VoteWater Deep Dive
All is not well in the central Everglades. High water levels in the water conservation areas south of Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades Agricultural Area are flooding tree islands, and those dependent upon them — people, and creatures like deer…
New study based on flawed past studies could be used to justify permanent ban on fertilizer bans — leading to dirtier water One of the more dubious actions (and there were plenty) taken by the 2023 Florida Legislature and rubber-stamped…
After several years of using an algaecide to kill blue-green algal blooms in Lake Okeechobee and the canals around it, the South Florida Water Management District now plans to test the chemical compound for possible damage to the environment. At…
In southern lagoon new seagrass is sprouting; in northern lagoon progress is slower. But Lake O discharges and impacts from development could ruin it all. Lorae Simpson is seeing an unusual sight in the Indian River Lagoon this summer. “When…
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?…
The Florida Legislature has taken a step to address one of the state’s nastiest and fastest-growing environmental problems. The problem is that this attempt to solve one problem may well create another. As the legislative session wound down last week,…
Nobody likes to think about what happens after they flush the toilet. But that out-of-sight-out-of-mind waste can cause serious problems to Florida’s environmentally fragile waterways. A lot of the people who have been thinking about the problem think the state…
The question was simple, the answer complicated. But it needn’t have been. In late January Adam Blalock, Deputy Secretary for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, gave a presentation on water quality to the new House Water Quality, Supply and…
Because the system was designed to benefit Big Agriculture – at the expense of the northern estuaries It’s been a common refrain from angry citizens along the algae-clogged St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee estuaries for years: Send it south! And in…
The widespread die-off of seagrass in Florida ought to be front-page news. And last fall it was, as Gannett’s Florida Today issued a blockbuster report on how seagrass appears to be receding in every coastal corner of Florida, at levels…