Deep Dive
The Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan is often described as a massive effort to “get the water right.” Unfortunately, CERP isn’t going to “get the water right” right away. On Dec. 11, 2000, President Bill Clinton signed the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration…
One day — Monday, Feb. 27, 2023, to be exact — Steve Zelenski was in a boat checking stone crab traps on the Indian River Lagoon just west of the House of Refuge near Stuart. Four days later, the 68-year-old…
Wetlands — whether massive marshes stretching across South Florida like the Everglades or little bitty bogs tucked away in a subdivision — are vital to the environment. They improve water quality, help prevent and reduce floods, recharge groundwater and store…
It’s been quite a year. It began with the battle over the future of Florida’s state parks and Big Sugar’s proposed rock mine in the Everglades Agricultural Area. It concludes, now, with a new EPA proposal to eliminate crucial wetlands…
Since 2020, when the state authorized the use of “innovative technologies” to combat harmful blue-green algal blooms, the South Florida Water Management District has added chemicals known as algaecides to its toolbox — and to the water. Over the past…
The water in the Indian River Lagoon just south of the Ernest Lyons Bridge and Stuart Causeway in Martin County should be clear, with a sandy or seagrass-covered bottom. But recently, as he’s been collecting water samples for the Florida…
Never look a gift horse in the mouth. Promoters are trying to pass off a proposed rock mine in the Everglades Agricultural Area as a gift horse in the form of a sometime-in-the-future environmental project. But this old nag needs…
The recent bout of red tide on Florida’s Gulf Coast that killed fish and caused respiratory problems to people also brought up a long-standing subject of debate: Do Lake Okeechobee discharges cause red tide? Several scientific studies show that Lake…
Three bottlenose dolphins recently found dead in the Indian River Lagoon appear to have died of an unusual — and alarming — cause. News reports indicate the three dolphins tested positive for bird flu; and results are pending on other…
One day — Monday, Feb. 27, 2023, to be exact — Steve Zelenski was in a boat checking stone crab traps on the Indian River Lagoon just west of the House of Refuge near Stuart. Four days later, the 68-year-old…