Florida Water Quality
What, exactly, is a wetland? Careful — the answer could result in a lot fewer of them. This fall the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case that could gut federal oversight of the nation’s fragile wetlands and the critical…
Blue-green algae is everywhere this summer. In Colorado Springs, officials are adding enzymes to the water to clear up annual blooms. In Kansas, officials over the 4th of July weekend warned residents to steer clear of 10 impaired water bodies.…
The following is a column by VoteWater Board President and Florida Sportsman Publisher Blair Wickstrom which originally appeared in the July 1 edition of Florida Sportsman Magazine. By Blair Wickstrom In the 1870s Dr. Cesare Lombroso, founder of the Italian…
In Florida our iconic waters are central to our quality of life; perhaps even our culture. But we do not have a “culture of clean water.” The phrase was coined by Dr. Paul Gray of Audubon Florida, speaking at a June…
Call this the calm before the storm. Take a look around at the waterways where you live. They look pretty good, right? After an appropriately dry dry season, many oft-turbid waterways are clear and blue. In some regions seagrass is…
Out-of-control development, poor water quality, dead seagrass and dying manatees were not inevitable in Florida. It didn’t have to be this way. But it IS this way due to specific decisions made by elected leaders and bureaucratic officials who act…
Florida Sportsman publisher – and VoteWater Board President – Blair Wickstrom makes the case: In 2020 alone, Florida’s sugar industry — the home of Big Sugar — put at least $11 million into congressional campaign coffers. This happened on both…
This commentary was first published in late April, by Ryan Smart of the Florida Springs Council – no relation to VoteWater Executive Director Gil Smart – as a depressing post-mortem on this year’s legislative session: Going into the 2022 legislative…
As they usually do, the folks at TCPalm get it right in an editorial, this one dated May 6, titled “Manatee deaths, algal blooms suggest Florida’s waters getting worse, not better”: When will legislators address the widespread problems facing Florida’s…
On the first Earth Day in 1970, organizers said the goal was to “shake the political establishment out of its lethargy.” Fifty-two years later in Florida, we’ve still got a long way to go. Already this year, toxic blue-green algae…