Last week we made fun of the connection between sewage, politics, and industry in Florida. It’s one way to cope with the cycle we’ve been stuck in, where three institutional forces survive and thrive by literally crapping on the public: Florida’s…

Of all the anti-clean water legislation that Florida’s Gov. Rick Scott can sign into law this week, none tops the “toilet-to-tap” bill allowing treated sewage to be injected into the Biscayne aquifer–Miami-Dade’s water supply. We owe Dr. Seuss an apology for…

This question, swirling around Everglades policy circles all winter, touched off a string of debate-club arguments that left everyone confused and divided. Which is exactly what it was supposed to do. It’s a dishonest question, asked mostly by people who…

Long-time Mosquito Lagoon guide, Billy Rotne recently found himself faced with a choice of moral and financial significance: Continue adding pressure to a system in peril, risking shared responsibility for its fast-increasing decline, or walk away from a cherished location…

Tony Friedrich has a warning for Florida fisherman: No one has your back. Friedrich has spent the better part of his life fighting a mostly uphill battle over the Chesapeake. He has watched a national treasure slowly degrade and coastal…

Karl Wickstrom, founder of Florida Sportsman, was a champion of clean water before most of us knew we needed to fight for it. He’s heard enough empty political promises to recognize the tricks, and he knew right away where the…

Mark Perry of Florida Oceanographic Society says this all better than we could. Scientists estimate that the Everglades reservoir plan needs another 6,500 acres to work properly, and the sugar industry warns any expansion better come from public land. This is after…

It doesn’t work. The first scientific evaluations of Florida’s EAA reservoir plan were publicly released last week, and the findings are bleak: it can’t operate at full capacity without violating pollution standards. But it wouldn’t take much to fix it.…

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…