the flow of water more natural means removing man-made dams and levees under Lake Okeechobee as well as focusing on keeping water inside the peninsula. Projects like bridging Tamiami Trail and building a reservoir to purify water from the lake help to do that, according to the Everglades Foundation. 
So after it's 100th birthday, what's next for the Everglades?
The Central Everglades Planning Project, to approve directing more water south, is expected to be voted on by Congress after the August recess is over. 

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Florida Wildlife Federation pushes for action on the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP)
Digital Journal – Press Release
Auguat 24, 2016
TALLAHASSEE, FL--(Marketwired - August 24, 2016) - Recent state and national headlines are full of the algal bloom disaster now unfolding in South Florida, especially along our east coast and in Martin County. A wave of green, smelly, toxic goop has invaded coastal areas, fouling water and suffocating aquatic species and manatees. This situation is not only upsetting, it is, unfortunately, completely predictable.
Since the Hoover Dike was completed in the 1960's, essentially making Lake Okeechobee into a giant bath tub, pollutant-laden water from agricultural and other sources have been deposited into the Kissimmee River and surrounding watersheds which has traveled south to the Lake. Nitrogen and phosphorous now degrade this once pristine water body, which had once been a fishery of great renown. Following completion of the dike, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, fearing a breach or overflow of the dike, has pulsed polluted water east and west, to the coasts. Prior to the dike, clean water had flowed slowly south, thereby creating the "River of Grass" and the Everglades. Today, millions of gallons polluted water are shunted to the St. Lucie Canal eastward or to the Caloosahatchee River westward. As has been clear for a long time, this inundation of polluted freshwater has had significant deleterious impacts on these rivers and the estuaries they create at the coasts. Citizens in communities impacted by this assault have complained loudly about this for many years.
Florida Wildlife Federation (FWF) has been involved in efforts to rectify this horrendous situation for at least 20 years, pushing for action on the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) and taking private polluters, state agencies and the federal government to court when our laws were apparently being violated, especially the Clean Water Act. FWF has sued the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD), which was backed by the sugar industry, over back-pumping of dirty water into Lake Okeechobee from agricultural land south of the Lake. FWF litigated against the Corps of Engineers when it shifted essential water resources from the Caloosahatchee River to irrigation projects. These cases take time, and even if there is a win at the trial level, lengthy appeals follow. Years of inaction go by as the problems get worse. After wins and losses, the overall picture remains the same: pollution is destroying our waters, killing our fish and wildlife and severely damaging Florida's quality of life.
Even as Everglades National Park, an internationally designated world heritage site, and Florida Bay, are deprived of essential clean water from the Lake, our state government has gutted water management districts of knowledgeable staff, eliminated the Department of Community Affairs, which provided a slight break on urban and suburban sprawl, and completely disregarded the public will as to Amendment 1, passed by 75% of voters in 2014. Amendment 1, the Water and Land Legacy Amendment, was intended to dedicate adequate funding for land and water protection, exactly what we need. This the Legislature has not done. FWF is therefore presently in litigation with the Legislature over that critical issue.
"We need to stop the pollution at its source -- especially run-off upstream from Lake Okeechobee and halt back-pumping of dirty water into the Lake. Moreover, we need to move clean Lake Okeechobee water south and strategically put property owners on central sewer and eliminate septic tanks from sensitive areas," said Preston Robertson, Vice-President/General Counsel, Florida Wildlife Federation. Robertson added that "the Florida Forever program, which was the hallmark of past governors, both Republican and Democrat, should be fully funded."
"Incoming Senate President Joe Negron's efforts to purchase land south of the Lake should be supported. It is well past time to stop kicking this can down the road if we are to save what makes Florida special, economically viable and ecologically sustainable," stated Manley Fuller, FWF President

160824-c
Pagans take a public stand for Florida Everglades
WildHunt.org – by Nathan Hall, Guest Contributor
August 24, 2016
[The Wild Hunt welcomes Nathan Hall as today’s guest journalist . He makes his home in South Florida where he works for a local media company and lives with his wife and soon-to-be first child. He grew up without any real religious background but always felt connected with the spirits of the land. Because of this connection he has always felt a strong kinship with environmental causes and the primacy of nature over humanity’s exploitation of it. Nathan has followed many paths, including ceremonial magick, Norse and Druidic traditions. Recently, he has come into alignment with the Temple of Witchcraft tradition where he is a student in the Mystery School. You can find more of his writing at The Arrival and the Reunion.]
MIAMI, Fla. — “I have a message for anyone who would listen to it, from the spirit of our lady, Florida,” Dayan Martinez begins his presentation, addressing the dire situation of the Everglades. He was a guest presenter, among a handful of speakers, at the Love the Everglades Summer Symposium 2016 held August 6 at Miami’s Miccosukee Resort and Convention Center. Other presenters, representing First Nations, faith groups, local communities, and NGOs, participated as well.
Martinez recalled reaching out during his shamanic journey work when he first made contact with Her – Our Lady Florida.  Martinez had been struggling with his own sense of powerlessness in the face of decades of over-development and environmental upheaval in Florida.
“Goddess is just a word that I use because everyone seems to get the idea that there is a spirit. But she’s enormous in a way, the entire state, from bedrock to clouds,” he said. Since meeting who he refers to as both La Florida and Our Lady Florida, his life has become more focused, with a new sense of purpose.
This is what compelled Martinez to take part in the summer symposium, as not just an activist, but also as a public Pagan. He was joined by friend and fellow community member, Mathew Sydney.
“I believe it was Dayan who in one of these journeys asked:  ‘What can we do for you?’ Her response was, ‘I don’t want candles and offerings of incense and trinkets, I want you to go out there and speak for the environment and take care of the waters,’” Sydney said.
On June 29, Florida governor Rick Scott declared a state of emergency in Martin and St. Lucie counties because of the volume of blue-green algae that had clogged the St. Lucie river and adjoining canal systems and estuaries. The order did little to address the immediate problem, however, mostly just providing additional funds to test water and providing vague instructions to store water in other parts of the Everglades.
The Everglades is a one of a kind ecosystem on the planet, with water slowly moving south toward Florida Bay at a near-glacial pace. Also called the River of Grass, it historically extends from the Kissimmee River basin, just south of Orlando, down through Lake Okeechobee, continuing through the current Everglades National Park and Big Cypress National Preserve out into the Bay, which is hugged by the Florida Keys.
During the push for agricultural land in the 19th century and a development boom that was facilitated by baron-capitalists of the early 20th century, draining the Everglades became an obsession for land owners, sugar and citrus interests, keen on making money off the Sunshine State. After two nasty hurricanes in the 1920’s lead to massive flooding from Lake Okeechobee, the opportunity was seized upon and the federal government stepped in, ordering the Army Corps of Engineers to construct a dike along the southern edge of the lake.
From that point on, the historic flow of the Everglades has been cut off. Canals jut out to the east and west from the lake, and when the water level gets too high, instead of flowing south as it has for countless millennia, it is routed out to the ocean.
This has lead to an ongoing environmental disaster that has been reportedly exacerbated by mismanagement, poor infrastructure, and climate change. It has now culminated in large swaths of blue-green algae overcoming valuable estuaries, smothering wildlife, and sickening residents. According to researchers, restoring the historic flow of the Everglades is the best solution to this problem.
Both Sydney and Martinez came away from the symposium feeling like it was a great first step, but with the realization that there was a lot more work to do. Sydney said, “The speech was very well received, I think that bringing like-minded people together is more important now.” He especially felt that there was a need for more Pagan-identifying folks to be present, saying that he’d love to see an entire panel featuring earth-centered religions as part of future secular environmental gatherings.
“In my evolution I have come to feel that those of us who identify as Pagan or Neopagan, or who practice earth-based faiths, we of all people have to stand up and lead the way to speak on behalf of the manatee, the bear, the dolphin, and the honeybees and all the other creatures who are being impacted,” Sydney said.
In an effort to lay the groundwork for more Pagan-centered activism, the two men have started a new environmental organization called the Pagan Environmental Alliance. The nascent group has already held their first protest, with a uniquely Pagan twist.
“Ritual can be a protest, ritual can be a political statement. So when we gather (in downtown West Palm Beach), we will be making our political-activist point by being ourselves in a spiritual manner. Hopefully that will inspire further types of ritual protest,” Martinez said.
Their first event was a small showing, but they were happy with the outcome. They used Doreen Valiente’s Witches Creed for its ritual structure and theme of stepping out from the shadows and saying what Witches are. They also poured fresh rainwater into the intracoastal waterway between West Palm Beach and the island of Palm Beach and asked that there be an awakening within the Pagan community.
But public ritual and educational symposiums aren’t the only facet of their efforts.
“Another part of what we’re doing, another strategy is guerrilla magick. We’re developing strategies whereby quietly, undercover and surreptitiously we can perform magickal acts. The purpose of which is to restore mankind’s balance with nature,” Sydney said. He said that they’ve already begun covertly utilizing sigil magick in public places.
But, Sydney added that there’s still a good bit of work that needs to be accomplished well within the public’s view. While many Pagans have gotten their start as solitaries and continue their practice alone, he said, “I think that it’s time that (we) put aside all that solitary, private practice and actually become leaders in the community.”
Restoring the natural flow of water in the Everglades system is the goal that Martinez and Sydney have been compelled to do by La Florida, but it won’t come easy. After the economic crisis and subprime mortgage meltdown, which happened between 2008 through 2010, ownership of property in South Florida has moved out of normal, working people’s hands. As home values plummeted, banks, hedge funds, and shady development corporations moved in, consolidating land ownership right into the hands of the people who created the crisis.
These financial juggernauts, as well as Big Sugar, who has actively fought Everglades restoration and contributes to the campaigns of governor Rick Scott and former senator Marco Rubio, are the opponents that Martinez and Sydney will be facing.
Despite the odds against them, the two activists both see a moral imperative to the work that the are doing. “I don’t think that we can continue to call ourselves Pagan and ignore the fact that nature is calling, you know? Nature is asking us to do something for her after she has given us food, shelter, wealth, power and faith. It’s time to give back,” Martinez said.
Sydney feels that Pagans should take a note from those who practice Santeria and indigenous faiths and begin incorporating the idea of reciprocity. “If we want the gods or the spirits or the ancestors to help us with our problems, the mature thing is to have the courage to ask them how we can help them.”
Just this week, Martinez announced on social media that he and Sydney have been asked to be presenters at the fall Florida Pagan Gathering. “We are excited to present on … November 5th,” Sydney said, “Our Lady Florida is ready for us to awaken.”  Martinez also stated that he hopes to take the same workshop around the state in the near future.

160823-a
ADHD policymaking and the proposed Everglades land buy
SunshineStateNews.com – by Nancy Smith
August 23, 2016
How much is too much land for a state to own? 
It was an inevitable question to arise last week within a cracking James Madison Institute session on "environmentalism versus property rights" -- especially with students from each of Florida's universities listening and learning at the JMI Policy Summit.
Sen. Joe Negron's proposal to buy 60,000 acres of sugar growers' farmland to build a reservoir was the 900-pound gorilla in the room.
The answer to the question in the first paragraph probably is, it depends how badly you need it and what your alternatives are. Certainly public ownership of more Florida land wasn't popular last Friday.
Actually, it hasn't been wildly popular in the Florida House either. Though environmental groups and concerned citizens on both coasts are pushing for the state to purchase sugar’s land, legislators -- apart from a handful in South Florida -- do not seem eager to rush into any expensive land deals, especially with millions of dollars already invested in projects aimed to address Florida’s water issues.
And CBS Miami has reported the views of House Speaker Steve Crisafulli, R-Merritt Island: “If we truly want to honor our beautiful state, then we should spend these early years (in the Everglades restoration process) making sure we can maintain the 5.3 million acres of conservation land we already own.”
Sen. Alan Hays, R-Umatilla, the first JMI panelist, wasted no time elevating land in his remarks.
"I'm deeply concerned about the amount of property owned by government and is no longer on the tax rolls," said Hays, a dentist who is leaving the Senate two years ahead of his term limit to run for Lake County property appraiser.
"Every acre that comes off the tax rolls gives governmental officials one of two options: reduce services or raise taxes on the remaining property."
Hays pointed out that Florida's total land mass is about 35 million acres, of which 10.5 million -- around 27 percent -- is already in public ownership and serving a conservation purpose.
In fact, Florida is 14th in a ranking of states with the most public-owned land, behind only one other East Coast state, New York. All the other states with more government control are out West, at least two time zones away.
Hays has had a big role to play in the state's land buying process. Under Senate President Andy Gardiner Hays served as chairman of the Budget Subcommittee on General Government Appropriations and on the Environmental Presentation and Conservation Committee.
He said, "I asked an environmental lobbyist once, 'how much land is enough for Florida to own?' And she said, 'I don't really know ...' So I said, 'Let me put it another way. How much land would you say is too much ?' She said immediately, no hesitation, 'Oh, there's no such thing as too much.' That seems to be the mindset of too many people. Well, I beg to differ."
Hays said he favors reducing the nutrient levels in the lake by capturing and cleaning the dirty water before it gets to "the big O." All called-for in the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP).
"It's the volume of water being discharged," he said. You could put distilled water in that lake you're going to disrupt the balance of those estuaries. The nutrients are only a complication." 
Hays says he's been working with scientists at Lake Apopka who have developed a chemical-free technology. "They can treat 5 million gallons per day for $37,500 It's .75 cents per gallon. That's their price and I haven' seen anything to touch it. It's really, really clean water."
The senator was adamant on scotching the call for Florida to buy more land where it isn't needed. "To me, rather than going out there and buying more private land and building more reservoirs, we need to enhance the reservoir we already have."
Environmental engineer Ernie Barnett, executive director of the Florida Land Council, and Dan Peterson, director of JMI's Center for Property Rights, both talked briefly about the benefit of keeping as much private land as possible out of government's hands -- for no other reason than private owners have an emotional attachment to their land and generally make better stewards of it.
"Once we buy it, it's ours to manage," Barnett said. 
"Florida already owns 120,000 acres north of the lake. There's even deep well disposal space there -- 3,000 to 4,000 feet below ground," he said.
All the panelists, every one of them -- especially Barnett, who designed many of CERP's features for the South Florida Water Management District -- say the state shouldn't waste its money on a new reservoir south of the lake when it owns property there, too. They hope lawmakers will vote to stay the course.
As Sal Nuzzo, JMI's vice president for policy, said during his Friday breakfast address, "The Everglades issue and everything surrounding it -- Lake Okeechobee, the discharges, the algal blooms -- all come down to a challenge we deal with called ADHD policymaking.
"We tend to want to focus on, 'we've got to do something right now,' regardless of whether the something we do right now will fix it or will do more harm than good. ... The issue with the Everglades has to do with decades of policymaking that have impacted an ecosystem, it has to do with several million people who have migrated into an area and the development that's gone into that, and it has do with a promise made by the federal government that has been rescinded, a promise to protect the lake, and a promise to protect the ecosystem and the people that has frankly just been negated. So 25 years of this struggle has gotten us to where we are now. ... There are plans in place to address all of it. They're just not ready right now."
Nuzzo was referring, I think, to Sen. Negron's southern reservoir proposal when he said, "The policy implications of what are being recommended by lots of people have human implications on people, on small businesses, on large businesses, on families, on generations of workers who have made their lives in South Florida. 
"If you live in Florida, I suggest that you educate yourself on what's being done," he said. "The moment we divert from these plans that have been in place for so long and go chasing this squirrel because that's what running across our path right now, then that's when we drop the ball."
If you didn't see it in July, you might want to have a look at the JMI backgrounder, "Solving the Everglades Riddle: Addressing Water Quality and Quantity to Restore a Florida Legacy."
Related:           Glades Community protest Senator Joe Negron        The Clewiston News (Aug.24)

160823-b
Climate change will mean the end of national parks as we know them
RevealNews.net - by Oliver Milman
August 23, 2016
This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
After a century of shooing away hunters, tending to trails and helping visitors enjoy the wonder of the natural world, the guardians of America’s most treasured places have been handed an almost unimaginable new job – slowing the all-out assault climate change is waging against national parks across the nation.
As the National Parks Service has charted the loss of glaciers, sea level rise and increase in wildfires spurred by rising temperatures in recent years, the scale of the threat to U.S. heritage across the 412 national parks and monuments has become starkly apparent.
As the National Parks Service turns 100 this week, its efforts to chart and stem the threat to the country’s history faces a daunting task. America’s grand symbols and painstakingly preserved archaeological sites are at risk of being winnowed away by the crashing waves, wildfires and erosion triggered by warming temperatures.
The Statue of Liberty is at “high exposure” risk from increasingly punishing storms. A national monument dedicated to abolitionist Harriet Tubman, who will be enshrined on a new $20 note, could be eaten away by rising tides in Maryland. The land once walked by Pocahontas and Captain John Smith in Jamestown, the first English settlement in the U.S., is surrounded by waters rising at twice the global average and may be beyond rescue.
These threats are the latest in a pile of identified calamities to befall national parks and monuments due to climate change. Receding ice, extreme heat and acidifying oceans are morphing America’s landscapes and coasts at a faster pace than at any time in human history.
“Yosemite’s famous glacier, once a mile wide, is almost gone,” fretted President Barack Obama during a visit to the vast park in June.
“Rising temperatures could mean no more glaciers in Glacier National Park, no more Joshua trees in Joshua Tree National Park.
“Rising seas can destroy vital ecosystems in the Everglades and at some point could even threaten icons like the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. That’s not the America I want to pass on to the next generation.”
Change, however, is inevitable no matter how quickly greenhouse gas emissions are cut. A National Parks Service study from 2014 found 4 in 5 of America’s national parks are now at the “extreme end” of temperature variables charted since 1901.
“We are starting to see things spiral away now,” said Gregor Schuurman, an ecologist at the National Parks Service’s climate change response program. “We are going to look back at this time and actually think it was a calm period. And then people will start asking questions about what we were doing about the situation.”
Alaska: The front line
There is now a broad new push to work out exactly what heritage is at risk and how to best to react.
If there is a front line, it’s probably found in Alaska. The state has 24 national parks, including Denali, the largest protected park in the U.S. at 6 million acres. It is also part of the Arctic, the fastest-warming region on Earth.
Permafrost, which currently sits underneath 80 percent of Alaska, is beginning to melt, causing sinkholes and landslides. The Northwest coast is being chewed away by almost 150 feet a year in places due to sea level rise aided by wind erosion from more intense storms. Wildfires are increasing, with a lack of snow cover allowing the flames to lick areas that haven’t burned in almost 5,000 years.
These trends imperil treasures such as those found at Cape Krusenstern National Monument on the Northwest coast. It has extensive evidence of human habitation stretching back 9,000 years. The National Parks Service is scrambling to survey the area as inundations are wiping away this heritage, often before archaeologists can document it.
Dael Devenport, an National Parks Service archaeologist based in Anchorage, takes regular helicopter trips to survey the 70-mile coast of the park. There are groups of abandoned houses claimed by the sea and wind, containing items such as lamps, stone tools and ulus – a type of half moon-shaped knife used to skin seals and caribou. The Inupiat people who live in the region have retreated from this part of the coast.
Beach ridges created by years of wave action during storms can be seen as parallel lines in the fall vegetation covering the old gravel. People have lived and traveled on this beach to hunt sea mammals for 5,000 years. Credit: Western Arctic National Parklands/Flickr
“A lot of these sites haven’t been surveyed properly, we are trying to figure out which are most vulnerable and mitigate against that,” Devenport said. “You can see houses that are washing away, if you walk along the coast you see the profile of houses.
“Most people haven’t thought about how climate change affects archeological sites. A site is a snapshot in time, it’s not like we can pick it up and move it somewhere else. We are in danger of losing a great deal.”
The problem is exacerbated by rampant looting of artifacts. A recent survey found almost all of a former settlement of the Thule culture, ancestors of today’s Inuit, had been disturbed and stripped of items such as harpoon tips and figurines carved from walrus ivory. As permafrost melts and walls are washed away, more treasures are revealed to opportunists.
“It’s a big problem,” Devenport acknowledged. “It’s probably done by people from local communities who know where the sites are. They can sell items onto dealers, who can get about $50,000 for a figurine from a buyer in Japan.
“When that artifact has been pulled out from the ground and not documented, we lose all of that information. You’ve lost the whole story behind that item and how it was used.”
‘The longer we wait, the more we lose’
Further south, in the Lower 48 states, a different heritage is at risk. Changing rainfall patterns are affecting a number of parks in the Southwest. Extreme rain events caused two major wall collapses in historic structures at Tumacacori national historical park in southern Arizona.
The structures, built by Spanish missionaries more than 300 years ago, are made from adobe, a type of sun-dried clay. The National Parks Service already devotes 2,500 hours a year to maintain these buildings. However, climate change is placing a further strain on this heritage.
“For the more vulnerable sites, particularly adobe structures which seem to be the canaries in the coal mine in the Southwestern U.S., losses are already rapidly occurring,” said the National Parks Service’s Lauren Meyer, who is heading new research into the issue.
Meyer said there is a “great urgency” to intervene and save cultural sites at risk from a rapidly warming planet. “The longer we wait to act, the more history we lose,” she said.
Conservationists complain about a lack of funding to identify and preserve at-risk sites, but even if these locations could all be propped up and artifacts protected, the changes to the wider ecosystems march on.
Temperature increases vary slightly according to park (the Grand Canyon has warmed on average by 2.4 F since 1916, while the Everglades has heated up by 1.5 F), but the trend is inexorably upwards.
This warming is influencing a complex web of processes in national parks. As John Muir, considered the father of U.S. national parks, put it: “Tug on anything at all and you’ll find it connected to everything else in the universe.”
Climate change is set to alter American forests as much as the arrival of white settlers did. The fire season is expanding dramatically. Some species are suffering, such as the native birds of Hawaii targeted by invasive mosquitos, which are able to survive in higher elevations as the forest habitat warms.
The remaining 65 groves of huge sequoia trees in California, among the largest living things on the planet, could be decimated by a warmer, drier climate. High-elevation species, such as red spruce and balsam fir, could be pushed off the mountains. The tree that gives Joshua Tree National Park its name may not be able to adapt.
Such changes cascade through the food chain. The grizzly bears of Yellowstone like to feast on the cone seeds of the white bark pine, a species under attack from the mountain pine beetle. If warmer winters fail to kill off the beetle, the bears will have to find another food source, impacting other species. A lack of snow for denning will affect bears and wolves; warming river waters will force out the salmon.
“It’s hard to predict exactly what will happen but some systems have been pushed over the threshold, certainly,” said Schuurman.
“We need to recognize that climate change is ongoing and we can only expect the impacts will get stronger time goes on. I tell park managers that whether they are thinking about climate change every day or not, it is likely to find you and tap you on the shoulder. We should take heed of it.”
A pressing question for the National Parks Service is how these changes will go down with the public. Last year was a record, with 305 million visitors to national parks. But Sally Jewell, secretary of the interior, recently warned that a lack of funding to deal with the “existential” threat of climate change, along with unchecked development, will lead to ruin.
Jewell said that current trends mean that the next century will mean “national parks and wildlife refuges will be like postage stamps of nature on a map. Isolated islands of conservation with run-down facilities that crowds of Americans visit like zoos to catch a glimpse of our nation’s remaining wildlife and undeveloped patches of land.”
Some national parks are already looking at how to respond to this potentially diminished future. Parks in the South, for example, may offer nighttime activities such as stargazing or bat spotting.
Visitation could actually jump by nearly 25 percent in 2060 as it warms, according to one forecast. The summer months may become too hot for visitors to parks in the Southwest.
Either way, it will be hard to hide that a trip to the Rocky Mountains in Montana to see Glacier National Park won’t involve seeing any actual glaciers.
“Yes, that will be a visible and dramatic change,” said Schuurman. “Without being blase in any way, people are adaptable, and Glacier National Park without its glaciers will still be a stunningly beautiful place. That said, I think anyone would look back and be sad about the loss.”
The effects of climate change
Temperature rise
Temperatures across U.S. national parks have risen by about 2.4 F in the past century.
Disappearing snow and ice
The number of glaciers at Glacier National Park has halved since 1968. All of the park’s glaciers are on course to completely disappear by the middle of the century.
Sea level rise
Approximately 40 protected sites are at risk from a 1-meter sea level rise, with a National Parks Service analysis calling it “one of the most obvious and most challenging impacts” of global warming. The Everglades could become inundated with salt water, with the ecosystem overwhelmed by invasive species drawn to its changed environment. More powerful storms could endanger the Statue of Liberty, which closed for nine months after Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
Wildfire
The wildfire season in the West is far lengthier than it was in the 1970s. The risk is compounded by shrinking snow abundance – in Yellowstone there is an average of 30 fewer days with snow on the ground compared to the 1960s.
Related:           Protecting the Legacy of Our National Parks Duke Today

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This is how South Florida ends
Gizmodo.com – by Maddie Stone
August 23, 2016
It’s a scorching midsummer day, and the sawgrass is still under a pale blue sky. Waist-deep in water and sinking slowly into the muck, I fend off mosquitoes as a man from South Florida’s Water Management District mixes a bag of salt into a hot tub-sized bucket on the side of the road. Nine metres away in the marsh, another city official wearing waders and a bug hat stands on a narrow steel walkway, dangling the end of a long hose over a plexiglass chamber.
The experiment seems innocuous enough. Seawater is being added to a freshwater wetland, and scientists are observing what happens. The grim subtext is that this same experiment is about to play out in real life and on an enormous scale, from here in the southern Everglades, to Miami 65km east, to the Florida Keys due south. If scientists are correct, much of South Florida will be underwater by the end of the century.
Standing next to me, pulling strands of what looks like a moss-covered scarf out of the water, is Viviana Mazzei, an ecology PhD student at Florida International University. It’s a periphyton mat, she explains, a unique symbiosis of algae, bacteria and other microorganisms that forms the base of the Everglades’ food chain. When the saltwater comes, it’s expected to die, with profound ecological consequences.
“The urgency for doing this work has never been greater,” Tiffany Troxler, the FIU ecologist leading the experiment, told me later that week over the phone. “The Everglades is a world treasure, and we’d like for people to continue coming here to enjoy it for a long time.”
Today, the Everglades is fighting a war. Its adversary — rising sea levels brought on by man-made climate change — is relentless and merciless. It’s coming faster than we think. And unlike an earlier war between man and the so-called river of grass, this fight will have no winners.
The first war on the Everglades began over a century ago, when European colonists arrived in South Florida intending to grow crops and build cities, and instead found themselves wading through a mosquito-infested swamp. It was a dreary, dismal, abominable place, “suitable only for the haunt of noxious vermin, or the resort of pestilential reptiles” according to an early government report.
In other words, it was America’s last frontier, and man’s God-given right to conquer it. And so, men conquered, or at least they tried. For decades, efforts to tame the wetlands proved futile. The tides turned in 1928, when a devastating hurricane flooded Lake Okeechobee — the enormous freshwater reservoir that fed wetlands to south — sending nearly 3000 Everglades pioneers to a watery grave. That disaster prompted the US Army Corps of Engineers to erect an enormous dyke around the lake, cutting off the Everglades’ lifeblood and draining hundreds of thousands of acres for agriculture. East, west and south of Lake Okeechobee, the Army Corps dug thousands of kilometres of levees and canals to move water around in a more orderly fashion.
Fast forward to 2016. The Miami metropolitan area is home to nearly six million people and hundreds of billions of dollars‘ worth of real estate. It’s a popular travel destination, a gateway to Latin America and headquarters to major multinational corporations including Burger King and Office Depot. The gentle creep of freshwater down a 160km-long, 96km-wide river of grass is no more — it’s been replaced by the largest flood control structure in America.
A quick drive inland reveals what subjugation of the Everglades has wrought: An ecosystem in shambles. Reduced to less than half of their former extent and receiving only a third of the freshwater that they used to, most of the remaining wetlands are far too dry. Populations of native birds, fish and reptiles have declined precipitously; invasive species are rampant. Toxic algae blooms are now a summertime tradition. So-called “white zones” — vast expanses of dead vegetation — speckle America’s largest wetland like canker sores.
Still, all of the ecological problems triggered by development and artificial drainage pale in comparison to the existential threat now posed by too much carbon in the atmosphere: Sea level rise.
 “The important thing we have learned from studying the past is that sea level rises in pulses.”
Since 1930, sea levels in South Florida have risen nearly 30cm. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change conservatively predicts another 30cm of global sea level rise this century, as polar ice caps melt and warming seawater expands. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, meanwhile, projects up to 2m of rise.
Hal Wanless, a geologist at the University of Miami who’s spent 50 years documenting the past 18,000 years of sea level changes in South Florida, thinks the highest government projections are too low. “The important thing we have learned from studying the past is that sea level rises in pulses,” he told me when I met him in his office on campus. These pulses, which have caused as much as 10m of sea level rise per century in the recent geologic past, are tied to periods of “rapid ice sheet disintegration” on Greenland and Antarctica.
Wanless believes we’re entering another such period now. And the evidence is certainly mounting. In the late 1980s, scientists were talking about how Greenland might start to melt due to global warming; by the mid 1990s it was already happening. Now, that melt is accelerating. A recent study in Geophysical Research Letters estimates that Greenland lost a trillion tonnes of ice between 2011 and 2014, contributing twice as much to global sea level rise as it did during the prior two decades.
All of this is just the beginning. A recent study in Nature Climate Change concludes that if every nation aggressively reduced its carbon emissions now, we’d still be locked into 30m of sea level rise over the long term.
And when it comes to vulnerable coastlines, South Florida is at the top of the list. Not only is the region very flat and very low, it sits on a porous limestone bedrock built of ancient reef structures. “The analogy most commonly used is Swiss cheese,” Doug Yoder, deputy director of Miami Dade’s Water and Sewer Department, told me. Over thousands of years, acidic rainwater has eaten holes through the limestone, allowing the ocean to bubble up from below.
“You can’t build dykes or sandbars to keep it out,” Coral Gables’ mayor Jim Cason said. As mayor of a city that would have been underwater just a few million years ago, Cason is acutely aware of his community’s tenuous relationship with the sea. He has a saying about South Florida: “Our future is what happens to ice.”
“Many people still don’t get it,” Wanless said, describing an instance when he was called out to Miami Beach’s Public Works Department in 2009. At the time, the city’s now-infamous tidal flooding was just starting to garner attention. Wanless recalled a group of men in suits and ties saying, “Dr Wanless, we’re having a problem. We need to know where to put the water.”
“I said, you can put it anywhere you want,” he told me. “It’s the ocean. It’s arrived.”
The battle against rising sea levels is conspicuous at Miami Beach, which is already spending hundreds of millions of dollars raising its roads and building pumps to divert the invading saltwater into Biscayne Bay. But along South Florida’s wilder coastlines, a more dramatic siege has garnered comparably little attention.
Take Cape Sable, a lonely expanse of marsh, mangrove swamp and white sand beach at the southwest toe of Everglades National Park. Wanless has been trekking out here for decades, and he’s watched the shoreline fall back hundreds of metres. “This is a very dynamic area, and it gives us an inkling of the kinds of changes we’re going to see,” he said.
Cape Sable’s troubles began in the early 20th century, when settlers cut canals to the ocean to drain the inland swamp and gain access for cattle pasture. The land was eventually abandoned, but the canals remained and broadened over time, channeling saltwater into the sawgrass marsh, a freshwater ecosystem. Today, this is causing the marshes’ thick peat soils to collapse.
“You have to understand that these highly organic peat soils we have in the Everglades are a balance between the production of plant matter and the forces breaking that plant matter down,” Steve Davis, an ecologist at the Everglades Foundation, told me. “As these soils become exposed to salt, you strongly tip the balance toward a more rapid breakdown.”
Peat collapse is now being observed at freshwater-starved inland marshes, too, and as seawater continues to invade, the problem will get worse. “The more we look, the more evidence we see,” Davis said. “The rate of elevation loss we could be looking at is potentially dramatic.”
According to Erik Stabenau, an oceanographer with the National Park Service, the issue of whether or not to restore Cape Sable’s collapsed marshes — now open lakes of seawater — is complicated by sea level rise. “We can shut down the flow through the canals so you don’t get saltwater in there,” he said. “And we might be able to manage it for a generation or two. But we’re in the forever business.”
Further east, the ecosystems of Florida Bay are also suffering, thanks to historic drainage problems and modern climate change. Covering 2072 square kilometres between the southern coastline and the Florida Keys, the bay is home to a stunning variety of plants, fish, birds, endangered manatees, bottlenose dolphins, loggerhead sea turtles and American crocodiles. Like a thirstier version of parklands to the north, it receives far less freshwater than it used to.
 “The rate of elevation loss we could be looking at is potentially dramatic.”
If there are too many hot days and not enough rain, salinity levels in Florida Bay skyrocket — which is exactly what happened last autumn following a severe drought. The consequence? Tens of thousands of acres of seagrass wilted and died, blanketing the estuary in a plume of yellow sulfide.
For now, the die-off appears to have ended. But as kilometres upon kilometers of dead seagrass stews in the summer heat, it’s being gobbled up by jellyfish, which excrete nitrogen and phosphorus-rich waste. This, ecologists fear, could trigger an enormous algae bloom, choking out sunlight and sucking the remaining oxygen out of the bay. “It’s sort of a chain reaction that causes the die-off to persist over a long time,” Davis said.
One way or another, it will take the seagrass years to recover. In the meantime, Florida Bay will continue to fight storm surges and rising sea levels at half-health. Whether this means the ocean will plow further inland faster is unclear.
Eventually, the seawater will push inland, and if Wanless is right, eventually is coming soon. This adds urgency to the research of Troxler and her students. After watching a freshwater wetland get hosed down with brine, Mazzei and I drive south to a brackish site, where the same treatment is being applied. Here, the dearth of freshwater caused by recent drought and so many dykes up north has taken a toll. In some places, tufts of sawgrass stand nearly 30cm above the peat; their long white roots exposed like teeth with receding gum lines.
Ben Wilson, an ecology PhD student from Alabama, is out in the muck taking measurements of carbon dioxide, methane and other invisible gases from the saltwater addition plots. These chemical fingerprints, he explains, will help scientists understand how important ecological processes like carbon sequestration will be impacted by rising sea levels.
I ask Wilson if studying a doomed ecosystem gets him down at all. Not really, he says. “If we can learn anything that helps us preserve these ecosystems a little longer, to me that’s worth it.”
One could dismiss the plight of the swamp as trivial compared with the annihilation of entire cities along South Florida’s coastline, but the two are inextricably linked. The millions of people living in the Miami metro area drink from the Biscayne aquifer, a vast freshwater lens underlying much of South Florida. If the Everglades becomes too salty, so will Miami’s water supply. “The extent that these wetlands can hold together is the extent that we get water quality protection,” Troxler said.
Freshwater flows through the Biscayne aquifer in a southeasterly direction, mixing with seawater when it arrives at the coast. But as sea levels rise, the saltwater front is advancing. Already, this has caused a handful of drinking wells at Hallandale Beach to become contaminated. With another 20cm of rise, more than half of the flood control structures built to keep the seawater at bay could become useless. “Gravity is just not going to work as well as it used to,” Yoder said.
There is, however, a way to buy the communities of South Florida time: By restoring the flow of freshwater from the north to push back against the rising seas. And that’s exactly what Everglades conservationists have been fighting to do for decades.
A 20km west of Miami, the strip malls peter out and give way to expansive meadows of sawgrass, marking the edge of Everglades National Park. If you want to cross the park to catch a boat tour out of Everglades City, there’s only one direct route — the Tamiami trail.
Cutting straight across the park like a pencil line etched into a pastel landscape of muted greens and browns, the Tamiami trail was considered a feat of engineering when it was laid down in the 1920s. Now, as with many other legacies of South Florida’s development boom, it’s clear the highway has inflicted untold harm on the Everglades.
A canal roughly the width of the highway itself rims the Tamiami’s north-facing side, catching freshwater and diverting it east, to aquifers along the coast. “The Tamiami trail has become an obstruction to north-south water flow — it basically acts as a dam,” Julie Hill Gabriel, director of Everglades policy for Audubon Florida, told me. “One of our big challenges is, how do you get that obstruction out of the way?”
For now, the solution lies in raising parts of the road so that water can flow underneath. A 1.6km section of the so-called Tamiami bridge was completed in 2013, and construction of another 5km segment could begin this autumn in the US (spring in Australia). Eventually, the US federal government plans to extend the bridge up to 10km.
It’s a major symbolic victory for conservationists, but in reality the Tamiami bridge is a small piece of what’s needed to solve the Everglades’ water problems. The fundamental issue is that not enough fresh water comes south from Lake Okeechobee anymore — and that problem calls for more complex and costly engineering solutions.
 “Putting that water back certainly buys us time. It certainly buys us environmental resilience.”
That’s where the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) comes in. Formally launched in 2000, this multi-decade, Army Corps-led effort to restore the Everglades by putting the water back where it needs to be was initially pegged as a $US10.5 billion ($13.8 billion) project. Nearly 20 years in, it’s been plagued by delays and budget cuts, fought by agricultural lobbies and remains nowhere near completion. Meanwhile, the estimated cost of CERP has soared.
One of the biggest challenges facing Everglades restoration is simply acquiring land south of Lake Okeechobee, in what’s known as the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA). “We need big, engineered wetlands,” Zack Jud of the Florida Oceanographic Society told me. “Instead of flowing billions of gallons of water [from Lake Okeechobee] to the coast, we need to send it through filtration marshes, so that by the time it gets to the south, it’s clean enough to give to the Everglades.”
But most of the land that could store water to send into these wetlands is owned by several politically powerful sugar companies, who like South Florida’s plumbing the way it is.
In 2014, after a large parcel of land south of the lake went on the market, Floridians voted overwhelmingly in support of Amendment 1, which earmarked hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars for its purchase. Instead, the state took that money and used it to purchase anything and everything else in the name of conservation. They even gave some of it directly to farmers. Environmentalists place the blame squarely on the sugar lobby.
“Amendment 1 was misappropriated, and we did not get the opportunity to buy land south of the lake,” Jud said. “The governor sided with the sugar industry.”
Despite recent setbacks, proponents of Everglades restoration are encouraged by the public support their cause has garnered. It’s now widely agreed that moving more freshwater south is the best (and perhaps only) shot at revitalising the Everglades — stopping peat collapse, preventing seagrass die-offs and allowing more natural ecological transitions to occur as climate change progresses.
What’s more, with rising sea levels threatening to wipe South Florida off the map, a healthy Everglades could be the last line of defence. “You could say Everglades restoration is a waste of money because it’s all going to be drowned anyhow,” Wanless said. “But if you can have a more reliable, higher level of freshwater running through the Everglades, and the wetlands can build up peat again, you can keep the saltwater encroachment at bay better. And that’s worth it’s weight in gold.”
“Putting that water back certainly buys us time,” Stabenau said. “It certainly buys us environmental resilience. Does it solve the problem forever? I don’t think sea level is going to come up just a few inches and stop. But if it turns out down the road that we have engineering solutions to climate issues and water problems, we’re buying ourselves time to figure that out.”
On my last day in the Everglades, I took a tour of Ten Thousand Islands, a swampy archipelago rimming Florida’s southwest coast. For thousands of years, Native Americans lived here like kings, feasting off oysters, crabs, lobsters and fish. Peregrine falcons soared overhead as our airboat navigated tufts of land held together by twisted mangrove roots. The silhouettes of sausage-shaped manatees appeared and faded again. A bottlenose dolphin caught our boat’s wake and followed it, leaping in and out of the water as my tour guide made sharp turns to kick up surf.
In this tattered mosaic of water and land, the Everglades is still wild. The existential threats I’d spent the last week learning about seemed to fade into irrelevance. It was difficult to imagine how humans could destroy something so vast.
My guide seemed to share this view. The rise and fall of the sea, he said, was something that city folk in Miami worried about. Out here, the will of the ocean was inevitable, as much a part of the fabric of life as the rise and fall of the sun.
Florida will be underwater again someday, probably no matter what we do. But right now, on timescales that matter to people, it is people who will decide its fate.
As black-bottomed storm clouds rolled in, we hurried back to the shore.

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Updated Lake O Discharge Information
Jacqui Thurlow-Lippisch blog - by Gary Goforth
August 23, 2016
Since January 1:
●  178 billion gallons of polluted Lake water has been discharged to the St. Lucie estuary, equal to 24% of all Lake discharges. This foul water dumped millions of pounds of pollution into the estuary:
●  247,000 pounds of phosphorus
●  2.4 million pounds of nitrogen
●  47.5 million pounds of sediment
●  372 billion gallons of polluted Lake water has been discharged to the Caloosahatchee estuary, equal to 50% of all Lake discharges. This foul water dumped millions of pounds of pollution into the estuary:
●  325,000 pounds of phosphorus
●  4.7 million pounds of nitrogen
●  19.3 million pounds of sediment
●  21.4 billion gallons of polluted Lake water has been discharged to the Lake Worth Lagoon, equal to 3% of all Lake discharges.
●  45.4 billion gallons of treated Lake water has been discharged to the Everglades, equal to 6% of all Lake discharges, and 60% less than last year at this time.
●  12.6 times more Lake water has been sent to the estuaries than to the Everglades
Despite the high pollution load from the Lake to the St. Lucie estuary in 2016, agricultural runoff has contributed about 70% more phosphorus pollution, and almost as much nitrogen pollution.
 (Diagrams are accessible on the original web-site). More info at: http://www.garygoforth.net/Other%20projects.htm

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Lake Okeechobee wildlife shows there’s more than just algae
PCPalm.com
August 22, 2016
Lake Okeechobee has been the Ugly Duckling of Florida's lakes lately. But as any local will tell you, it's not solely a 730-square-mile cesspool of algae.
Yes, the middle part of the lake has a polluted mud bottom that gives rise to the notorious algae blooms that flow into the St. Lucie River and harm our estuaries. But there is another part of the lake, an area that lies at the edges — a collection of marshes with cleaner water where fish, plants and wildlife still thrive.
On Aug. 13, two groups from Audubon of Martin County took a two-hour tour aboard the Marsh Beast, a 15-seat airboat piloted by captain Kenny Elkins.
"The lake definitely has its problems, but it also has tremendous wildlife. We wanted to show people both sides of the lake today," said John Nelson, president of Audubon of Martin County and organizer of the field trip.
An osprey watched from a light pole as Elkins loaded visitors in the airboat near the Okee-Tantie Marina on the northwest side of the lake.
The roar of the motor scattered herons and egrets into the sky as the boat made its way southwest to the marshes. Common and purple gallinules hopped along lily pads as their chicks hurried to keep up.
The highlight of the field trip was delivered by Dr. Paul Gray, science coordinator of the Everglades Restoration Program for Audubon Florida, who spotted a "nearly impossible to spot" least bittern nest. It's the smallest wading bird in North America and quite shy.
"They don't bring in nesting material like other wading birds do," said David Simpson, a bird guide and environmental consultant. "They will pick a place in the cattails and bulrushes and just pull the vegetation in around them."
For a sweltering day in mid-August, the nesting least bittern was an exciting find.
"I noticed everybody had big cameras and all I had was my iPhone camera," said Alison Sharp, of Port St. Lucie, a novice birder on the trip. "And then I thought, let me just be present and observe what's happening. To see that bird sitting in the reeds just quietly protecting its nest and giving it shade — it was so peaceful, just spectacular."

160822-b
Notable milestone
TimesArgus.com
August 22, 2016
This weekend, the president used his weekly address to put focus on our national parks, which celebrate its centennial this year.
We have another president to thank for that.
Theodore Roosevelt, often called “the conservation president” because of his role in saving land nationwide and having a profound effect on the National Park System, also enacted the Antiquities Act of June 8, 1906. That act enabled Roosevelt and succeeding presidents to proclaim historic landmarks, historic or prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest in federal ownership as national monuments. He interpreted the authority expansively, protecting a large portion of the Grand Canyon as a national monument in 1908. By the end of his term Roosevelt had reserved six predominantly cultural areas and twelve predominantly natural areas in this manner. Half of the total land area was initially administered by the Agriculture Department and was later transferred to Interior Department jurisdiction, since the National Park Service would not be created until 1916.
On Saturday, President Obama, whose administration has protected more than 265 million acres of public lands and waters — more than any administration in history — praised the park system for its ongoing efforts, and called for more protections of our national treasures.
“Our more than 400 parks and other sites capture our history and our sense of wonder. As FDR once said: ‘There is nothing so American as our national parks … the fundamental idea behind the parks… is that the country belongs to the people.’”
This month, the nation is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service. At Acadia National Park in Maine, the milestone has been marked with additional programming and events. Closer to home, Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park and the Green Mountain National Forest have also kept busy schedules.
Obama urged us all to “find your park.” Because, he cautioned, there are threats to them.
“The threat of climate change means that protecting our public lands and waters is more important than ever. Rising temperatures could mean no more glaciers in Glacier National Park. No more Joshua trees in Joshua Tree National Park. Rising seas could destroy vital ecosystems in the Everglades, even threaten Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.
“So in the coming years and decades, we have to have the foresight, and the faith in our future, to do what it takes to protect our parks and protect our planet for generations to come. Because these parks belong to all of us. And they’re worth celebrating – not just this year, but every year,” Obama said in his address.
The president is correct. We need to see these places, and learn about what makes them so unique. And we need to understand our role in their future. “We’ve got more work to do to preserve our lands, culture, and history. So we’re not done yet,” he said.
Throughout the year, the National Park Service is expanding outreach and programming. A multimedia marketing campaign is under way, and cable networks, including PBS, have been broadcasting series about our national parks, monuments and historic sites.
One hundred years actually does not feel like a long time in the timeline of our nation. But it is significant, and it is notable. At a time when we struggle politically to find our identity and define our future, it is comforting to know there are places we can go that are fundamentally American. And ours.

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Water farming
PCPalm.com - by Camille Yates
August 22, 2016
Maintaining delicate balance
Since the late 1940s, Florida’s water resources have been overseen by the federal government as well as state agencies. Levee and canal systems in central and southern Florida were built to provide flood control and enhance water supply for municipal, industrial and agricultural uses.
The Central and Southern Florida Project, first authorized by Congress in 1948, has performed its authorized functions well.
However, the project has had unintended adverse effects on the unique and diverse environment that constitutes south Florida ecosystems, including the Everglades and the Indian River Lagoon.
Balance protection, supply
The Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) is a federal effort approved by Congress through the Water Resources Development Act of 2000 to balance environmental protection while still maintaining water supply and flood protection.
It includes more than 60 elements, will take more than 30 years to construct and was originally estimated to cost $7.8 billion.
Since conditions in the lagoon have deteriorated rapidly, especially in 2013, alternatives other than what is specifically outlined in CERP are being pursued. The South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) is now seeking the help of private land owners to store water on their land that would otherwise be flushed into the lagoon.
“Every little bit helps when you have private land owners willing to store water on their property,” said Randy Smith, spokesperson for the SFWMD. “Otherwise, it will go out into the lagoon.”
Thousands of acres of citrus groves are sitting fallow because of recent diseases that negatively impact all types of citrus trees.
“Citrus canker and greening have hurt the industry,” said Ronald L. Edwards, president and CEO of Evans Properties. “Most citrus growers aren’t replanting until cures for these diseases are found.”
Water farmers hold water
The plight of the citrus industry caused growers to seek alternative uses for their land.
In Evans’ case, it is important to the company that any alternative use of its land is sustainable and designed to continually renew both the property and the surrounding community. That is one of the reasons why Evans is interested in water farming.
“Most groves have dikes built around them to keep water out,” said Edwards. “We have pumping systems in place and berms that are designed to move water in and out of the groves.”
Rather than keeping water out of the groves, private land owners such as Evans, are now looking at storing water in their fallow fields until a cure for citrus diseases are found.
“It’s easy to seal off the groves and not allow water to escape,” said Edwards. “We won’t allow it to drain and can pump it up and hold water that would normally go to the lagoon.”
Possible limited expense
Evans has 10,000 to 12,000 acres in Martin, St. Lucie and Okeechobee counties that can be used to hold water. “By retaining the water, we leave nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen in the grove,” said Edwards. “We can do this with limited capital expenses.”
According to Smith, the SFWMD encourages water farming on private lands by helping to pay the cost to build up the berms, if need be, and will pay the fuel costs for pumping the water in.
Recently, Evans responded to a request for proposals from the district to enter into a water farming agreement to store water on 970 acres on land in St. Lucie County that abuts the C-24 Canal.
No quick fixes
“There aren’t any quick fixes for the lagoon,” said Edwards. “But one we can do fairly quickly is to store water on our land. Storing 1 to 2 feet of water could mean 15,000 to 60,000 acre-feet of water not going to the lagoon during significant rain periods.”
33,000 swimming pools’ worth
Evans is also proposing to store water on another piece of land that is near the turnpike in St. Lucie and Indian River counties and abuts the C-25 Canal. They want to trap and store 67,000 acre-feet of water (the equivalent of 33,000 Olympic size swimming pools) per year that currently goes to the lagoon through SFWMD canal systems. According to a recent study, the project would keep about 21 billion of gallons of water a year from entering the lagoon.
“We (the landowners) control our own water all of the time,” said Edwards. He explained that if more water was stored on private lands, the large, intermittent discharges coming from Lake Okeechobee might not affect the lagoon as much.
The project Evans is proposing includes not just a water retention area, but also a Stormwater Treatment Area (STA). “The STA will clean the water before it enters the lagoon,” said Edwards. “We can also use the water as a connection to municipalities that will not have enough water in the future.”
Renewable water source
Edwards said that ground water supplies in the aquifer are limited and the only other options for increased water supply are above-ground storage or desalinization. The Evans project could generate approximately 57 million gallons of surface water a day to serve as a renewable source of water for surrounding communities that currently rely on groundwater withdrawal.
Water cleaning
Edwards is also involved in developing alternative technologies for cleaning water. He is chairman and CEO of AquaFiber Technologies Corp. In its fifth year of testing, the company’s new technology removes phosphorus, nitrogen, and many other harmful pollutants from surface waters, according to Edwards.
AquaFiber has demonstrated at its pilot project facility on Lake Jesup that the company’s AquaLutions technology can meet or exceed the new numeric nutrient water standards developed by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and United States Environmental Protection Agency for Florida, Edwards said.
“We can use this alternative technology to help reduce the acreage needed for STAs,” said Edwards. As an example, if an STA needed 2,000 acres to clean water, with an AquaLutions facility onsite, the area needed for an STA would be go from 2,000 to 800 acres. The remaining 1,200 acres could be used for water storage, Edwards explained.
“Water farming, storm water treatment reservoirs and alternative technology are all part of the tool box of things that can go to help clean polluted water that enters natural systems,” said Edwards.

160821-a
Palm Beach council to lawmakers: Speed up plan for Lake O reservoirs
PB Daily News - by Aleese Kopf, Staff Writer
August 21, 2016
Town Council members agreed this week to adopt a resolution urging federal and state officials to spend more money on and speed up work to store, treat and move clean water to and from Lake Okeechobee.
Experts say reservoirs north and south of the lake will help alleviate harmful discharges to Everglades National Park, Florida Bay and other coastal estuaries. Discharges from the lake contributed to a blue-green algae outbreak earlier this summer.
Specifically, the resolution urges lawmakers to speed up planning for water storage reservoirs south of the lake in the Everglades Agricultural Area, to speed up repair of the Herbert Hoover Dike and to eliminate septic tanks in the region.
Representatives from the sugar industry attended Tuesday’s council meeting to oppose the resolution, which was changed last-minute to include mention of the Everglades Agricultural Area.
“Reservoirs (south of Lake Okeechobee) would not significantly reduce discharges to the coastal estuaries,” said Barbara Miedema, vice president of communications for Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida. “They would only hold back 12 percent of lake water or 6 percent of the total amount of water going into estuaries. That is not the solution. The solution is focusing north of the lake, finishing the projects on the book, finishing the rehab of the dike.”
Miedema, who represents dozens of farmworker members, said taking away land from growers to build reservoirs would devastate the Glades community.
Gaston Cantens, vice president of Florida Crystals, agreed the solution is north of the lake, not south.
“We have lost 100,000 acres of agricultural land in Palm Beach County in the past 20 years,” he said. “The government owns land north and south of the lake. Why do we need to buy more land ?”
The government has a backlog of projects that have been approved but not paid for, Cantens said.
“There is work being done,” he said. “There are projects that have been authorized. There are projects that have been approved for many years. What we need is funding for those projects, not just more planning south of the lake and more land acquisition.”
Lisa Interlandi, lead attorney for the Everglades Law Center, who attended the council meeting last month when members discussed blue-green algae, said storage south of the lake is critical to fixing the decades worth of problems in the Everglades. She said there isn’t enough room for storage north of the lake and the South Florida Water Management District doesn’t plan to buy more land north of the lake.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers isn’t scheduled to start planning for water storage in the Everglades Agriculture Area until 2021.
“We cannot afford to wait,” Interlandi said. “We clearly have the need, the science supports it, we have the funding with Legacy Florida to move it forward. We just need the will to actually get the state to take this action. We’re just asking to expedite planning of an already existing project.”
Legacy Florida is a bill that requires the state to set aside up to $200 million a year for Everglades restoration projects over the next 20 years.
The Corps has said it is prepared to initiate the southern storage study quickly, once a “non-federal sponsor” is identified.
Council members unanimously passed the resolution. Council President Michael Pucillo said it’s worded in a way that is not “particularly controversial.”
“We’re talking about expediting planning,” added Councilwoman Bobbie Lindsay. “We’re not asking them to buy land.”

160821-b
Project to improve water flow to Everglades
OkeechobeeNews.net - by Katrina Elsken
August 21, 2016
CLEWISTON — John Boy Auditorium in Clewiston was packed to standing room only Aug. 16 for a meeting about the Western Everglades Restoration Project (WERP). The project is at the start of a three-year planning process, and the public scoping meeting allowed members of the public to give their input.
WERP is part of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP). It will be done simultaneously with the Lake Okeechobee Watershed Project (LOW) which will store and clean water north of the lake.
Matt Morrison, Everglades Policy & Coordination Chief with the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) explained the project’s goals:
• Restore and improve seasonal hydroperiods and freshwater distribution to support a natural mosaic of wetland and upland habitat in the western Everglades ecosystem;
• Reestablish and improve sheetflow patterns, surface water depths, and durations in the study area to reduce soil subsidence and the frequency of damaging peat fires; and,
• Reduce water loss out of the natural system to prevent over-drainage and improve ground and surface water elevations.
He explained that CERP was planned in 1999 with 68 component projects to be implemented over 30 years. Some projects are at or near completion. For example, the Kissimmee River Restoration is part of CERP.
He said in the WERP component, water managers will look at revised operations, removing barriers to flow and opportunities to fill in some canals to restore historic sheetflow in some areas.
“We also need ways to store water for the dry season, instead of sending it to tide,” he said.
One goal of CERP is to partially restore the watershed’s historic flow. The flow cannot be completely restored, because of all of the people, homes, businesses and farms that are now part of the system.
A century of ditching, dredging and draining have vastly changed the flow of water.
Mr. Morrison said the Kissimmee River was once a twisted, meandering river. In the rainy season, the river would overflow the banks over hundreds of acres of floodplain. The water would flow slowly into Lake Okeechobee, and when Okeechobee spilled over it’s southern banks, the water would flow into the Everglades.
Following devastating hurricanes in the late 1920s, the lake was contained by the 30-foot high Herbert Hoover Dike, for flood protection.
Following extensive flooding in the 1940s, the Kissimmee River was channelized into a deep, straight channel, also for flood protection.
Before humans entered the system, he explained, Lake Okeechobee had no connection to the St. Lucie on the east.
On the west, the lake was only connected to the Caloosahatchee River by a series of shallow marshes. The initial dredging that connected both rivers to the lake was part of a liquid highway, dug in the 1880s, long before the area had reliable roads.
Projects that followed, straightened the Caloosahatchee River and deepened the canals for flood control and to drain land for development.
CEPR projects will restore some of the historic flow, sending less water east and west, and more water south.
Kelly Keefe, of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), explained that WERP will be connected to Lake Okeechobee by a canal. She said it will be possible to use the canal connection to relieve Lake Okeechobee of some of the high water levels.
“It will make the water flow more naturally and reconnect this area with the greater Everglades,” she explained.
The plans will be designed to make sure the water is on the land where it should be, when it should be and for as long as it should be, she said.
“We have discovered that sheet flow is important to the system,” she said.
Restoring sheet flow will reduce the loss of soil to erosion, and reduce the incidence of peat fires.
While the study area is 920 square miles, she explained they do not yet know how much land will be required for the projects, or how much of that property is already owned by the state.
“It’s a large scale ecosystem project,” she said.
“The big CERP plan is a lot of projects that work together like a big jigsaw puzzle,” she said. “We want to improve the systemwide operational functionality.
“Every time we put another piece in the puzzle, we improve flexibility,” he said.
The planning process for WERP is expected to take 36 months, explained Andrew LoShiavo, also with USACE. He said public input will be sought throughout the planning process. The next opportunity for public input will be at the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Task Force Meeting on Aug. 23, at the John Boy Auditorium in Clewiston from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Some members of the public at the meeting appeared frustrated that the UUSACE and SWFMD officials could not provide details on the plan such as the exact amount of land that will be needed and how much of that land is already owned by the state. The preliminary study area includes some residential areas, some farmland and part of the Big Cypress Preserve as well as land belonging to the Miccosukee Tribe and the Seminole Tribe.
Hendry County Commissioner Janet Taylor said the Clewiston community supports CERP. She said they support projects that are scientifically proven.
Unfortunately, she said, some activists are threatening the progress of CERP by demanding state funding to be allocated to other, unproven plans that involve buying large tracts of land currently used for sugar cane farming.
“Our communities are not for sale,” Commissioner Taylor said.
“I believe the CERP should be funded and completed,” said Clewiston City Commissioner Mali Gardner, adding that she is especially concerned about the repairs needed to the Herbert Hoover Dike.
Clewiston Mayor Philip Roland called for water storage and cleaning north of Lake Okeechobee.
“The Kissimmee River Valley covers 5,500 square miles that all dump water into Lake Okeechobee,” he said.
“Until you control that 95 percent of the water that comes into Lake Okeechobee, you cannot control the south,” he said.
“Let Orlando and everything south share the adversity,” he said.
Paul McGeeHee of Glades Electric Co-op noted that part of the area under consideration for the WERP includes Glades Electric customers and infrastructure. He asked for assurance that the members of the co-op will not be on the hook for costs of moving the infrastructure.
“Please keep us in the loop,” Mr. McGeeHee said.
Vivian Haney, the reigning Miss Sugar, said taking farmland out of production would cost jobs, and could destroy the economy of the Clewiston community. She said the farmers support the science-based projects in CERP.
“It’s about time you are waking up,” said Bobby Billie of the Miccosukee Tribe. He said if we don’t preserve the natural land, there will be nothing left for future generations.
The original Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) project identified to restore and reconnect the western Everglades ecosystem was called the Big Cypress/L-28 Interceptor Modification. The purpose of this project, as defined within the CERP, is to reestablish sheetflow from the West Feeder Canal across the Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation and into Big Cypress preserve, maintain flood protection on Seminole Tribal lands, and ensure that inflows to the North and West Feeder Canals meet applicable water quality standards.
Project features considered under CERP include modification of levees and canals, water control structures, pumps, and stormwater treatment areas with a total storage capacity of 7,600 acre-feet located within and adjacent to the Miccosukee and Seminole Indian Reservations in Collier and Hendry Counties. This CERP component will serve as the starting point for the WERP and will be refined through the planning process.
Comments are currently being accepted on the project through Aug.24, 2016, and can be sent electronically to:  Western.Everglades@usace.army.mil.
Or, comments can be mailed to:
Melissa Nasuti, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Jacksonville District
P.O. Box 4970, Jacksonville, FL 32232-0019

160820-a
Common goals key to Everglades restoration
News-Press.com – by Lonnie Howard, Professional Engineer and president of Johnson Engineering, Inc.
August 20, 2016
A little more than 15 years ago, an unlikely coalition of individuals, organizations and government entities came together to launch the largest and most ambitious environmental restoration project in the history of our nation – restoration of America’s Everglades. The diverse alliance included Republicans and Democrats, elected officials and regulators, federal, state, and local officials, farmers and environmentalists, businessmen and scientists.
Despite their differences, this group joined forces behind the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan because they all recognized the importance of restoration to Florida’s environment, economy, and quality of life.  Returning a more natural flow of water to the famed River of Grass would revive the natural habitat, which is home to nearly 70 threatened and endangered plant and animal species.  Restoring the vast wetland hydrology would also increase recharge to the Biscayne aquifer that serves as the primary source of drinking water to more than six million Floridians.
Florida led the way. In 2000, Florida enacted the Everglades Restoration Investment Act – a bill backed by a bipartisan majority in the Legislature and signed by Republican Gov. Jeb Bush. Under the law, the state promised to pay 50% of the cost of restoration, and lawmakers backed that commitment with $2 billion in state and local funding to jumpstart restoration.  That same year, Florida also enacted the Lake Okeechobee Protection Act, which provided $38 million to improve water quality in the state’s largest water body.
Soon after, the U.S. Congress passed the Water Resources Development Act of 2000 with overwhelming bipartisan support – 394 to 14 in the House of Representatives and 81 to 1 in the Senate.  In December of that year, Democratic President Bill Clinton, joined in the Oval Office by Bush, congressional leaders and environmental activists, signed the bill into law.
In the years that followed, restoration made steady progress.  Florida has fulfilled its financial commitment with double the contributions made by the federal government to date.  Restoration projects from the Kissimmee River to Biscayne Bay have been implemented to improve hydrology and water quality across the entire the Greater Everglades and coastal estuaries.  More than 250,000 acres of sensitive environmental land has been acquired to advance restoration and nearly 60,000 acres of man-made marshes have been constructed to reduce phosphorus concentrations in water flowing into the Everglades. Large reservoirs, like the recently constructed 20 billion gallon A-1 Flow Equalization Basin, and pumping stations, like S-401 for the C-44 reservoir (which can move over 710 million gallons per day) that is under construction are used to move and store water in the right place at the right time.
Unfortunately, some activist groups are attempting to undermine the future of Everglades restoration.  A campaign is underway to divert money and resources from critical projects to unnecessary land acquisition south of Lake Okeechobee.  Scientists and engineers at state agencies and academic institutions have stated that, for many technical reasons, acquisition of these lands is not the best strategy for meeting restoration goals.  The land acquisition effort targets farmers who have been instrumental in the success of Everglades restoration to date.
Last year, farmers cut phosphorus concentrations leaving their farmland by a record 79 percent.  Because of improved farming practices, over the last 20 years the overall average annual amount of phosphorus entering the Everglades has been reduced by 56 percent, more than twice the required amount.  Although phosphorus is naturally occurring in the muck soils south of the lake, an excess of the nutrient can alter the natural balance of the ecosystem, fueling the growth of vegetation.
The success of Everglades restoration proves that bold reform and significant infrastructure projects can be adopted and advanced when people with different perspectives come together behind a common goal.  It would be disappointing, and even disastrous, if a small group of vocal activists derailed implementation of this critical environmental restoration project.  Now more than ever, we need to reunite and renew our commitment to finish the job that was started nearly two decades ago – restoring a more natural flow of water to America’s Everglades and coastal estuaries through accelerated funding and completion of already planned and approved projects.

160820-b
County: Can a Big Sugar lobbyist represent Keys ?
FLkeysNews.com - by Kevin Wadlow
Monroe County commissioners, on record endorsing a freshwater storage area south of Lake Okeechobee to improve water flows into the Everglades, want to know where their paid lobbyist stands.
Commissioner Danny Kolhage said at Wednesday’s meeting in Key West that he would not vote to keep Tallahassee lobbyist Frank Bernardino’s firm on a county contract.
“They represent Big Sugar,” Kolhage said of the firm. “That’s an inherent conflict and I cannot vote for it.”
The large sugar-producing companies, collectively described by critics as Big Sugar, have objected to a proposed massive water-storage in the Everglades Agricultural Area south of Lake Okeechobee.
Everglades advocates contend such a water conservation area is critical to cleaning fresh water of agricultural runoff before sending the needed water south to the Everglades and Florida Bay.
County Administrator Roman Gastesi said Bernardino’s firm has multiple employees who can lobby for different issues. “These guys are professional and in high demand,” Gastesi said.
Bernardino was credited by board members with excellent work in securing passage of the Florida Keys Stewardship Act during the Florida Legislature’s winter session. That law sets aside some state money for environmental projects.
Commissioner George Neugent said the uncertain situation with the lobbyist also “gives me a bit of heartburn.”
“Where is he going to be on this issue? Is he not on our side?” Neugent said. “We could find ourselves in a potentially embarrassing conflict.”
“If there’s a question between what Big Sugar pays him and what we pay him...,” Kolhage said, letting the question trail off.
Gastesi said he would get a written response from Bernardino.
U.S. Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-Miami and the Keys) stopped by the meeting to offer his support for Everglades restoration. “We all know how urgent this has become. It’s an environmental issue and also an economic issue. We need Florida Bay to be healthy,” Curbelo said.

160820-c
Lake Okeechobee: a time warp for polluted water
The Miami Herald – by Jenny Staletovich
August 20, 2016
OKEECHOBEE, Fla. - - For all the things that change in South Florida — the skyline, the swelling population, sea level — one thing has remained remarkably constant:  pollution in Lake Okeechobee.
In 1985, 500 metric tons of phosphorus flowed into the lake. Last year, the total was 450 tons. In the years between, amounts of the damaging nutrient went up and down but nearly always remained three to four times higher than a target the state set in 2000. At a meeting in March, just before another algae bloom slimed the Treasure Coast following massive releases of polluted lake water, the state's own scientists concluded that there had been no improvement at all.
Despite decades of planning and promises, Florida lawmakers, governors and agencies have never gotten close to cleaning up the largest lake in the Southeast U.S. — the "liquid heart" of South Florida's water supply system. The reasons are many, but they come down to one thing, said Paul Gray, Audubon Florida's Lake Okeechobee science director.
"It's really easy to explain," he said. "They didn't do enough to fix it."
Florida — under the pressure of a landmark federal lawsuit — has made slow but significant strides in reducing pollution from sugar fields south of the lake.
But to the north, with no judge monitoring things, there has been little progress.
A 2000 law promising to spend $175 million to help farmers and ranchers control phosphorus doled out just $3 million. Seven years later a plan that would have created about a million acre-feet of storage north of the lake got swallowed in the recession and abandoned by a new governor. Critics say state laws favor "best management" goals for many agricultural operations instead of enforceable standards, and include loopholes like one allowing largely unregulated use of treated sewage sludge, high in nutrients, on farm fields. Meanwhile, suburbs that produce even more phosphorus than farms continue to expand around booming Orlando.
And this year, after failing to meet the law's 2015 deadline to get phosphorus loads into the lake down to 140 tons, state lawmakers simply set a new deadline — 20 years from now.
Rep. Matt Caldwell, a North Fort Myers real estate appraiser who sponsored the law, told the Miami Herald at the time that the blown deadline was never meant for fixing the lake, just coming up with a plan. "That would be a ridiculous presumption," he said, given the lake's complexity.
But Estus Whitfield, who served under governors Bob Graham, Bob Martinez and Lawton Chiles on Everglades clean-up, said lawmakers are engaging in revisionist history. The goal was always to cap lake pollution, he said. "That was pretty clear."
The state is now scrambling to play catch-up, expediting two vast reservoirs for coastal estuaries and giving emergency approval in July to $2.6 million for improvements. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers also launched a planning effort to increase storage north of the lake last month. But solutions won't be quick. Planning alone will take three years, news that drew groans from both farmers and environmentalists at a crowded meeting in Okeechobee last month.
This week, incoming Senate President Joe Negron, a Republican from Stuart whose district has been repeatedly hammered by lake-triggered algae blooms, also stepped in with a $2.4 billion proposal to buy 60,000 acres of sugar farms to build reservoirs that could reduce dumps to the two coasts. The proposal, which calls for splitting the cost with the federal government, will face considerable political opposition.
Phosphorus, a naturally occurring element that is also a key nutrient in fertilizer, has always existed in the lake. It's the stuff that helped create the rich muck to the south that built a $677 million-a-year sugar industry. The problem is when too much piles up.
Historically, water flowed south from the Kissimmee River basin, collecting phosphorus from the surrounding wetlands. It streamed into a lake a third larger than it is now and regularly overflowed into an Everglades that was twice as big. But when the Kissimmee River was straightened in the 1960s, water flowed much faster, sending too much phosphorus too fast, like a giant sewer pipe.
A 30-foot high dike, built to protect communities and fields, also stopped excess water from spilling south into the Glades. So now when the lake rises higher than the dike or lake aquatic life can handle, water managers flush water to the coasts.
Then things get worse.
The releases send huge amounts of freshwater into coastal saltwater estuaries that mix with local run-off rich in nitrogen and local phosphorus. The results: putrid blue-green algae. So much phosphorus has concentrated in the lake's mucky bottom over the decades that even if no more were added, scientists say it could take another 50 years to reach water quality targets.
South of the lake, Florida already has a working model of how to reduce phosphorus pollution.
To settle a federal lawsuit, the state agreed to stem the flow of fertilizer runoff that for decades has poisoned the Everglades. The biggest investment came from South Florida taxpayers, whohave largely bankrolled a $2 billion-plus series of massive artificial marshes that scrub nutrients from farm runoff. But the sugar industry also has tweaked its practices.
Over the last 20 years, concentrations of phosphorus in water near fields has dropped from a high in 1986 of about 500 parts per billion to 94 parts per billion. The artificial marshes knock the phosphorus level down further. It's still two to three times higher than the 10 parts per billion considered healthy for a pristine Everglades, but that's significant improvement from two decades ago. A practice called "back-pumping" — sending runoff north into the lake — is now only used in emergency conditions.
For many critics, politically powerful Big Sugar remains the main stumbling block in ending the nasty cycle of coastal algae blooms. But between 2011 and 2015, South Florida Water Management District numbers show the sugar industry accounted for just three percent of the phosphorus pumped into the lake.
Altogether, sugar farmers have spent about $260 million on clean up, largely by keeping water on farms, cleaning out ditches where phosphorus-rich soil settles and calculating more carefully the amount of fertilizer needed to grow crops, said U.S. Sugar spokeswoman Judy Sanchez .
"The results are undeniably good news," Sanchez wrote in an email. "The partnership between the (Everglades Agricultural Area) farmers and landowners and the South Florida Water Management District should serve as a model for other areas to ensure that each region takes responsibility for its water issues."
But what works to the south — an area dominated by a single crop and a single industry — may not be so simple to carry out to the north, where a vastly different set of problems and variables exist. To the north, water flows from sod and dairy farms, mobile home parks, vegetables fields and ranches through canals, ponds, creeks, rivers and sloughs into the lake faster than it can flow out. The watershed covers about 5,400 square miles, stretching from just south of Orlando to the lake.
"Some of the estuary people have been told, you're one lawsuit too late," Gray said.
In the 1980s, the state tried to manage the problem by targeting dairy farms, which produced more phosphorus than any other land use. New regulations tightly controlled how much could leave the farms, eventually leading dairy farmers to completely reinvent operations, said Woody Larson, a second-generation Florida dairyman who with his two sons now manages the family's two Okeechobee farms.
"Our farm, instead of having cows scattered all around it, is now a farm for recycling water," Larson said.
Like other dairy farmers above the lake, Larson's operates a closed-loop system, meaning cows are housed in free stalls under sprinklers and cooling fans with all their waste tightly controlled. Pastures where they once grazed are instead used to grow grass irrigated with the cow's own treated wastewater from the barns. The grass is then cut, stored in a silo and fed to the cows.
But the expensive fixes came at a steep cost. Of the more than 50 dairies in the 1980s, the number today is down to 19, Larson said. The number of cows dropped from about 50,000 to 25,000.
"The politics were clearly ahead of the science at that point," Larson said, describing the frustration felt by farmers. "We were issued this edict but at the same time we didn't know how to solve it."
Wes Williamson, a third generation rancher in Okeechobee — where seven of the nation's 15 top-producing cattle ranches sit within 80 miles of each other — keeps a phosphorus budget. He knows exactly how much comes onto his ranch, in fertilizer and rainfall, and how much goes out — mostly in cattle sales — and tries to control it by changing operations, like planting more trees so cattle don't cool off in ponds that might drain into creeks or other water bodies.
In 2005, he said, the World Wildlife Fund worked with eight ranches in pilot projects, paying them to store water.
"It's been a good thing. The problem is there hasn't been (enough) funding for it," Williamson said. "If a cattle ranch can't make a little bit of money, sooner or later it will be turned into what my father calls the final crop. Land goes into housing, but it never comes back."
So if farmers and ranchers have changed operations, where is the phosphorus coming from? Over the years, scientists have repeatedly tried to map out the sources.
In 2010, the South Florida Water Management District hired the University of Florida and a team of engineers led by Del Bottcher, president of Gainesville-based Soil and Water Engineering Technology, Inc. They found that over the previous decade, the watershed was actually producing slightly more phosphorus overall — some 1,792 tons — even as farmland was being rapidly converted into houses.
Gary Roderick, a former Martin County and DEP environmental manager, points to multiple problems, including widespread "best management" farming practices that are largely voluntary and monitored by an understaffed state agriculture department. Loopholes in state law also encourage what he called one of the worst practices — enriching soils with treated sludge from municipal sewage plants. The nutrient-packed sludge isn't formally classified as a fertilizer.
About 37 percent of the sludge from across the state is used on land as a fertilizer, according to the DEP. Another 29 percent is marketed and sold commercially.
"You cannot control — it is impossible to control — nutrients in surface waters without making a serious attempt @ source control on agricultural lands. Period," Roderick said.
Strip away the sludge, and the farming practices, while not perfect, managed to reduce phosphorus by 22 percent, Roderick and Bottcher say.
Over the years, blame and finger-pointing for phosphorus has largely targeted the ag industry. But farmers and ranchers say that while their fields and cattle have dwindled in the watershed draining south, one thing has not: people. The number between 1980 and 2015 more than doubled, from just over a million to about 2.6 million.
They have a point: Bottcher found that while urban areas made up just 12 percent of the watershed, they generated 29 percent of the total phosphorus.
Bottcher, who is building a model for the water management district, said he is looking to pinpoint the best "bang for the buck" approaches to control so many different sources of pollution .
"Where do you spend your money to get the biggest phosphate reduction?" he asked. "You can get 10 to 35 percent reduction with reasonable expenditures. But the (best management practices program) is asking for 80 percent, so how do you get the rest?"
Then there is that legacy phosphorus, the stuff already in the ground on dairy farms, pastures, tree crops and neighborhoods and in the lake. Over the years, multiple ways to remove it from the lake bottom muck — treating it with chemicals, dredging it out and burying it, even converting the lake into a kind of phosphate mine — have been considered and rejected. No one has come up with a realistic solution, affordable or otherwise.
"Nothing has ever been done at a scale at even a tenth of the size," of Lake Okeechobee, said UF aquatic ecologist Karl Havens.
For now, Gov. Rick Scott and water managers continues to grapple with the algae crisis — and spin it politically.
Scott declared a state of emergency and tried to blame the Obama administration for the foul water, saying the federal government had not moved quickly enough to repair the aging Herbert Hoover dike around Lake Okeechobee.
At ground level, Scott offered low-interest loans to damaged businesses and ordered the water management district to start holding more water to the north while releasing more water to the southeast and south into massive water conservation areas in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties.
The water district also stepped up its public relations campaign, issuing regular "Get the Facts" press releases to tout work, mostly south of the lake. On its list of accomplishments: $880 million Scott approved to settle a federal lawsuit and build another 6,500 acres in storage and treatment. A spreader canal has also been completed to keep additional water now being moved south from leaking out of Everglades National Park into farm fields in South Miami-Dade.
The district also began construction on fixes to increase the amount of water in Taylor Slough by 6.5 billion gallons a year. To the north, the restoration of the Kissimmee River, a project split 50-50 between the state and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, should be done by 2019, which could slow the phosphorus spigot.
But big bold fixes for north of the lake — Negron's proposal is for more southern storage — and the estuaries of the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers remain uncertain and far off.
And, as if conditions weren't bad enough, there is increasing evidence that climate change could fuel more toxic algae blooms. In a 2015 study that looked at warming trends, changes in rainfall and an increase in blooms, Havens and a team of researchers concluded that phosphorus levels in water would likely need to be adjusted and more focus put on better farming practices.
"When you think about it, the problem is now twice as bad as when we started," Gray said. "And this is not just an Okeechobee problem. It's worldwide. Everywhere we farm, humans have always concentrated nutrients. That's what we do."

160819-a
Clinton: Water crisis no hoax for Floridians
News-Press.com – by Hillary Clinton
August 19, 2016
Editor's note: Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee for President of the United States, wrote this guest column for Treasure Coast Newspapers and its digital editions, TCPalm. They are part of the USA TODAY NETWORK, including The News-Press. Republican nominee Donald Trump's campaign was also contacted extending an offer to publish a guest column from him on this topic, but there was no response.
Water is life. Clean water sustains our health, our families, our agriculture and our businesses. Clean water is a basic right of all Americans, and Floridians deserve for their water to be safe to drink, their beaches to be safe to swim and their waterways to be safe to fish.
But recent years have seen Florida facing one environmental crisis after another. Rising sea levels are already causing the streets of Miami Beach to flood at high tide, and saltwater is intruding on drinking water wells. Wildfires in the Everglades have burned thousands of acres and sent smoke spiraling over South Florida, limiting visibility for drivers and endangering public health.
And this summer, the toxic algal bloom on Florida's Treasure Coast (as well as in Southwest Florida estuaries) has drawn national attention. The algae has closed beaches, forced residents to stay indoors and cost the economy millions in lost tourism and fishing dollars — and not for the first time.
This is a recurring problem for the Treasure Coast and other parts of the state, and it deserves a long-term solution.
Meanwhile, on Gov. Rick Scott's watch, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection has pursued fully 70 percent fewer enforcement cases than before he took office — and 88 percent fewer cases aimed at keeping drinking water clean. Unless past violators have dramatically changed how they do business, that means Floridians' health is unnecessarily being put at risk. Just a few weeks ago, the Scott administration quietly pushed through changes to water quality criteria that, if they are allowed to stand, would dramatically increase the level of carcinogens permitted in Florida's water.
And even though working to restore the natural flow of water through the Everglades south of Lake Okeechobee is one of the most important steps we can take to reduce wildfire risk, protect South Florida's water and reduce the likelihood of algal blooms, last year Scott's administration canceled a long-planned purchase of tens of thousands of acres of agricultural land south of the lake to help filter and store water and direct it through the Everglades.
Request denied for federal state of emergency because of toxic algae
The governor's friend and preferred presidential candidate Donald Trump shares his view that climate change is a hoax. All Trump could say about the toxic algae oozing along the Treasure Coast was "it's very sad" and that he was "looking at it."
Floridians deserve better. You deserve a president who will secure clean water for every American — and combat climate change so our children and grandchildren can live in a safe environment that has not been damaged beyond repair.
I have been outspoken throughout this campaign about the need to upgrade our drinking and wastewater infrastructure, from big cities to small towns. Nationwide, our aging drinking water systems leak six billion gallons of water per day — meaning that roughly one-sixth of our water is lost to leaks.
From lead in the water in Flint to cancer-causing chemicals in the water in Ohio, we need to improve monitoring and enforcement of our public health standards. Unlike your governor and Trump, I believe we need to do more to prosecute violations of our bedrock environmental laws that expose communities to harmful toxins and pollutants. Commonsense environmental regulations are absolutely essential to protecting the health and well-being of families.
I know that in Florida, protecting clean water means restoring the Everglades. One of my husband's proudest accomplishments was signing a bipartisan bill in 2000 that finally committed to restoring the flow of fresh water through the Everglades and securing reliable clean water supplies for agriculture, businesses and families. The Obama administration has made progress, but we are far from achieving the robust restoration that the Everglades need and that Floridians deserve. As president, I would double our efforts to restore the Everglades and protect clean water — because a healthy Everglades is essential for a healthy Florida.
And we must do more to tackle the urgent threat of climate change. That's why I have a plan to invest in the technologies of the future, make America the world's clean energy superpower and create good-paying jobs from coast to coast in clean energy, energy efficiency, advanced vehicles and resilient infrastructure. Donald Trump's backward-looking energy plan would set the world on a path toward at least six feet of sea level rise by the end of the century—an existential threat for Florida, where one in eight homes totaling more than $400 billion in value would be underwater as a result.
Clean water is not a luxury — it is a fundamental right, and our rights do not change between ZIP codes. No one should be exposed to toxins or hazardous wastes because of where they live. No one should get sick as a result of their governor's negligence. And we can't elect leaders who don't believe in science. That's a risk Americans — and Floridians — just can't afford to take.
Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee for president.

160819-b
Florida, feds wage land battle over an Everglades-killing fern
Palm Beach Post – by Kimberly Miller, Staff Writer
August 19, 2016
An innocuous-looking fern has set off an Everglades-size battle between state and federal agencies as it winds its way through a treasured wildlife refuge in Palm Beach County, choking everything in its path.
Lygodium, commonly referred to as old world climbing fern, laid low for years before beginning a tenacious spread into Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge — the last remaining intact remnant of the northern Everglades in Palm Beach County.
A 50-year lease between the South Florida Water Management District, which owns the refuge land, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which manages it, assigns the responsibility to the feds to clear out the lygodium by 2017.
But the wiry fern has proved a formidable opponent, and the wildlife service says it can’t meet the deadline — essentially breaking its lease.
Old World Climbing Fern blankets a tree island and dead Melaleuca trees are shown in the northern boundaries of the Old World Climbing Fern blankets a tree island and dead Melaleuca trees are shown in the northern boundaries of the Everglades in Palm Beach County. The South Florida Water Management District owns the land and leases it to United States Fish and Wildlife Service. USFW operates the area Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge. The operating agreement dates to the 1950s. SFWMD recently voted to send a letter of non-compliance to the federal agency, citing USFW’s contractual obligation to eradicate invasive species from the ecosystem. USFW has until 2017 to remove the fern that suffocate tree islands and destroys natural habitat.
So last week, the water management district began the process of evicting the federal government from land it has claimed as an asset for more than five decades, seeding a spat only the Sunshine State can propagate.
“The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service solemnly promised 14 years ago that it would use its ‘best efforts’ to acquire dedicated funds to control the invasive exotic plant infestation in the refuge,” water management Executive Director Peter Antonacci wrote in a June 30 letter. “The service has not only failed to control the invasive exotic plant infestation, but also ignores its contractual obligations.”
South Florida Water Management District Lead Invasive Species Biologist LeRoy Rodgers points out Old World Climbing Fern in the northern boundaries
Tom McKenzie, a spokesman for the southeast region of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said the water management board’s decision to send an August 11 default notice is “unfortunate” and that the service is hopeful it can renegotiate its contract.
Flying high above the 144,000-acre Loxahatchee refuge, water district board member Jim Moran sees the lygodium problem as a straightforward fight to clear vital tree islands of the invasive neon-lime colored fern native to tropical regions of Australia, Southeast Asia and Africa.
He’s been talking about the plant, and to a lesser extent the papery-barked invasive water sucker melaleuca, for more than a year.
 “This isn’t a new objection,” Moran said. “It covers the tree islands and the tree islands are the Everglades. When they are destroyed, the ecosystem is changed.”
While there have been strides in controlling other invasive species, the lygodium is a whole other challenge.
The flowerless fern is a tangle of fronds that can grow vertically, climbing trees and crawling over shrubs to form a thick blanket that smothers native flora.
The fern was first detected in Florida in the late 1950s, going mostly unnoticed until something triggered a growth spurt in the 1990s, said Stephen Enloe, a University of Florida associate professor at the Center for Aquatic and Invasive plants.
Because it thrives on remote tree islands reachable only by airboat, it can establish a foothold before being noticed overtopping canopies of dahoon holly, wax myrtle and red maple.
“It’s really easy to get behind the eight ball,” Enloe said. “When you are talking about managing hundreds of thousands of acres of land without a lot of people power, it’s easy for lygodium to get ahead of land managers.”
Once established, the fern sends out underground shoots that can regrow an entire plant if not fully removed. It’s also a notorious breeder, unleashing spores into the air where they have spread the fern to Central Florida.
Enloe said lygodium, which for now is a Florida-only problem, is such an issue that the Center for Aquatic and Invasive Plants has hired a biologist to work in the Loxahatchee refuge with a sole focus on lygodium.
“If you just ignore lygodium, you lose everything,” Enloe said.
That’s one reason why in the 2002 lease — a 50-year extension on a previous lease penned in 1951 between the water management district and USFWS — the eradication of climbing fern is described by name.
In a June 24 letter to Antonacci, Karen Hyun, deputy assistant secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks at the U.S. Department of Interior, says more than $80 million dollars has been invested in the Loxahatchee refuge since 2002, including $30 million for controlling invasive plants.
This year’s budget for operation of the refuge is $5.34 million, with $1.65 million for invasive species control, she said. The district and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission have also invested millions of dollars to help control invasive plants in the refuge.
But the district said it will cost $5 million per year for five years to bring the refuge into compliance — money the district says the wildlife service has not requested.
“Our governing board is left to wonder how your agency can justify ‘best efforts’ that stop short of actually asking Congress for the money to solve the invasive species problem,” Antonacci wrote in a June 30 letter.
In her letter, Hyun asserts 12.5 of 13 performance measures in the lease have been met, with the exception being lygodium control.
“I think cancelling a national wildlife refuge as a way to express displeasure with an agency for missing one out of 13 performance measures is pretty darn extreme,” said Eric Draper, executive director at Audubon Florida, who questioned whether there was another motive in trying to end the lease.
He said a previous attempt to cancel the lease was made about a decade ago. The refuge is at the heart of a years-old lawsuit that requires the state to ensure clean water is flowing into that land.
“The easiest way to tell the feds to get off our backs is to cancel the lease,” Draper said. “No more wildlife refuge, no more federal jurisdiction over water quality.”
When Draper sent a letter to the district urging it to keep working with USFWS and reconsider a vote that locked in lower tax rates for homeowners, the district accused him of wanting to raise taxes on Floridians to “pay for the federal government’s failure.”
“Why the district would want to take on management of such a large and complicated place such as Loxahatchee, I don’t know,” Draper said.
But Moran rejects the idea of an ulterior motive. He doesn’t want the water management district to take over the refuge and is hoping “it doesn’t get that far.”
“We needed to take that first step and get everyone moving in the right direction,” Moran said. “The best solution is for our federal partners to pony up the money, get the lygodium fixed, and we all live happily ever after.”

160819-c
Sugar farmers respond to accusations that the blue-green algae crisis is their fault
WPTV.com - Stephanie Theissen
August 19, 2016
BELLE GLADE, Fla. - Keith Wedgworth is a 4th generation farmer.  His family has been farming in Belle Glade since 1932.  He takes pride in his farming heritage.  You can see it in his eyes, and hear it in his voice. 
"From my grandfather's generation to my father's generation and now to my generation, we just try to be good stewards of the land," said Wedgworth who passionately defends his family's livelihood. 
He's also standing up for his fellow farmers in the Glades against the people pointing fingers at them for the algae crisis.
"All this water here in the Everglades Agricultural Area goes south," said Wedgworth.  "We do not back pump into the lake like everyone thinks." 
The South Florida Water Management District tests the water that does drain off of his land regularly.  It tests for nitrogen and phosphorous. Wedgworth says the water leaving his farm is cleaner than when he receives it.
He has seven pumping stations on his farms around Belle Glade, which collect water samples for the state to test.  The equipment cost $42,000.  There's also the on-going cost of operating and maintaining the pumps, as well as at least $300,000 per year in taxes related to water treatment and quality improvement. 
The sugar cane farmer also chooses rice as a rotational crop over other, more profitable produce, because it adds another layer of filtration.
Two of Wedgworth's family farms fall within the 60,000 acre area Senator Joe Negron wants the government to buy, so the state can start sending the water south in an effort to reduce Lake Okeechobee discharges into the St. Lucie River.  He and others in Belle Glade say that's not the solution; it would actually create a bigger crisis.
"You start taking 60,000 acres of sugar cane land out of production, it's gonna be detrimental to our environment, to our economic environment," said Bank of Belle Glade president Stephen Prielozny. 
Wedgworth added, "It would devastate the local communities.  Pahokee, South Bay, Belle Glade, Clewiston.  You close a mill down it's gonna be a domino effect.  Your local hardware store, your local parts store.  It all goes entwined and we need all the help we can get." 
Wedgworth and his neighbors in Belle Glade say they understand why people are angry about the algae crisis, but they say they are not the problem and they want to be part of the solution.

160819-d
SWFL hotspot for harmful and deadly invasive species
Fox4now.com – by Mike Mason
August 19, 2016
Worms, frogs, bees pose threat to people and pets.
LEE COUNTY, Fla. -- An alarming new warning tonight about dangerous, even deadly invasive species spreading throughout Southwest Florida.
We're learning they can cause diseases like meningitis and spinal cord problems; even killing you and your pets.
If your dog or cat licks or eats a toxic snail or worm it could then deliver a deadly disease to you.  Although this information isn’t meant to scare anyone, experts feel people need to be warned about the risks.
Alarming new problems surrounding invasive creatures like the New Guinea flatworm and Channeled Applesnail.
Roy Beckford is the director of the University of Florida's Lee County Extension Office.  He says if your pets are exposed to these worms and snails, it's possible life threatening diseases, such as meningitis, can be passed on to you.
He says if your pet simply licks you after coming into contact with these species, "a dog can transmit it to you.”
Beckford goes on to say Southwest Florida is a hotspot for many harmful invasive species, which wreak havoc with the ecosystem.  “If the animal is not meant to be a part of that particular environment then it can cause problems."
One species creating major problems is the Burmese Python, which slithers throughout the Everglades of Lee, Collier and Hendry counties.
And the revolution of the Cuban Tree Frog has made it the most prolific pest in our area.
"In many cases they have completely out-competed our native tree frogs. You're not supposed to touch them. They actually are associated with certain strains of e-coli," says Beckford.
The Green Iguana isn't deadly but has also become a huge problem.  And Africanized Honey Bees are buzzing throughout Southwest Florida.
Beckford says their numbers are swarming out of control.  "A European colony of bees would send out ten soldier bees to defend their hive…and they've attacked pets. However, Africanized Honey Bees will send out a thousand bees."
On Friday the Lee County Extension Service is kicking off a 13 week ‘Master Gardner’ training course.  It’ll teach people more about invasive species in our area. Unfortunately, seats are already full.
If you see any invasive species you can report them to Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission by emailing them a photo and information to exoticreports@myfwc.com

160818-a
A win-win solution to FPL’s failed cooling canal system at turkey point
CommunityNewspapers - by Grant Miller
August 18, 2016
Proposed cooling technologies can help stop contamination from polluting Biscayne National Park and South Florida’s drinking water.
The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy [SACE] released a new report last week by an expert with over thirty years of engineering experience that assesses the feasibility of using cooling towers as the solution to replacing the antiquated, leaking open industrial sewer called the cooling canal system at FPL’s Turkey Point power facility that has threatened South Florida’s drinking water and adjacent Biscayne National Park.
The report release comes on the heels of a citizen lawsuit filed by the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy [SACE] and Tropical Audubon Society [TAS], to be joined by Friends of the Everglades, against the utility under the Clean Water Act [CWA] after an extensive review of evidence documenting pollution discharges from the failed cooling canal system into Florida surface and ground waters.
FPL has repeatedly violated the Clean Water Act by operating what is essentially an open industrial sewer leading to historic and ongoing discharges to the surface and ground waters of Biscayne Bay, SACE also determined that DEP and FPL ‘proposed remedies’ are ineffective and will not protect public health alone, the environment and the outstanding waters of Biscayne National Park. SACE has taken the time and resources necessary to research what could be done to actually fix the problem.
The report finds that mechanical draft cooling towers can be constructed in a timely manner, has been done successfully at other power plants, including nuclear plants, and can be built affordably making this potential solution both feasible and cost-effective even if the cooling towers only operate for as few as ten years through the current 2032 and 2033 operating licenses.
“The use of mechanical draft closed-cycle cooling towers on Turkey Point Units 3 and 4, combined with the elimination of cooling tower wastewater discharges, represents the best available technology for eliminating the water quality and quantity problems being caused by the cooling canal system,” said Bill Powers of Powers Engineering, author of the new report. “The cooling towers can be operational in less than five years from the time FPL submits the application to build the towers. And the cost to install the cooling towers, even if they are only operated for 10-12 years, would have a minimal impact on FPL customer energy charges, in the range of 2 percent or less.”
The report mentions that these proposed cooling towers would work well within the power plant’s existing site plan and would neither compete with FPL’s proposed new reactors nor impact existing facilities on-site. Unit 5, which is a natural gas plant, already uses mechanical draft cooling towers.
Installation of the cooling towers would eliminate the need for FPL to pump 100 million gallons of fresh water daily from the L-31E canal, which was being tapped in order to lower the temperature of the water in the failing CCS. Miami-Dade County has already acknowledged that continued long-term use of the cooling canal system is untenable. A recent resolution was passed supporting the County Mayor in efforts to seek a commitment from FPL to discontinue use of the cooling canal system at the Turkey Point Power Plant.
Contaminated water leaking from FPL’s failing cooling canal system at Turkey Point is polluting the Biscayne Aquifer, a sole source aquifer that provides drinking water to more than three million people in the region. Despite claims by FPL and DEP There is also clear evidence of contamination of the surface waters of Biscayne National Park caused by discharges from the cooling canal system.
”The only way to ensure we eliminate the salt loading of three million pounds of salt daily and the perpetual demand on the region’s water supply is to abate the source of the pollution completely, that would require shutting down the cooling canal system once the plume has been cleaned up,” said Laura Reynolds, consultant for Southern Alliance for Clean Energy and former executive director of Tropical Audubon. “This solution not only removes all interaction with the Biscayne aquifer it provides a solution to the mandate Miami-Dade County is under to construct a reuse project to recycle 117.5 million gallons of water a day by 2025, this is a win-win for Miami-Dade county residents and an investment to protect Biscayne National Park we can all get behind.”

160818-b
Grayson says he can deliver help for Florida's algae problem
Sun Sentinel – by Andy Reid, Reporter
August 18, 2016
U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson says he's the Senate candidate who can best tackle toxic algae plaguing Florida —particularly in his opponent's home district.
Grayson came to U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy's backyard Thursday, holding a town hall meeting in West Palm Beach to discuss what he would do about water pollution fueling algae outbreaks as well as other issues he says he could handle better than Murphy.
Grayson faces Murphy in the Aug. 30 Democratic primary for Senate.
Murphy represents northern Palm Beach, Martin and St. Lucie counties and has been more outspoken in response to the algae outbreaks that have hit Stuart and other waterfront communities. But Grayson says he's the one who can actually get things done in Congress.
Grayson said his work in Congress helped secure more money for the National Estuary Program, which could help address water pollution.
While Grayson points to the dozens of bills and amendments he has gotten passed in Congress, he says Murphy needs to "learn how to legislate." And he said Sen. Marco Rubio, the Republican Murphy and Grayson hope to replace, "is basically a legislative no-show."
U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson says he's the Senate candidate who can best tackle toxic algae plaguing Florida —particularly in his opponent's home district.
Grayson came to U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy's backyard Thursday, holding a town hall meeting in West Palm Beach to discuss what he would do about water pollution fueling algae outbreaks as well as other issues he says he could handle better than Murphy.
Grayson faces Murphy in the Aug. 30 Democratic primary for Senate.
Murphy represents northern Palm Beach, Martin and St. Lucie counties and has been more outspoken in response to the algae outbreaks that have hit Stuart and other waterfront communities. But Grayson says he's the one who can actually get things done in Congress.
Grayson said his work in Congress helped secure more money for the National Estuary Program, which could help address water pollution.
While Grayson points to the dozens of bills and amendments he has gotten passed in Congress, he says Murphy needs to "learn how to legislate." And he said Sen. Marco Rubio, the Republican Murphy and Grayson hope to replace, "is basically a legislative no-show."
"Money can't vote," Grayson said.
Related:           Grayson backs discharge plan, eminent domain of sugar land           TCPalm-Aug 18, 2016

160818-c
It’s déjà vu all over again for the St. Lucie River
TCPalm.com – Guest Column by Bill Dean, Bill Dean,  the owner/broker with Century 21 IRP Realty and president of the Realtors Association of Martin County, which is a member of the Rivers Coalition.
Aug. 18, 2016
"Residents, fishermen and environmentalists express increasing frustration as they watch the paradise that drew them to Florida being drowned," reported The New York Times on March 14, 1998. That was 18 years ago.
The business community also was deeply affected by that El Niño cycle that delivered downpours, triggering a familiar pattern of toxic discharges from Lake Okeechobee, algae blooms and fish kills.
So in May 1998, the Realtor Association of Martin County's "El Niño Task Force" brought together concerned business and environmental groups to form what is known today as the Rivers Coalition. Along with the Realtor Association of Martin County, the founding members included the Stuart-Martin County Chamber of Commerce, the Treasure Coast Builders Association, the Economic Council and the Farm Bureau — all working side-by-side with the Martin County Conservation Alliance, Audubon Florida, Florida Oceanographic Society, the St. Lucie River Initiative, as well as fishing captains, biologists, environmentalists and conservationists.
The Rivers Coalition continues to be a diverse group with a common goal: to restore the health of the St. Lucie River. This group continues to educate the public and urge our leaders at the local, state and federal levels to take action that will "send the water south." This is a complicated and expensive 80-year-old problem; and unfortunately, for all of us who must endure these costly cycles of environmental degradation, it is not as simple as "closing the dike."
We're extremely encouraged by Sen. Joe Negron's recently unveiled plan to purchase land to redirect Lake Okeechobee discharges through existing stormwater treatment areas to Everglades National Park.
We must continue to advocate for and support funding to:
Restore the Kissimmee River Basin
Expedite completion of repairs of the Herbert Hoover Dike around Lake Okeechobee
Support water farming endeavors
Complete existing water-quality projects, particularly the Indian River Lagoon South project
Transition off septic tanks and onto sewer, particularly in areas on the river
Complete the elevation of the Tamiami Trail
Support acquisition of lands south of Lake Okeechobee to store, clean and convey much needed water to the Everglades
Each step is part of the solution. However, no single step is the solution. The Rivers Coalition remains steadfastly united in its determination to restore and protect our waterways, our livelihoods, our property values and our way of life. And so it is déjà vu all over again as we witness some of the worst algae blooms our area has ever seen.
The economic impact to our property values could equal or exceed the Lost Summer of 2013, when our state association Florida Realtors conducted a study and found "an estimated $488 million reduction in Martin County's aggregate property value."
Recent weeks have been difficult on homeowners and small businesses. This current event has fueled the collective emotions of our citizens, and cast a national spotlight on a problem that we must solve together. There is strength in numbers, and the collective voice of the Rivers Coalition and its 85 member organizations representing 300,000 individuals is being heard loud and clear. I am sure that those who began this call for change 50 years ago would be disappointed that we have not made more progress; but I am also sure they would be proud that their message is still strong.
But as difficult as this has been, I remain optimistic and determined that we will work toward a permanent solution. I am reminded daily as I make my way along Old St. Lucie Boulevard and over the bridges to Hutchinson Island that we live and work and play in one of the most beautiful places on earth. The "residents, fishermen and environmentalists" set the table many years ago, and that table today is, thankfully, larger and full of committed and caring people who will ensure that Martin County continues to be the paradise we all know and love for our future generations of residents and visitors alike.

160818-d
Project to improve flow to Everglades
The Clewiston News - by Katrina Elsken
August 18, 2016
John Boy Auditorium in Clewiston was packed to standing room only Tuesday for a meeting about the Western Everglades Restoration Project (WERP). The project is at the start of a three year planning process, and the public scoping meeting allowed members of the public to give their input.
WERP is part of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP), which includes 68 projects. It will be done simultaneously with the Lake Okeechobee Watershed Project (LOW) which will store and clean water north of the lake.
Clewiston officials at Tuesday’s meeting seemed cautiously optimistic about the project’s goals:
• Restore and improve seasonal hydroperiods and freshwater distribution to support a natural mosaic of wetland and upland habitat in the western Everglades ecosystem;
• Reestablish and improve sheetflow patterns, surface water depths, and durations in the study area to reduce soil subsidence and the frequency of damaging peat fires; and,
• Reduce water loss out of the natural system to prevent over-drainage and improve ground and surface water elevations.
Some at the meeting appeared frustrated that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE) and South Florida Water Management District (SWFMD) officials could not provide details on the plan such as the exact amount of land that will be needed and how much of that land is already owned by the state. The preliminary study area is 920 square miles and includes the Big Cypress Preserve as well as land belonging to the Miccosukee Tribe and the Seminole Tribe.
Hendry County Commissioner Janet Taylor said the Clewiston community supports CERP. She said they support projects that are scientifically proven.
Unfortunately, she said, some activists are threatening the progress of CERP by demanding state funding to be allocated to other, unproven plans that involve buying land currently used for sugar cane farming.
“Our communities are not for sale,” Commissioner Taylor said.
Clewiston City Commissioner Mali Gardner asked how much of the land to be used for WERP is already owned by the state.
“I believe the CERP should be funded and completed,” she said, adding that she is especially concerned about the repairs needed to the Herbert Hoover Dike.
Clewiston Mayor Philip Roland called for water storage and cleaning north of Lake Okeechobee.
“The Kissimmee River Valley covers 5,500 square miles that all dump water into Lake Okeechobee,” he said.
“Until you control that 95 percent of the water that comes into Lake Okeechobee, you cannot control the south,” he said.
“Let Orlando and everything south share the adversity,” he said.
Paul McGeeHee of Glades Electric Co-op noted that part of the area under consideration for the WERP includes Glades Electric customers and infrastructure. He asked for assurance that the members of the co-op will not be on the hook for costs of moving the infrastructure.
“Please keep us in the loop,” Mr. McGeeHee said.
Vivian Haney, the reigning Miss Sugar, said taking farmland out of production would cost jobs, and could destroy the economy of the Clewiston community. She said the farmers support the science-based projects in CERP.
“It’s about time you are waking up,” said Bobby Billie of the Miccosukee Tribe. He said if they don’t preserve the natural land, there will be nothing left for future generations.

160817-a
Estero Village Council plans to ask federal and state officials to speed up water project
Naples Daily News – by Greg Stanley
August 17, 2016
Water ripples from wind Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2016 at the W.P. Franklin Lock and Dam in Alva, Fla. The mayors of Lee County's six municipalities convened at a joint emergency meeting on Wednesday to discuss action items regarding freshwater releases from Lake Okeechobee into the Caloosahatchee watershed. It's argued that the release of dark, nutrient-laden freshwater into the the watershed, damage Southwest Florida's economy and ecology. (Corey Perrine/Staff)(Photo: Corey Perrine)
The Estero Village Council will join Sanibel, Bonita Springs and a few other communities to ask state and federal officials to speed up a water storage project in light of destructive discharges from Lake Okeechobee.
The council voted unanimously Wednesday to endorse the proposal from Sanibel to immediately start planning a multibillion-dollar project to build a storage system in Southwest Florida.
The system would span 30,000 acres to 60,000 acres and hold about 117 billion gallons of water. The federal project is called the Everglades Agricultural Area Storage and Aquifer Storage and Recovery/Decomp Phase 2.
But planning for it isn’t scheduled to start until 2021.
The planning could take up to four years, putting construction out to 2025 or later, said James Evans, Sanibel natural resources director.
“That’s just too late,” Evans said.
He said the storage system would:
help clean the water from Lake Okeechobee as it flows into estuaries along the coast;
redirect much of that water south to its historical flow pattern toward the Everglades;
help minimize algae blooms, fish kills and red tide during both the wet and dry seasons;
prevent too much fresh water from pouring into coastal waters during the wet season, which causes an overabundance of sea grass beds to sprout and eventually wash ashore, leading to red tide; 
add fresh water as needed during the dry season to keep salination low enough to prevent algae blooms.
“It’s not the only project, it’s not the panacea and it won’t solve all of our problems,” Evans said.
“But we need to start looking at how we can store water south of Lake Okeechobee," he said, "so any water we don’t need in the estuaries here can be treated and sent south the Everglades, which needs as much fresh water as we can give it.”
Efforts to restore water flow to the Everglades need to be a top priority for Southwest Florida, said Howard Levitan, vice mayor of Estero.
“People need to understand the economic impact of this, of what it means to property values and environmental damage,” Levitan said. “No growth can happen here unless we get this fixed.”
Sanibel officials will ask Fort Myers Beach, Fort Myers and Lee County to also sign on to the proposal.

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Toxic algae blooms threaten humans and marine animals alike: The simple way we can all make a difference
OneGreenPlanet.org – by Jerald Pinson
August 17, 2016
At the beginning of spring 2016, something began growing in the vast depths of Florida’s Lake Okeechobee, the third largest natural freshwater lake in the U.S. The water began to fester and putrefy, slowly changing in hue from blue to a rancid green, its waves now viscous and sordid. Above the water, a palpable smell hung in the air, most similar to the pungent stench of decaying flesh. And while the lake rotted, enormous amounts of rain poured over central Florida, causing the water levels in Lake Okeechobee to rise above those that could be safely contained by an aging earthen dike, built 80 years ago to hold back the floodwaters.
So the Army Core of Engineers, the organization tasked with managing waterways within the U.S., faced a difficult decision: allow the water to continue rising and risk the danger of flooding to local communities, or open the floodgates and let the contaminated water flow through rivers out to estuaries and the sea. The Army Core choose the latter, which seemed to be the least of two evils.  But now, the green effluence that began slopping at the shores of Okeechobee months ago has grown into a natural disaster that can be seen from space.
Toxic Algal Blooms
The cause of the green water is the growth of single-celled organisms known as cyanobacteria (sometimes incorrectly called blue-green algae). Florida, as well as several other states and countries in other parts of the world, have a repeated history of these “algal” blooms, which can have serious negative effects on humans and the environment. Cyanobacteria produce several toxins that, if ingested by humans or animals, can cause symptoms as mild as a skin rash and as severe as death. They’re also thought to be linked with the development of neurological disorders like Alzheimer’s disease and ALS in some people. When the cyanobacteria infestation begins to die off, it’s degraded by bacteria, significantly increasing the amount of respiration in a given body of water. Consequently, dissolved oxygen levels decrease, causing massive fish kills through asphyxiation.
The Cause  – and Our Food System
Cyanobacteria naturally occur in small numbers in freshwater lakes and streams. They’re autotrophic, meaning they make their own energy from the sun and were actually the first organisms to ever photosynthesize; without them, it’s likely that life on Earth would look very different from what it does today. The problem comes when run-off from agricultural fields, cow pastures, and urban areas accumulates in large bodies of water.
Phosphorous, in particular, is a limiting nutrient for the uncontrolled growth of cyanobacteria, and a lot of it makes its way into Lake Okeechobee from various sources; even rainwater has some dissolved phosphorus in it, but much of it comes from human activity. The watershed to the north of the lake, some 5,400 square miles, is dotted with dairy farms and cattle ranches, as well as a lot of people. In fact, the number of residents that live in the watershed area, which starts just south of Orlando, has more than doubled in size in the last 35 years, from about 1 million to 2.6 million people.
As of 2008, however, by far most of the anthropogenically sourced phosphorus came from beef farms, which contributed about 235 metric tons of the nutrient per year to tributaries in Lake Okeechobee’s northern watershed. To put that into perspective, the EPA’s established limit for the amount of phosphorus that should find its way into the lake from human sources is 105 metric tons per year. According to Bill Mitsch, director of the Everglades Wetland Research Park, the problem is simple: “What’s going on in Florida, it’s happening all around the world now. There are too many people, too much food production, too much fertilizer on the landscape.” 
Compounded with these problems is the fact that Lake Okeechobee is no longer allowed to flow freely as it was used to. Water once flowed from the Okeechobee all the way to the Everglades as a shallow river up to 50 miles wide, but this river was blocked in the mid-1900s to help mitigate flooding and to clear the way for agricultural fields. The containment of so much water is conducive to the buildup of Phosphorous, causing algal blooms, and the lack of freshwater in the south has led to increased salt water intrusion in the Everglades.
What’s Being Done
The good news is that the problems surrounding the containment of water in Lake Okeechobee, such as the recurring algal blooms, are too glaringly obvious for officials to ignore. In 2000, Congress gave the okay to the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, touted as being the largest restoration project in the world to date. One of the tenants of the plan is to let freshwater from Okeechobee flow south again, and about 57,000 acres of artificial wetland have been constructed to help absorb excess nutrients from the water before it reaches the Everglades, where it could kill off native plants. According to Mitsch, “It’s a hydrological mess right now, but it’s not unsolvable.”
 What YOU Can Do
Animal agriculture plays a huge role in disrupting ecosystems across the U.S. and seeing the potential impact that algal blooms triggered by additional nutrients in the water can have on endangered species, like manatees, we have to ask ourselves if it is really worth it? Is having more cheeseburgers really worth degrading critical marine habitats?
The good news is we can all have a hand in reducing animal agriculture’s impact by simply reducing, or eliminating, the amount of meat and dairy we consume on a daily basis. If the overall demand for these products were to decrease, we’d no longer need massive factory farms housing tens of thousands of animals that produce more excrement than the entire human population combined…
As the leading organization at the forefront of the conscious consumerism movement, it isOne Green Planet’s view that our food choices have the power to heal our broken food system, give species a fighting chance for survival, and pave the way for a truly sustainable future. To learn more about how you can use your food choices for good, join One Green Planet’s #EatForThePlanet movement!

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Will Joe Negron make Everglades deal happen ? Maybe.
Saint Peter Blog- by Diane Roberts
August 17, 2016
As the old Vulcan proverb goes, “Only Nixon could go to China.” Maybe only Joe Negron can make an Everglades land deal happen.
Negron, the incoming state Senate president and a conservative Republican, wants to acquire 60,000 acres south of Lake Okeechobee, land that would help clean up the filthy, nutrient-choked lake water currently sliming South Florida from Fort Pierce to Cape Coral.
Using Amendment One money, the state would pay for half (about $1.2 billion), and the federal government would pay for the other half. Big AG and Big Shug and the other landowners would get some cash, and instead of pumping dirty Okeechobee water east and west toward the coasts — where its toxic algae wrecks beaches, kills fish, stinks to high heaven and is hazardous to your health — the nasty stuff would get cleaned before becoming part of the natural flow of the Everglades.
Win-win, right ? No brainer, yeah ?
But wait, this is Florida. Some of our politicians actually lack brains. Scientific fact! Greg Evers, a Pensacola state senator now running for Congress, and Mike Hill, a Pensacola state Rep. now running for Evers’s Senate seat, have pitched a hissy fit over Negron’s proposal, vowing to “stand up for North Florida’s water and North Florida taxpayers.”
Evers, whose idea of honoring the Orlando nightclub victims was to raffle off an AR-15 a few days after the shootings, claims Negron’s proposal “discounts” other environmental projects–as if cleaning up South Florida is some kind of attack on North Florida.
Not that he’s into environmental projects: Evers fought against septic tank inspections and argued for Big Sewage’s right to spread the aromatic contents of pumped-out septic tanks on land, allowing it to seep merrily down into ground water, rivers and springs.
Also claiming membership in the Missing Grey Matter Club, Sen. Marco Rubio, who says he doesn’t support buying the land until the Central Everglades Planning Project is finished–in a mere 24 years. And the South Florida Water Management District: now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Big Sugar headed by Rick Scott’s personal Attack Gecko, Peter Antonacci.
Younger readers may not believe this, but there was a time when Republicans were Florida’s best environmentalists. These days conservatives no longer want to conserve things.
Florida House Speaker Richard Corcoran says he’ll review Negron’s proposal with “seriousness and respect.”
That would be an improvement on how the House normally deals with Florida’s environment. Remember how Floridians voted in 2014 to designate a nice chunk of change from the doc stamp tax for buying conservation lands? The legislature evidently does not.
As for the governor, he’s busy raising money for Donald Trump and whining that the toxic algae is all the fault of the federal government.
But these people better pay attention: Negron is onto something. Buying land south of the lake is not merely the right thing to do for water quality – more than eight million people rely on Lake Okeechobee for their drinking water – it’s politically astute, too.
Pictures of snot-green algae washing up on our once-pretty sands have horrified the planet. The University of Florida’s wonderfully-named Tourism Crisis Management Initiative has done a study showing that almost three-fourths of potential visitors to Florida would balk at vacationing any place south of Disney, while more than half express doubts about coming to Florida at all.
That’s going to cost us money. Which will terrify businesses. Which will, in turn, translate into lost campaign contributions.
Joe Negron’s constituents in Indian River, St. Lucie, Martin and Palm Beach counties are outraged over the state of their waters: the dying estuaries, the fish kills, the closed beaches, the health risks, the diminishing property values.
He may well have become a good environmentalist. Or maybe he has statewide ambitions and wants to be known as responsive to voters. It doesn’t matter. Though he’s got a tough row to hoe in the Legislature, what with many of his colleagues thinking public land ownership is un-American, he’s doing the right thing.
Perhaps when Donald Trump finally melts down–or just melts, like the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz–Florida Republicans will be released from his evil spell, and they’ll start to give a damn about the water that gives this state life.
Perhaps even Rick Scott will get a clue and stop sucking up to big polluters. If he wants to run against Bill Nelson for a US Senate seat in 2018, he’d better.

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Environmental Leadership ?  New study provides facts and solutions for FPL’s Turkey Point open industrial sewer
Clean Energy – by Sara Barczak
August 16, 2016
The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) not only identifies problems, but is also committed to advocating for solutions. One of the most significant water quality problems in the Southeast is the ongoing pollution at Florida Power and Light’s (FPL) Turkey Point cooling canal system. This open industrial sewer appears to be in direct conflict with FPL’s corporate environmental stewardship goals. And a slick PR campaign can’t cover up evidence that this system is failing and needs to be fixed.
Here are the facts about FPL’s Turkey Point nuclear plant units 3-4
●  There is NO other place in the world that uses an unlined, porous industrial sewer to cool water for an operating nuclear plant – No where!
●  This grand experiment is failing and polluting ground water and the waters of Biscayne Bay. These are the facts and no amount of high dollar corporate spin can change these facts.
Therefore, SACE wanted to determine if any technologies or retrofits currently exist that FPL could implement to remedy some of the serious problems caused by this failing cooling canal system near Homestead, Florida. We contracted with engineering expert Bill Powers of Powers Engineering and recently released an in-depth report that recommends building mechanical draft cooling towers as an affordable, practical solution.
The bottom line: Use of mechanical draft closed-cycle cooling towers combined with the elimination of cooling tower wastewater discharges (through the Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD) system), represents the best available technology and a fiscally-prudent solution for eliminating the water quality problems being caused by the cooling canal system.
The report finds that installing mechanical draft cooling towers:
●  is an affordable option that can actually solve the problem;
●  can be completed in a reasonable time frame;
●  is a technology FPL is already using, on-site at Turkey Point Unit 5;
●  has been done at other power plants, including nuclear plants; and
●  offers multiple benefits, not only to the FPL in terms of more efficient operation of the Turkey Point reactors, but also to the region’s current and future water supply along with the health of Biscayne National Park.
Why is this report important?
Contaminated water leaking from FPL’s failing cooling canal system at Turkey Point is polluting the Biscayne Aquifer, a sole source aquifer that provides drinking water to more than 3 million people in the region and to the neighboring Biscayne National Park. In addition, there is clear evidence of contamination of the surface waters of Biscayne National Park caused by discharges from the cooling canal system. This open industrial sewer has discharges that contain a slew of pollutants including ammonia, phosphorus, total nitrogen, high salinity levels and tritium. We identified extensive information that confirms that a growing plume of hyper-saline water and other pollutants have migrated in all directions, leading to a consistent violation of water quality standards.
Despite years of data proving that FPL has violated its operating permits, Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) continues to allow FPL to operate on an expired permit at Turkey Point and has failed to take the necessary actions to protect Biscayne Bay from ongoing leaks from the cooling canal system. This is why we, along with Tropical Audubon Society and Friends of the Everglades, filed a Clean Water Act lawsuit last month.
We at SACE knew we also had to provide answers  – what can be done to solve this unacceptable situation? We did the due diligence and thankfully, found what appears to be a win-win for the environment, Miami-Dade County residents, and also for FPL customers who are being forced to pay for expensive band-aids that will not solve the problem ($50 million alone this year!). The use of cooling towers removes all interaction with the Biscayne aquifer and provides a solution to the mandate Miami-Dade County is under to construct a reuse project to recycle 117.5 million gallons of water a day by 2025.
What do you need to know?
Simply put, the report finds that cooling towers can be constructed in a timely manner (~4-5 years from the time FPL submits the application to build the towers) and can be built affordably making this potential solution both feasible and cost-effective even if the cooling towers only operate for a few as ten years through the 2032 and 2033 operating licenses.
Please let your local and state officials and regulators know that you want solutions that can work–no more throwing good money after bad. Most importantly ask FPL and their parent company NextEra Energy to stop acting as if running an open industrial sewer between two National Parks is environmental leadership. Don’t say your an environmental leader, just do it!
Additional resources:
Download the full report, read our press release and listen to the teleconference about the report here
Watch a SACE-created video of the mechanical draft cooling towers already in use at Turkey Point Unit 5 here
Read some of the media coverage: SNL Financial (S&P Global), Miami Herald, Palm Beach Post

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Environmentalists call for reduction of phosphorus released south of Lake Okeechobee
Health News Florida – by the Editor
August 16, 2016
For two decades, Florida has had an annual limit on how much phosphorous can flow out of the Everglades Agricultural Area -- a region of farmland south of Lake Okeechobee. Farmers and sugar-growers must release at least 25 percent less phosphorous than they did before the limit.
Until this year, farmers haven’t had much trouble making this goal, which was established in 1996 by the Everglades Forever Act. They have a near-perfect record of exceeding the 25 percent reduction standard -- often by as much as 40 percentage points.
This year, the farmers beat the 25 percent goal again, releasing 27 percent less phosphorous. But they struggled more than usual because of very heavy rains.
"They had the rainiest year since 1932," said Melanie Peterson, a member of the South Florida Water Management District's governing board. "Any time the ground is saturated, you're going to have an issue where it's going to be difficult to either contain or control nutrient runoff."
The heaviest rain came right in the middle of growing season -- when phosphorus levels are highest because of the fertilizers used in the growing process. Extra water from the rain interfered with the closed canal systems that usually keep phosphorous on the farms. And farmers had to deal with heavier-than-normal runoff from other areas near Lake Okeechobee.
"The fact that they accomplished 27 percent in such a historically wet year is, I think, commendable, really... It's just super commendable," Peterson said.
But critics of the reduction goal program say this year's success is just another indicator that it's time to either raise the goal from 25 percent.
Dr. Melodie Naja, chief scientist for the Everglades Foundation, pointed out that in 1996, the first year of full implementation of the reduction program, farmers released 68 percent less phosphorus -- well above the 25 percent required reduction.
"In just the first compliance year... that's really very high," Naja said. "Normally when you implement best management practices, you could expect several years to see an impact on water quality."
Naja said there’s also a problem with using a standard based on averages.
"Basically, the bad neighbors are counting on the good neighbors to achieve the 25 percent."
Naja said measuring the load of phosphorus that reaches the Everglades would be a better measure of farmers' success in reducing their phosphorus releases. She also recommended that individual farms be held accountable for the amount of phosphorus they release.
"We need to target those specific hotspot areas," Naja said.

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Miami faces $3.5T loss, highest risk of sea level rise among all coastal cities: report
TheRealDeal.com - by Katherine Kallergis
August 16, 2016
Beachfront property in Miami-Dade is valued at nearly $15B
Miami stands to lose up to $3.5 trillion in assets by 2070 due to sea level rise, according to a new National Wildlife Federation report.
Miami has the largest amount of exposed assets, beaches included, of any coastal city, the report shows.
Guangzhou, China ranked second; and New York ranked third, according to the “Changing Tides: How Sea-Level Rise Harms Wildlife and Recreation Economies Along the U.S. Eastern Seaboard” report.
In Florida, $69 billion worth of property is at risk of flooding in less than 15 years, and beachfront property in Miami-Dade alone is valued at more than $14.7 billion.
Coastal flooding and beach erosion are among the biggest offenders for Florida, according to the report: Since the early ’90s, the state has spent $393 million on replacing sand. To maintain those beaches over the next 50 years, Miami-Dade County will need roughly 20 million cubic yards of sand, according to the Army Corps of Engineers.
Property values in South Florida are expected to fall as the tides rise, experts have said. And beachfront property has always been more valuable to developers and real estate buyers in the region.
The NWF issued the report to illustrate how sea-level rise harms wildlife and recreation economies along the U.S. Eastern Seaboard. While cities like Miami and New York are at the top of the list, the report states that poorer areas along the coast could be more vulnerable because they don’t have the resources to deal with the effects of climate change.
The city of Miami Beach, for example, is investing at least $400 million in raising street heights and installing water pumps throughout the barrier island’s most flood-prone areas. In addition, all new construction greater than 7,000 square feet must be Gold Leed Certified.
The National Wildlife Federation said some ways to mitigate the effects of climate change are to “curb development that degrades coastal ecosystems” and reform the National Flood Insurance Program to discourage redevelopment in “risky areas.”
Tourist attractions, including the Florida Everglades and the Florida Keys, are also at risk.
Check out a February map of the most at-risk areas of flooding in Miami, including Key Biscayne, Virginia Key and parts of Miami Beach:

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Big Sugar's ads do nothing to lessen its responsibility for water solutions
TCPalm.com – Letter by Charles Grande, Jensen Beach, FL
August 15, 2016
After many months of largely inaccurate full-page ads from U.S. Sugar, we of the Rivers Coalition Defense Fund decided to set the record straight with an ad of our own.
Not having the industry's limitless funds and professional PR support, we did the best we could to get the truth out. Boy, did we hit a nerve.
Within three days of our ad appearing, U.S. Sugar was produced a counter-ad. I guess if you have the industry's resources and you don't feel the need to be accurate, you can do that.
The ad says we are name-calling and demonizing the industry players with the term "Big Sugar." Well, they are big, and they are sugar.
That phrase was being used refer to them long before we were involved in the fight to save our waterways. Any negative connotation attached it must have been earned by them without any help from us.
They then get into their version of setting the record straight by claiming the Army Corps never supported the flow-way.
The Corps' Plan 6 is the basis for the flow-way and was presented by the Corps as the best and most economical solution. They say the same thing about the SFWMD and the University of Florida, but we all know who controls the Sugar Farmers Water Management District, and UF questioned the feasibility of getting the necessary land from — you guessed it: Big Sugar.
Suffice it to say, all of them combined, costing tens of billions, will not stop the damaging discharges.

160815-b
Some recent “Everglades” articles
Politico.com
August 15, 2016
STILL POLLUTED -- “Lake Okeechobee: a time warp for polluted water,” by Miami Herald’s Jenny Staletovich: “For all the things that change in South Florida — the skyline, the swelling population, sea level — one thing has remained remarkably constant: pollution in Lake Okeechobee. In 1985, 500 metric tons of phosphorus flowed into the lake. Last year, the total was 450 tons. In the years between, amounts of the damaging nutrient went up and down but nearly always remained three to four times higher than a target the state set in 2000.” http://hrld.us/2bg6zfp
DIRTY WATER -- “OUR VIEW: Lagoon questions, conflicts,” by The Daytona Beach News-Journal’s staff: “More than 1,000 people have endorsed a petition asking the Army Corps to conduct public hearings in Southeast Volusia before approving the project. Technically speaking, it’s not Volusia County government’s job to keep an eye on the St. Johns River Water Management District or the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. But the county is right to register concerns — not just with the district or DEP, but with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Gov. Rick Scott and the Florida Cabinet — on the application for a 315-acre mitigation bank proposed for the Mosquito Lagoon Aquatic Preserve.” http://bit.ly/2bvECCc
SUGAR SWEET ? -- “Rubio doesn’t support Negron’s plan to buy sugar land for Everglades clean-up ‘until we finish’ existing projects,” by Miami Herald’s Mary Ellen Klas and Jack Suntrup: http://bit.ly/2br5nnW

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160814-a
Help overturn new water standards
Pensacola News Journal – by Bart Bibler and Linda Young, executive director of the Florida Clean Water Network
August 14, 2016
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) has not revised the Surface Water Quality Standards in over 20 years, although they are required to conduct a triennial review (every three years). The FDEP has just adopted a revision weakening criteria for 15 toxic chemicals that are being dumped in our waters where some people get their drinking water and where everyone should be able to fish and swim. Some of these criteria have been increased by greater than a thousand fold! Four of these chemicals are known carcinogens.
While 39 new criteria were approved, FDEP chose not to set standards for 20 pollutants that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had provided proposed criteria for. The Florida Clean Water Network has been pushing since the early ‘90s for FDEP to regulate all human health-based toxics being dumped in our waters, including dioxin and many others. All of the new criteria that FDEP did set are weaker than EPA recommends for Florida to maintain a one in a million cancer risk level.
The FDEP uses EPA’s equation, which is an absolute requirement, but substitutes the “Monte Carlo” probabilistic method of calculating factors for body weight, fish consumption rate and drinking water intake — aptly named in that it gambles with public health. This method derives an average (or mean) from a wide array of far-fetched scenarios, rather than the appropriate number to protect the most sensitive populations (i.e. children, native cultures who consume more fish, etc.). For instance the range of body weight used to find the “mean” or “average” for the proposed criteria was between 78 and 375 pounds, with a mean value of 165 pounds and an average human weight of 226 pounds! This does not protect children or lighter-weight adults.
The toxicological basis for each chemical criterion was focused on carcinogenic effects or non-cancer critical effects, and did not consider endocrine disrupting effects or synergistic effects.
The FDEP has lowered its assumption of Floridians’ fish consumption rate several times during their surface water quality standards revision process. It doesn’t consider fish from marine water only from freshwater and estuarine water. The FDEP started out with an assumption of 63.5 grams per day in 2003, dropped it to 47.0 grams per day in 2005, dropped it again to 32.0 grams per day in 2008 and used just 24.2 grams per day in the approved rule. This is a key assumption of the criteria equation and is a significant reduction in protection of public health.
The FDEP monitors surface waters around the state by testing for these chemicals only once every five years. The FDEP requires permitted industrial and domestic wastewater dischargers to test only for some of these chemicals, and at a frequency that depends on the size of the facility and its discharge flow. The FDEP often allows discharge permit limit requirements to be met after a mixing zone, rather than at the end of the discharge pipe.
The EPA has established maximum contaminant levels (MCLs) for public drinking water facilities, which have been delegated to FDEP to implement via their public drinking water program. The Florida Department of Health (FDOH) implements a drinking water program for smaller systems, including limited use drinking water systems (such as convenience stores and small residential rental properties) and private drinking water wells. The FDOH also tests private
drinking water wells upon request, or around known contamination areas.
However, Florida has approximately 4 million private drinking water wells, but very few are tested and only for a very few chemicals. Since the FDEP has drinking water criteria (MCLs) for just a portion of chemicals known to be a risk to health and contaminating Florida’s groundwater, the FDOH establishes health advisory levels (HALs) for many other chemicals. The FDEP requires public drinking water systems to test only for some of the MCLs, not for the HALs, and at a frequency that depends on the size of the facility. Many of the public drinking water facilities are not designed to remove all of these chemicals addressed by the FDEP Surface Water Quality Standards. The smaller drinking water systems regulated by the FDOH typically have no treatment to remove these chemicals. Many public water systems, limited use water systems and private wells are under the direct influence of surface waters.
There are 23 of the new FDEP Surface Water Quality Standards that exceed FDEP Drinking Water MCLs or FDOH HALs. Some of these values exceed the MCL or HAL by greater than a thousand fold! Since Florida’s surface water and groundwater is often interconnected, this represents a significant threat to public health.
Please help overturn the new FDEP Surface Water Quality Standards. The Florida Clean Water Network is leading the legal challenges. Consider becoming a member and donating to the Clean Water Network.
Bart Bibler is a professional engineer, former assistant bureau chief of surface water management at FDEP and former bureau chief of water programs at the Florida Department of Health.
Linda Young is executive director of the Florida Clean Water Network

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Official: Alligator nearly bites off woman's hand
Associated Press, Tampa Bay Times
August 14, 2016
FORT LAUDERDALE — A woman trying to get a soda can she dropped into the water in the Everglades had her hand nearly bitten off by an alligator, authorities said.
Kimberly Ann Sexton, 49, was trying to retrieve a Mountain Dew can she dropped on Friday when the animal attacked her hand, according to a report released by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Sexton was bitten by a 6.5-foot alligator, the report said. The animal was found by a trapper and euthanized after the incident.
Two witnesses grabbed Sexton by her legs and kept her from being pulled into the water, the report said. They also managed to free her hand from the gator's jaws.
A fire rescue helicopter was dispatched just before 6:30 p.m. to a fish camp in the Everglades near Fort Lauderdale. Sexton, who lives in St. Cloud in central Florida, was staying there with family.
Broward Sheriff Fire Rescue spokesman Mike Jachles says flight medics found her with her right hand "almost fully amputated" and losing consciousness.
She was flown to Broward Health North Trauma Center, where she was in critical condition.

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U.S. agency begins 'proof of concept' experiment on algae blooms
DigitalJournal.com - Op-Ed by Karen Graham
August 14, 2016
Provo - U.S. Geological Survey scientists spent last week studying how nutrients contribute to algae blooms in two major lakes in Utah. The study follows a massive algae bloom that closed Utah Lake a few weeks ago.
Christopher Shope, a research hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Utah, says the study is more like an experimental "proof of concept" project that the agency hopes will show that long-term research is worth the investment, according to the Record-Eagle.
So the agency is focusing the study on discovering a way to predict outbreaks before they happen. This would give state and county officials time to warn boaters, swimmers, and farmers before the outbreak begins. Currently, bodies of water in Utah are monitored on a limited basis because the cost of the equipment is too expensive and doing the analysis' is time-consuming.
Toxic algae blooms have become a major environmental problem, not only in the United States but around the world. One of the largest algae blooms occurred in 2014 on Lake Erie, leaving over 400,000 people in the Toledo, Ohio, area without drinking water for two days.
This year, Florida's beaches and inlets on the Atlantic Coast were fouled by an enormous algae bloom, and just a few weeks ago, Utah Lake, one of the largest freshwater lakes west of the Mississippi River was closed because of an enormous algae bloom that sickened over 100 people and forced farmers who used the lake's water for irrigation to search for water elsewhere.
According to Shope, the team used one set of equipment to collect data at the two lakes. But he says that to do a larger study of Utah Lake would require the use of five pieces of equipment, costing $150,000 each and an additional $50,000 annually to operate, reports CTV News Canada.
The team wants to hone in on what nutrients are responsible for the harmful algae blooms (HAB), and will be looking at wastewater treatment plants and agricultural practices. The causative agents in HABs are a type of bacteria that receive their energy through photosynthesis. They are called Cyanobacteria and are often called blue-green algae.
The freshwater HABs are usually the result of an excess of nutrients, nitrogen, phosphates, and carbon. Of major concern is the phosphates. They are found in fertilizers applied to land for farming and are also found in many home cleaning products. Excess amounts of carbon and nitrogen are also harmful. As a matter of fact, residual sodium carbonate acts as a catalyst for the algae to bloom by providing dissolved carbon dioxide that hastens photosynthesis.
But we also know a lot about the environmental conditions already at work in Utah Lake, and it doesn't cost $150,000 worth of equipment. In the first place, Utah Lake is shallow, with an average depth of only 10.5 feet. With only one river outlet, evaporation accounts for 42 percent of its outflow, leaving the lake slightly saline.
Perhaps more importantly, up until 1967, raw sewage was still being pumped into Utah Lake. We also know for a fact that Utah Lake was placed on the state's 2000 and 2004 303d list for phosphorus and total dissolved solids (TDS) exceeding recommend values, based on the federal Clean Water Act.
In 2010, Krissy Wilson of Utah's Division of Wildlife Resources stated that Utah Lake's water quality was better because of greater water flow that had contributed to the improvement. However, the presence and activity of carp, which keep the sediments stirred up, doesn't help the overall picture.
Carp were introduced into the lake in 1883 after local fish populations were nearly depleted. Now, carp make up 90 percent of the fish found in the lake. Averaging 5.3 pounds, the adult population is estimated to be around 7.5 million.
One last added problem is the heat wave being experienced in the region. At the time when the harmful algae bloom was at its worst, the southwestern region of the country was experiencing record hot temperatures and drought-like conditions, perfect for an algae bloom.
The bigger question surrounding the algae problem in Utah Lake is when were officials going to start cleaning the lake up? Everyone knows what the problem is, and that is half the battle.

160814-d
USF study: Water from deep in gulf may keep away red tide
Tampa Bay Times – by Anastasia Dawson
August 14, 2016
TAMPA — Beaches in the bay area may seem a little more pleasant next summer with fewer dead fish and more tourists lying on the shore.
Researchers from the University of South Florida and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission say it's unlikely that Florida's west coast will see any major Red Tide algae blooms next year. The reason: Ocean currents are bringing more nutrient-rich water to the coast.
"It's really fascinating, because Red Tide is a biological phenomenon, but ocean circulation physics can control whether or not conditions are conducive for it to develop," said Robert Weisberg, a professor in the College of Marine Science at USF St. Petersburg.
"Ecology is not just biology; it all depends on the movement of the water," he said.
Weisberg and his team recently published papers detailing how ocean circulation affects Red Tide blooms in The Journal of Geophysical Research.
The microscopic algae that make up Red Tide blooms — called Karenia brevis — live in the Gulf of Mexico all year, Weisberg said. When nutrients in the water fall below a certain level, though, the algae can muscle out other plants. They stick together to form large, brick-colored blooms that are highly toxic to ocean animals.
This year, however, new water with elevated nutrient levels is coming into the West Florida Continental Shelf from the depths of the Gulf of Mexico. A deep-water current near the Dry Tortugas, called the Loop Current, is setting the gulf in motion, circulating ventilated and nutrient-rich water from the deeper gulf toward the coastline.
History shows the enriched water gives competing ocean plants a better chance at survival. When that happens, there's a "pretty good" chance those plants will keep Red Tide blooms at bay, Weisberg said.
"In all but four of the past 23 years, this rather simplistic scenario seems to work," he said.
If this year's prediction holds true, it will bring a welcome change, said David Downing, executive director of Pinellas County's tourism agency, Visit St. Pete/Clearwater.
Red Tide blooms of various sizes have marred the coastal experience every year since 2011, particularly from late summer to early fall. The blooms' toxins affect the central nervous systems of fish and other marine life, and can irritate the human respiratory system when blown by the wind.
"You get dead fish on the beach, it smells, it definitely turns people away," Downing said.
Accurate predictions of when and where Red Tide will bloom could help the tourism and fishing industry, Downing said.
More research and observation is needed, Weisberg said, but the strength and direction of the ocean currents have proven a reliable indicator.

160813-a
Lake Okeechobee: a time warp for polluted water
Miami Herald – Jenny Staletovich
August 13, 2016
For all the things that change in South Florida — the skyline, the swelling population, sea level — one thing has remained remarkably constant: pollution in Lake Okeechobee.
In 1985, 500 metric tons of phosphorus flowed into the lake. Last year, the total was 450 tons. In the years between, amounts of the damaging nutrient went up and down but nearly always remained three to four times higher than  a target the state set in 2000. At a meeting in March, just before another algae bloom slimed the Treasure Coast following massive releases of polluted lake water, the state's own scientists concluded that there had been no improvement at all.
Despite decades of planning and promises, Florida lawmakers, governors and agencies have never gotten close to cleaning up the largest lake in the Southeast U.S. — the “liquid heart” of South Florida’s water supply system. The reasons are many, but they come down to one thing, said Paul Gray, Audubon Florida’s Lake Okeechobee science director.
“It’s really easy to explain,’’ he said. “They didn’t do enough to fix it.”
Florida — under the pressure of a landmark federal lawsuit — has made slow but significant strides in reducing pollution from sugar fields south of the lake. But to the north, with no judge monitoring things, there has been little progress.
A 2000 law promising to spend $175 million to help farmers and ranchers control phosphorus doled out just $3 million. Seven years later a plan that would have created about a million acre-feet of storage north of the lake got swallowed in the recession and abandoned by a new governor. Critics say state laws favor “best management” goals for many agricultural operations instead of enforceable standards, and include loopholes like one allowing largely unregulated use of treated sewage sludge, high in nutrients, on farm fields. Meanwhile, suburbs that produce even more phosphorus than farms continue to expand around booming Orlando.
And this year, after failing to meet the law’s 2015 deadline to get phosphorus loads into the lake down to 140 tons, state lawmakers simply set a new deadline — 20 years from now.
Rep. Matt Caldwell, a North Fort Myers real estate appraiser who sponsored the law, told the Miami Herald at the time that the blown deadline was never meant for fixing the lake, just coming up with a plan. “That would be a ridiculous presumption,” he said, given the lake’s complexity.
But Estus Whitfield, who served under governors Bob Graham, Bob Martinez and Lawton Chiles on Everglades clean-up, said lawmakers are engaging in revisionist history. The goal was always to cap lake pollution, he said. “That was pretty clear.”
The state is now scrambling to play catch-up, expediting two vast reservoirs for coastal estuaries and giving emergency approval in July to $2.6 million for improvements. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers also launched a planning effort to increase storage north of the lake last month. But solutions won’t be quick. Planning alone will take three years, news that drew groans from both farmers and environmentalists at a crowded meeting in Okeechobee last month.
This week, incoming Senate President Joe Negron, a Republican from Stuart whose district has been repeatedly hammered by lake-triggered algae blooms, also stepped in with a $2.4 billion proposal to buy 60,000 acres of sugar farms to build reservoirs that could reduce dumps to the two coasts. The proposal, which calls for splitting the cost with the federal government, will face considerable political opposition.
Phosphorus, a naturally occurring element that is also a key nutrient in fertilizer, has always existed in the lake. It’s the stuff that helped create the rich muck to the south that built a $677 million-a-year sugar industry. The problem is when too much piles up.
Historically, water flowed south from the Kissimmee River basin, collecting phosphorus from the surrounding wetlands. It streamed into a lake a third larger than it is now and regularly overflowed into an Everglades that was twice as big. But when the Kissimmee River was straightened in the 1960s, water flowed much faster, sending too much phosphorus too fast, like a giant sewer pipe.
A 30-foot high dike, built to protect communities and fields, also stopped excess water from spilling south into the Glades. So now when the lake rises higher than the dike or lake aquatic life can handle, water managers flush water to the coasts.
Then things get worse.
The releases send huge amounts of freshwater into coastal saltwater estuaries that mix with local run-off rich in nitrogen and local phosphorus. The results: putrid blue-green algae. So much phosphorus has concentrated in the lake’s mucky bottom over the decades that even if no more were added, scientists say it could take another 50 years to reach water quality targets.
Ranch finds balance between business and environment 
On Tuesday July 26 2016 Frank Wesley Williamson III, an Okeechobee rancher, has developed practices that reduces his phosphorus footprint on Lake Okeechobee and surrounding waterways though south of the lake, where a federal lawsuit set strict standards, South of the lake, Florida already has a working model of how to reduce phosphorus pollution.
To settle a federal lawsuit, the state agreed to stem the flow of fertilizer runoff that for decades has poisoned the Everglades. The biggest investment came from South Florida taxpayers, who have largely bankrolled a $2 billion-plus series of massive artificial marshes that scrub nutrients from farm runoff. But the sugar industry also has tweaked its practices.
Over the last 20 years, concentrations of phosphorus in water near fields has dropped from a high in 1986 of about 500 parts per billion to 94 parts per billion. The artificial marshes knock the phosphorus level down further. It’s still two to three times higher than the 10 parts per billion considered healthy for a pristine Everglades, but that’s significant improvement from two decades ago. A practice called “back-pumping” — sending runoff north into the lake — is now only used in emergency conditions.
For many critics, politically powerful Big Sugar remains the main stumbling block in ending the nasty cycle of coastal algae blooms. But between 2011 and 2015, South Florida Water Management District numbers show the sugar industry accounted for just three percent of the phosphorus pumped into the lake.
All together, sugar farmers have spent about $260 million on clean up, largely by keeping water on farms, cleaning out ditches where phosphorus-rich soil settles and calculating more carefully the amount of fertilizer needed to grow crops, said U.S. Sugar spokeswoman Judy Sanchez .
The partnership between the [Everglades Agricultural Area] farmers and landowners and the South Florida Water Management District should serve as a model for other areas.
“The results are undeniably good news,” Sanchez wrote in an email. “The partnership between the [Everglades Agricultural Area] farmers and landowners and the South Florida Water Management District should serve as a model for other areas to ensure that each region takes responsibility for its water issues.”
But what works to the south — an area dominated by a single crop and a single industry — may not be so simple to carry out to the north, where a vastly different set of problems and variables exist. To the north, water flows from sod and dairy farms, mobile home parks, vegetables fields and ranches through canals, ponds, creeks, rivers and sloughs into the lake faster than it can flow out. The watershed covers about 5,400 square miles, stretching from just south of Orlando to the lake.
“Some of the estuary people have been told, you’re one lawsuit too late,” Gray said.
In the 1980s, the state tried to manage the problem by targeting dairy farms, which produced more phosphorus than any other land use. New regulations tightly controlled how much could leave the farms, eventually leading dairy farmers to completely reinvent operations, said Woody Larson, a second-generation Florida dairyman who with his two sons now manages the family’s two Okeechobee farms.
“Our farm, instead of having cows scattered all around it, is now a farm for recycling water,” Larson said.
Like other dairy farmers above the lake, Larson’s operates a closed-loop system, meaning cows are housed in free stalls under sprinklers and cooling fans with all their waste tightly controlled. Pastures where they once grazed are instead used to grow grass irrigated with the cow’s own treated wastewater from the barns. The grass is then cut, stored in a silo and fed to the cows.
But the expensive fixes came at a steep cost. Of the more than 50 dairies in the 1980s, the number today is down to 19, Larson said. The number of cows dropped from about 50,000 to 25,000.
“The politics were clearly ahead of the science at that point,” Larson said, describing the frustration felt by farmers. “We were issued this edict but at the same time we didn’t know how to solve it.”
Wes Williamson, a third generation rancher in Okeechobee — where seven of the nation’s 15 top-producing cattle ranches sit within 80 miles of each other — keeps a phosphorus budget. He knows exactly how much comes onto his ranch, in fertilizer and rainfall, and how much goes out — mostly in cattle sales — and tries to control it by changing operations, like planting more trees so cattle don’t cool off in ponds that might drain into creeks or other water bodies.
In 2005, he said, the World Wildlife Fund worked with eight ranches in pilot projects, paying them to store water.
“It’s been a good thing. The problem is there hasn’t been [enough] funding for it,” Williamson said. “If a cattle ranch can’t make a little bit of money, sooner or later it will be turned into what my father calls the final crop. Land goes into housing, but it never comes back.”
So if farmers and ranchers have changed operations, where is the phosphorus coming from? Over the years, scientists have repeatedly tried to map out the sources.
In 2010, the South Florida Water Management District hired the University of Florida and a team of engineers led by Del Bottcher, president of Gainesville-based Soil and Water Engineering Technology, Inc. They found that over the previous decade, the watershed was actually producing slightly more phosphorus overall — some 1,792 tons — even as farmland was being rapidly converted into houses.
Gary Roderick, a former Martin County and DEP environmental manager, points to multiple problems, including widespread “best management” farming practices that are largely voluntary and monitored by an understaffed state agriculture department. Loopholes in state law also encourage what he called one of the worst practices — enriching soils with treated sludge from municipal sewage plants. The nutrient-packed sludge isn’t formally classified as a fertilizer.
About 37 percent of the sludge from across the state is used on land as a fertilizer, according to the DEP. Another 29 percent is marketed and sold commercially.
“You cannot control — it is impossible to control — nutrients in surface waters without making a serious attempt [at] source control on agricultural lands. Period,” Roderick said.
Strip away the sludge, and the farming practices, while not perfect, managed to reduce phosphorus by 22 percent, Roderick and Bottcher say.
Over the years, blame and finger-pointing for phosphorus has largely targeted the ag industry. But farmers and ranchers say that while their fields and cattle have dwindled in the watershed draining south, one thing has not: people. The number between 1980 and 2015 more than doubled, from just over a million to about 2.6 million.
They have a point: Bottcher found that while urban areas made up just 12 percent of the watershed, they generated 29 percent of the total phosphorus.
Bottcher, who is building a model for the water management district, said he is looking to pinpoint the best “bang for the buck” approaches to control so many different sources of pollution .
“Where do you spend your money to get the biggest phosphate reduction?” he asked. “You can get 10 to 35 percent reduction with reasonable expenditures. But the [best management practices program] is asking for 80 percent, so how do you get the rest?”
Then there is that legacy phosphorus, the stuff already in the ground on dairy farms, pastures, tree crops and neighborhoods and in the lake. Over the years, multiple ways to remove it from the lake bottom muck — treating it with chemicals, dredging it out and burying it, even converting the lake into a kind of phosphate mine — have been considered and rejected. No one has come up with a realistic solution, affordable or otherwise.
 “Nothing has ever been done at a scale at even a tenth of the size,” of Lake Okeechobee, said UF aquatic ecologist Karl Havens.
For now, Gov. Rick Scott and water managers continues to grapple with the algae crisis — and spin it politically.
Scott declared a state of emergency and tried to blame the Obama administration for the foul water, saying the federal government had not moved quickly enough to repair the aging Herbert Hoover dike around Lake Okeechobee.
At ground level, Scott offered low-interest loans to damaged businesses and ordered the water management district to start holding more water to the north while releasing more water to the southeast and south into massive water conservation areas in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties.
The water district also stepped up its public relations campaign, issuing regular “Get the Facts” press releases to tout work, mostly south of the lake.
On its list of accomplishments: $880 million Scott approved to settle a federal lawsuit and build another 6,500 acres in storage and treatment. A spreader canal has also been completed to keep additional water now being moved south from leaking out of Everglades National Park into farm fields in South Miami-Dade. The district also began construction on fixes to increase the amount of water in Taylor Slough by 6.5 billion gallons a year. To the north, the restoration of
the Kissimmee River, a project split 50-50 between the state and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, should be done by 2019, which could slow the phosphorus spigot.
But big bold fixes for north of the lake — Negron’s proposal is for more southern storage — and the estuaries of the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers remain uncertain and far off.
And, as if conditions weren’t bad enough, there is increasing evidence that climate change could fuel more toxic algae blooms. In a 2015 study that looked at warming trends, changes in rainfall and an increase in blooms, Havens and a team of researchers concluded that phosphorus levels in water would likely need to be adjusted and more focus put on better farming practices.
“When you think about it, the problem is now twice as bad as when we started,” Gray said. “And this is not just an Okeechobee problem. It’s worldwide. Every where we farm, humans have always concentrated nutrients. That’s what we do.”

160813-b
Rubio: Negron's plan to buy sugar land for water storage should wait
Tampa Bay Times – by Mary Ellen Klas and Jack Suntrup
August 13, 2016
U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio said Saturday that he is not prepared to support a proposal unveiled this week by incoming Senate President Joe Negron to spend $2.4 billion in state and federal money to buy sugar land south of Lake Okeechobee to store water in an attempt to minimize the polluted discharges that have spawned toxic algae blooms in the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee estuaries.
Rubio, who was in Brandon Saturday morning for the opening of Republican Party of Florida field office, said he will not support federal funds for more projects until the state and federal government "finish the Central Everglades Planning Project because we're not going to get both."
"We are in a competition with 49 other states for water money and if we keep coming up with new projects, what these other states will say to us is, 'Well, we're not going to fund your programs until you guys down there figure out what you really want','' he said.
The state is waiting for Congress to authorize CEPP, a program that is designed to reduce damaging freshwater releases to the estuaries and send more of that water, cleaned of phosphorus, to the estuaries of Everglades National Park and Florida Bay. The plan would also increase the water supply for municipal, industrial and agricultural users. 
But, according to a 2015 report by the University of Florida Water Institute commissioned by the Florida Senate, CEPP "produces only relatively modest improvements in high flow conditions [to offset discharges from Lake Okeechobee] and almost no improvement in very high flow conditions for the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee." The report also noted that :even using the most optimistic assumptions, CEPP is not estimated to be complete for a minimum of 24 years."
Negron, R-Stuart, said last week that the state was facing an "environmental emergency" and buying land south of the lake in the heart of the Everglades Agricultural Area is one of the essential components of solving the dilemma. The increased release of phosphorus-laden discharges from the lake into the estuaries as part of the flood control efforts needed to manage the Everglades' "river of grass" have led to repeated algae blooms over the years, with this year's the worst on record. 
“Everyone who has looked at this issue, who has studied it, agrees we have to have storage south of the lake as a piece of the puzzle and a way to prevent these discharges,'' Negron said at a new conference to announce his proposal on Tuesday.
He also said that he has spoken to Rubio and believes that his proposal is "separate and apart" from the previous calls for the purchase of sugar land. 
"My sense in talking to member of Congress and Sen. Rubio is that everyone understands that the status quo is unacceptable that something has to be done,'' Negron said. He choose not to respond to Rubio's comments Saturday. 
Negron's plan calls for spending $2.4 billion to buy an estimated 60,000 acres of land in the heart of the Everglades Agricultural Area to store and clean water before releasing it into Everglades National Park and Florida Bay. 
Eric Draper, executive director of Audubon Florida, said Negron's plan is important to work in tandem with the Central Everglades Planning Process. 
"CEPP is more about treatment and conveyance.  The Negron proposal is about storage,'' he said Saturday. "CEPP is not designed to take water from the Lake in the wet season, so storage is needed.
Rubio, however, said he was prepared to wait for CEPP to be completed first.
"Let's get that done first. And once we have that done, once the money's in hand, if there's more to be done then we'll continue to work on more. But I think this continued coming up with new projects at the federal level is going to cost us both. We're not going to get either and that would be disastrous. So hopefully we can move forward on that."
Draper said that by delaying the purchase of land for storage, as Rubio suggests, could exacerbate the damage to coastal areas "for at least a decade" instead of improving them.
Draper noted that Congress in 2000 committed to funding for the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan approved by Congress and it calls for the purchase of land to store and clean phosphorus-laden water before releasing it into Everglades National Park. A project in the plan, known as ”EAA reservoirs and storage" calls for storing roughly 120 billion gallons of water, the same as Negron’s proposal, and is scheduled for planning in 2020. While most coastal and Everglades advocates would like to move the schedule up, the South Florida Water Management District has opposed that, Draper said. 
Rubio's comments underscore the difficulty Negron faces in his quest to jump state the debate over buying up sugar land south of the lake as pivotal component of Everglades restoration and algae control. The efforts to buy land in the heart of the Everglades Agricultural Area for water storage south of Lake Okeechobee has been demanded by environmentalists since Congress approved CERP, but efforts to buy the land needed for the project have been sidelined in the face of agriculture and sugar-industry opposition.
Florida sugar cane growers last week raised concerns about Negron's plan, noting that the two parcels he identified could remove from production the supply of available farm land needed to fuel the industry's profit centers, their sugar mills.
Negron, however, has indicated he is open to discussing other areas.
Here is a transcript of Rubio's full statement, when asked if he would support $1.2 billion in federal funding for Negron's proposal:
Sen. Rubio: "Not until we finish the Central Everglades Planning Project because we're not going to get both. And that's the point I've repeatedly made to people. We need to stop coming up with new projects until we finish the projects we already have. 
"We are in a competition with 49 other states for water money and if we keep coming up with new projects, what these other states will say to us is, 'Well, we're not going to fund your programs until you guys down there figure out what you really want.' 
"Right now, we are on the cusp of potentially passing the Central Everglades Planning Project, which is a multi-billion dollar project that will improve water quality for both the east and west coast of Florida. It will improve the health of the Everglades. 
"It was a program that was designed 16 years ago by experts. Let's get that done first. And once we have that done, once the money's in hand, if there's more to be done then we'll continue to work on more. But I think this continued coming up with new projects at the federal level is going to cost us both. We're not going to get either and that would be disastrous. So hopefully we can move forward on that."

160813-c
Sugar growers surprised by plan for Lake Okeechobee water
Palm Beach Post - by Kimberly Miller, Staff Writer
August 13, 2016
South Florida sugar growers said they were surprised by details of a proposal last week that would store excess Lake Okeechobee water on land that includes one of the state’s largest organic farms, the Okeelanta sugar mill, a portion of U.S. Sugar’s rail line and North America’s largest renewable power plant.
The plan, unveiled by Senate President-elect Joe Negron, answers the call of environmentalists and activists to find property south of Lake Okeechobee to store water and minimize harmful discharges into the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee estuaries.
It pinpoints two agricultural parcels, which are largely in Palm Beach County, that Negron said are viable areas for storing 120 billion gallons of water because they are near existing canals. The $2.4 billion plan includes bonding $100 million in Amendment 1 money and asking the federal government for matching funds to pay for land purchase and construction.
Wendy Graham, director of the University of Florida’s Water Institute and co-author of a 2015 study on reducing fresh water flows into the estuaries, said an additional 1 to 1.4 million acre-feet of storage is needed above what existing projects call for.
And that storage can be either north or south of the lake, she said.
“I would say efforts should be focused on wherever 300,000 to 400,000 acre-feet (97 to 130 million gallons) of storage, treatment and conveyance can be added to the system most expeditiously,” she said. “Financial, political, economic and logistical constraints will control this, not science or engineering constraints.”
Representatives from Florida Crystals and the Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida said those logistical constraints include repercussions of losing land with significant infrastructure and that is actively farmed.
“Taking another 60,000 acres of productive and sustainable farmland out of the Everglades Agricultural Area will without a doubt close down our sugar mill and put us out of business,” said Barbara Miedema, the cooperative’s vice president. “Sen. Negron’s plan means losing a thousand or more jobs in the Glades communities, not to mention the impact to businesses in the community that provide services to us.”
A South Florida Water Management District spokesman said officials there were equally unaware of the specifics of the plan before the unveiling and did not review the properties identified.
As Senate president, Negron will be able to make his plan a priority during the 2017 legislative session. Negron met with Florida Crystals five days before Tuesday’s announcement and “provided available details at that time,” said Katie Betta, a Negron spokeswoman.
When asked if Negron knew that the land he identified included Florida Crystals’ organic farm and its renewable energy plant, Betta said Negron made it “very clear” during his announcement that he was open to exploring alternative locations.
“While I have identified two parcels I think the state should purchase to build a reservoir, I also think we need to continue looking for water storage opportunities everywhere,” Negron said.
Florida Crystals owns about 60 percent of both parcels. U.S. Sugar owns about 30 percent of a parcel almost directly south of the lake. King Ranch owns about 30 percent of a parcel southeast of the lake.
The Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative said it was not invited to the meeting between Florida Crystals and Negron. Negron’s office said it tried repeatedly to contact the cooperative – a claim Miedema refutes.
“Please be assured he never reached out to me, nor would he,” she said. “I am not a lobbyist for our company, and I checked with our Tallahassee government-affairs person and he indicated he was not contacted.”
What to do with excess Lake Okeechobee water is a decades-long debate, a problem caused when humans rerouted Florida’s natural plumbing system to build homes, roads and farms. The St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee estuaries bear the brunt of disposing of lake water as they open to the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico.
The toll it takes on those brackish-water ecosystems is tremendous. This summer, a widespread outbreak of blue-green algae choked areas of the St. Lucie River, clogging marinas with thick slime and temporarily closing popular Bathtub Beach in Martin County. In June, Gov. Rick Scott declared a state of emergency because of the algae, which is believed to be “seeded” by the Lake Okeechobee discharges.
While projects are underway to alleviate the problem, such as bridging the Tamiami Trail so that water can flow under the road and south into drought-stricken Florida Bay, the algae outbreak renewed a call for immediate action.
“We’re on the right side of this issue,” Negron said Tuesday. “Everyone who has looked at this issue, who has studied it, agrees we have to have storage south of the lake as a piece of the puzzle and a way to prevent these discharges.”
Just one of the two 60,000 acre parcels Negron identified is needed for his plan, he said. The Palm Beach County Property Appraiser estimated the loss to the tax rolls if the state buys that amount of land to be about $1.3 million annually.
Some question how much storing 120 billion of gallons of water will help when, since November, 192 billion gallons has flowed into the St. Lucie River from Lake Okeechobee. Another 408 billion gallons has gone into the Caloosahatchee, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Julie Hill-Gabriel, deputy director of everglades policy for Audubon Florida, said water from the 120-billion-gallon reservoir would be released to the south when it fills up. That’s if the areas south aren’t already covered by too much water.
“This move just seems kind of intuitive as far as a response to the algae blooms this year,” Hill-Gabriel said.

160812-a
A promising land-buying idea for Everglades cleanup
Tampa Bay Times - Editorial
August 12, 2016
There always has been one essential element for any Everglades cleanup plan: buying farmland near Lake Okeechobee to clean the water and move it south. Now incoming state Senate President Joe Negron has jump-started the conversation by calling for $2.4 billion in state and federal spending to buy farmland south of the lake. This would be a significant breakthrough toward cleaning the Everglades, curbing the pollution harming the environment and economy along the coasts, and adding of billions of gallons to the water supply in fast-growing South Florida.
Negron, a Stuart Republican, proposed Tuesday that the state buy 60,000 acres for new water storage. One parcel is directly south of the lake; the other just southeast. Most of the land is in Palm Beach County and owned largely by sugar giants Florida Crystals and U.S. Sugar. Negron said he chose the parcels after meeting for months with the agricultural community, scientists and local advocates. He said the parcels appear "optimal for new water storage" and declared that finding money to buy them would be his "No. 1 personal priority."
The proposal comes after years of fits and starts, and after Gov. Rick Scott killed a previous land purchase plan and then blamed the federal government for much of the state's water woes. Negron brings common sense, needed urgency and fresh optimism to an effort that has languished for years.
Most immediately, the plan offers relief for coastal areas that have been suffocated this year by massive algae blooms. Heavy rains have forced the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to redirect billions of gallons of dirty water from Lake Okeechobee into the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie estuaries, stabilizing the lake and protecting property south from flooding. But the runoff has killed sea life, damaged tourism and property values and raised health scares from Fort Myers to Port St. Lucie. By expanding water storage, Negron would shore up the lake, protect these communities and help return the basin to its natural southern flow.
The tracts are strategically located to take advantage of canals, treatment areas and other infrastructure that is part of the larger cleanup effort. The state would fund its half of the cost with money from Amendment 1, the land preservation measure that Floridians overwhelmingly adopted two years ago. There is no more appropriate use of these conservation funds. Earmarking money for the land buy would also keep legislators from diverting trust fund money to pet projects that contribute little to the state's overall environmental health.
Negron is clearly tending to his district as toxic algae blooms inundate the Treasure Coast. But his proposal would benefit all of Florida. It would augment the Everglades cleanup effort and push new water supplies that now pour into the seas into an ever-urbanizing south. While the state needs to vet the sites and the financing plan, the concept is sound, and bonding would be an appropriate tool for speeding this project along.
Negron's proposal changes the conversation in the state capital. Coming from a top leader in the majority party, the plan amounts to an opening bid by the Senate that has bipartisan appeal. There is a broad public interest in taking this sugar land off the table, and Negron should see it through in the confidence he would build a more sustainable Florida. The public must also show its support and resolve to break the Legislature's allegiance to Big Sugar.

160812-b
For 21st consecutive year, Everglades farmers exceed phosphorus reduction requirements
SushineStateNews - by Nancy Smith
August 12, 2016
Despite the challenge of "an insanely wet 'dry season'" -- 10 inches in January alone -- Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA) farmers were able to keep their 20-year hot streak alive.
Pamela Wade, in charge of Everglades regulation for the South Florida Water Management District, delivered the good news to the District's governing board Thursday: Farmers again exceeded phosphorus reduction requirements for water flowing from their farms to the Everglades, making this the 21st consecutive year they have met the state’s water-quality standard south of Lake Okeechobee.
Wade said phosphorus was reduced 27 percent in the 477,000-acre farming region south of Lake Okeechobee for the 12 months ended April 30. Florida’s Everglades Forever Act, enacted in 1994, requires the amount of phosphorus leaving the EAA to be 25 percent less than before the reduction efforts began, Wade said. It is not a year-to-year comparison.
During the previous 20 years, the EAA averaged a 56 percent reduction in phosphorus, she said. 
But she added, this year was particularly challenging -- in fact in an earlier statement Governing Board member Melanie Peterson called it an “astounding accomplishment” -- considering the high water levels from record rainfall. The EAA experienced the wettest January since record keeping began in 1932.
"There's always a greater runoff response when we see such unprecedented rainfall and significant flooding in the basin," Wade said.
During a year of El Nino rainfall -- at times more than 350 percent above average -- the growers’ science-based “best management” farming practices, such as on-farm erosion controls and more precise fertilizer application methods, pulled them through.
Since 1996, Wade said during a slide presentation, those measures have prevented more than 3,055 metric tons of phosphorus, including 51 metric tons in the most recent period, from leaving the EAA.
Nevertheless, environmental organizations -- for example, Audubon Florida -- claim meeting the 25 percent phosphorus reduction is keeping the bar too low. It's an easy threshold to reach, Audubon Executive Director Eric Draper has said. Draper was unavailable for comment Thursday.
Agriculture is a powerful economic driver for the state of Florida. In the 700,000-acre EAA, the primary crop is sugar cane, but other crops such as winter vegetables, sod and rice are grown there, too. In fact, the EAA is known as "the nation's salad bowl."
“The Everglades Agricultural Area is a uniquely productive farming basin, unlike any other in the nation,” said EAA grower Paul Orsenigo of Pahokee-based Grower’s Management, the Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association’s incoming chairman. “Not only does the EAA provide abundant supplies of rice, sugar cane and vegetables — including enough lettuce for 3 billion salads -- but EAA farmers are also essential partners in the success of one of the world’s largest environmental preservation efforts.” 
Said John Scott Hundley of Hundley Farms in Belle Glade,“Hearing these results makes all of the hard work and long hours we put in during this tough year even more worthwhile. I’ve been working on our family’s farm for 26 years, and I can’t remember a tougher year managing water, outside of a major storm.  I’m proud of these results because they exemplify the expertise of the growers who were able to manage their farms in a way that protected local food supply and continued to provide water-quality performance for the Everglades.”
District officials said South Florida's water, especially water the district moves into Everglades National Park, is cleaner than it has been in generations and meets stringent water quality requirements.

160812-c
Martin County Commission calls on presidential candidates to tour local waterways
TCPalm.com – News Release
August 12, 2016
As the presidential candidates travel the country in preparation for the November election, the Martin County Commission has formally invited Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton to visit Martin County and tour our deteriorating waterways. Commissioners have extended the invitation via letters sent to the candidates' campaign headquarters and through an online petition, which is gaining support and signatures daily. In the communication, commissioners explain why the next president of the United States must address this situation; the severity of the water crisis is immeasurable.
Commissioners describe our environment as being under assault by rapidly declining water quality and increased freshwater discharges from Lake Okeechobee. The billions of gallons of polluted freshwater from the lake have harmed our delicate ecosystem and have directly contributed to the toxic algae blooms that spread throughout our water system, ultimately extending into the Atlantic Ocean and onto our beaches in June and July.
In the letters, commissioners reviewed local actions taken to date in response to the crisis in our waterways. In July, Martin County declared a state of local emergency which was immediately followed by Gov. Rick Scott's executive order at the request of the commission. These actions were taken to protect the health and safety of the community and save our local economy and ecosystem.
In addition, commissioners called on the governor to formally request that President Barack Obama declare a federal state of emergency to address the potential hazardous health, safety and welfare considerations. Commissioners also passed a resolution that clearly outlines the county's immediate needs and long term solutions to address water quality issues.
The presidential candidates were also informed of Martin County's commitment to comprehensive Everglades restoration. Martin County is a proud partner with the federal government and the state of Florida on Everglades restoration projects that are jeopardized by sustained lake discharges.
For the latest on water conditions in Martin County, visit www.martin.fl.us or www.facebook.com/speakupforthestlucie.

160812-d
Negron’s plan to buy 60,000 acres of sugar land is politics — and it just might work
TCPalm.com – by Eve Samples
August 12, 2016
In this topsy-turvy election year, there are no sure bets.
No incumbent is safe.
No front-runner is ordained.
The presidential primaries have proved that much.
On the local front, where toxic algae has fouled our river, it's not far-fetched to think the slogan of choice will be: "Vote the bums out !"
That, I believe, explains a lot about the big, bold proposal Sen. Joe Negron unveiled on Tuesday.
The Republican from Stuart proposed buying 60,000 acres of sugar land south of Lake Okeechobee and using it to build a reservoir to hold 120 billion gallons of lake water — providing a relief valve for what's discharged east to the St. Lucie River and west to the Caloosahatchee River. The total cost for land and construction: $2.4 billion, to be covered by proceeds from Amendment 1, which voters approved in 2014 for land conservation.
"When this reservoir is built and functioning and operational, it will solve the problem of discharges in typical years," Negron told me Friday.
Is this political strategy for Negron, who has an opponent on the November ballot?
He denied it, but I believe it is. Everything this year is.
That doesn't mean we should dismiss his plan.
Here are four reasons it is viable:
1. Florida Crystals is at the table this time
In 2008, when former Gov. Charlie Crist announced his deal to buy out U.S. Sugar Corp. for $1.75 billion — in the name of Everglades restoration — he excluded the state's other sugar giant from negotiations.
That meant the deal had immediate opposition from one of the most politically powerful families in the country: the Fanjuls, who control Florida Crystals. They are perennial players in state and national politics. (Alfy Fanjul co-chaired Bill Clinton's Florida campaign in 1992; his brother Pepe was on Bob Dole's finance committee in 1996.)
With opponents like that, is it any wonder Crist's deal fell apart?
In a 2010 letter to the editor published in this newspaper, an executive with Florida Crystals claimed the company supported the idea of reconnecting Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades and had "offered the necessary land to the state."
"The state never responded to our offers but doggedly pursued a transaction with U.S. Sugar," company Vice President Gaston Cantens wrote in the letter.
Florida Crystals has no such excuses this time. Negron identified two 60,000-acre parcels as options — and Florida Crystals owns a large chunk of both.
"It was important to have multiple options," Negron said Friday. "I didn't want to just have one option because that doesn't put the state in a good position. And I'm open to having more than two."
This time, Negron has dealt Florida Crystals a hand to play.
2. Negron is in line to be next Florida Senate president
If he's re-elected, Negron will serve two years as president of the state Senate, giving him huge influence over the state budget. He wants to issue bonds to buy the land south of Lake Okeechobee, using Amendment 1 proceeds to pay them off.
"Amendment 1 not only authorizes bonding, it anticipates it," Negron said.
"That's part of our constitution, and we're bound to follow it. It was passed by over 75 percent of the voters."
Negron can't do this alone. He will need support from power brokers, including Gov. Rick Scott and the designated House Speaker, Rep. Richard Corcoran, a Republican from Land O'Lakes.
Negron said he was "encouraged" by initial responses from Scott and Corcoran, but declined to give details. I contacted Corcoran's office for a comment, but he wouldn't elaborate beyond this vague statement:
"Any proposal by President-designate Negron will be reviewed by the House with seriousness and respect. I look forward to a constructive dialogue on this issue both within and between each chamber."
3. Green water hurts all of Florida
The crisis in Lake Okeechobee, the St. Lucie River and the Indian River Lagoon has existed for decades — but rarely has it been as visible as this year, when toxic blue-green algae bloomed in the St. Lucie River. It made national and international news, hurting the state's image as a tourism destination.
The stinky algae blooms happened in Negron's home district — our backyards on the Treasure Coast — but it hurt the image of the entire state.
There are ecological implications for the whole state, too. The Everglades and Florida Bay need more water moved south from Lake Okeechobee, and Negron's proposal would help those ailing systems, too.
"You're looking at issues that are affecting 20 million Floridians," said Eric Eikenberg, chief executive officer of the Everglades Foundation. He supports Negron's proposal.
Negron did not pull his proposal out of a hat. What he's calling for resembles the Everglades Agricultural Area Reservoir prescribed in the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, which was authorized by Congress 16 years ago.
4. The public uprising is visible as ever
On Wednesday, TCPalm columnist Gil Smart hand-delivered 3,600 copies of a letter to Gov. Scott that we printed on our front page July 2; previously, another 8,600 were signed digitally and emailed to Scott and lawmakers. The governor didn't bother to accept the print letters — nor did he designate a high-level staffer to take them.
If he's hiding from this issue, he won't be able to hide long.
No longer can this problem be dismissed as an "environmental activist" issue.
It's a public health issue. A small business issue. A tourism issue. A real estate and property values issue.
That brings me back to my original point:
Negron has an opponent on the November ballot. While Democrat Bruno Moore faces, in his own words, "a monumental battle" to unseat such a powerful incumbent, the odds of upset are greater in this election cycle.
Voters paying only casual attention know these facts:
●  The water in their river was green and toxic this summer;
●  The river crisis has existed a long time;
●  Negron has been in office a long time;
●  We still don't have a solution.
Considering the anti-establishment sentiment we've seen nationally this year, it's not out of the question to expect some voters to vote against the incumbents in every race — no matter how strong or weak their opponent.
It explains why Negron is going big.
Is it politics ? Of course.
But an anything-can-happen election year may be just the thing to create real action.

160812-e
Noted environmentalist and Everglades advocate to speak in Winter Harbor
Ellsworth American - by Jacqueline Weaver
August 12, 2016
WINTER HARBOR — Noted environmentalist Nathaniel Reed has spent a lifetime advocating for the natural world — most currently, the Florida Everglades.
On Wednesday, Aug. 24, he will explain in a talk at the Winter Harbor Public Library efforts to rescue what he calls “one of the greatest natural ecological systems in the world.”
“I will explain this vast, vast system of the Florida Everglades and the problems that are attached to it,” said Reed, a summer resident on Grindstone Neck who winters on Hobe Sound in Florida.
The genesis of the problem, he said, dates back to large dikes President Herbert Hoover ordered the Army Corps of Engineers to build after Lake Okeechobee flooded in 1928, causing the deaths of more than 4,000 people.
At 730 square miles, Lake Okeechobee is the largest freshwater lake in Florida.
“The dikes cut the lake off from the Everglades,” Reed said. “The Corps had no idea they had cast the first stone in the death of the Everglades. It was environmental ignorance.”
Adding to the problem was the boom in sugar cane farming following the embargo on sugar from Cuba.
Suddenly there were acres of sugar cane — heavily subsidized by the government — where vegetables once grew and where cattle once grazed.
“The major ecological change was that the grass in the Everglades changed from saw grass to cattails from the phosphorus runoffs of the sugar operations,” Reed said.
Biologists say the cumulative impact of cattails changes the microscopic life of the marsh water and kills invertebrates and higher forms of life, including fish.
Reed knows of what he speaks.
Among the many awards recognizing his advocacy for the environment is the Champion of the Everglades Award by the Arthur R. Marshall Foundation for the Everglades.
He recently completed a book — yet to be titled — on his years in the government in the Nixon and Ford administrations.
“The basic foundation of environmental law was laid down then,” he said.
Reed was an important, early participant in the last large land withdrawal in the nation’s history — the Alaska Land Wilderness Act.
He was the prime mover behind the Endangered Species Act of 1973, which, among other things, helped persuade President Richard Nixon to ban the pesticide DDT.
Currently Reed is concerned about Florida’s failure to honor the voter approved Amendment 1, which dedicated millions of dollars to acquire and restore conservation and recreation lands.
He was a founding member of The Everglades Foundation, which wants excess water in Lake Okeechobee to be cleansed through a series of artificial marsh systems.
“My speech will reflect on what was once a perfect natural system created thousands of years ago and how man decided he could control and make it work for him,” he said.
Reed said the solutions are evident — move water south to a canal designed to take vegetables to Miami.
“We want to use one of these canals to hook up with a very large reservoir,” he said. “It’s a safe solution for the crisis. It won’t fully restore the Everglades, but it will make the system workable again.”
“I would like to live long enough to see at least the beginning of this operation,” Reed said.

160811-a
Everglades Restoration 102: Present and Future
South Dade NewsLeader – by Tonya Mae Howington
August 11, 2016
Last week, we discussed the history of wetlands drainage and the need for restoration. Today, Everglades restoration is in full swing. Since former Florida Gov. Bob Graham announced the Save Our Everglades Program in 1983, there have been many hurdles to overcome. This initiative made the first formal call for an interagency effort to restore the natural flow of the Kissimmee River to Lake Okeechobee and from the lake to Everglades National Park.
It emphasized reversing watershed-scale changes in vegetation, decreases in animal populations, degraded water quality and higher salinities resulting from drainage of Everglades wetlands.
Nature is responding positively to steps taken toward restoration already. In 2007, the once endangered American crocodile was relisted as a threatened species because of its growing population.
Pedro Ramos, superintendent of Everglades National Park noted that visitors are reporting seeing more birds than in decades past.
In 2000, Congress authorized the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP). The first CERP initiatives that directly benefit the park address the operational plans of the Central and South Florida Project. This means that the timing and direction of surface water flows through the Everglades watershed are being revised by the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD).
The adjustments were first applied as the Interim Operational Plan following the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biological opinion that the Cape Sable seaside sparrow population was in jeopardy of extinction. In 2011, the short-term plan became the long-term Everglades Transitional Restoration Plan that is updated as new information is learned from monitoring both the sparrow population and water levels in the park.
The timing of flows into the park are adjusted to support conditions needed for the sparrow to successfully breed and nest. The sparrow's seasonal life cycle comes close to when other animal species, such alligators and many wading birds, are breeding, nesting, and foraging. The Everglades just does not allow much flexibility for when many nesting species can reproduce given that there are only two climatic seasons: a wet season from May to October and a dry season from November to April.
For this reason, getting the water right for the seaside sparrow is viewed as benefiting populations of other species, too.
The biggest hurdle and success for restoration have been improvements to water quality. Bob Johnson, director of the South Florida Natural Resource Center at Everglades National Park, explained that teamwork is required for success.
"Federal, state, local agencies and the tribes have worked together for nearly 25 years to determine how best to reduce nutrients in the Everglades watershed," Johnson said.
The effort began with the Consent Decree passed in 1992. This is legislation that requires the state to find ways to improve Everglades water quality. The limit for phosphorus, for example, was set at 10 parts per billion, which closely matches the naturally low nutrient environment of the southern Everglades. To meet that limit, farms within the Everglades watershed had to change the way they were fertilizing their fields and how they were disposing of the runoff of water from their farms.
The SFWMD has played a big role in constructing water runoff treatment areas, also known as stormwater treatment areas or simply STAs. They use plants to absorb excess nutrients in water flowing from the Everglades Agricultural Area south of Lake Okeechobee before it is sent downstream toward federal lands. There are also STAs along the border of the park to ensure water coming in from adjacent lands also meets water quality standards.
An example of a recently completed project that is specifically intended to keep the water clean in the park is the construction of the C-111 Spreader Canal Western Project.
Ernie Marks, director of the SFWMD's Everglades Restoration Division, says, "This project is operating to ensure clean water does not seep out of the park and stays within the natural system where it is most needed."
Keeping clean water in the park is important because the primary purpose of this project is to direct freshwater flowing from Taylor Slough to western Florida Bay in a manner that will restore historical salinities and support vegetation and historical water patterns in the state-owned Southern Glades and Model Lands.
The next big success is anticipated in 2018, when water will be expected to continually flow under the 1-mile bridge on Tamiami Trail, U.S. Highway 41. The length and location of the bridge will allow the distribution of water coming into the park from the state's Water Conservation Areas to be more balanced with respect to the historical distribution and seasonal timing of water flow.
This means that the overly dry northeast area of the park will finally be wetter and the overly wet northwest area drier. The missing piece is the needed volume of water. This is expected to be delivered in 2026 following construction of nearly 10 miles of additional raised road and bridging along Tamiami Trail that will be funded under CERP's Central Everglades Planning Project.
The project includes benefits to the state's Water Conservation Areas and the Modified Water Deliveries Project, which is specific to addressing the restoration needs of the park. According to the Army Corps of Engineers' planned design of CERP's future projects, the current volume of water reaching the park will increase fourfold.
The comprehensive approach of Everglades restoration to address altered freshwater flows, water quality, recovery of threatened and endangered species, non-native species management, and management of wildfires and prescribed burns will result in Everglades ecosystems becoming more resilient to disturbance and recover faster and more naturally.
Everglades restoration will likely continue to be a challenging process. However, there is much to gratify those involved. The most satisfying part of Everglades restoration for superintendent Pedro Ramos is the widespread personal commitment.
"Despite all the differences of opinion as to how to reach a successful outcome," he said, "everyone who is involved cares and wants to be a part of the effort."
Bob Johnson most appreciates the educational process that is happening. "I enjoy having people understand the integration of how the Everglades fits into their daily lives and then see them understand why it is so important to restore it."

160811-b
History of flushing Lake Okeechobee dates back to 1800s
TCPalm.com - by Cynthia A. Williams, Special to The News-Press
August 11, 2016
To paraphrase an old joke, when you’re up to your whatever in sewage, it’s
difficult to remember that your original objective was to drain the swamp.
Think of “the swamp” in this joke as the Everglades. The Everglades is a vast space. It begins at Lake Okeechobee and declines in elevation all the way down to below sea level at Florida Bay.
Originally occupying 4,000 square miles of south Florida, the sawgrass marsh of the Glades was actually a slow-moving river descending from Lake Okeechobee in overflow to the sea. Other ecosystems within the Glades are hardwood hammocks, pineland, cypress swamps, mangrove and coastal prairie, and the marine ecosystem of Florida Bay itself.
Even before Florida was a state, Americans have been studying the “Ever Glades,” drumming their chins with their fingertips, trying to figure out how to drain what they considered to be a big useless swamp and turn it into productive and profitable farmland.
The early builders of Fort Myers were particularly eager to drain the swamp, because the only way in to the Glades at the time was the Caloosahatchee River and Fort Myers would be the port of entry for the millions of new settlers needing overnight accommodations, supplies and passage upriver. Dollar signs danced in their eyes.
However, things didn’t go exactly as planned. The Caloosahatchee became a pipeline between the tank (Lake Okeechobee) and the toilet (Florida Bay) and Fort Myers ended up on the downside of a toilet flush.
It seemed like a good idea at the time
Interest in draining the Everglades began as early as 1837, eight years before Florida became a state. The second Seminole war (1835-1842) brought the U.S. army to the wetlands of south Florida and focused the attention of the nation upon them. Almost immediately after the war ended, Congress directed the secretary of war to prepare a report “in relation to the practicability and probable expense of draining the Everglades of Florida.”
The report described the “Ever Glades” as “suitable only for the haunt of noxious vermin or the resort of pestilent reptiles,” and requested an appropriation of ½ million to drain them. In 1850, Congress opened debate on the proposed Swamp and Overflowed Lands Act, which gave states title to any wetlands they could “reclaim.”
But first, time out for war
A third Indian war intervened, followed by the Civil War, but when the U.S. had succeeded in reeling the Confederate states back into the Union, the subject of draining the Everglades came up again. Florida’s Internal Improvement Fund (IIF) agency, tasked with improving the infrastructure of Florida with roads, railways and canals, found a Pennsylvania real estate developer named Hamilton Disston interested in the Everglades project. Disston gave the IIF $1 million for 4,000,000 acres of land in south Florida, which he promised to drain in return for title to half of the reclaimed land.
Exciting times
On September 21, 1881, a tug came slowly upriver to Fort Myers. Gliding in tow behind the boat was a contraption that probably awed the townsmen, delighted the kids and worried the townswomen. It was the monster dredge that was going to gnaw its way up the Caloosahatchee, with its terrible teeth widening, deepening and straightening the twisting upper reaches of the river all the way to its headwaters at Lake Hicpochee. From the lake, Disston’s engineers would dynamite and claw their way to Lake Okeechobee, opening a canal for the discharge of Everglades water from the Kissimmee River basin via the Caloosahatchee River into the Gulf of Mexico. It was possibly the largest reclamation project in the history of the nation.
However, things didn’t go exactly as planned. The predicted “reclamation of millions of acres, containing some of the most vital sugar lands in the United States,” fizzled in the stubborn standing water of the dad-blasted ever-lasting Everglades. Simply stated, Disston’s drainage canals didn’t drain. In 1888, he called a halt to the dredging operations and despite having failed to reclaim so much as one acre of wetland, walked off with a gift from friends in Tallahassee of 2 million acres of land.
Promises and politicians
The subject came up again in 1904.
In the gubernatorial election of that year, Napoleon Bonaparte Broward ran on the promise of reclaiming the Glades “for the people.” He was elected. Efforts to “drain that abominable pestilence-ridden swamp" began again.
James Wright, a USDA engineer, drew up a report stating that draining the Glades would not be difficult or costly; he calculated that eight canals designed to hold a maximum daily rainfall of 4 inches would be sufficient to drain 1,850,000 acres. Land speculators went into frenzied overtime, advertising the Everglades as “The Promised Land,” where crops and livestock would attain mythic proportions with little effort. People from all walks of life poured into Fort Myers’ hotels and boarding houses, booking passage by steamers upriver to Lake Okeechobee.
In 1910, Congress passed the River and Harbors Act, appropriating $121,000 to deepen the Caloosahatchee River channel. Victory over the evil forces of nature seemed assured.
However, things didn’t go exactly as planned. Wright came under the scrutiny of the U.S. House of Representatives, to whom Wright’s USDA colleagues testified that he was “absolutely and completely incompetent for any engineering work."
Land values sank, sales plunged. Land developers were sued and arrested for mail fraud, leaving the people who had invested their life savings in the land wading around in water black with the larvae of mosquitoes. Mired in muck that neither mules nor tractors could plow, people had tried to burn off the sawgrass, only to discover that the underlying peat kept on burning, desiccating the soil that then blew around them like clouds of gunpowder. By 1914, it was obvious that the experiment was over.
Here they come again
Incredibly, six years later, the land developers, trailed by hopeful settlers, were coming back.Efforts to drain the Glades had been dismal failures, but on the slightly elevated, naturallevee areas around the lake, experiments in soil improvement had made the production of sugarcane and vegetables possible. By
1921, 2,000 people lived in little start-up communities like Moore Haven (“Little Chicago”) and Belle Glade (“Muck City”) created to contain them. Clewiston was cut out of whole cloth to house agricultural workers brought in to labor in the sugar cane fields.
However, things didn’t go exactly as planned. The levees built around Lake Okeechobee were only 18 to 24 inches above the level of the lake. On September 16, 1926, a levee engineer predicted that in the event of high winds, “Moore Haven is going under…” Two days later, a category 5 hurricane struck and 1/3 of the people in Moore Haven, including the engineer’s wife and daughter, drowned.
On September 16, 1926, another hurricane-driven storm surge collapsed the levee and thousands more drowned, many of the bodies unrecoverable.
Flood control became the new priority in Everglades reclamation.
The U.S. Army, back in the field
The war upon the Everglades now passed from individual and state control to federal. In 1929, the Okeechobee Flood Control District was formed, and the Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) took over field operations. The USACE built an earth berm 35 feet high to encompass the 730 square miles of Lake Okeechobee and named the dike after President Herbert Hoover.
Then they dug east from the lake to the St. Lucie River and west to the Caloosahatchee and named this new 155-mile cross-state channel the Okeechobee Waterway. We had opened a scenic shortcut between the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. The rivers thus joined to the great Okeechobee would serve, incidentally, as conduits for the discharge of excess water from the lake.
And for once, things went exactly as planned.
Let the games begin
A well-intended but fool’s game of Slice and Dike ensued. The newly established Central and South Florida Flood Control Project (C&SF) severed Lake Okeechobee from its headwaters (the Kissimmee River basin), sliced the Glades below the lake into sections for agriculture (the Everglades Agricultural Area or EAA) and water conservation (Water Conservation Areas or WCAs), and ran canals from the lake to the WCA reservoirs smack dab through the sugar cane fields of the EAA…
…sending toxic agricultural runoff into the WCA reservoirs, which drain into our nature preserves and the underlying Biscayne Aquifer from which we draw our drinking water, and into our rivers, which deliver the contaminated water to the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico.
To understand the whole of the damage done to the ecosystems of the Everglades in the great pump and spigot chase of the past half century is tantamount to tracing the DNA of the most complex mosaic of interdependent animal and vegetative life on earth. In taking over from nature the management of water flow into and out of the Glades to meet the needs of U.S. Sugar and the exploding population of our urban areas, we have undermined the sustainability of both. But that is the subject of another story.
Suffice it to say that we have tracked down the perpetrator of the Okeechobee Flush. As Walt Kelly succinctly put it in his “Pogo” comic strip, “We have met the enemy and they are us.”

160811-c
Negron’s proposal offers hope for estuaries and Everglades
TCPalm.com – Guest Column by Eric Draper and Eric Eikenberg
August 11, 2016
This week was a celebratory one for the Everglades.
In front of a room of business leaders, environmentalists and local residents, Florida Senate President-Designate Joe Negron announced his plan to move forward with the much-needed Everglades Agricultural Area Reservoir.
The Everglades Foundation and Audubon Florida have advocated for this critical Everglades restoration project for a number of years. This project is vital to re-connecting Lake Okeechobee to the Florida Keys.
By storing, cleaning and sending Lake Okeechobee water south, the project significantly reduces the amount of polluted water being dumped east and west.
We are in a state of emergency here in Florida because of the billions of gallons of lake water that have caused a severe outbreak of toxic algae in our coastal rivers and estuaries. The crisis has galvanized Floridians of all walks of life to come together with a simple message for our elected officials on what to do with Lake Okeechobee water — "Send it south."
The best way to reduce the outflows from Lake Okeechobee to the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee estuaries is to increase the discharge to other outlets, particularly southward to the Everglades.
Prior to the construction of the Okeechobee Waterway and the Central and South Florida Project (C&SF Project) in the mid-1900s, nearly all of the outflow from Lake Okeechobee went south to the Everglades, and its level was controlled by the elevation of the southern rim of the lake. When the lake levels got higher than the elevation of the southern rim, water would spill out over the southern rim and flow southward.
After the construction of those projects, lake levels were lowered to protect the surrounding communities from flooding.
Today, whenever the lake rises above its regulation schedule, nearly all of the excess water is diverted to the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee estuaries.
Decreasing the flows to the estuaries requires a fundamental retooling of the C&SF Project. This is why short-term actions do not result in much improvement and why multiple projects are needed to make significant improvements in the estuaries.
Fundamentally, we need to convey more water south from Lake Okeechobee to the Everglades, increase the storage to provide water supply to maintain flow in the Everglades, clean the water before it enters the Everglades and increase the flow through the Everglades by removing dams. This is what Everglades restoration is about.
In 2000, Republicans and Democrats came together to pass the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan. A key component of CERP is the EAA Reservoir President-Designate Negron announced yesterday. Thanks to Florida voters, we have the money for the project. In November 2014, 75 percent of Florida voters amended our state constitution allowing for dollars to go toward purchasing land south of the lake for Everglades restoration.
Negron is an Everglades champion. With his latest announcement, he has placed his political capital on the table in an effort to not only bring relief to his constituency along the east coast, but to begin a project that will provide significant benefits to America's Everglades — a national treasure.
We ask Negron's Senate and House colleagues to embrace this moment and work to alleviate the harmful dumping of toxic algae east and west. Let's send it south.
We look forward to working with President-Designate Negron, his legislative colleagues and all stakeholders in the Everglades restoration efforts.
Eric Draper is executive director of Audubon Florida, and Eric Eikenberg is CEO of the Everglades Foundation.
Related:           Joe Negron’s plan to reduce Lake Okeechobee discharges would need sugar land
Sen. Joe Negron’s plan to stop Lake Okeechobee discharges must clean Everglades-bound water

160811-d
Water district meeting goes from budget to land purchase discussion
News-Press.com – by Chad Gillis
August 11, 2016
State water managers met in West Palm Beach Thursday to talk about the budget for the upcoming fiscal year, but some public speakers instead shifted the focus to building a reservoir south of Lake Okeechobee.
No vote was taken on the proposed $726 million budget, which the South Florida Water Management District is expected to approve next month. Thursday's meeting was a preview of sorts.
"You’re not going to hear anything from this podium about dire straits," said Pete Antanocci, the water management district's executive director. "We’re in very good shape, as a fiscal matter, both in terms of revenue and expenditures."
Others at the meeting wanted to talk about the most recent proposal to buy farm lands south of Lake Okeechobee.
"This week Senator (Joe) Negron showed great leadership by announcing a proposal to buy 60,000 acres in the (Everglades Agricultural Area) and build a reservoir to send water south to Everglades National Park that would help relieve the struggling coastal estuaries," said Caroline McGlaughlin, with the National Parks Conservation Association.
Negron, earlier this week, proposed setting aside $2.4 billion to buy farm lands south of Okeechobee and turn some of the land into water storage reservoirs for Everglades restoration.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has said it is willing to start the planning process for such as reservoir as soon as the water management district agrees to the project.
State water managers, however, have refused to move forward on the project, which would relieve some coastal water quality conditions that have crippled the east and west coast of Florida for much of this year. Water district officials have said it's important to concentrate on projects already on the board, some of which have already been delayed.
"We now have support of the Corps and of leadership in the Florida Legislature," McGlaughlin said. "The missing piece is the support from the district and leadership of Governor Scott. We again ask the district join the Corps to initiate planning for storage, treatment and conveyance of water in (farm lands south of the lake) and to holistically look at storage options both north and south of the lake."
The controversial land deal was struck by former Gov. Charlie Crist in 2008. The state purchased some farm lands but did not have the money to buy out all of U.S. Sugar, as was the original plan. The original deal was $1.8 billion for 194,000 acres of U.S. Sugar lands and assets.
Instead, the state spent $197 million for 28,000 acres, although there is a purchase option for all of the company's assets that will come up in 2020.
But the state and water management district have reversed course in recent years, saying the land is not needed to restore the Everglades.
Others from the public supported the idea, although board members did not take any action on this project.
"Our economy depends on it, both the St. Lucie and the Caloosahatchee are being decimated," said Laura Reynolds, representing the Conservancy of Southwest Florida. "So while what you’re doing is wonderful, we need more. And the way to do that is to support Sen. Negron’s proposal."
Environmental advocate Drew Martin encouraged board members to listen to Negron's plan.
"We absolutely have to move forward, and I think Sen. Negron shows that it’s something we can come together on," Martin said. "Because as a leader in the party that currently controls the Legislature, I think he has the authority to help make things happen, which is what we’ve not had up until this point."
Board members did not comment about Negron's proposal, although board member Mitch Hutchcraft, who represents Southwest Florida, said he will not participate in discussions or any vote on the buy because he is employed by King Ranch, which owns some of the targeted lands.
The district is in the middle of its budgeting process for the 2016-17 fiscal year. Last year people asked that the district raise taxes (about $6 per household) in order to speed up water quality projects.
Instead, the district went with a lower tax rate and is expected to have a
smaller budget for next year, falling from about $750 million to about $726
million.
 “You (told) the taxpayers of this district that they would not be asked to pay additional monies to get the job done next year," Antonacci said. "So we will live on the same amount of property tax income that we did this fiscal year. There is new growth, as everyone knows we’re going through a boom time.”
The district will vote on the budget at its September meeting.

160811-e
Water District notifies Feds: Refuge lease in violation
CBS12.com - by Chuck Weber
August 11, 2016
WEST PALM BEACH (CBS12) — The inability of federal officials to control invasive plants, has cast uncertainty over the future of Palm Beach County’s only National Wildlife Refuge.
In a surprise move, the South Florida Water Management District on Thursday, issued a notice of default to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The Water District says the federal agency is in violation of its lease of the interior of Everglades Water Conservation Area 1. The watery 141,000 acres forms the heart of the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge.
Stretching from west of Wellington to west of Boca Raton, Loxahatchee Refuge is home to Palm Beach County’s portion of the remaining natural Everglades.
The Water District has leased the state land to the Wildlife Service for 65 years.
But the Water District’s governing board voted unanimously to fire off a letter to the feds, informing them they’re failing to fulfill their legal obligation to control harmful non-native plants.
The Water District released photos showing the problematic Old World Climbing Fern smothering tree islands and other native vegetation in the Refuge.
The District’s action is the first step in what could ultimately result in removal of the Fish and Wildlife Service from the Refuge.
Water Board member Jim Moran said the District had worked in vain in recent years, to get the feds to do their job.
“We’re hoping (this) will give our federal partners the incentive to be able to come up with the money to eradicate the exotics in the refuge and save the environment out there,” said Moran.
Eric Draper, executive director of Audubon Florida, agreed the exotic plant problem at the Refuge is out of hand, but he said Congress has been hostile to the Fish and Wildlife Service, cutting its budget.
“The sad thing about what happened today is the Water Management District… is saying, ‘We may just take the land back from you,’” said Draper.
“So it would no longer be a National Wildlife Refuge-- that would be tragic,” Draper added.
Reached by phone, Assistant Loxahatchee Refuge Manager Rolf Olson said the District’s move came as a surprise. He acknowledged problems with exotic plant removal, but said the Wildlife Service is doing a good job overall and wants to stay.
Related:           Feds face eviction notice from Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge        Sun Sentinel

160810-a
Endangered Everglades
SRQ Magazine – by Michael Adno, an artist and writer based in New York City
August 10, 2016
Inside the Issue:  In this month's second feature, Headed South, contributor Michael Adno explores the intricacies of the players controlling the fate of the Everglades. Between the Big Sugar industry, politicians and the general populous, the region is facing dark times, with algal blooms bringing toxic green waves farther and farther up the coast. Find out what is (and isn't) being done to save the shores in this issue.
Headed South
Rushing toward the interior of the C-43 lock, adjacent to Lake Okeechobee’s Rim Canal, plumes of green and blue swirl on the surface then dissipate as nutrient sediment sinks to the bottom. Phosphorus gives the algae blooms plaguing the east coast their peculiar color. The water moving throughout the wide Rim Canal turns a corner toward the lock and narrows into a 50-foot wide section where water pours steadily into the Caloosahatchee River, the other side a turbid, metallic ochre color, the oxygen forming an archipelago of foam and run-off swirling around before flowing towards Ft. Myers. The same is happening across the lake at the C-44 lock emptying into the St. Lucie River towards Stuart, plunging our state into a seven-day state of emergency in four counties.
The small sugar-sand parking lot below the towering C-43 lock is fragrant with dead fish and dehydrated grass. Visible pollution streaming by as a small group of fishermen casts their cane poles into the water alongside a T-shaped pier just in the shadow of the precarious lock. One fisherman warns of a water moccasin making its way up the shoreline. Smokers flick cigarettes into the water along with bits of monofilament. It’s to be expected, but that shouldn’t be the case when the Everglades remain on life-support, exacerbated by big agriculture, big sugar and inevitably big people.
Back on the lake side of the lock, a division of brown, milky water moves along next to the tannin, tea-colored lake, a deep, dark blue in the high sun but turning rooibos red as one edges in. This was the case for the two consecutive days that I visited in late June preceding Governor Rick Scott’s declaration of a state of emergency in St. Lucie and Martin counties. Shortly after, he added Lee and Palm Beach counties, likely in response to the traction that the state’s algae blooms, water releases and fishkills gained in the national media. Finally, Governor Scott made an unsuccessful request to President Barack Obama to declare a federal state of emergency in response to the toxic algae blooms plaguing Florida’s east coast.
Every day has a significant amount of phosphorus plumes, painfully bright green and sometimes an otherworldly blue like the festering layer also suffocating the Stuart coastline. The plumes are surrounded by slicks of oily, kerosene-like lines slowly streaking by, iridescent. Soon enough, these corrosive pollutants will make their way to the coast from the edge of America’s second-largest body of fresh water.
Further down the river, tilapia eat from a phosphorus plume. A dark green scum climbs the sea walls and dock pilings. Undulating tendrils of sugar cane flank nearly every road in the area apart from a few other crops. A procession of small, yellow AT 402b planes pass overhead spraying pesticides and fertilizers on the cane fields below, the sky a pale blue interrupted by the thin gray plumes of far-off plants. It’s only a matter of time till that slow-moving water line creeping up the coast makes its way here. Reports from south Sarasota County are already appearing.
SETTING A PRECEDENT
Over 100 years ago, settlers in southern Florida began to drain the Everglades for agricultural development. At this point the area was larger than the size of Delaware and mostly untouched. Soon enough, 200 miles of canals and levees were incised. The slow drainage of “the river of grass” was under way. The northern Everglades begins at Disney near the Kissimmee River Basin then flows towards the north edge of Lake Okeechobee fanning out along the edges of the lake as it reaches the southern edge. At that point the Everglades covers the entire tip of southern Florida. The only portion not considered to be part of the Everglades is the low-lying coastal ridge along the east coast spanning from Ft. Pierce to Miami, a small slice of high land in a territory slowly sinking. In the past century, deemed the "eleventh hour" by Marjorie Stoneman Douglas, author of the seminal book The Everglades: River of Grass, published in 1947, countless projects have been hatched to try to restore its natural rhythms and to protect the area from further degradation. Unfortunately, restoration of the Everglades is like trying to return an omelet to an egg as Governor Napolean Broward (1905–1909) once remarked.
In June 1947, the Everglades became a national park—the same year Douglas’ book was published. Ernest F. Coe, an eccentric landscape architect proposed the idea to Florida’s Governor Milliard F. Caldwell (1945–1949) and then to President Harry S. Truman who served two terms from 1945–1953. Originally, Coe had hoped for 2 million acres to be included in the park’s boundaries, but at its outset it was reduced to 1 million, the first loss for the Everglades and an enormous blow to his vision. In the 70 years since Douglas’ unprecedented book and the dedication of the park by President Truman, the park has seen more changes than in the 5,000 years before.  US 41, a road connecting Tampa to Miami, remains one of the largest obstructions to the Everglades as it prevents water from reaching the wetlands further south and Florida Bay, depleting it of fresh water, spiking the salinity. US 41 dissects the southern Everglades, running north to south until Naples where it kinks toward Everglades City, passes through the Big Cypress National Preserve, grazes a roadside Miccosukee Indian village and spits you out in Hialeah’s farm lands. The road runs east to west through the wetlands of the Everglades. Because the road is low-lying, it prevents the attenuated flow, posing one of the most difficult challenges to restoration. At the time of its construction, it was considered a sound development for the burgeoning state’s economy. Finally now, the road is being raised to allow water to move south.
The initial draining of the Everglades lacerated southern Florida. Wetlands and swamps became floodgates and spillways. The project was comparable to the Panama Canal in scale. Forty-three years after the dedication of the park in 1990, half a million acres in the southern portion of the Everglades were owned by sugar growers. This has been the pattern—large swaths of land being eaten up by agricultural development. The soil lacked copper, manganese and zinc, eliminating a host of crops, but sugar cane could grow here year round. In 1983, the state began the Kissimmee River Restoration Project. The following year the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) took on the project. And in 1987, the Everglades were named “a wetland of international importance.”
After President Clinton’s administration passed the Water Resource Development Act, the federal government devoted $7.8 billion to preservation efforts in Florida, a rare bi-partisan agreement among then presidential candidates Al Gore and George W. Bush, and Florida Governor Jeb Bush (1999–2007). This followed suit after the Comprehensive Restoration of the Everglades Project (CERP) was approved in 2000 and the country began pushing the elephant up the stairs. CERP’s goal–in so many words–was to divert fresh water flows that stream outward to the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico to areas in need of fresh water in an attempt to revive a withering ecosystem. Sixteen years on, the project is still inhibited by gerrymandering and has been reassessed time and time again. But in 2008, the biggest step yet towards significant restoration of the Everglades was made. A deal between then Governor Charlie Crist (2007–2011) and US Sugar to buy back 187,000 acres of land south of the lake was brokered. In 2009, the deal was gutted, re-negotiated, with a five-year window to reconsider. The attenuated flow of the Everglades was damned again.
Then, Governor Rick Scott—the current governor since 2011—followed up on acquiring lands south of the lake through Amendment 1, a funding stream earmarked specifically for the purpose of Everglades restoration. But again, the deal withered after its five-year window passed. Federally, the environment has become more and more of a hot-button issue over time. As far back as 1969, a secret poll was conducted during President Nixon’s term where Americans were found to be most concerned with the environment second to Vietnam.
During Nixon’s term, his administration created the Environmental Protection Agency and enacted the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Air Act and the Endangered Species Act, all inextricably tied to the Everglades today. However, Nixon vetoed the Clean Water Act in 1972. Of his decision to veto the bill, he wrote, “I have nailed my colors to the mast on this issue. The political winds can blow where they may.” The Clean Water Act set a precedent for volumes of legislation to follow in which dissembling syntax like, “to the extent practicable,” would become permissible. That specific set of syllables appeared in the 1991 Friends of the Everglades Act, crafted by proponents of Florida Crystals and US Sugar (the two companies that make up what many refer to as “Big Sugar”), which was originally called the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas Act. Douglas later asked that her name be removed from the bill. And this is all to say that Florida was and remains a frontline for environmental policy, a battleground state in the relationship between government and the land governed.
THE LONG GAME OF ECOLOGY
A cacophony of shrill ring tones ricochet throughout the office of Stephen Davis, a wetland ecologist at the Everglades Foundation, his phone ringing incessantly the day Governor Scott announced the state of emergency. Davis explains that the Everglades lost its replenishing source of water from the headwaters of the Kissimmee Basin and Lake Okeechobee. “Now, the Everglades depends on rainfall,” he says. Aaron Adams, director of the Bonefish Tarpon Trust, has said, healthy habitats make for healthy fisheries. Unfortunately, the weakening of these habitats plays out over a long time, what Adams has deems a “legacy effect,” which makes it seem deceptively benign. The algae blooms are receiving the most media coverage, while the loss of stabilizing elements such as sea grass and oyster beds in Florida waterways goes largely unremarked.
 Davis points out that the visibility provided by social media and news outlets only covers where people live and recreate. With the southern portion of the state largely uninhabited, “the only people who are seeing the issues out there are fisherman,” he says. Last week he flew a commercial plane over the heart of Lake Okeechobee and saw the algae bloom within the lake from 20,000 feet above. "I’ve never seen anything like it before,” he says.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) recently released satellite images of the lake, algae blooms fanning out across it like India ink blown across paper with a straw. NASA included detailed area photographs showing the blooms headed straight for the C-43 and C-44 locks. Davis splits hairs on the issues of water quality and quantity, which tend to be conflated too often. While he believes water quality is an urgent challenge that needed to be addressed, he said it was the quantity of water and its management that was the most pressing concern for Florida in the coming years. In most cases, restoration privileges the storage and management of water as outlined in CERP, which subsequently ensures quality.
When asked what he thought might be done to curb the growth of these blooms and to mitigate its detrimental impact, Davis says he believes that the officials would most likely seek out a type of “silver bullet,” or storing water on private land. But that would be a shortsighted solution, not to mention costly—further misappropriating Amendment 1 funds. “That’s going to be a drop in the bucket,” he said. He seems adamant that in the search for a solution, “there’s not a single thing we can do to make this go away” in the short-term. According to Davis, after 100 years of reducing, degrading and choking the southern tip of the United States, we may be misguided in the belief that a silver bullet would resolve this. Davis pointed back to CERP as it has laid out a plan that would send water south again without decimating the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA), but it would more importantly save the Everglades from becoming a bygone natural treasure traded up for a robust agricultural economy, which is miniscule compared to the recreational fishing economy in southern Florida, he says. Davis cuts through the smoke and mirrors that some have proposed about storing water north of Lake Okeechobee, too. Simply, sending water south would diminish the growth of agriculture in the EAA while the alternative proposition storing water north of the lake would be politically favorable but wildly misguided. It’s just unfeasible. “Let’s start talking about storage,” he said. He believes that in line with CERP, Amendment 1 and the Legacy Florida Act were sufficient in providing a funding stream for the project. He asks pointedly, “What is holding this up?”
CLOSE TO HOME
After returning from the northern Everglades, we head south on US 41 toward Ft. Myers to meet with Chris Wittman and Daniel Andrews, founders of the grassroots organization Captains for Clean Water. Their organization—among others—has ignited a wildfire of awareness that has spread through Lee County. Northeast of the city the sky is a dark gray; to the west a soft cerulean blue with lush green pine-scrub lands in the foreground on either side. Coming into downtown Ft. Myers over the Caloosahatchee Bridge, the water looks calm, a light ripple moving across the surface. It would have been a chocolate color, like a light-colored milkshake, but from the top of the bridge with the late afternoon glare it is easy to glance at it without alarm, its appearance misleading.
On the radio, news comes in that the Florida DEP—appointed by Governor Scott subject to cabinet approval—had proposed revisions to health-based water criteria, regulations enacted in 1992 and bound by the Clean Water Act. Acceptable levels of known carcinogens such as benzene might be eased in the proposed revisions. This comes days before Governor Scott’s state of emergency declaration, during the height of freshwater outflows at which point the World Health Organization declared the water in Stuart’s estuaries 200-times more toxic than what constitutes a “health hazard.” The Biscayne Aquifer, Miami-Dade County’s water source, has been suffering from saltwater intrusion, the state’s waterways are rapidly decomposing beneath the surface and Adam Putnam, the commissioner of Florida’s Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, had exercised his crisis exemption authority to employ previously banned bactericides in treating citrus greening disease.
Wittman and Andrews are dressed sharply. They are fishing guides, but could have easily passed as attorneys—their sunglass tans ultimately give them away. Captains for Clean Water is one of the most influential grassroots nonprofit groups working on the issue and is in line with a myriad of similar groups gaining visibility through online presence. They’re based in Ft. Myers, but before I could pin them down at home, they had been traveling all over the state to speak at events, attend meetings and, in the spirit of Marjory Stoneman Douglas, "raise some hell."
Before we meet, I walk down to the water’s edge to take a look. It is a still, stagnant day. The heat is oppressive, the water putrid. And as a boat runs past, its wake holds a metallic tan tint like the foam floating near the Okeechobee locks. As the rain falls out East, the sweet water pours out from the C-43 lock. Wittman has heard the news of the proposed DEP revisions. “It’s total corruption,” he says. While this is a grim conversation to have over dinner, Wittman and Andrews both have an intense optimism. They believe the management of water in South Florida is the most pressing issue facing their region. “It’s where we live. It’s our way of life,” says Wittman.
Eighty miles from Lake Okeechobee, Andrews sees tilapia and cichlids. Unusual, as these species can’t tolerate high salinity levels. This shows how far the flows have traveled and that the water composition is changing entirely—turning fresh. He sees jack crevalle—a saltwater species—feeding on tilapia, which is unheard of. And when prompted on the quality of the fishery, he says, “it appears to be getting worse everyday.”
Apart from an adept understanding of the fisheries that support their livelihoods, these two are politically keen. They’re both on a first-name basis with numerous local and state representatives. When water was unwanted in the EAA, the state would back pump it into Okeechobee, passing the responsibility onto the US Army Corps of Engineers, which would eventually release it into the Caloosahatchee or St. Lucie rivers. This practice of water management holds water in the dry season for farms and releases it in a wet season like this past year’s El Niño weather pattern, which yielded above average rainfall. “They can’t bullshit their way around it. They can’t ignore it anymore,” says Wittman. “Our fisheries are being killed. East coast, west coast, it’s all declining.” Wittman also explains the effect that further neglect of the Everglades will have on storms that threaten the area. With less water, higher temperatures and more convection, they believe it could likely welcome another Hurricane Andrew or a disaster like the storm of 1928, which decimated the area around Lake Okeechobee and led to the Herbert Hoover Dike. Wittman and Andrews are both guides in the area, so they see the effects each week. Wittman shares that 25 miles north of where the Caloosahatchee meets the Gulf the water was still “garbage.” And by that, he means the water is turbid, nutrient-laden, brown-green and, more importantly, not providing a healthy habitat for the fishery. Those plumes are pushing farther and farther north while its sediments settle on the bottom. They have both seen the brown water reaching as far north as Cayo Costa, which is less than 50 miles from Siesta Key.
In Lee County, the Caloosahatchee has been used as a source for the disposal of unwanted, untreated water. The amount of pollution coursing through Lee County continues to rise as Florida Crystal and US Sugar’s grasp on the state grows. In a county with no sugar growers, Florida Crystals and US Sugar subsidiaries spend an exorbitant amount on advertisements. And of the recent surge in ad space bought up by Big Sugar presumably to counter Captains for Clean Water’s growing campaign, Wittman tells me, “We’re on their whiteboard.”
ARTIFICIAL SWEETENER
The numbers don't seem to add up when one looks at the ways in which agriculture policy seems to be at odds with the wellbeing of the thriving tourism and recreational fishing economy that Florida boasts. At a glance, $2 billion was generated from sugar production last year while recreational fishing cleared $18 billion. The Everglades area alone drew $1 billion from recreational fishing. Real estate values may also suffer with a decrease in water quality and not just for coastal properties.
Senior Policy Analyst at Taxpayers for Common Sense Joshua Sewell untangles the complex American sugar program. His perspective is that there are a disproportionate amount of donations coming from Big Sugar representatives to federal, state and local politicians buying influence. As to sugar policy reform, he says, “Agricultural subsidies are difficult to change, because there are so few people who benefit from them. The benefits are concentrated, but the costs are dispersed. Tax payers are put on the hook for guaranteeing sugar is more expensive than it should be.” In its abridged form, there are three tenets of sugar policy: limiting the amount of sugar imported, limiting the amount of sugar processed domestically and price support programs in which the government buys sugar at above-market rates to sell it off at below-market rates to ethanol producers. This of course has much more granular detail but he feels the bottom line is that American consumers are paying double what they should for sugar. Moreover, the most likely reason for the lack of reform is that, “there are a handful of people making a whole lot of money,” says Sewell. This year in June, US Sugar gave $100,000 to Governor Scotts’ political committee, Let's Get to Work. In the last year alone, US Sugar has provided $1,000,000 in contributions to the political committee backing Governor Scott.
From 1994 to 2016, US Sugar and Florida Crystals made $57.8 million direct and in-kind contributions to state and local political campaigns, according to a review of state elections records of the Tallahassee bureau. The breakdown shows roughly $33 million from US Sugar and the remainder from Florida Crystals. Based on an analysis of contributions during this period The Associated Press reports that Big Sugar steered their contributions from the Democratic Party of Florida to Republican, the year of Governor Jeb Bush’s election in 1998, which was a watershed moment for environmental policy reform. Georgia-Pacific’s plants in northern Florida benefitted from those policies at the expense of Rice Creek.
As for what the average taxpayer will pay in a year, Sewell says, “It’s not like you see a bill for sugar. It’s hidden from you.” It’s roughly $40 per year, but this amounts to exorbitant amounts of subsidies nationally. “It’s a net loss for tax payers. It’s a net loss for the economy," says Sewell. A significant contributing factor in the degradation of the Everglades is the sugar industry—it’s agriculture in general but specifically the sugar industry in south Florida. It’s incumbent upon Big Sugar to play a big role in restoring the Everglades.”
Sewell carefully unpacks how taxpayers could play a bigger role in determining the use of their tax dollars at state and federal levels by advocating for care in picking winners and losers with said tax dollars. That’s winners and losers in industry and tourism and pitting the two against each other, which in this case has exacerbated the challenges in restoring the Everglades. The competing interests bound up in the allocation of federal tax dollars pin the individual against industry, the environment against the economy. “You just have to make sure that the federal programs—that you are paying for—are in fact benefitting the federal interests as well as various local interests and not just one particularly powerful subset of interests. And that goes across the board for all policies and projects," says Sewell.
According to research published by the US Department of Commerce in 2014, for every job kept in the domestic sugar industry—growing or processing—three jobs are lost in the confectionery industry. The confectionery industry has migrated overseas following more affordable sugar rates. And this is odd to consider after years of hearing about robust economies and jobs, a favorable political platform espoused by Democrats and Republicans alike.
After numerous spokespersons, public relations assistants and voicemails, I was able to submit a set of questions through Slatkow & Husak,the public relations firm that represents Florida Crystals. Phillip Hayes, the director of communications for the American Sugar Alliance, in an email says the statistics regarding the loss of jobs in the confectionary industry are not accurate as his research shows jobs in the sector have increased by 3 percent. “Anyone who is telling you that US taxpayers subsidize sugar producers and that confectioners are enduring economic hardship is trying to mislead you for some reason," writes Hayes.
Meanwhile, the purportedly robust economy generated by Big Sugar has left its principal sites dry. In fact, Hendry County—home to US Sugar’s headquarters—has held the highest unemployment rate in the state for years, nearly 10 percent in 2015 down to 7 percent as of May 2016. The agricultural lands developed in the Everglades over the past 100 years have reduced the area by 50 percent. Seventy-five percent of pollution pouring into Florida’s waterways is due to agriculture with the remaining portion due to storm water run-off, septic tanks and the upkeep of manicured lawns across the state. And while 75 percent is attributed to agriculture, much of that Big Sugar, agriculture contributes 25 percent to its cleanup.
This is all in light of the state and federal government’s commitment to restore the Everglades, such as the recently signed Legacy Florida Act. This legislation builds upon Amendment 1, enacted in 2014, to set aside a significant funding stream annually to acquire key lands south of Lake Okeechobee. The Obama administration agreed to match this amount in their efforts to bolster restoration. President  Obama visited the Everglades in April 2015 to show his support, but not much has occurred since. Following the state of Florida’s plunge into a state of emergency, Scott asked President Obama to declare a federal state of emergency and was denied. The United States Justice Department allocated $1 million to aid the state, one fifth of Governor Scott’s request in June.
When asked for a comment, Governor Scott’s office provided the following response: “Governor Scott’s number one priority is ensuring the safety of our families, visitors and Florida’s natural treasures. That is why he has called upon President Obama to declare a federal emergency and has already declared a state of emergency in Martin, St. Lucie, Lee and Palm Beach counties. Our office is looking at all options at the state level to address the effects caused by the frequent discharges of water from Lake Okeechobee. Although the President has failed to do what is needed to address this growing issue, the State of Florida will devote every available resource to find solutions for the families and businesses in this area.”
“The federal government definitely has culpability in the damage that was done to the Everglades," says Sewell. "They have a responsibility to restore them, but it’s not only the federal government’s fault." Senator Bill Nelson, D-FL, has argued that sending water south through the EAA will resolve this issue. Senator Marco Rubio, R-FL, and former presidential hopeful, has appeared for photo ops in southeast Florida the past few weeks with reporters pressing him about the state’s inaction regarding the controversial land buy. He has tenuously cited conflicting claims about the benefits of sending water south of the lake. He does, however, definitively say that he believes pollution enters the lake from the north, eliminating Florida Crystals and US Sugar’s culpability. After announcing his bid to run as the Republican Presidential nominee, Rubio walked off stage to immediately embrace José “Pepe” Fanjul, CEO of Florida Crystals. His company Fanjul Corp contributed nearly $486,000 to Rubio’s bid.
The conflict in priorities was made clear by Florida’s state officials when they seemingly disregarded an independent review by the University of Florida’s Water Institute, commissioned by the Florida legislature last year. The review outlines in immense detail alternatives to reduce freshwater flows out of Lake Okeechobee and advises to accelerate funding sources for the projects outlined within, but more importantly, their review confirms that they too believe restoring the Everglades’ attenuated sheet flow was necessary if not inevitable.
THE LEGACY TEST
After a few days in the Everglades, one can fall into solipsistic stupor. These sleepy agricultural towns seem so far removed from the urgent call to action along the coasts. The line of communication between coastal residents dependent upon tourism and the state’s interior based in agriculture uncannily echoes the disparity between state and federal interests. I spoke to fishermen near the C-43 lock. They all knew the water height in Lake Okeechobee but were aloof to the threat that water discharges posed to their coastal neighbors, even though it was spilling out right in front of them. Neither did they seem aware of the role of the agricultural industry in the pace, progress and promise of the Everglades’ restoration. And these residents could stand on their rooftops and throw stones into a cane field.
But why would they? These towns were built up on sugar. Moreover, some feel an indifference to curbing agricultural practice. “You have to consider the conditions of living in those counties,” says Wittman. “They live 10 to a house with high unemployment. So who are we to tell them—driving around in our $100,000 boat as a fishing guide?”
What once were wetlands extending outward toward the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic are now a nexus of irrigation ditches and manicured rows of cane, torn by pavement and throughways, punctuated by small towns skirting the edges of big agriculture. Livestock trailers are up-cycled into supports for campaign signage on empty lots and bare foundations contend for local sheriff races. I loiter outside the local general store as cars pulled up, the passengers returning from inside with a box of beer or a craft paper bag. Sugar, corn syrup and liquor are a thread of solidarity here.
The glory days of the towns dotting the southern edge of Lake Okeechobee have come and gone. The time when tourism and small, sustainable agriculture boomed has given way to bright pre-fab gas stations dotting county and state roads in between shady motels, the general stores of yesterday now roadside detritus regressing under the slogan, “Her soil is her fortune.” A former roadside tourist trap—just a few hundred yards from Florida Crystals’ Okeelanta plant—peeks outward from the sugar cane growing wild like kudzu, enveloping a building advertising LIVE ALLIGATORS.
In Clewiston, “America’s sweetest town,” the most appealing building and grounds belong to, US Sugar. Down the street, the Clewiston Inn—built by US Sugar—has lost its thin veneer of economic promise. Its lobby a time capsule replete with tube televisions and pecky cypress paneling, its dénouement a sad, lonely continental breakfast in a room where the heydays of sugar stare outwardly from framed photographs. The out-of-state contractors who stay at the Inn while making repairs to the plant’s equipment and silver gelatin prints look blankly onto the empty hall, with just the lonely, curious visitor to stare back. The most poignant marker is outside of the landscape itself at the Inn’s cocktail lounge. The high walls bear a beautiful 360-degree mural of the verdant, incomparable flora and fauna of the Everglades to scale. Will the mural need an update in the years to come? The animals absent, the trees bulldozed and a cane field falling off into the horizon of smoke stacks, perforated with brown irrigation ditches leading seaward.
On the last page of River of Grass, Marjory Stoneman Douglas makes an impassioned plea: “Perhaps even in this last hour, in a new relation of usefulness and beauty, the vast, magnificent, subtle and unique region of the Everglades may not be utterly lost.” As she says many times, “The Everglades is a test. If we pass, we may get to keep the planet.”

160810-b
Everglades area farmers exceed phosphorus reduction requirements
Palm Beach Post - by Susan Salisbury, Staff Writer
August 10, 2016
Everglades Agricultural Area farmers have again exceeded phosphorus reduction requirements for water flowing from their farms to the Everglades, marking the 21st consecutive year EAA farmers have met the state’s strict water-quality standard south of Lake Okeechobee.
Phosphorus was reduced 27 percent in the 477,000-acre farming region south of Lake Okeechobee for the 12 months ended April 30. Florida’s Everglades Forever Act, enacted in 1994, requires the amount of phosphorus leaving the EAA to be 25 percent less than before the reduction efforts began, the South Florida Water Management District said. It is not a year-to-year comparison.
SFWMD Governing Board member Melanie Peterson said the achievement is an “astounding accomplishment” considering high water levels from record rainfall. It was the wettest January since record keeping began in 1932.
The primary crop in the EAA in western Palm Beach County and eastern Hendry County is sugar cane, but vegetables and other crops are also produced there.
“I’ve been working on our family’s farm for 26 years, and I can’t remember a tougher year managing water, outside of a major storm,” said John Scott Hundley of Hundley Farms east of Belle Glade. “I’m proud of these results because they exemplify the expertise of the growers who were able to manage their farms in a way that protected local food supply and continued to provide water-quality performance for the Everglades.”
Officials said the results are made possible by the growers’ science-based “best management” farming practices such as on-farm erosion controls and more precise fertilizer application methods. Since 1996, district officials said, those measures have prevented more than 3,055 metric tons of phosphorus, including 51 metric tons in the most recent period, from leaving the EAA.
Too much phosphorus in the Everglades can cause unwanted plants such as cattails to crowd out native vegetation. Phosphorus is a naturally-occurring element found in soil, rock and rain.
“The Everglades Agricultural Area is a uniquely productive farming basin, unlike any other in the nation,” said EAA grower Paul Orsenigo of Pahokee-based Grower’s Management, the Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association’s incoming chairman. “Not only does the EAA provide abundant supplies of rice, sugar cane and vegetables — including enough lettuce for 3 billion salads — but EAA farmers are also essential partners in the success of one of the world’s largest environmental preservation efforts.”
South Florida’s water, especially water the district moves into Everglades National Park, is cleaner than it has been in generations and meets stringent water quality requirements, the district said.
Related:           South Florida Farmers Continue Everglades Restoration Success     PerishableNews (press release) (registration)
Sugar farmers struggle to meet Everglades pollution limit     FarmingUK

160810-c
Florida Senate leader proposes $2B Lake Okeechobee cleanup
Associated Press, WTSP
August 10, 2016
STUART, Fla. (AP) - The Florida Senate's incoming president on Tuesday announced a $2.4 billion plan to purchase 60,000 acres of mostly farmland south of Lake Okeechobee and convert it into reservoirs and water treatment plants aimed at reducing toxic algae outbreaks in nearby rivers and lagoons.
Joe Negron's plan would drastically reduce the flow of untreated water from the lake into the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers. Nitrogen and phosphorus in the water have caused periodic outbreaks of guacamole-thick algae in those rivers. The St. Lucie flows east to an area north of Palm Beach on the Atlantic coast, while the Caloosahatchee flows southwest to Fort Myers on the Gulf of Mexico.
Similar plans have been proposed over the years and supported by most residents near the rivers, but have gotten stuck in the political process. The algae blooms are caused by human and animal waste and fertilizer from farms and lawns being washed into the lake and waterways. The algae feast on the nutrients and grow rapidly in Florida's summer heat. The outbreaks are toxic to marine life and can cause health problems in humans.
Negron's plan calls for issuing $1.2 billion in state bonds and seeking $1.2 billion in federal matching funds. Much of the land is owned by U.S. Sugar and its competitor, Florida Crystals. Such plans mimic the state's natural water flow, which was altered over a century ago as part of a plan to drain the Everglades for agriculture and development.
"The algae blooms that have hit over the past months have been poisoning our river, poisoning our lagoon. They remind us every day that there is much more work that needs to be done and will be done," said Negron, R-Stuart, who will become Senate president in November.
About 200 residents attending the announcement at a center near the St. Lucie cheered Negron's plan. Barbara Kibbey-Wagner, who lives on the river, said she's afraid to take her 3-month-old son outside. She supports Negron's plan, saying the state and federal governments can't keep using the state's waterways for waste disposal.
"If I went out and dumped waste and trash in the river, I would be arrested," she said.
The plan also has the support of Audubon Florida and Everglades Florida, two environmental groups that have pushing to restore the southern flow.
Gov. Rick Scott's office issued a statement saying he would review the plan. U.S. Sugar declined to comment. Florida Crystals said that while it will listen to the plan, the company says Negron did not mention his proposal during a meeting last week. The Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida, which represents independent farmers in the area, said it opposes the plan.
"Taking another 60,000 acres of productive and sustainable farmland out of (production) will without a doubt close down our sugar mill and put us out of business," said Barbara Miedema, the group's vice president. She said it would cost the local economy 1,000 jobs.
Brian LaPointe, an algae researcher at Florida Atlantic University's Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute, has long been opposed to such plans, saying scrubbing the water of so much nitrogen would be nearly impossible. The nitrogen-laden water would eventually flow into the Florida Bay, killing its seagrass and its coral, he said. He said that happened in the 1990s when a similar plan was tried.
"It was a disaster then, and would be again," LaPointe said. "They don't seem to learn from their mistakes. The funds for this land purchase could be spent better, such as for water storage and treatment north of Lake Okeechobee where it would protect not only Lake Okeechobee, but also the downstream estuaries in Martin and Lee counties."
Related:           Negron To Pursue Money To Buy Everglades Land Health News Florida
Negron announces $2.4 billion 'priority' to buy key sugar land for ...            Tampabay.com (blog)
Sen. Joe Negron proposes $2.4 billion plan to buy 60000 acres of ...            Northern California News
Pushing the farmers under the environmental bus      BizPac Review
Negron proposes Lake Okeechobee reservoir to stop toxic algae      Sun Sentinel
Negron's plan to reduce discharges would need sugar land   Highly Cited-TCPalm

160810-d
Florida's enduring 'Swamp': Fix Everglades ASAP
Orlando Sentinel – by Sen. David Simmons, Guest columnist
History repeats itself. Fix the Everglades
As Michael Grunwald writes in his highly acclaimed 2006 book about the Florida Everglades, "The Swamp": In 1881 "[a]lmost everyone agreed that the Everglades was a vast and useless swamp." Americans believed that it was our destiny to drain that "God-forsaken" swamp and develop it into productive land for farming and industry.
Even Napoleon Bonaparte Broward ran for governor of Florida in 1904, and was elected, on the platform of draining the Everglades.
The horrific hurricanes of 1926-1928 caused floods around Lake Okeechobee that killed almost 3,000 residents; and Florida turned to the federal government for assistance. The federal government had not previously been in the business of flood control, but now a partnership among the federal government and the states was borne with the federal River and Harbor Act.
To prevent similar flood catastrophes, from 1930-1938 the U.S. Corps of Engineers built the massive Herbert Hoover dike on the southerly border of Lake Okeechobee. People today forget that this dike permitted the massive development of South Florida, the large sugar cane farms and massive population centers of South Florida.
As Grunwald writes, the Corps, "the ground troops in America's war against nature, finally conquered the Everglades with one of the most elaborate water-control projects in history …" Unfortunately, the Corps has failed and refused to change with the times, and to repair and strengthen the dike, in spite of its own admission it should have done so.
In fact, today's dramatic destruction of the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers and their estuaries has its roots in the Corps' blind refusal to help solve what has become a devastating algae problem by simply repairing and strengthening the Herbert Hoover dike so that it can reduce or, at times, eliminate its massive discharges.
While revising its discharge schedule, and repairing and strengthening the dike are only a part of the solution (separate reservoirs for the high nutrient lake waters are also essential to the clean-up plan), they are an immediate correction of an 80-year-old problem created by the Corps.
In fact, one of the best reservoirs for excess water is Lake Okeechobee itself. Because of its massive size, only one foot of additional water level constitutes 500,000 feet acres (152 billion gallons) of water that might be otherwise discharged into the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers. This is equal to the state buying 50,000 acres of land and building a berm around it capable of holding 10 feet of water.
Even without the needed repair and strengthening of the dike, the Corps did not need to make its discharges over the past six months. If the Corps had simply used its pre-2008 discharge schedule, most of the devastating discharges of the past six months would not have occurred. So, why have we not stopped the Corps?
In 2009, a group of private citizens along the St. Lucie River sued the Corps for taking their property due to the Corps' devastating discharges from Lake Okeechobee. In Mildenberger v. U.S., stunningly, the Corps defended that case by pointing out that the statute of limitations had run, because it has been discharging contaminated water into the St. Lucie River for more than 60 years.
The Corps even introduced newspaper articles from the 1950s describing how the Corps' discharges had destroyed the environment and clogged the river with algae blooms. The Court ruled that "[t]he long-term environmental consequences of [the Corps'] massive discharges into the river are tragic," but the statute of limitations had run, and private citizens were barred from stopping the Corps.
The Corps' excessive discharging of fresh water (even if it were not polluted) into the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers must immediately stop. Importantly, unlike its private citizens, the state of Florida is not impotent to stop this insanity.
In an ongoing legal battle between the Miccosukee Tribe and the Corps, the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2013 ruled that "[d]espite the Corps exercising control over these systems, either directly or by issuing regulations to the [Florida's South Florida Water Management District], the project is a function of state authorization. The federal government's initiation of the project was premised on the state of Florida's permission…"
As such, the Legislature of Florida has the right and authority by legislation to direct that the Corps only discharge waters in accordance with schedules approved by the South Florida Water Management District and to demand that the Corps repair the Herbert Hoover dike so that it is not a hazard to Floridians and our environment.
This is not a case of mutual exclusivity: Floridians are entitled to both safety and a clean environment. It is time for the Legislature to act.
Related:           South Florida Farmers Continue Everglades Restoration Success -   PerishableNews (press release) (registration)
Negron To Pursue Money To Buy Everglades Land Health News Florida
Sen. Joe Negron's plan to stop Lake Okeechobee discharges must clean Everglades-bound water  TCPalm
Eric Draper and Eric Eikenberg: Negron's proposal offers hope for estuaries and Everglades          TCPalm
Residents come out in support of Now or Neverglades         Sanibel-Captiva Islander

160809-a
Big Sugar's Fanjul family hosting Miami fundraisers for both Clinton and Trump this year
Miami New Times – by Jerry Jerry Ianelli
August 9, 2016
To Hillary Clinton supporters, Donald Trump is a boogeyman, a know-nothing Kremlin stooge, and a borderline fascist salivating at the idea of raining nuclear bombs down on anyone who insults him online.
To Trump fans, Clinton is an oligarch run wild, a conspiratorial murderer, and a war criminal. Tension between the camps is at its absolute peak, and both candidates claim to have absolutely nothing in common with each other.
But that's not quite accurate: It turns out both Clinton and Trump have turned to the same family of controversial sugar kingpins for campaign cash in South Florida.
The Fanjul brothers — the longest-reigning Big Sugar barons in Florida — have agreed to host Miami fundraisers for both candidates this election cycle. The Palm Beach-based brothers — Alfonso "Alfy" Fanjul and Jose "Pepe" Fanjul Sr. — own Florida Crystals, a company that has for decades been accused of polluting the Florida Everglades ecosystem while buying off politicians through campaign contributions. The brothers partially own Domino Sugar and control roughly 40 percent of the state's sugar industry, according to Vanity Fair.
It's not news that the two brothers differ politically. But this year's crop of donations comes right as environmentalists are blaming Big Sugar polluters in part for the gigantic mass of toxic green algae that bloomed off of Florida's Treasure Coast in July, killing tourism — and marine life — throughout the area.
Tonight Clinton will attend a $50,000-per-plate Miami Beach fundraiser held by the elder AlfyFanjul, a longtime friend of the Clintons who famously spoke to Bill Clinton while the former president cavorted with Monica Lewinsky in the Oval Office.
Trump, meanwhile, has repeatedly rescheduled a fundraising event where the younger Pepe Fanjul had been listed as a host.
Pepe also hosted a Trump fundraising event with Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus in the Hamptons last month.
When it comes to politics, the sugar barons don't seem to agree much at all. While Pepe is a major Republican donor, Alfy has donated heavily to Democratic candidates over the years. The Fanjuls have long played both sides — though Alfy has remained a loyal Clinton supporter (and Clinton Foundation donor) since the early 1990s, and Pepe threw considerable resources behind George W. Bush's campaign and stumped for Marco Rubio before Trump became the Republican nominee.
The brothers' business interests, however, are inextricably linked. 
To Everglades conservationists, Florida Crystals has been a scourge on the local ecosystem. As author and Politico reporter Michael Grunwald chronicled in his 2005 book The Swamp, the Everglades' water had been historically crystal-clean, but when sugar farmers arrived in Florida during the 20th Century, they began dumping phosphorus into the water supply. In the years since, the entire ecosystem has been thrown out of whack — though picturesque, the cattails that now inhabit much of the open Everglades exist only because of the phosphorus pollution in the area.
Environmentalists have placed much of the blame on the Fanjuls. Scores of anti-sugar activists, including the nonprofit group Bullsugar demand the Environmental Protection Agency crack down on Big Sugar companies.
In July, a coalition of private companies and nonprofits, including clothing manufacturer Patagnoia, signed the Now or Neverglades Declaration, a petition to demand that the state government buy back Everglades land to save it from sugar pollution.
Elsewhere, Change.org petitioners are asking Publix to drop Big Sugar companies such as Domino. The Fanjuls have also been sued multiple times over unsafe conditions at their sugar-harvesting plants.
It's worth noting, though, that in 2008, the New York Times pointed out that the Fanjuls' rival, United States Sugar, has actually been "worse stewards of the land" than Florida Crystals.
Regardless, the Fanjuls' double-sided dealings poke a hole in the idea that the 2016 election represents a life-or-death choice between two polar-opposite candidates. Because whether you believe that Trump will cripple the U.S. economy or that Clinton ought to be locked in prison, both candidates will be indebted to Florida Crystals come 2017.

160809-b
Florida farmers need not sink amid algal bloom stink
GrowingProduce.com - Opinion by: Paul Rusnak
August 9, 2016
Where were you when the green monster invaded South Florida’s waterways earlier this summer? If you are a Florida farmer, you were stuck right in the middle of the muck — whether you wanted to be or not.
When all eyes turned to indelible images of the thick, pea-soup-like substance oozing and undulating atop the faint movement of water that lay beneath it, farming and fertilizer practices were put on the spot as a main suspect in the natural disaster.
Whether or not that assessment is fair, the perception exists among the general public that corporate farming is oblivious to the environment. Growers know that is not the case.
Matter Of Factors
According to data from the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD), farmers in the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA) have been setting the standard in best management practices implementation. For the last two decades, water flowing from farmland in the EAA achieved high marks in phosphorus reductions that significantly exceed those reductions required by law (25%).
Reports show BMP efforts during Water Year 2015 yielded a whopping 79% phosphorus reduction from the 470,000-acre farming region. Water Year 2016, despite historic rainfall, still was a win with a reported 27% reduction.
The fact is Florida is not alone in this water quality quandary. This year has been particularly bad for algal blooms around the country. Residents along the West Coast and Lake Erie, as well as in Utah and Idaho can attest to this.
The severe nature of the most recent visit from El Niño certainly can be added to the conversational mix related to our water woes. South Florida set records for rainfall this past winter. There was no “dry season.” Just ask citrus growers as they continue to deal with the effects of postbloom fruit drop brought on by the less-than-ideal weather abnormalities.
Another major factor to consider that seems to be missing from most of the narrative is people. Florida is the third most populated state in the U.S. More than 1,000 people move to the Sunshine State every day. Along with that kind of critical mass comes a huge strain on natural resources.
Clear As Muck
Since the algal bloom crisis reared its ugly head, government agencies have taken mighty measures to mitigate the mess. One method SFWMD employed was water farming/storage north of Lake Okeechobee. Nearly two years ago, SFWMD’s Governing Board approved agreements to more than double the overall water retention capacity in its Dispersed Water Management program.
The approved contracts (totaling $135 million) added a cumulative potential of 95,812 acre-feet of storage to the program, or about 36 billion gallons annually. That acreage is coming in handy now.
So, is water farming the answer in stopping future algal blooms? A recent reader poll indicates you’re not totally convinced.
It’s probably safe to say this won’t be the last large algal bloom, and the media will come calling again. In the meantime, be prepared, proactive, and farm smart. There is much at stake.

160809-c
Negron proposes Lake Okeechobee reservoir to stop toxic algae.
Sun Sentinel – by Andy Reid
August 9, 2016
To stop toxic algae plaguing coastal communities, Florida's next Senate president proposes turning South Florida farmland into an outlet for polluted Lake Okeechobee water now dumped out to sea.
Incoming state Senate President Joe Negron Tuesday proposed buying 60,000 acres of sugar cane country — most, if not all, of it in Palm Beach County — to build a $2.4 billion reservoir to hold Lake Okeechobee water that now gets drained to the east and west coasts.
Draining lake water to the east and west protects South Florida from flooding, but that pollution-laden water wipes out fishing grounds near Stuart and Fort Myers and fuels toxic algae blooms that make people sick and scare away tourists.
Negron's proposal would instead move the lake water south, where it once naturally flowed, and filter out pollutants so that the water could be used to replenish the Everglades.
"We must buy land south," Negron, a Republican from Stuart, said during his announcement Tuesday. "That's what I believe is the next step forward."
While environmental groups for years have pushed for buying farmland and building this type of reservoir, they have faced stiff opposition from the sugar industry and Gov. Rick Scott.
Scott has favored using property the state already owns to finish building other long-planned Everglades restoration reservoirs and water treatment areas that he maintains will help Lake Okeechobee drainage problems.
"We are reviewing his proposal and will continue to review all options that will help with water quality in our state," the governor's office said in statement released Tuesday about Negron's proposal. "We look forward to working with the legislature as session approaches."
The sugar industry has opposed parting with more land and questions whether a reservoir will have enough water storage capacity to stop draining lake water to the ease and west coast.
Taking more farmland out of production would mean losing jobs in communities that depend on agriculture, according to sugar giant Florida Crystals and the Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida — both of which own much of the land in the areas suggested for Negron's land buy.
"Taking another 60,000 acres of productive and sustainable farmland out of the (Everglades Agricultural Area) will without a doubt close down our sugar mill and put us out of business," said Barbara Miedema, vice president of Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida – a collection of smaller sugar cane growers. "Sen. Negron's plan means losing a thousand or more jobs in the Glades communities, not to mention the impact to businesses in the community that provide services to us."
U.S. Sugar Corp., Florida's other big sugar producer, declined comment Tuesday.
Environmental groups hailed Negron's proposal, pledging to help him try to win approval in Tallahassee.
The environmental group Audubon Florida supports Negron's reservoir proposal because "it addresses the need to reduce future [coastal] discharges of water from Lake Okeechobee," Executive Director Eric Draper said.
The land buy would still leave hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland south of Lake Okeechobee, while also creating construction jobs for the reservoir, Sierra Club Florida Director Frank Jackalone said.
"Following Senator Negron's lead, Governor Scott and the Florida Legislature can restore the Everglades, end the algae crisis along our coasts, and build a stronger economy in the Glades communities," Jackalone said.
To avoid flooding from El Nino-driven rains, the Army Corps of Engineers since January has drained billions of gallons of Lake Okeechobee water each day east toward Stuart through the St. Lucie River and west toward Fort Myers through the Caloosahatchee River.
That draining eases the pressure on Lake Okeechobee's dike — a 30-foot-tall mound of sand, shell and rock that keeps lake water from flooding South Florida. The dike is considered one of the country's most at risk of failing and is in the midst of decades-long rehab.
Big discharges of freshwater from the lake into normally salty coastal waters kill sea grass and oyster beds that are home to game fish, wading birds and manatees.
In addition, the lake water is polluted with phosphorus from fertilizers, animal waste and sewage that drains into the lake. The phosphorus can fuel toxic algae blooms, which at times this summer turned waterways near Stuart bright green with a foul-smelling ooze that makes waters unsafe for fishing and swimming.
Negron is calling for the state and federal government to split the cost of the reservoir, with each paying $1.2 billion.
The state's share would come from borrowing the money and paying off the debt with money voters already approved for environmental efforts. Amendment 1, passed in 2014, designates using a portion of Florida's existing real estate taxes to buy land for water conservation and to pay for other environmental uses.
"For too long, our community has been plagued by tremendous environmental and economic impacts as hundreds of millions of gallons of water are released from Lake Okeechobee each year," said Negron, whose district stretches along the Treasure Coast.
Buying farmland from the politically influential sugar industry – if sugar cane growers don't want to sell – could be a tough sell in Tallahassee.
Scott's predecessor, former Gov. Charlie Crist, orchestrated a sugar-land-buying, $197 million deal in 2010 that enabled the South Florida Water Management District to acquire 26,800 acres from U.S. Sugar for Everglades restoration. The deal also included a 10-year option to buy the rest of U.S. Sugar's land.
But Scott opposed the U.S. Sugar deal and put the brakes on buying more of the company's land. The state still has until 2020 to buy the company's remaining 153,000 acres.
Representatives of Pahokee, South Bay, Clewiston and other towns rimming the lake object to sacrificing agricultural land that is important to their economies.
Finding a solution to Lake Okeechobee drainage problems "should not occur at the expense of our communities," said Hendry County Commissioner Janet Taylor, who opposes using land south of Lake Okeechobee.

160808-a
Brevard County commissioners to debate lagoon tax options
ClickOrlando.com - August 08, 2016
Meeting set for Tuesday.  County commissioners on Tuesday will consider at least five tax options to raise money for Indian River Lagoon projects, News 6 partner Florida Today reported.
The taxes are designed to raise the $302.9 million that a new study says the county would need to pay for a plan to improve conditions of the waterway.
If commissioners move forward with one or a combination of the options, it also would need approval of Brevard County voters in a Nov. 8 referendum.
The so-called Save Our Lagoon Project Plan proposes a series of measures over the next 10 years, including muck removal, stormwater projects, upgrades to wastewater treatment facilities, septic system removal and upgrades, fertilizer management, oyster reef projects and public education.
The commission meeting begins at 9 a.m., and the lagoon item is scheduled to be discussed beginning at 10 a.m.
Here are the five options county commissioners will consider:
• A new countywide "Save Our Lagoon Special Taxing District" property tax of $1 per $1,000 of taxable property value for 10 years. That would generate $32 million a year, for a 10-year total of $320 million.
• A lagoon property tax of 50 cents per $1,000 of taxable property value for 20 years. That would generate $16 million a year for a 20-year total of $320 million.
• A lagoon property tax of 50 cents per $1,000 of taxable property value for 10 years. That would generate $16 million a year for a 10-year total of $160 million, and would need to be combined with $143 million from grants or other sources, such as the Florida Water and Land Conservation Initiative, commonly known as Amendment 1.
• A countywide half-cent-on-the-dollar sales tax for 10 years. That would generate about $34 million a year, for a 10-year total of $340 million. The sales tax option would require a public hearing on Aug. 23 before it can be approved for placement on the Nov. 8 ballot.
• Other combinations of property taxes, time frames, uses of sales tax and matching funds.
It also would require agreements with Brevard's cities and towns for the money raised by the tax to go to the county, instead of being split with the municipalities. The agreements would have to include cities and towns representing more than half of Brevard's municipal population, and would include setting up a special citizens' advisory board to review project progress.
The Save Our Lagoon Project Plan estimated a $2.01 billion positive economic impact from restoration of the lagoon and $4.29 billion in damages if the lagoon is not brought back to health during the next decade. The report focused on three areas of economic impact: tourism and recreation, property values and commercial fishing.
In recent years, the lagoon has experienced algae blooms, brown tide, fish kills, and unusual death rates for dolphins, manatees and pelicans.
A large crowd is expected at Tuesday's meeting, including representatives of the business, real estate, tourism and fishing sectors, environmental advocates and scientists, as well as local residents opposed to or supporting the new taxes.
Brevard County Natural Resources Management Department Director Virginia Barker said there will be various displays set up Tuesday in the lobby of the Brevard County Government Center building, where the meeting is held.
"There will be education going on and information available about what's in the program" proposed in the lagoon project plan, Barker said.

160808-b
Everglades Restoration 101: History of Drainage
South Dade News Leader – by Tonya Mae Howington, CESI Project Management Specialist
August 8, 2016
Visitors to Everglades National Park soon discover the park is a mysteriously beautiful and very watery place.
What can be difficult to visualize is that the Everglades watershed used to be wetter than it is today. Some may not realize that the Everglades wetlands are far bigger than the park, extending from the Kissimmee River through Lake Okeechobee and all the way to Florida Bay. What is special about the park is that it is the most intact portion of the whole Everglades watershed.
Canals have been the primary tool used for draining the Everglades. The oldest known canals that cut through the Everglades were dug for transportation purposes 1,200 years ago by the Calusa and Tequesta native tribes. In 2006, the National Park Service listed as a National Historic Landmark the nearly four-mile Mud Lake Canal, one of the first canals in the Calusa and Tequesta navigation system.
Modern wetland drainage of the greater Everglades region began in the 1880s. The industrialist and real estate developer Hamilton Disston bought four million acres to carry out his plan to drain and develop Florida. Although his master plan did not succeed, he was able to start straightening the Kissimmee River, build a canal that connected Lake Okeechobee with the Caloosahatchee River and begin the creation of many new towns.
Disston wanted to drain the southern Everglades, but his plan was halted because of the difficulty of cutting through the South Florida's limestone aquifer. Possibly inspired by Disston, local entrepreneurs hoped to drain Cape Sable, a small peninsula at the southwestern tip of Florida, to carve out a living as farmers and cattle ranchers.
From 1904 until his death in 1910, Gov. Napoleon Bonaparte Broward made draining the Everglades region his main campaign. In 1907, he formed the Everglades Drainage District so the affected counties could be taxed and pay for the drainage effort. His legacy endured well into the 1920s although more plans for drainage canals were made than canals constructed.
Bob Johnson, director of the park's South Florida Natural Resource Center, explains that "early drainage efforts did have an immediate and lasting impact on Everglades ecosystems prompting conservationists to act. Today, the impacts are even more widespread."
One of the first conservation efforts was made by the Florida Federation of Women's Clubs. Preservation Committee Chairwoman May Mann Jennings convinced the state to establish Royal Palm State Park in 1916 to protect the area from drainage and development, especially railroad construction.
Around this same time, botanist John Kunkel Small and Charles Deering, a locally well-known businessman and self-taught environmentalist, documented in their botanical notes their concern for how the natural environments were disappearing. They noted that extensive drainage of the Everglades, land development and the worsening condition of the wetlands began after a hurricane struck Miami in 1926 and after another struck Lake Okeechobee in 1928.
In his 1929 book, Eden to Sahara, Small prophetically warned of the eventual extermination of plants and wildlife being caused by drainage of the Everglades, human-sparked fires and soil erosion.
Apparently, officials with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers did not read Small's book because in 1930, the agency built levees creating the Herbert Hoover Dike around Lake Okeechobee to protect the growing human population against more flooding.
Landscape designer Ernest F. Coe led the way in 1934 to expand the area set aside as Royal Palm State Park into a national park. The park's enabling legislation was the first of its kind specifically intended to protect the natural diversity and abundance of plants and animals and wilderness.
All may have seemed well for a while, but 1947 was a year of both progressive and backward changes for the Everglades watershed. Everglades National Park was finally established, Marjory Stoneman Douglas' influential book, Everglades: The River of Grass, was published, and it was the end of a 10-year drought that came with two hurricanes and a wetter than normal wet season, bringing 100 inches of rainfall to the southern Everglades.
In 1948, after only one year of deliberation, Congress approved the Corps' design for the Central and South Florida Project. Its purpose was to provide flood protection without accounting for sufficient water to adequately support the needs of fish and wildlife resources. These needs were considered secondary to urban and agricultural water supplies.
When the Corps completed construction of the Central and South Florida Project in the 1960s, it included 720 miles of canals along with 1,000 miles of levees. The project also included expanding the dike around Lake Okeechobee. The South Florida Water Management District now uses at least 200 water control structures to manage water flow through the Everglades watershed.
Park scientists noticed the effects of the shortfall of water to the park. Fortunately, they had a determined ally, Nathanial Reed, in Washington to help them.
"I appealed to the Nixon administration when I was Assistant Secretary of the Interior to fund a science center within the park in an effort to better understand why the multiple impacts of water mismanagement were having such an incredible adverse impact on the world famous breeding colonies of egrets, herons, and spoonbills," Reed said.
In 1977, his appeal resulted in the establishment of the South Florida Natural Resources Center. It is the science and natural resources division of Everglades National Park and serves as the nexus of scientific inquiry to support all four national parks in South Florida.
Since the 1970s, Congress has authorized several restoration projects jointly with the state of Florida.
The most prominent efforts include the Modified Water Deliveries project, which has provided flood protection to the 8.5-square-mile area near the park and S.W. 168 Street; the one-mile bridge on Tamiami Trail completed in March 2013 that will bring more water to the northeastern section of the park; and the interagency Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan that addresses the park and regional environmental consequences of the Central and South Florida Project.
Restoring the Everglades is complex. Three of the essential ingredients are: getting the water right, protecting the natural environment and fostering compatibility between the man-made and natural environments.
Pedro Ramos, the park's superintendent, anticipates that visitors will see dramatic positive environmental changes as restoration progresses, including more water and larger wetlands.
"It took decades to drain the Everglades and will take two or three more to restore it," he said. "Restoration is necessary because it is not just about the environment. Our drinking water comes from the Everglades. We are looking forward to the transition to a more natural, resilient Everglades with clean water for many future generations to enjoy."
This is the first part of a two-part series. 

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Florida regulators pass pew Water Quality Standards
WaterOnline.com - by Peak Johnson
August 8, 2016
It was in late July when a governor-appointed panel approved what some Floridians consider to be “controversial criteria” for water quality.
According to Florida Today, by a three to two vote, the Environmental Regulation Commission (ERC) signed off on the new water quality standards for more than 100 toxic chemicals, including benzene, during its regular meeting in Tallahassee.
The next stop will be for the criteria to go to the U.S. EPA for approval.
"We have not updated these parameters since 1992, it is more good than harm," ERC Commissioner Cari Roth, a Tallahassee lawyer told Florida Today. "To me it would be far worse to delay."
According to the Miami Herald,  the updated rules will allow 23 toxins, including 18 carcinogens, to be discharged from industrial polluters at higher levels into the state’s waterways.
Environmentalist believe that Florida’s water will be “further harmed” and that the additional chemicals will alter natural hormones in Florida waters.
“That policy now says that more Floridians are expendable to cancer and other serious health diseases in order for industries to be more profitable,” Linda Young, executive director of the Florida Clean Water Network, told the Miami Herald.
According to wjct.org, nine members of Congress recently sent the EPA a letter voicing their concern.
Rep. Gwen Graham, who signed the letter, believed that it is not the right time to lower Florida’s water quality standards since algae blooms are currently plaguing the state’s east coast.
"We should be increasing our standards," Graham told wjct. "It makes no sense to me at all. As a matter of fact, it's just appalling that those that would be in charge of protecting our environment and protecting what's most precious in Florida and protecting our citizens are taking actions that put all of those at greater harm."
For similar stories visit Water Online’s Wastewater Regulations And Legislation Solutions Center

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Florida to face major flooding from persistent tropical downpours
Accuweather.com
August 8, 2016
A slow-moving system will continue the threat of major flooding to northern and western Florida through the middle of this week.
Tropical downpours will continue to stream into northern Florida through most of this week, dropping 1-3 inches of rain on some communities daily. In some locations, that amount of rain could pour down in as many hours.
The cumulative total of the rain will exceed 5 inches in many areas across Florida's panhandle and the northwestern peninsula
A foot of rain could fall on a few communities.
Each round of downpours will further heighten the flood risk, exacerbating the flooding from localized issues early in the week to a widespread and major situation by midweek.
Areas in Florida from Cape Coral and Tampa to Tallahassee and Apalachicola are at greatest risk for flooding into Tuesday.
By midweek, the risk of torrential downpours will spread westward over much of the Florida Panhandle.
Residents and visitors should prepare for road closures and possible evacuations. Streams and rivers could overflow their banks, inundating neighboring roads and homes and damaging bridges.
Remember never to drive through a flooded road. The road underneath may be washed away or the flow of water could be strong enough to sweep away your vehicle.
In absence of flooding, motorists will need to slow down on the highways. Excess water on the roads during torrential downpours will can increase the risk of hydroplaning. Such hazards will unfold on portions of I-10 and I-75.
The risk of torrential downpours and flash flooding will spread westward, beyond Florida, along the upper Gulf coast as the week progresses.
"The risk of urban flooding will increase in Mobile, Alabama, Biloxi, Mississippi, and New Orleans during the middle and latter part of the week," according to AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Alex Sosnowski.
"Farther inland, the system could bring some short-term drought relief to parts central and northern Mississippi and Alabama late this week and this weekend," Sosnowski said.
As the system raises the risk for flooding, AccuWeather meteorologists will continue to monitor its potential to become a tropical depression over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
"There was some concern this storm could drift over the Gulf of Mexico and take on tropical characteristics," according to AccuWeather Hurricane Expert Dan Kottlowski.
That scenario appears very unlikely now with the storm projected to remain over land, Kottlowski stated.
The flood threat should ease in Florida late this week and this weekend.
Elsewhere in the Atlantic basin, a complex of showers and thunderstorms was located northeast of the Bahamas.
"This feature will move into an area of unfavorable winds and is not likely to become better organized as a result," Kottlowski said.

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NASA Study creates first ever Map of Underground Water Pollution along United States Coast
ClarksvilleOnLine.com - by Alan Buis, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
August 8, 2016
Pasadena, CA – Coastal waters and near-shore groundwater supplies along more than a fifth of coastlines in the continental United States are vulnerable to contamination from previously hidden underground transfers of water between the oceans and land, finds a new study by researchers at The Ohio State University, Columbus, and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.
The study, published online August 4th in the journal Science, offers the first-ever map of the underground flows that connect fresh groundwater beneath the continental United States and seawater in the surrounding oceans. The map highlights areas most vulnerable to degraded water quality from these flows now and in the future.
The researchers combined U.S. topographic data and NASA climate models to identify key inland regions that contribute groundwater and contaminants to the coast.
They examined rainfall, evaporation rates and the amount of known surface runoff to calculate the missing portion of water that was running out below ground, then melded those results with terrain and land-use data to identify where the water ended up.
The team was able to learn more about the previously hidden water exchanges via computer analyses, without extensive and costly field surveys.
Audrey Sawyer, assistant professor of Earth Sciences at The Ohio State University and leader of the study, said that while scientists have long known that freshwater and seawater mix unseen below ground, until now they hadn’t been able to pinpoint exactly where it was happening, or how much, except in limited locations.
“We’re all pretty familiar with the idea that rain falls on land and flows out to the ocean in rivers, but there’s another, hidden component of rainfall that infiltrates the ground near the coast and spills into the ocean below sea level,” Sawyer said. “It’s known as ‘submarine groundwater discharge.’ Freshwater flows out to sea, and vice versa. Urbanization, agricultural development, climate and topography all affect how much water flows in either direction, and the exchange has a big impact on both onshore groundwater that we drink and offshore seawater where we swim and fish.”
The study identified 12 percent of the continental U.S. coastline — including the northern Gulf Coast from Mississippi to the Florida Panhandle, northern Atlantic Coast and Pacific Northwest — as areas where once-hidden drainage systems make the ocean most susceptible to contamination from septic tanks and fertilizer in freshwater.
There, excess nutrients in the water can cause harmful algal blooms to form, which remove vital oxygen from the water. This contamination from land to sea endangers fisheries and coral reefs, as well as water recreation and tourism.
In contrast, the team found that another 9 percent of coastline — including confirmed locations such as Southeastern Florida, Southern California and Long Island, New York — are especially susceptible to the opposite threat: contamination from sea to land. In these areas, saltwater intrudes inland and infiltrates the fresh groundwater supply.
“It takes only a small amount of salt water to render drinking water non-potable, so saltwater invasion is a big concern for water resource management in coastal areas,” Sawyer said.
The study found Los Angeles and San Francisco are vulnerable to both ocean contamination and saltwater intrusion.
Overall, the study calculates that more than 15 billion tons of freshwater flow through invisible underground networks into the ocean along the continental U.S. coastline every year. That sounds like a lot of water, but it’s less than 1 percent of the total amount that flows from the continental United States into the ocean, said study co-author Cedric David of JPL. The other 99 percent comes from rivers and surface runoff.
Still, David explained, the study is significant because it provides the first continental-scale, high-resolution estimate of that 1 percent — a portion which, when compared to the other 99 percent, can be particularly rich in nutrients and other contaminants.
“This Ohio State-JPL collaboration has removed the cloak from hidden groundwater transfers between land and sea,” he said.
For example, the amount of yearly precipitation is similar in the Pacific Northwest and the mid-Atlantic regions, but the study found that underground drainage rates into the ocean were approximately 50 percent higher in the Pacific Northwest because the steep terrain there carries more groundwater to the coastline.
The researchers found that land use was critical to discharge in Florida. Sawyer said that she was surprised by the big effect that canals had there.
Since the early 20th century, Floridians have constructed thousands of miles of canals along the state’s coasts for transportation, irrigation and recreation. The study found that the canals may capture water that would otherwise flow underground and out to sea.
The researchers commented that increased urbanization — and the extensive pavement that goes along with it — will also decrease groundwater recharge and ultimate drainage to coastal regions where the population is growing, increasing the likelihood of saltwater intrusion.
“That’s why we hope others will use our analysis to better plan strategies for coastal land development and groundwater management that help preserve water quality,” Sawyer said. “Right now, we’ve created a map of American coastlines that highlights some previously known as well as unknown areas of vulnerability along the U.S. coastline, but we hope to be able to do it for the world shortly, as data become available.”
Model data for the study came from the enhanced National Hydrography Dataset NHDPlus, originally built by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Geological Survey, and now developed by Horizon Systems Corporation in Herndon, Virginia; the North American Land Data Assimilation System from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland; the Variable Infiltration Capacity Macroscale Hydrologic Model from the University of Washington; the 2011 National Land Cover Database from the Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics Consortium; and the United States 2010 Census.
The research was funded by NASA, the National Science Foundation and The Ohio State University.
NASA collects data from space, air, land and sea to increase our understanding of our home planet, improve lives and safeguard our future. NASA develops new ways to observe and study Earth’s interconnected natural systems with long-term data records. The agency freely shares this unique knowledge and works with institutions around the world to gain new insights into how our planet is changing.
For more information about NASA’s Earth science activities, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/earth

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Our deteriorating environment: Is anybody listening ?
CounterPunch.org - by Mel Gurtov
August 8, 2016
While the scientists have been doing their job in calling attention to the multiple ways in which environmental decline threatens the planet, we hear less and less from political leaders. Their focus is on the here-and-now—terrorism, jobs, immigration—and not on commitments to the future. Last year’s Paris Agreement on climate change seems like a distant memory.
Here is some of the latest scientific evidence, which points not only to the magnitude and immediacy of the problem but also to the interdependence of its parts:
*Five scientists from the Global Change Research Institute, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, in College Park, Maryland, give findings on the rate of climate change increase—“unprecedented for at least the past 1,000 years”—and therefore the need for an accelerated response.
*To the now familiar melting of the Arctic ice packs—which the most recent study shows is likely to cause a sea level rise of “at least several meters”– should be added the equally if not more dangerous thawing of the permafrost, which means increasing emissions of methane and carbon dioxide. “Indeed,” Chris Mooney reports, “scientists have discovered a simple statistic that underscores the scale of the potential problem: There may be more than twice as much carbon contained in northern permafrost as there is in the atmosphere itself. That’s a staggering thought.” (Methane, by the way, seems to be the unsung villain: all the attention to carbon dioxide, Bill McKibben tells us in The Nation, detracts from methane’s equally potent heat trapping. Increased use of natural gas, plus fracking, are significantly increasing methane emissions in the U.S.)
*The world’s largest forest “carbon sink,” the Amazon basin, is losing its ability to soak up excess carbon dioxide, a British study reports. In a nutshell, growth—i.e., conversion of forest land to agriculture—is outpacing forest sustainability.
*Human expansion, such as in the Amazon basin, is imperiling the ecosystem itself. A study by European scientists finds that biodiversity levels have fallen below the point where the ecosystem can remain intact. Species decline of 10 percent, the scientists estimate, is dangerous; “but their study found that overall, across the globe, the average decline is already more like 15 percent. In other words, original species are only about 85 percent as abundant (84.6 percent to be precise) as they were before human land-use changes.” Climate change will add substantially to this sobering assessment.
*A new UN Environment Programme report covering all parts of the globe found that well-known problems are intensifying. Two problems in particular: “One was worsening air pollution problems, driven, again, by large populations and the swelling of urban cores. Another was widespread water scarcity problems, exacerbated by climate change but also greater demand in growing cities.” More than 1,200 scientists from 160 countries participated in the study.
*The first-ever international report on declining populations of bees, butterflies, and other pollinators underscores the looming threat to world food supplies and the agricultural system that supports it. The causes of pollinator extinction are well known: global warming, pesticides, and overuse of agricultural land.
*New studies of flooding confirm that rising sea levels as the result of global warming are occurring at a faster rate than ever before. The coastal flooding witnessed in recent years in Miami, Charleston, and Norfolk is likely to be more frequent and prolonged in the future. Ocean levels may rise up three to four feet by 2100.
*China, while promising to draw 20 percent of its energy from renewable sources, is, in fact, continuing to construct coal-fired plants—on average, one plant a week until 2020, according to the latest Greenpeace report. The extraordinary fact about this new construction is that it creates huge excess capacity, the result not of central government dictates but rather of permits for investment in coal-fired plants by leaders in distant provinces. Unless this trend stops, as much as $200 billion will be wasted, and water availability will dramatically decline.
Two pieces of good news: nuclear power is in trouble everywhere, and the ozone “hole” over the Antarctic is starting to heal. The latest “World Nuclear Industry Status Report” details the numerous nuclear power plants that have been or in a short time will be shut down. Financing problems, aging plants, and technical breakdowns are a big part of the reason; but competition from renewable energy sources is becoming the most important factor. The future energy picture is captured in this notation: “Globally, wind power output grew by 17 percent, solar by 33 percent, nuclear by 1.3 percent” in the past year, and “Brazil, China, India, Japan and the Netherlands now all generate more electricity from wind turbines alone than from nuclear power plants.” Meantime, thanks to the 1987 Montreal Protocol that phased out ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons, the ozone layer is growing back—a sign that international agreements backed by a coalition of scientists do work.
Public opinion trails behind scientific findings on climate change, according to Pew Research Center polls. The urgency of climate change is felt more strongly in Europe and Latin America than in the U.S. and China. That fact is worrisome: Americans and Chinese, who live in the biggest carbon producing societies, should be the most concerned about climate change. On the other hand, Americans’ concern is rising again: the percentage of Americans polled by Gallup in 2016 who believe climate change is a worrisome problem stands at 64 percent. On the other end of the spectrum, only 10 percent of U.S. adults now discount global warming as a major problem. But before we celebrate, we need to remind ourselves that expressions of concern don’t equate to what people are willing to do to combat the problem, even at the polls. And if many of them are inclined to “let the politicians figure it out,” or hide behind “I’m not a scientist” disclaimers, we’re in great trouble.
Sadly, climate change is barely on the election-year agenda. That’s hardly surprising in the case of Donald Trump, a climate change denier. His comeuppance will be when his prize Florida hotel, Mar-a-Lago, goes under water in perhaps thirty years, along with many other coastal properties as mentioned above. Beaches and streets are already flooding in Miami. As for Hillary Clinton, she has mentioned global warming of course, but it’s clearly not a high priority in her campaign. Whether or not that changes in her presidency remains to be seen.
A final thought, which comes from an opinion piece by William Gail, former president of the American Meteorological Society: Future generations may have to start from scratch in grappling with the “new dark age” of climate-altering changes. Their learning process will have been disrupted. Models, technologies, and other resources used to identify patterns, and predict and act on Earth’s dramatic changes, will be largely useless. Our children and grandchildren have no idea what they are inheriting.
Join the debate on Facebook

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Time to Borrow
NY Times – by Paul Krugman, Op-Ed Columnist
August 8, 2016
The campaign still has three ugly months to go, but the odds — 83 percent odds, according to the New York Times’s model — are that it will end with the election of a sane, sensible president. So what should she do to boost America’s economy, which is doing better than most of the world but is still falling far short of where it should be?
There are, of course, many ways our economic policy could be improved. But the most important thing we need is sharply increased public investment in everything from energy to transportation to wastewater treatment.
How should we pay for this investment? We shouldn’t — not now, or any time soon. Right now there is an overwhelming case for more government borrowing.
Let me walk through this case, then address some of the usual objections.
First, we have obvious, pressing needs for public investment in many areas. In Washington, the aging Metro is in such bad shape that whole lines may have to be shut down for maintenance. In Florida, green slime infests beaches, in large part because failure to upgrade an 80-year-old dike or to purchase more land as a runoff area is forcing the Army Corps of Engineers to release polluted water from Lake Okeechobee. There are similar stories all across America.
So investing more in infrastructure would clearly make us richer. Meanwhile, the federal government can borrow at incredibly low interest rates: 10-year, inflation-protected bonds yielded just 0.09 percent on Friday.
Put these two facts together — big needs for public investment, and very low interest rates — and it suggests not just that we should be borrowing to invest, but that this investment might well pay for itself even in purely fiscal terms. How so? Spending more now would mean a bigger economy later, which would mean more tax revenue. This additional revenue would probably be larger than any rise in future interest payments.
And this analysis doesn’t even take into account the potential role of public investment in job creation: Despite a low headline unemployment rate, the U.S. economy is still probably short of full employment, and an investment agenda would also offer valuable insurance against possible future downturns.
So why aren’t we borrowing and investing ?  Here are some of the usual objections, and why they’re wrong.
We can’t borrow because we already have too much debt. People who say this usually like to cite big numbers — “Our debt is 19 trillion dollars,” they intone in their best Dr. Evil voice. But everything about the U.S. economy is huge, and what matters is the comparison between the cost of servicing our debt and our ability to pay. And federal interest payments are only 1.3 percent of G.D.P., low by historical standards.
Borrowing costs may be low now, but they might rise. Yes, maybe. But we’re talking about long-term borrowing that locks in today’s low rates. If 10 years isn’t long enough for you, how about 30-year, inflation-protected bonds? They’re only yielding 0.64 percent.
The government can’t do anything right. Solyndra! Solyndra! Benghazi! A large part of our political class is committed to the proposition that any and all government efforts to improve our lives are doomed to failure — a proposition that turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy when these people are actually in office. But to hold that view you have to turn your back on our own history: American greatness was in large part created by government investment or private investment shaped by public support, from the Erie Canal, to the transcontinental railroads, to the Interstate Highway System.
As for the constant harping on individual failures, all large organizations, private businesses very much included, engage in some projects that don’t work out. Yes, some renewable-energy investments went bad — but overall, the Obama administration’s promotion of solar and wind has been a huge success, with a rough quadrupling of production since 2008. Green energy should be seen as an inspiration, not a cautionary tale.
There is, in short, an overwhelming policy case for federal borrowing to pay for public investment. But will the next president be able to act on this case?
The good news is that elite discourse seems, finally, to be moving in the right direction. Five years ago the Beltway crowd was fixated on debt and deficits as the great evils. Today, not so much.
The bad news is that even if Hillary Clinton wins, she may well face the same kind of scorched-earth Republican opposition President Obama faced from day one. So it matters not just who wins in November, but by how much. Will there be a strong enough Democratic wave to give Mrs. Clinton the ability to act ?
But while the politics remain uncertain, it’s clear what we should be doing. It’s time for the federal government to borrow and invest.

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Clean water shouldn't be so complicated
TheLedger - by Paula Dockery, Syndicated columnist
August 7, 2016
We all want clean water. It's vital to our survival.
Clean water is necessary to ensure public health. Water leaving our lakes, running through our rivers and entering our bays and estuaries needs to be clean to support our seafood harvesters, our sport fishermen, our tourism industry, our economy and our quality of life.
Clean water is good; dirty, polluted or contaminated water is bad. Pretty simple, huh?
Floridians are already upset about the blue-green algae taking over the state's Treasure Coast. People were getting sick with rashes and respiratory problems, fish were dying, manatees were gasping for air, beaches were closed, fishing charters were canceled and tourism suffered.
The toxic algae bloom illustrates what happens when those responsible for our water quality fail to keep it clean or to clean it up once it becomes degraded.
So last week a little-known group, the Environmental Regulation Commission (ERC), took up a controversial rule developed by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) allowing more cancer-causing chemicals to be discharged into our surface waters up to certain levels. Despite public outcry, the rule passed on a 3-2 vote.
Most reasonable people shake their heads and say, why in the world would any sane person condone putting dangerous toxins in our surface waters? The simple answer is because powerful and influential industries benefit from doing so.
Related:           Clean water shouldn't be so complicated       Tallahassee.com

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Everglades restoration still best solution
Naples Daily News - Commentary by Joe Collins, former chairman of the SFWMD,a vice president for Lykes Bros. Inc.
August 7, 2016
Joe Collins Former chairman South Florida Water Management District
In 2000, state and federal water managers began to undertake the largest and most advanced engineering and restoration project ever designed when they began the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP).
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers hailed the plan as an “innovative, comprehensive, cutting-edge approach” that when completed “will be a win-win for the environment and the public needs of Southeast Florida.”
Representatives from environmental and agricultural communities joined elected Republicans and Democrats alike in praising the plan and eagerly awaiting its construction.
The plan was developed after years of studying the best approach to water storage, treatment and delivery of water to the Everglades ecosystem. The facts then, as they do now, suggested that the vast majority of the water enters Lake Okeechobee from the north, and that storage and treatment near the source is preferable before it enters into Lake Okeechobee.
When considering CERP, the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) also considered many alternatives such as the flowway concept known as “Plan 6.” In recent months, some critics have revived calls for the flowway concept, but the plan’s real shortcomings still remain.
In 1999, for instance, the district commissioned a feasibility study looking into the flowway. The study concluded that the concept “creates a water supply burden on the system without clear hydrologic benefits.”
In a 2007 presentation to the governing board, district engineers and scientists noted that among other things, flows from a hypothetical flowway to Everglades National Park would remain too low, “exacerbate the already high stages in the northern parts” of the water conservation areas, and have “very low habitat suitability.”
Despite claims that the flowway would return Lake Okeechobee to a more natural state, the presentation concluded that “water deliveries to or from a flowway will never be natural because Lake Okeechobee has changed.”
In 2015, the University of Florida’s Water Institute study on Everglades restoration also noted the challenges with the flowway concept, concluding that “in both the (Corps of Engineers) Reconnaissance Report (1994) and the SFWMD River of Grass planning process (2009), results indicated that a passive ... flowway is not the optimal approach for addressing problems of too much water going to the estuaries in the wet season or too little water going to the Everglades in the dry season.”
It was ultimately these factors that would cause SFWMD and the state and federal governments to develop the managed storage, treatment and delivery projects that make up CERP today. Once completed, CERP will provide tangible relief to the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie river basins and reduce the need to discharge water from Lake Okeechobee. Additionally, the projects, including the expansion of the C-43 and C-44 reservoirs, will store and treat water near the source before it flows into the estuary.
Leaders in Tallahassee and Washington need to finish what was started in 2000 and fully fund the CERP projects, which are designed to bring relief to the estuaries that are interconnected to the Lake Okeechobee system.
Progress has been frustratingly slow, and while it is tempting to get distracted by sound-bite science promising easy fixes, CERP continues to remain the best option for fixing Florida’s water problems throughout the Everglades ecosystem.

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Study: South Florida susceptible to underground mix of salt water with freshwater
TheRealDeal.com – by Mike Seemuth
August 7, 2016
Study published by the journal Science also cited risk to Long Island and Southern California.
The journal Science published a new study showing 9 percent of U.S. coastal areas are susceptible to a contaminated underground mix of fresh water and salt water, including southeastern Florida.
The study features the first map of underground water flows ever developed. The technical name for these flows is “submarine groundwater discharge.” These flows bring fresh groundwater beneath the United States into contact with salt water from the oceans.
Southeastern Florida, Southern California and Long Island , New York, are among the metropolitan areas with water supplies at risk of contamination by seawater, the study found.
Ohio State University hydro-geologist Audrey Sawyer, lead author of the study, said only a minor amount of seawater will make drinkable water undrinkable. As rivers and streams flow into oceans, freshwater and salt water mix constantly without posing a public threat. But Sawyer said unseen subterranean mixing can lead to salt water intrusion that contaminates underground freshwater aquifers.
Hydrologist Cedric David of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which was involved in the study, told USA Today it  “removed the cloak from hidden groundwater transfers between land and sea.” [USA Today]
Related:           Study Maps Hidden Water Pollution In US Coastal Areas   Water Online (press release),-Aug 6, 2016

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Water managers have a plan to avert further crisis
Miami Herald – by Melanie Peterson, at-large member of the South Florida Water Management District Governing Board for an area that includes St. Lucie, Martin, Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade and Monroe counties.
August 7, 2016
With mounting impacts from a severe lack of rainfall and freshwater flows to Florida Bay, my colleagues and I on the Governing Board of the South Florida Water Management District directed staff to put their best science into a plan to avert further crisis.
They were asked to do this quickly and amid the staggering number of other critical projects that keep South Florida’s water management system operating and momentum moving on Everglades restoration.
SFWMD scientists and engineers delivered. In July, the board approved their plan to move water south to the ailing bay, doubling the flow of clean, fresh water to Taylor Slough, which connects to the bay. An average of about 6.5 billion gallons more water per year will flow to the bay, helping to reduce salinity and promoting the recovery of seagrass that died in the summer drought of 2015.
The project includes eight modest, targeted projects and improvements in the South Dade Conveyance System that cost about $3.3 million. We are prepared to get these done by beginning of the dry season in November if our federal partners work with us.
To date, it is the only plan of action that will provide some relief now. These operational changes will also significantly help long term. And yet there remains a contingent of pessimists who loudly advocate for a massive land buy as the only solution to all our water challenges. These same detractors allege the volunteers on the Governing Board are not the best qualified to craftpolicy based on the sound science of a staff that includes some of the world’s foremostexperts on these subjects.
I believe my education in environmental resource analysis, career as a local realtor, time on this board — and common sense — qualifies me to say that spending billions on just buying property is a bad deal for taxpayers and the environment.
Acquiring mass tracts south of Lake Okeechobee would only divert critical funds and staff away from operations that are making a difference now. Years would go by before any of that new land would be able to store, clean or convey a single drop of water to the Bay — or anywhere else.
I want our residents to know we are working to achieve results now while the broader Everglades projects are finished.
I encourage all South Floridians interested in the plight of Florida Bay to visit www.sfwmd.gov/floridabay to view the details of these efforts and track
the progress of the action underway to help save the bay.

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Florida’s Indian River Lagoon in environmental crisis
FCIR.org – by Lisa Desai and Yasmeen Qureshi, Florida Center for Investigative Reporting
August 6, 2016
Bethany Quinn and her husband Sean moved into their home in Stuart, in Martin County, three years ago.
It’s the same house Bethany grew up in, nestled in a middle-class neighborhood and across the street from the St. Lucie Lucie River, part of the larger Indian River Lagoon estuary.
As a girl, Quinn would swim in the river with her family. But today Quinn doesn’t allow her two daughters to go near the water. The river isn’t safe, in her view; it’s too polluted.
“I just don’t see how it can come back,” Quinn said.
The Indian River Lagoon, stretching 156 miles along Florida’s Atlantic coast from Ponce de Leon Inlet in New Smyrna Beach to Jupiter Inlet north of West Palm Beach, is one of the most biodiverse waterways in North America. The estuary is home to thousands of species of plants and animals, including more than 800 dolphins.
It also represents a significant part of the Florida economy. With an economic value of $3.7 billion, the Indian River Lagoon supports 15,000 jobs and is responsible for $1.3 billion in annual recreational spending, according to the St. Johns River Water Management District.
But the Indian River Lagoon faces a grave environmental emergency, according to reporting by PBS NewsHour Weekend in partnership with the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting. Cleaning up the estuary will take decades and hundreds of millions of dollars in a process that will directly affect everyone who lives near the waterway.
Contamination of the lagoon from fertilizers and nearby septic tanks has steadily increased every year for more than a decade, with state environmental and health officials largely ignoring the problem and continuing to issue permits for new septic tanks. This year marked a tipping point for the contamination.
All over the Indian River Lagoon, there is evidence today of algal blooms, and in some parts of the waterway, the algae is in the form of toxic blue-green scum. These algal blooms starve plant life and can destroy the marine ecosystem.
In March 2016, the contamination in the lagoon led to one of the biggest fish kills in the estuary’s history. At its worst, thousands of dead fish could BE seen floating lifeless on the lagoon’s surface.
Dolphins in the lagoon have tested positive for E. coli and antibiotic-resistant bacteria likely as a result of untreated sewage leaching into the water, which could cause many of the dolphins to be sickened and die.
“We’re having a crisis in the Indian River Lagoon from excessive amounts of nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus that are causing harmful algae blooms,” said Brian Lapointe, a scientist at Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute. “Some of these are toxic and some are not toxic, but still cause ecological damage.”
Man-made problem
The Indian River Lagoon’s crisis is man-made.
Since the 1960s, the population of the five counties around the lagoon has doubled. Many of the 600,000 houses that surround Indian River Lagoon use septic tanks instead of a county or municipal sewage systems.
“The problem is septic tanks really don’t treat the sewage to a very high level,” Lapointe said. “They are not engineered to remove nutrients, and they don’t disinfect.”
Septic tanks don’t treat sewage. Instead, they rely on dense soil to filter out contaminants. But septic tanks don’t perform well in the porous soil of Florida’s coastal areas. The septic tanks are leaching into tidal creeks and canals that flow into the Indian River Lagoon.
The sensitive estuary also receives high levels of fertilizer run-off and takes in discharge from Lake Okeechobee. When untreated sewage from septic tanks combines with these other pollutants, algal blooms result, creating an overgrowth of algae that can be seen as colorful scum on the water’s surface.
“We have two major problems — that discharge from the lake bringing a lot of fresh water into the system and then all the septic tanks that are also draining into the system with fecal coliform bacteria … and it really is like the perfect storm coming together creating a big, big problem in this area,” said FAU’s Lapointe.
Don’t go in the water
Bethany and Sean Quinn know their house in Stuart is part of the problem. Buried in their front yard is a septic tank, one of 30,000 in Martin County alone.
“If I had my preference, I’d much rather have it be something that goes and is treated and the water’s reclaimed and turned into something useful,” Sean Quinn said.
In May, the St. Lucie River became so polluted that state health officials warned residents not to even touch the water.
“I know people aren’t catching as much fish. You don’t see any of the seagrass. You rarely see shells,” Quinn said. “It’s changing right before our eyes.”
Despite the visible problems, many Floridians are largely unaware of the adverse effects of septic tanks because state officials continue to permit their installation near Indian River Lagoon.
According to the Florida Department of Health’s website, more than 100 new septic tank permits were issued in July in the five-county region around the lagoon. State health officials declined to comment about the state’s continued permitting of septic tank installations around the estuary.
An expensive solution
Martin County Commissioner Doug Smith is spearheading a 20-year, $138 million project to clean up the river by connecting more than 10,000 houses that rely on septic tanks to sewage lines.
Among homeowners who have signed up to remove their septic tanks is Suzie Debartolo. Her house in Martin County overlooks the St. Lucie River. She used to enjoy being on the water, but she’s since sold her boat and stored away her kayaks.
“You see how that is just totally dead?” she said, pointing to the river. “You don’t see any sign of life down there … I wouldn’t dare get in here.”
The Florida Center for Investigative Reporting is a nonprofit news organization supported by foundations and individual contributions. For more information, visit fcir.org.
Related:           How septic tanks may imperil this Florida ecosystem            NET Website-Aug 6, 2016

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Keep focus on the environment as housing booms
Naples Daily News – Editorial Board
August 6, 2016
Housing construction might be easing a bit in Southwest Florida this summer, but the industry remains on solid ground after the recession. As a result, important environmental issues must stay in the foreground inthe coming months.
During the past week, the Naples Daily News reported July housing starts were down about 15 percent in Collier County compared with that month a year ago, Lee County starts were roughly comparable, and Florida-based MetroStudy predicts housing starts will ease up through year's end.
With the Aug. 30 and Nov. 8 elections determining federal and state legislative and County Commission seats, there's an opportunity to keep the conversation going with candidates on these important issues:
Fracking
After two years of intensive debate about inland drillers being able to crack or dissolve underground rock to increase oil production, we're concerned the dialogue won't continue. Fracking is legal in Florida today, so the conversation about possible effects on the community can't go away.
An independent study of Florida's geology and hydrology is needed to guide reforms of outdated state drilling laws to cover modern-day techniques. It's going to cost an estimated $1 million, but is necessary. The means to that end has been legislation by state Rep. Ray Rodrigues, R-Estero, and Sen. Garrett Richter, R-Naples. It came close to passing the past two years, but didn't. Some advocate banning fracking, which we believe has no chance to get through the Republican-dominated Legislature and be signed by Gov. Rick Scott.
Richter is finishing his final allowed term. Senate candidate Matt Hudson views it as a property rights issue and wants to see what Rodrigues does. Senate candidate Kathleen Passidomo will consider picking the issue up, but wonders with oil prices low whether there will be any appetite for it in the Senate.
Rodrigues, with four years of lawmaking invested in the issue already, said he will introduce it again in the House but won't ask for any hearings until the Senate acts, because that's where the bill died the past two years.
We're concerned this will remain a circuitous fracking path to nowhere.
Water quality
We've opined that there are too many agencies in the federal government and state rowing in different directions on protecting water quality in the western Everglades and Caloosahatchee River basin. Now, mix in the state Environmental Regulation Commission's decision setting new limits for toxic compounds allowed in Florida's surface waters, regulating about 40 new ones but easing rules for two dozen others, including some carcinogens.
We urge Southwest Florida, in choosing a replacement for U.S. Rep. Curt Clawson, to elect a congressman who will unify this effort. A two-year-old, 140-page report by the University of Florida Water Institute is a foundation for collaboration.
Mining
A Cemex Construction request to proceed with a nearly 900-acre mine north of State Road 82, near State Road 29 and abutting the Hendry County line, prompted us in January to urge renewed public attention to where the mining of construction material occurs. Too close to the coast and it risks affecting neighborhoods. In distant rural areas, habitat and endangered species may be at risk.
More recently, a residential and commercial developer purchased a 1,268-acre limerock mine in east Bonita Springs in the density reduction, groundwater recharge area, the DR/GR.
Conservation lands
We've seen some encouraging signs concerning conservation lands, but the conversation must continue. While the state Legislature erred in redirecting Amendment 1 money from its intended purpose in 2015, lawmakers took a positive step this year by approving the Legacy Florida Act, committing $250 million annually for 20 years toward restoring the Everglades and springs.
The Bonita Springs City Council recently agreed to consider buying land from willing sellers in the DR/GR. Lee commissioners have scheduled a November vote on whether to continue the tax-supported Conservation 2020 program.
However, Conservation Collier's similar tax-supported program has lapsed. With a new majority to be seated on the Collier County Commission in November, discussion is warranted on whether Collier should ask voters if they want to reinstate it to protect pristine areas as development moves inland from the coast.

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Report: Half of Florida lakes' surface have 'elevated' algae levels
Florida Today – by Jim Waymer
August 6, 2016
Florida waters are growing greener, saltier and more toxic in some parts, according to a new report on the state’s waters.
The report from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection shows a mixed bag for the state’s waters, with many trending toward more-frequent toxic algae blooms, fueled by rising nitrates from farm and residential fertilizers, sewage, pet waste and other human-related sources.
While the state has made some progress reducing nitrogen and phosphorus into state waters, conservationists say the reductions haven’t been fast enough to stop recent algae explosions. And as Florida’s population grows, so does the challenge of keeping the state’s waters clean, they say.
“What’s happening in the state of Florida today should be a wakeup call for us all,” said Lisa Rinaman, the St. Johns Riverkeeper, the chief public advocate for the river. “It’s not just an environmental issue, it’s an economic issue. It’s much more cost-effective to stop pollution at its source.”
This week, tests commissioned by Rinaman’s nonprofit group found microcystin — the same blue-green algae toxin recently fouling coastal waters on the Treasure Coast — at more than 120 times health guidelines off a dock in Doctors Lake, an outcropping of the St. Johns River, just south of Jacksonville.
Sometimes, Willie Lorton of Melbourne sees fishing in Lake Washington as pointless. He used to fish on Lake Washington all the time. Now he might go out once or twice a month just to keep his boat motor running.
“This lake isn’t what it used to be, used to be good fishing,” he said as he pulled his boat up on a trailer at the lake’s dock Thursday morning.
This day, he only caught two little bass.
DEP’s new report, called the 2016 Integrated Water Quality Assessment for Florida, spells out why these kinds of toxic algae blooms keep happening, and why some Florida well water is turning saltier and less healthy to drink. The report outlines the overall condition of Florida’s surface and ground water from 2012 to 2014. The Clean Water Act requires states submit the reports to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency every two years, including which waters don’t meet pollution limits.
Key findings of Florida’s 2016 integrated report include:
•  One hallmark of algae is elevated in 50 percent of the state’s lake area.
•  Nitrates remain the biggest issue in surface waters that get significant inputs of groundwater, especially springs.
•  Increasing trends in salt-water intrusion and nitrate and nitrite in groundwater.
•  Almost 70 percent of the 2.9 million acres Florida’s lakes and estuaries DEP assessed were “impaired.”
“As far as water quality, much of it looks the same as it has in previous years,” said Julie Espy, program administrator for DEP’s water quality assessment program.
But the rise in nitrogen and phosphorus continues to worsen in many Florida waters, DEP’s report found, especially some of the smaller lakes that get less attention than Lake Okeechobee and other larger waterbodies.
Median levels of nitrate in Florida’s groundwater have increased to more than 1 milligram per liter, 5 times the levels prior to the 1970s, causing many to clog up with plants. As late as the 1980s, median nitrate levels in the state’s groundwater were only .05 milligrams per liter.
Farm and residential fertilizers, sewage and population growth have fed those increases.
Chlorophyll a
This year’s report is the first to use recently approved criteria to estimate percentages of surface waters that are impaired. Those criteria show “nutrient enrichment is extensive” for nitrogen and phosphorus in the state’s surface waters.
That helped set the stage for severe algae blooms in Indian River Lagoon, the St. Lucie River and elsewhere in Florida.
DEP’s report showed roughly 50 percent of Florida’s lake area may have elevated levels of chlorophyll a, indicating algae fed by nitrogen and phosphorus from human activities.
The report found that 70 percent of the state’s 27,561 miles of rivers and streams “can sustain healthy aquatic life,” based on the levels of nitrogen in the water, and 80 percent can based on the phosphorus levels.
 “Certainly, certain areas of the St. Johns are getting better,” Espy said. “We’re not seeing wide change, but we are seeing some improvements in nutrients and dissolved oxygen.”
But those improvements haven’t been enough to prevent recent algae outbreaks. This week, St. Johns Riverkeeper’s tests in Doctors Lake — an outcrop of the St. Johns River just south of Jacksonville —found a toxin called microcystin at 120 times health guidelines. A blue-green algae toxin, microcystin is linked with short and long-term health risks. It’s toxic to fish, plants, invertebrates and mammals, including humans and can magnify in mussels, crayfish, fish and crops irrigated with contaminated water.
The World Health Organization recommends drinking water not exceed 1 part per billion and 20 parts per billion for swimming and other recreation. Riverkeepers four tests came in at an average of 2,473 parts per billion.
Groundwater
Overall, DEP’s report found the water quality of potable aquifers was good for the contaminants evaluated by the its monitoring networks. But from 2012 to 2014, total coliform bacteria and sodium met standards less frequently (85 percent and 86 percent of the samples statewide, respectively). Metals and nitrate met standards in almost all samples.
For ground water, wells that showed trends indicated increasing trends for saltwater intrusion.
“We are seeing some encroachment from saltwater indicators along the coastline, but other than that the groundwater is in good shape,” Espy said.
Nitrate remains the biggest issue in surface waters that get significant inputs of groundwater, because of the excessive algae growth it can cause that can impair clear waters, especially springs.
“I think what it really points out is that we need to do more restoration,” Espy said.
Among other actions, the report cites DEP plans to take the following actions:
•  Continue to monitor and investigate increased nitrate levels in springs that can result in the overgrowth of toxic blue-green algae and other aquatic plants, as well as saltwater and freshwater harmful algal blooms;
•  Promote low-impact development and practices such as green roofs, pervious pavements and stormwater harvesting;
•  Implement numeric nutrient criteria to address excess nitrogen and phosphorus in surface water from sources such as septic tanks, runoff, livestock waste, and increased fertilizer use on farm and urban landscapes;
But government does not regulate many of the actions that cause runoff pollution. So the report also calls for more “public education, cultural change and personal stewardship.”
“A simple example is controlling pet wastes, which can add nutrients and fecal bacteria to the landscape that are washed off with each rainstorm. Picking up and properly disposing of pet waste is essential to preventing this source of ‘pointless personal pollution.' ”
Contact Waymer at 321-242-3663 or jwaymer@floridatoday.com Follow him on Twitter@JWayEnviro and at facebook.com/jim.waymer
Water by the numbers
Florida encompasses an area of more than 45 million acres includes:
•  27,561 linear miles of rivers and streams;
•  47,708 linear miles of canals and ditches;
•  1.6 million acres of lakes, reservoirs, and ponds;
•  1.7 million acres of estuaries and coastal waters;
•  More than 1,000 springs
Florida’s 2016 Integrated water assessment identified the following waters too polluted to meet designated uses for drinking supply, shellfish harvest or swimming:
•  9,642 miles of rivers and streams;
•  33,655 miles of canals;
•  1 million acres of lakes;
•  993,581 acres of estuaries;
•  589 miles of coastal waters;
•  620 springs.
•  87 beaches
Growing water demand
In 1950, Florida’s 2.8 million residents used about 1.5 billion gallons per day of fresh ground water and surface water. By 2005, that grew to almost 7 billion gallons per day (62 percent ground water; 38 percent surface water), the report said, and water consumption is projected to increase to 9.3 billion gallons per day by 2020.

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Save the Everglades
Miami Herald – Letter by Kelly Garvy,Palm Beach
August 5, 2016
The National Resources Council has been reviewing the progress of the 2000 Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) every two years since 2006. As you go through these reviews, you can feel the fear and urgency in the authors’ voices as they watch the Everglades and the South Florida ecosystem slip away because of lack of funding and how slow the process is moving.
A 2015 independent review by the University of Florida states that we will need only 1.6 million acre-feet of water storage. As of the 2015 UF study, Florida has planned for just under 500,000 acre-feet of water storage. That’s not even a third, and it’s been 16 years since CERP was passed. Simultaneously, we are reaching a point past which we will not be able to reverse the ecological damage done by inaction and delay.
Florida’s legislators and the U.S. Congress must start aggressively funding the research, planning and implementation of solutions. There is no time to waste. Citizens, keep the pressure on the politicians who are in office. And vote for Florida’s environment in the primaries on Aug. 30 and in November’s general election. The cost of inaction is too great.

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How to fix Florida’s unbearable, sewage-driven algae blooms before they get worse
Fusion.net
August 4, 2016
MIAMI—When Nadia Smart and her husband moved from Okeechobee to Stuart, FL, last fall, they were looking forward to spending the summer kayaking and swimming.
A year later, they haven’t been able to do any of that.
“We bought our house here because we like the beaches, we like the waterways, and we can’t use them,” she said. “It’s just been a dead summer, it’s sad.”
For the Smarts and other residents on Florida’s Treasure Coast a few hours north of Miami, the summer has been marred by an infestation of cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae.
Algae blooms have been especially bad across the country this year, and harmful outbreaks have been reported in Utah, Idaho, and California. While blooms are natural, scientists believe they have become more common and more severe in recent years as nutrient pollution increases and climate change exacerbates heatwaves.
Florida’s Treasure Coast has seen the worst of the blooms this summer. The first signs of the bacteria began in the late spring, and by the Fourth of July weekend it seemed to explode, sending tourists and locals out of the water.
“We’re never in the river anymore,” said Kevin Cooke, a recreational fisherman from Stuart. “We used to go to the Stuart Causeway all the time, have the whole family out there and have a barbecue, play in the water.”
Cooke said he started seeing the blooms pop up a few years ago. Where he lives, closer to the ocean, the algae hasn’t been much of a problem. However, when he heads further inland to the rivers where he grew up playing, it’s a different story. In the Palm City area, he sees floating chunks of algae, as well as in Pecks Lake in Hobe Sound.
“It’s all everybody talks about, that’s it,” he said. “There’s green stuff everywhere.”
The blooms turn the water anywhere from a toxic, neon green color to a brown reminiscent of fecal matter, people have said. Others have described it as looking like mounds of guacamole floating on the river. On top of that, the scent is a pervasive, swampy smell, like rotting plants and fish in still water.
Not only are the algal blooms smelly and unsightly, they can cause health problems. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, harmful algal blooms in freshwater can lead to respiratory illness and irritation in the eyes, skin, nose, and throat when people are exposed by swimming in or even breathing the toxins. People who eat contaminated fish and shellfish can experience diarrhea, vomiting, muscles aches, numbness, and more.
Florida officials recently said toxins from the blue-green algae have also been found in the air nearby.
“It’s not just the people, it’s the ecosystem, it’s the animals, and the wildlife that has to really suffer for it.”
The algae is even more harmful to marine life.
“It’s not just the people, it’s the ecosystem, it’s the animals, and the wildlife that has to really suffer for it,” Cooke said. “It was theirs before it was ours, that’s for sure, and then we ruined it.”
Dr. Brian LaPointe, a research professor at the Florida Atlantic University Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute in Fort Pierce, explained that when algae dies, it sinks to the bottom of the water and creates a “dead zone.” This can result in mass fish die-offs, and birds, sea turtles, manatees, and dolphins can also be impacted.
“The entire aquatic food web, even birds that would ordinarily prey on fish or invertebrates or whatever are going to be affected,” LaPointe said.
At the end of June, Florida Gov. Rick Scott declared a state of emergency for St. Lucie, Lee, Martin, and Palm Beach Counties. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection has been monitoring the algal blooms, and most recently from July 19 to 21 took samples from 14 known algae sites. None of them had any toxins present—but on July 5, a sample from St. Lucie had as much as 86 micrograms per liter of microcystin toxin.
Florida’s large algae blooms occur during especially warm, wet weather, which leads to more water runoff into Lake Okeechobee. With that water comes unwanted nutrients and pollution from urbanization, cattle farms, and sewage. When the lake gets too full, the Army Corps of Engineers drains it, sending the water into the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie Rivers.
Down the canals the nutrients and pollution go, eventually ending up in estuaries, where nutrient levels are already elevated.
“The bloom actually, it kind of explodes, it’s like Miracle-Gro once it gets into that estuary.”
“The bloom actually, it kind of explodes, it’s like Miracle-Gro once it gets into that estuary,” LaPointe continued.
According to LaPointe’s research, as much as 50% of the blooms can be attributed to sewage, and a large portion of that coming from septic tanks. Scott has proposed a 50-50 matching grant program to encourage residents in algae-impacted communities to move from septic tanks to sewage systems—a costly procedure—which would help curb the amount of pollution going into the water.
“This is one of those ecological indicators telling us we’re not doing enough,” LaPoint said. “It’s not going to happen overnight. The Legislature does need to make a long-term commitment to cleaning up a number of nutrient sources, but definitely wastewater is a priority and that means septic sewer, and it means nutrient removal from the sewage treatment plant.”
“People just thought out of sight, out of mind,” he said.
One solution involves storage facilities to house water, eliminating the need to release it from Lake Okeechobee. The Army Corps is scheduled to begin a study on water storage in the Everglades agricultural area in 2021—legislators, including Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-FL), have urged the corps to move up the date.
“I must reemphasize the need for water storage and treatment both north and south of Lake Okeechobee,” Murphy wrote in a letter to the corps in late July. “Identifying and planning for water storage both north and south of the lake will demonstrate a true and thoughtful commitment to reducing devastating discharges and restoring the Everglades.”
Many people along the Treasure Coast are angry about the state having failed to buy the land south of Lake Okeechobee, which could have been used for water storage.
Scott places blame at the feet of the federal government for not providing enough funds to create water storage facilities. According to a release Scott’s office, the feds are $880 million behind in financing their share of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan. After Florida voters overwhelmingly approved it, the state recently signed into law a plan that will guarantee $200 million annually to the Everglades through 2024.
Locals are also upset that the state legislature failed to follow through on its promise to purchase the land in the Everglades Agricultural Area from U.S. Sugar and Florida Crystal, i.e. “Big Sugar.” If the state had gone through with it, the land could have been used for storage and helped return the ecosystem to its more natural runoff.
U.S. Sugar has donated $200,000 to Scott’s Let’s Get Back to Work campaign, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
Dr. Rachel Silverstein, the executive director of the Miami Waterkeeper, said that the state’s decision to not purchase the land was a “missed step.”
“We’ve known that this is a risk for a while,” she said. “It’s a shocking amount of algae.”
Activists are fighting back, she said, by circulating the Now or Neverglades Declaration petition, which would put the Everglades’ funds towards sending Lake Okeechobee’s water south. Currently, the water runs out east and west, where scientists are finding the algal blooms. Naturally, the water flows south.
“We have to learn lessons from what’s happening in the center of the state,” she said, before blooms start popping up in Miami’s Biscayne Bay.
For now, Cooke has been careful where he fishes. His nieces, he said, haven’t been in the water for a long time—their parents are too scared of them getting sick.
“I’m definitely concerned about it getting worse. I would like for them to do something about it, but I still go out there and fish everyday and I just try to avoid it” he said.

CLICK HERE to
see the declaration

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SWFL group pushes for funding Everglades water storage
ABC-7.com
August 4, 2016
LEE COUNTY -  New results from the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation show Lee County waterways are not free from blue-green algae.
Blooms were spotted on the Caloosahatchee River, and samples have been taken. 
Scientists say it's a small amount, and it's farther upstream. 
But a movement to send the water south is getting more supporters, including John Scott -- the candidate for Florida's House of Representatives for District 79.
Even though it's clearing up, one group says this serious issue needs to be addressed. They are pushing their message through a declaration called Now or Neverglades. 
The Sanibel-Captiva Islands Chamber of Commerce said its industries depend on healthy estuaries. They say the ecosystem is at risk of collapsing and so is the economy. Fishing, boating and tourism are taking a hit.
We've learned the Army Corp. of Engineers will continue releasing water at the rate it has been. That announcement comes as more than 100 neighbors, business owners and politicians went to Sanibel to sign the Now or Neverglades declaration.
According to the declaration, more than 200 scientists believe this is the way to go. The plan is to use Amendment One money and then some to find and buy land south of Lake Okeechobee as fast as possible to send the water there. 
These scientists say they need about 15 percent of the land in the Everglades agricultural area to pull this off, and people are backing them. 
"I drive over that causeway every single day, and I remember when it used to be turquoise. Now, it's just this awful black color," said Alycia Cimerman, Fort Myers resident. 
Another 100-150 people signed the declaration Thursday morning. That's on top of the already more than 21,000 who have given their support. 
The results did find some blue-green algae in the water in the Caloosahatchee, but upstream. No toxins were found.
Related:           SWFL group wants Lake O water releases pushed south      NBC2 News

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The secret science of water in South Florida
WLRN.org – by Kate Stein
August 4, 2016
Scientists at the South Florida Water Management District are offering a behind-the-scenes look at their work on water control and protection.
They’re having a poster exhibit at the district’s West Palm Beach headquarters. The 24 posters on display cover everything from phosphorous removal to restoration of tree islands… and yes, a lot of research that’s way more complex than that.
Tom James, lead environmental scientist at the South Florida Water Management District, says one purpose of the exhibit is to help the district’s scientists see one another’s work and, hopefully, collaborate.
"A lot of them are working on their own little areas and they don’t know that others are doing fairly similar things in a different region of the water management district," James said.
But James is also excited that the exhibit gives the public a chance to see where their tax dollars are going: towards research that will shape the future of natural South Florida treasures like the Kissimmee River, Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades.
"That involves a lot of different areas in terms of measuring flows, measuring nutrients, measuring loads," James said. "I'm hoping [visitors] understand science is important to the district and they will continue to support the district in [its] science endeavors."
The posters will be on display through Aug. 12. Visitors can see them Monday through Friday, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

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UF researchers: Algae concerns hurting tourism
ABC-7.com
August 4, 201
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA -  A research team from the University of Florida said half of South Florida's potential visitors are concerned with algae along our coast, and 70 percent of visitors say they want to avoid areas declared a "state of emergency," including Lee County.
Right now, the Department of Environmental Protection is testing several algae blooms across Lee County.
Even some businesses in Collier are being hurt by the perception of dirty water.
Howard Bran spends most sunsets fishing at North Shore Park. He said freshwater from Lake Okeechobee has driven away saltwater fish - and the tourists.
"There used to be nice fishing here and used to see people all the time, but now you don't see nobody."
North Shore Park is one of several spots surveyed Thursday by the DEP. Franklin Lock and Alva Boat Ramp, where algae was found, are also being tested.
JR Wyatt said he's angry, "because we come here to Southwest Florida for the water."
Wyatt walks his dog by Midpoint Bridge and recently spotted algae.
"It's killing this waterway in Fort Myers-Cape Coral; it's killing it."
Jonell Modys works for the Naples, Marco Island, Everglades Convention and Visitors Bureau.
She said they saw a dip in visitors from this time last year.
"People are concerned if they have a reservation, and they're coming in a week or so or two weeks, they want to know should I keep my vacation, so they were definitely calling."
Modys said even though Collier County's water is too far south to be affected by Lake Okeechobee releases, they are feeling the effects.
"It is concerning, and it's frustrating."
Though the toxic algae bloom test results are still pending, some say the tourists may have already decided.
"I wouldn't want to do business here depending on tourism because it's not gonna go up. It's either going to stay the same or go down until they figure this out."
Sanibel-Captiva scientists have reported blue-green algae. The DEP is still analyzing samples collected there.

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Waterways need immediate work
ChronicleOnline.com – Letter by Karen Esty, Inverness, FL
August 4, 2016
It’s a disgrace to the residents of Florida to witness what once were pristine waterways, from the St. Lucie River to Everglades National Park, degraded for years.
Decade after decade, the same algae blooms are addressed in the same manner — emergency management funds are used to clean up the mess and most of the blame is placed on septic tank discharge. No wonder Gov. Rick Scott’s motto is “Lets Get To Work.” He needs our tax dollars to pay for this insane cycle.
U.S Sugar should be the poster child for smart agriculture practices, but instead choose to do the opposite. Preservation and sustainability of our land and water benefit all Floridians and ensures economic stability. Without addressing the cause today, there will be no amount of money that will turn back the hand of time of long-term pollution effects. The damage will be done. The voters approved Amendment 1 funds to be used wisely. That has not materialized. The state had the opportunity to purchase the land south of Lake Okeechobee to be used as filtering marshes from the lake discharge. That has not materialized.
A small number of people with large tracts of land should not have the power to determine our quality of water. Floridians are being held accountable by using our tax dollars to clean up their mess. We citizens, businesses, tourists and the environment deserve better.
There is an option — eminent domain proceedings.

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Florida's water woes are bad and getting worse. Do you care?
Orlando Sentinel - by Scott Maxwell
August 2, 2016
A few weeks ago, Florida made national news for being coated in thick, green, toxic algae.
It looked like a river of snot. It smelled worse. And it mangled the economy along the St. Lucie River and Treasure Coast.
Anyone with one good eye and nostril knew something needed to be done.
Well, last week, Florida officials responded ... by voting to allow more cancer-causing agents into the Sunshine State's drinking water supplies and recreational waters.
No, I'm not kidding.
While the state is still reeling from one water crisis, Gov. Rick Scott's "environmental" commission voted to allow higher levels of things like benzene (which can lead to leukemia) and tetrachloroethylene (which has been linked to bladder cancer) into ground water supplies elsewhere.
It may sound too ridiculous for fiction. But it's not too ridiculous for Florida — where environmentalism is about as dead as the belly-up fish in the algae blooms.
Politicians here routinely tout Florida's natural beauty on the campaign trail, but then treat the state like a roll of toilet paper. (Seriously, check out our lax septic tank policies.)
They allow companies, developers and homeowners to pave and foul the land — and then charge taxpayers billions to clean it up. Fiscal conservatism, my asphalt.
It'd be easy to blame our current governor for all our woes. Democrats often do. And there's no doubt Rick Scott has shown depraved indifference for all things green or natural.
But generations of politicians — Republicans and Democrats — have literally paved the way for our current problems.
Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson made that clear, noting the Everglades' problems are the result of bad decisions made over and over again for "three-quarters of a century."
Natural water flow was disrupted. Concrete was poured. Farms were allowed to pollute.
Sure, some people objected. But politicians teamed up with polluters and developers to demonize protesters. People worried about clean air or water were labeled as "job killers."
Now we're spending $8 billion repairing the Everglades.
And when I say "we," I mean you, the state and federal taxpayer. You, the sap. You, the enabler.
Sometimes, brave souls speak up for taxpayers and the environment. One tried last week — and almost got arrested for it.
This brave warrior's name is John Moran, a 26-year-old Tallahassee native getting his PhD in anthropology at Stanford.
When Moran saw a state board was about to vote to allow more carcinogens in your water supply — without a designated member of the "environmental community" on the board, as instructed by state statutes — Moran marched to the dais, filled the empty seat and prepared to speak up.
"The seat should not have been vacant for me to sit in," Moran later said. "It should've been filled with a qualified representative."
But Gov. Scott had intentionally left the position empty. This allowed his Environmental Regulations Commission — which hadn't even met in nearly two years — to vote without any pesky environmentalists.
So security escorted Moran out. The seats reserved for both an environmentalist and a local government rep were left empty. And the commission voted to allow more carcinogens in your water by a 3-2 margin.
That is your government in action.
The EPA will have the final say on the guidelines, which also call for regulating some new chemicals as well.
Moran's protest may have been unique. But he doesn't think his beliefs are, saying: "I think most of us care about our water, springs and air."
I think so, too. But we don't act like it. Instead, we keep electing politicians who foul the land and then stick us with the bill.
There are plenty of places to take a stand or send a message. Earlier this year, for instance, the State House voted for a fracking bill that had advocates worried about more chemicals being injected into the ground.
Fortunately, Democrats and Republicans in the State Senate united to kill the bill. But only after the House approved it with the support of such local GOP reps as Jason Brodeur, Bob Cortes, Eric Eisnaugle, Scott Plakon, Rene Plasencia and Ritch Workman.
Did you know how your representative voted? Did you tell him or her what you thought? Are you planning on putting them back in office?
Obviously state officials don't care if environmental posts sit empty. But do you?
Or are you just going to wait for the next big blob of toxic ooze to arrive … along with the massive cleanup bill you are always expected to pay?

160802-b
FIU and Rookery Bay Reserve form research, education partnership
FIU News - by JoAnn Adkins
August 2, 2016
Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve and FIU have established a new partnership that will serve FIU students as well as citizens of Collier County and surrounding areas.
This unique educational and research partnership will enhance the environmental understanding necessary to manage the reserve’s 110,000 acres. Nine joint reserve-FIU staff positions have been created for scientific research, education and resource management. This partnership will enable both FIU and the reserve to continue development of science-driven monitoring and management approaches to these issues.
“Current watershed-level restoration projects, such as the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP), make this a critical time for long-term research, education and stewardship in the Greater Everglades Ecosystem,” said Rookery Bay Reserve Director Keith Laakkonen.
Partnership goals include:
●  Enhancing both FIU’s and the Reserve’s ability to provide field-based instruction in environmental studies to students;
●  Promoting shared use of facilities, vessels, vehicles and informational resources
●  Establishing internships and research projects in environmental studies that address regional scientific priorities;
●  Providing FIU staff direct access to the Reserve’s long-term water quality, fisheries and biological data for analysis and use for joint research and publications;
●  Expanding FIU’s partnerships in southwest Florida ecosystems science, management and education fields with federal, local and state agencies and non-profit organizations.
“Scientists from Florida International University have long been involved in generating information vital to managers of many of the marine protected areas and parks in the region,” said James Fourqurean, director of the Marine Educational and Research Initiative in FIU’s College of Arts, Sciences & Education. “FIU is looking forward to using this new partnership to increase it research collaboration with the local universities as well as the reserve.”
A joint research and educational support facility is being planned to house future education and research programs from FIU adjacent to the reserve’s headquarters and Rookery Bay Environmental Learning Center campus in Naples. The planned facility would facilitate ongoing research programs, attract new research focuses and spur new educational opportunities for students in the local area.

160802-c
US: Everglades restoration projects clear another hurdle
SandAndGravel.com
August 2, 2016
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection has authorized the US Army Corps of Engineers to begin construction on the Canal 111 (C-111) South Dade and the Modified Water Deliveries (MWD) to the Everglades National Park projects, which are components of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, commonly called CERP. 
“The department is pleased to advance these critical projects that will not only assist in the restoration of the Taylor Slough ecosystem but also maintain flood protection to adjoining communities," said Drew Bartlett, DEP deputy secretary for ecosystem restoration. "They will provide water-quality and water-quantity improvements to benefit this important South Florida ecosystem, including Everglades National Park and Florida Bay."
The C-111 South Dade project will restore the ecosystem in Taylor Slough and the eastern panhandle of Everglades National Park that were affected by the construction of the flood control project in the C-111 basin, while preserving flood protection for adjoining communities. The MWD project will provide flood mitigation to an existing residential area in the East Everglades called the 8.5 Square Mile Area.  
The permit includes the construction of the C-111 North Detention Area that will connect the C-111 South Dade project to the MWD project. The projects include several levees, flowways, weirs, removal of culverts, partial demolition of water control structures, road removal, and levee and weir degradations. Completion of the construction is anticipated at the end of 2017.

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Get serious to protect state's water
Sun Sentinel – by the Editorial Board
August 1, 2016
Water quality standards need to be raised.
Against the backdrop of this summer's water-borne ecological calamity on the Treasure Coast — a noxious bloom of blue-green algae — a Florida commission met this past week to consider a proposal to allow more cancer-causing chemicals in the state's waterways.
While the issues aren't directly related — nutrient pollution is the suspected cause of the algae bloom, not carcinogens — it's reasonable to expect members of the Environmental Regulation Commission would at least demonstrate renewed resolve to safeguard Florida's vital but threatened water supply. After all, the commission's mission is to set "standards and rules that protect Floridians and the environment."
Instead, the commission voted 3-2 in favor of the proposal. "There is more good than harm," said the commission's chair, Cari Roth.
With the health of Florida's water — and therefore its environment and its economy — at stake, this is an unforgivably low standard. There is too much at risk to settle for "more good than harm."
The proposal endorsed by the commission is a mixed bag, but more cancer-causing chemicals' limits were increased than decreased. It's industry friendly, even though some industrial polluters still aren't satisfied.
The proposal also established limits for 39 currently unregulated chemicals, a fact touted by supporters. Yet criticism spanned the political spectrum.
Congressional Democrats from Florida fired off a letter expressing their "serious concerns" to Gina McCarthy, the administrator of the federal Environmental Protection Agency, where the proposal is now headed for review. U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson and eight U.S. House members wrote that "it is critically important that we ensure Florida's water-quality standards preserve the health and safety of all users, especially vulnerable populations like children, the elderly, and people whose livelihoods rely on the water, such as commercial fishermen."
And a Republican state senator from Miami, Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, called for the commission to reconsider its decision. "I cannot understand how allowing for the increase of not one but multiple known cancer-causing agents in our waterways throughout the state makes any logical sense," Diaz de la Portilla declared in a statement he released following the vote.
Both the congressional Democrats and the Republican state senator pointed out a glaring flaw in the commission's process. Two of its seven seats — reserved for representatives of the environmental community and local government — have been left vacant by Gov. Rick Scott. "I cannot help but think that the vote would have not been 3-2 in favor, but 4-3 against, had a full commission been given the chance to vote on this proposal," Diaz de la Portilla wrote.
If he is sincerely interested in the commission fulfilling its mission, Scott will heed the advice of his fellow Republican, Diaz de la Portilla, and order another vote on the proposal after he fills the two vacancies.
Meanwhile, responding to the Treasure Coast's algae crisis, Scott blamed Nelson, whom he might challenge for the Senate in 2018, for not securing enough federal dollars to prevent releases of nutrient-polluted water from Lake Okeechobee. Such transparently partisan politics will only bog down progress in solving Florida's water problems. It's worth remembering that Tampa Bay, plagued by nutrient pollution in the 1970s, was successfully cleaned up after local, state and federal leaders in both parties closed ranks and worked together.
Scott has pledged to seek money in the next state budget for grants to replace septic tanks, one of the primary sources of nutrient pollution. Earlier this year, the governor and the Legislature made a long-term financial commitment to restoring the Everglades, springs and Lake Apopka by establishing the Legacy Florida program. These are positive steps, but much more needs to be done to protect Florida's water supply.
Regional water management districts, whose budgets were slashed by Scott in 2011, need to be re-empowered with sufficient funds and appointees committed to carrying out their critical responsibilities. Money set aside for water and land conservation by voters when they approved Amendment One in 2014 needs to be invested for that purpose, not diverted to agency salaries and other operating expenses.
And water-quality standards need to be raised, not lowered.

160801-b
Storage plan will never be enough
Sun Sentinel - Newton Cook, United Waterfowlers-FL Inc.
August 1, 2016
As a member of the Water Resources Advisory Commission, I have watched untold numbers of presentations by all the agencies involved in the massive and complex Everglades Restoration Program and all the "agendas" of the many players in the process.
Most skip around the edges of the true causes of what we have today — a system that works perfectly for flood control but not so good for water quality control.
I read all the stories and editorials on the subject, and many simply ignore the basic causes for the dilemma we face. Some simply ignore the math, especially regarding the acreage of storage actually needed to stop the discharges to the C-43 and C-44.
There is no feasible way to convert many hundred thousands of acres of valuable productive farm and pasture lands either north or south of Lake Okeechobee into storage at the level needed to hold the massive inflows of water during a rain event. Even 100,000 acres of new reservoir will take only 8 inches off the lake.
Today the lake is more than two feet too high with the system full to the north and south of the lake. Sooner or later all that water has to be released — either south under the Tamiami Trail, or east and west. Currently, the water is not allowed to flow under the trail at the volume needed to relieve the system. You cannot "store" us out of the bombs to the estuaries.

• On July 28, the Army Corps of Engineers announced it would maintain the amount of water flowing from Lake Okeechobee. The target flow for the Caloosahatchee is 2,800 cubic feet per second (cfs) and the target flow for the St. Lucie is 650 cfs. Click here for more information.
• On July 1, following a directive from Governor Rick Scott, DEP launched a toll-free Bloom Reporting Hotline and established an online reporting form for residents to report algal blooms. Residents are able to call in reports to a new toll-free number at 1-855-305-3903, as well as report information online at www.reportalgalbloom.com.
• On June 29, Governor Scott declared a state of emergency in St. Lucie and Martin counties following an increase in algal blooms in local waterways related to the discharges of water from Lake Okeechobee; on June 30 this order was amended to include Lee and Palm Beach counties as well. This order allows the South Florida Water Management District to redirect the flow of water in and out of Lake Okeechobee. The Governor also directed the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) to take actions to mitigate the spread of algal blooms. Click here to read the press release.
• On June 30, South Florida Water Management District began closing water control structures in the Upper Kissimmee Chain of Lakes to stop the flow of water from these water bodies south into Lake Okeechobee. This will allow for more storage in the northern lakes and reduce the overall inflows into Lake Okeechobee.
• The District increased Lake Okeechobee discharges from 250 cubic feet per second to 400 cubic feet per second through the C-10A culvert into the L-8 canal.

For more information about the State of Florida's actions on Lake Okeechobee, click here. Lake Conditions - AUGUST 1, 2016: Current Lake Level 14.63 feet Historical Lake Level Average 13.77 feet Total Inflow +2,950 cfs cubic feet per sec. Total Outflow  (by structures operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) -2,630 cfs cubic feet per second Evapotranspiration/Rainfall over the Lake -4,560 cfs cubic feet per second Net -4,240 cfs cubic feet per second Lake level variation from a week ago +0.05 feet
Lake Conditions - JUNE 1, 2016: Current Lake Level 14.39 feet Historical Lake Level Average 13.13 feet Total Inflow +6,190 cubic feet per second Total Outflow  (by structures operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) -6,450 cubic feet per second Evapotranspiration/Rainfall over the Lake -1,860 cubic feet per second Net -2,120 cubic feet per second Lake level variation from a week ago +0.03 feet

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