Articles by: Gil Smart
Florida’s sugar industry just posted one of the best years in its history, even as the Everglades and virtually everyone in South Florida suffered one of the worst. It’s not a coincidence. Managing water in Florida means picking winners and…
The map below might be the best possible illustration of how little the public–taxpayers and voters–matter to the people who control our water. This afternoon the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) board unofficially rubber-stamped a weak plan to send a little…
People around the country are watching Florida. They know about our water issues. They know our estuaries are collapsing. They know the Everglades are dying. And they want to help. Those are some of the broad messages we’ve gotten from talking…
WE now have three commissioners that Big Sugar helped elect. They’ve bought their way into our Chamber of Commerce and our Economic Council. They have joined forces with the Lake Point rockpit people to try to get Sarah Heard and…
There’s a myth–really a lie–that we need to set straight right now: “willing sellers.” Almost a year ago, before the EAA reservoir bill switched to locating the project on public property, US Sugar and Florida Crystals shouted themselves hoarse that…
Hundreds of the world’s top Everglades scientists, policy experts, and engineers met this weekend to trade information and build consensus on how to keep Everglades restoration moving forward. As you’d expect with the ink barely dry on SFWMD’s Everglades Agricultural…
Finally! There is now consensus that the SFWMD refused to follow the law in planning the EAA Reservoir, the project that fast-tracked reducing toxic discharges and rewatering the parched Everglades. The Now or Neverglades Coalition, Everglades Coalition, even Senate President…
Whiticar Boat Works is a household name for many people in South Florida. For more than 60 years, the Whiticar family has remained a trusted brand in the sportfish boat building industry, made all the more memorable by its start…
The Florida legislature is about to get a 700-year-old philosophy lesson. William of Ockham’s kernel of common sense from the 14th century–the simpler of two solutions is probably the better one–applies perfectly to the 21st century marvel we’re designing to…
Lawmakers cannot endorse an EAA reservoir plan that purposely violates federal water quality standards. That’s the warning that Friends of the Everglades (FOE), the Miami-based conservation group founded by Marjory Stoneman Douglas, publicly sent to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection last…