Articles by: Gil Smart
It doesn’t get more American than this. Leading up to the Fourth of July, Florida beaches and waterways were packed. Families in the sand, music and cold beverages on the boat, some fishing, some swimming — that’s why we live…
First the good news: The record pace of manatee deaths in Florida has slowed. Two years ago Florida saw a record 1,100 manatee deaths. The primary cause of this “unusual mortality event” was starvation due to the loss of seagrass…
One of the most passionate clean-water advocates in South Florida just got kicked to the curb. As we detailed last week, Jacqui Thurlow-Lippisch had been a member of the South Florida Water Management District’s Governing Board since 2019. The Sewall’s…
You know those massive algal blooms that cover much of Lake Okeechobee each spring and summer? The ones that threaten the St. Lucie River and Caloosahatchee River estuaries, and everyone who lives around or spends time on them, with toxins?…
Here’s a case study of how politics pollutes Florida’s waters: Jacqui Thurlow-Lippisch is a Sewall’s Point Realtor, long-time Treasure Coast clean water advocate and, since 2019, a member of the South Florida Water Management District’s Governing Board. Few people in…
One down, one to go — and not in a good way. On May 24, after weeks of lobbying and email campaigns and public pleas by citizens and conservation groups seeking a veto, Gov. Ron DeSantis ignored it all and signed…
As we write this Gov. Ron DeSantis still hasn’t signed the state budget, nor has he vetoed line item 146 — which green-lights a one-year ban on new fertilizer ordinances while the University of Florida studies the matter. VoteWater has…
And so the 2023 Legislative Session has come to an end. Mercifully. Let’s be frank: It wasn’t a good year for clean water or Florida’s environment in general. While the Legislature did allot a record $1.1 billion for land acquisition…
Given the clout the sprawl industry wields in Florida, it’s hardly surprising the Florida Senate passed controversial Senate Bill 540 on April 19, over the objections of conservation groups (like VoteWater) and citizen advocates around Florida. The bill, which may…
In a frightening 2009 article titled “Re-Engineering the Earth,” The Atlantic magazine predicted that as the impacts of climate change worsened, mankind would turn to technology for salvation. Perhaps we’ll pump pollutants into the sky, turning it a reddish-orange, to…