Articles by: Gil Smart
It’s official: Congress has the legislation needed to cut off the flow of nutrient pollution and toxic blooms to our coasts. With your help, it can become law. Here’s what you need to know: What the legislation is and does: Called…
Florida voted water this week. Now we have an opportunity to make history in November. And we owe a debt of gratitude to thousands and thousands of people who cast ballots to give future generations the chance to experience this place…
The bad news keeps piling up. Toxic blooms on Florida’s west coast are getting worse. The east coast just saw its first official beach closure. New analysis shows Lake Okeechobee pollution spiking. And Florida’s Department of Health is misinforming the…
Photo Essay by John Moran, August 2018 I reported last month on the plight of the Caloosahatchee River and its befouled waters flowing from Lake Okeechobee; delivering slime to waterfront neighborhoods in Fort Myers and Cape Coral along the way to the…
Need a shred of good news on the toxic collapse of Florida waterways on both coasts? Here’s one: We don’t have to wait years to fix this. Our elected officials can act right now to stop fueling toxic blooms in our…
In the wake of the Gillum campaign
Anger reached a fever pitch on the Caloosahatchee this week, as everything from catfish to tarpon to Manatee lay dead or dying in algae covered water. On the east coast near the St Lucie, it was the exact same scene,…
Don’t panic. Don’t swim in it. Don’t eat anything that does. Medical researchers who study cyanobacteria and its human health impacts delivered clear, candid advice to a live audience this week in Stuart. But that advice contradicted much of what…
You shall love thy neighbor as thyself (Matthew 22.39). Thick smoke looms over the Glades most months of the year. In these communities south of Florida’s Lake Okeechobee, ash falls on houses and cars, the children call it black snow.…
A very big story, perhaps the biggest story in Everglades restoration, has been hiding in plain sight, but another year of Lake Okeechobee discharges carrying toxic algae is pushing it to a tipping point: Water management officials claim their top…