Environmental degradation, overpopulation, refugees, narcotics, terrorism, world crime movements, and organized crime are worldwide problems that don't stop at a nation's borders. Warren Christopher
Announcements
BIRDING EVENTS South Florida Audubon Society provided guides for monthly birding field trips from September to April.
- 12/3 Deerfield Island bird walk-reservations required, contact Quiet Rivers Park to book reservation, Call 954-357-5100
- 12/10 Plantation Preserve, 8 a.m.
- 12/17 Annual Christmas Bird Count
- 1/12-16 Everglades Birding Festival with special guest James Currie of Birding Adventures TV
- 1/25-31 Space Coast Birding Festival, Titusville
- 2/18-20 Florida Adventure Getaway weekend - Merritt Island, 3 Lakes and much more
- 3/28-31 Big "O" Birding Festival
SFAS Annual December Holiday Party, Thursday, December 15, 2011 – 7:30 p.m. This membership meeting only will be held at Anne Kolb Nature Center – EXHIBIT HALL, not in the usual Mangrove Hall
Presenter: Dan Warren, Founder and President, One Village Planet
Topic: Environmental overview and observations of climate change in Columbia, Ecuador, Haiti and Ghana and their impact on South Florida.
Suit against National Park Service South Florida Wildlands Association joins the Sierra Club, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), Florida Biodiversity Project, and Wilderness Watch in a legal action challenging the National Park Service decision to open the Addition Lands of the Big Cypress National Preserve to motorized recreation. Download the full press release here.
http://m1e.net/c?82320038-5Jo1HjyS.xi5E%406955263-/NM9FyN3rMB9I
Complaint filed today in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida (Fort Meyers Division):
http://m1e.net/c?82320038-Jhi9qZvm7D.OI%406955264-xM5B0nNp2V2mc
Dear Friends,
As readers of these occasional emails are aware, almost a year ago today the National Park Service (NPS) released their Final General Management Plan for the 146,000 acre Addition Lands of the Big Cypress National Preserve. While the world famous Ft. Lauderdale Beach creates Broward County's eastern border, the Addition Lands form Broward County's "other shore". The Everglades proper ends here, and the once vast Big Cypress Swamp - "the Western Everglades" - begins, little more than a 45 minute drive on I-75 from downtown Ft. Lauderdale. But unlike the hotels, bars, restaurants and t-shirt shops which line State Road A1A, the Addition Lands contain some of the wildest, most unique and most biodiverse land in the entire continental United States. Small changes in elevation in a limestone base, formed when all of south Florida was a shallow sea, have created a subtle and complex combination of landscapes containing pinelands, prairies, marshes, hardwood hammocks and
cypress sloughs found nowhere else on earth. Species diversity - flora and fauna - goes off the scale.
In response to the decision by the NPS to open up this rare and beautiful piece of land to public motorized recreation for the first time in its history, South Florida Wildlands Association has made the difficult and painful choice to join four other local and national environmental organizations in challenging the agency in court. We are aware that tempers will once again flare in this latest "battle of Big Cypress" and there will be those who will believe that our decision is "selfish" - why can't we just live and let live? Our motivation is simple. At a time when numerous proposed projects threaten to industrialize and degrade one of America's most unique ecosystems (e.g. massive powerlines across the eastern edge of Everglades National Park, two new nuclear reactors on the shores of Biscayne Bay and adjacent to Biscayne National Park, the Hendry County Clean Energy Center - the largest fossil fuel plant in the United States - in primary Florida panther habitat just a
few miles north of the Big Cypress National Preserve, a new "inland port" on the south shore of Lake Okeechobee in the northern Everglades, etc.) a piece of land owned and acquired by the American people for the purpose of natural resource protection, that remains remarkably intact and contains the full range of species diversity that Florida was once famous for, that is currently open to all on foot in a preserve where the majority of units remain open to motorized use (and show the impacts), should not be compromised.
Those who wish to delve more deeply into this issue can open some of the links which follow. As always, feel free to contact us by phone or email with questions or comments - or for more information about how you can help on the variety of conservation projects South Florida Wildlands Association is currently engaged in.
Best regards,
Matt Schwartz
Executive Director
South Florida Wildlands Association
P.O. Box 30211
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33303
954-634-7173
www.southfloridawild.org
Location map of the Big Cypress National Preserve and other units of the National Park Service in south Florida:
http://m1e.net/c?82320038-dAeXNJz0oOTt2%406955265-3daP0bHccf9Oo
Map of motorized and non-motorized units of the Big Cypress National Preserve. Dark areas are currently non-motorized. The Addition Lands are the triangular area in the northeast section of the preserve. As the NPS plan has not yet been implemented, the Addition is also currently closed to motor vehicles.
http://m1e.net/c?82320038-dWw/8JSEJfGVU%406955266-j4c8gg8IfF4II
Some photos of a (very wet) 6 mile Addition Lands "swampwalk" taken October 29, 2011:
http://m1e.net/c?82320038-5cYNQzueUhOKI%406955267-jaiu9rasKQirE
South Florida Wildlands Association comments to the National Park Service on the General Management Plan for the Addition Lands:
http://m1e.net/c?82320038-gG8ld1dv7eO6A%406955268-0FBk9cayphzMg
Article on the Addition Lands originally appearing in the Miami Herald:
http://m1e.net/c?82320038-GpNKjCzNqLIiA%406955269-6/m0KqhcqiMRY
Off-highway vehicle registrations in Florida. Of the nearly 250,000 registered vehicles, NPS intends to open the Addition Lands to a maximum of 650 vehicle owners for motorized recreation.
http://m1e.net/c?82320038-Mh8MyQ8AaYfig%406955270-ZycFd9890lti6
The National Park Service decision being challenged in this litigation. Chapters 3 and 4 lay out the numerous natural resource impacts NPS researchers expect from their "preferred alternative":
http://m1e.net/c?82320038-XZ2f4KiJKmKNk%406955271-rDKgy1er3Qm1E
Individuals with disabilities requiring accommodations in order to participate in County programs, services, and activities must contact the Special Populations Section at 954-357-8170 or TTY 954-537-2844 at least ten (10) business days prior to the scheduled meeting or event to request an accommodation.
| Sunday, November 20
Long Key Natural Area & Nature Center 3501 S.W. 130th Ave., Davie 33330 954-357-8797 Stephen Baig
Children's Crafts and Activities – $3
The exhibit combines macro-photography with interpretive information to foster appreciation of our area's unique and complex ecosystem. Approximately a hundred butterfly species, or about half of all that occur in Florida, have been found in subtropical South Florida, approximately 80 of which are represented in the exhibit. Most of these are uncommon to rare, with about two dozen listed by the state as imperiled. The exhibit comes to us from the Miami Blue Chapter of the North American Butterfly Association (NABA), made possible in part by a grant from South Florida National Parks Trust. The photos are by Jamie Bernard, Linda Cooper, Ron Nuehring, Bill Perry, Hank Poor, Holly Salvato, Jim Spencer, Mickey Wheeler, and Michelle Wisniewski. |
Find Yourself – At a Broward County Park
STA 5 Birding Tour Schedule
November 12
November 26
December 3
December 17
December 31: Christmas Bird Count
Hendry-Glades Audubon will lead escorted tours to Stormwater Treatment Area 5 (STA-5) south of Clewiston this season. Tours are open to anyone, but participants must register to reserve a space on the trips. To sign up contact: Margaret England, at sta5birding@embarqmail.com or 863-674-0695. Include your name and contact information including an emergency cell number for the tour day.
Audubon's Charles Lee Honored by Marine Resources Council The membership of the Marine Resources Council has awarded Charles Lee the Stan Blum Award for Lifetime Achievement in protecting the marine resources of Florida. Stan Blum was a nationally known conservationist and longtime board member of the Marine Resources Council (MRC). The Stan Blum Award is MRC's highest award and the Membership of the MRC has not forgotten the many times Charles Lee has come to bat to protect our local waters, the Indian River Lagoon. His contribution to the protection of the Wekiva River, North Key Largo, the Disney Wilderness Preserve and his support for Land acquisition programs like Preservation 2000 and Florida Forever were all cited as reasons for this award.
Congratulations Charles you are an inspiration for Conservationists throughout the state!
Of interest to all
Keystone pipeline decision delayed In a win for the environment and the battle to control global warming, the Obama Administration decided today to delay a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline. This afternoon, the State Department confirmed that a decision on the proposed Keystone XL pipeline will be postponed so that it can "undertake an in-depth assessment of potential alternative routes in Nebraska."
In a statement, the department said it is "reasonable to expect" that the extended review process "could be completed as early as the first quarter of 2013." The delay, however, could be a fatal blow to this project that would have facilitated the development of the world's dirtiest oil from Canada's tar sands and threatened drinking water and the environment along 1,700 miles of the pipeline's route through farms, over ranches, and across towns from the Canadian border to coastal Louisiana.
This is a significant victory for the thousands of people across the country who spoke out against this damaging project and for all of us working to curtail climate change. Thank you for your continued support of Audubon and our efforts to protect the environment for future generations.
Birds
Barn Swallows from North America are breeding in South America The familiar fork-tailed Barn Swallow is the most widely distributed and abundant swallow in the world. It nests across Canada, throughout most of the United States, and in northern Mexico and much of Europe and Asia.
Until recently, it was thought only to spend the winter in South America, not to breed there. So it was big news in 1980 when six pairs were found nesting in Buenos Aires Province, Argentina, at least 1,000 kilometers south of where most North American swallows winter.
The birds' pioneering behavior was unprecedented, and it sparked hopes that scientists would get to document a rare occurrence: a range expansion and the colonization of a continent.
Three decades later, researchers appear to have gotten their wish.
Not only is the South American breeding population well established — it now includes thousands of pairs — but the increase is occurring without the cascade of genetic changes predicted by evolutionary theory.
Shawn Billerman and colleagues compared the genetic structure of swallows from Argentina and North America and determined that the Argentine population has likely received, and may still be receiving, substantial gene flow from birds of North American origin.
That is, Barn Swallows may be hatching up north, overshooting their South American winter grounds, and then shifting their breeding and molt cycles by six months to settle into an austral breeding pattern.
Recent heavy rainfall in Collier bodes well for wood stork nesting season Rains that saturated portions of Southwest Florida in recent weeks haven't created much of a disruption for the region's abundant wildlife, and it's been good for the endangered wood stork.
Staff members and volunteers at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, a long-established roosting spot in northern Collier County near the Lee County line, are ecstatic about the effect the accumulated rain will have for wood storks.
"It's just what I've been waiting for," said Jason Lauritsen, Big Corkscrew assistant director for Audubon of Florida. "I am, for the first time this season, optimistic about nesting."
The recent rains pushed water levels at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary and its surrounding area far above average. Now, the wood storks have a chance of nesting here this winter, Lauritsen said.
The birds depend on having just the right amount of water in marshes, cypress sloughs and pine flatwoods to survive.
For now, the current water level is a bit too high, though it is expected to decline — 15 inches to 18 inches of water is deep enough to provide enough small fish for adults and their chicks. It's also shallow enough for the adults to easily wade through to catch food.
The average peak at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary is 37.41 inches deep of water. On Wednesday, the sanctuary reported 38.04 inches of water deep.
During the most recent deluge about 10 days ago, the sanctuary received about 4.5 inches of rain, Lauritsen said.
But some of the localized flooding could encourage storks to nest earlier, he said.
After a period of drought, all of the recent rains might translate into the second time that wood storks have nested at the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary in six years.
"This would be a much-needed nesting event," Lauritsen said. Wood storks' nesting success is an important indicator of wetland health, he added.
Invasive species
Agriculture commissioner talks invasive species with CBS The threat of invasive species has become familiar to Floridians, especially those living near the Everglades.
Invasive species — which are those that have been imported from other parts of the world, often by accident — can be extremely dangerous to local ecosystems. Some estimate their costs to the U.S. economy to be about $120 billion annually. Though species like kudzu and Asian carp are problematic to areas across the country, few places are as plagued with invasives as South Florida.
Trade, international tourism and international cargo all contribute to the proliferation of invasives in Florida, which is home to one of the highest numbers of exotic plant and animal species in the world. In South Florida, approximately 26 percent of all fish, reptiles, birds and mammals are exotic.
Speaking to CBS News, Commissioner of Agriculture Adam Putnam said that the giant African land snail, which can grow up to eight inches long and lay 1,200 eggs a year, is the invasive species currently on his radar.
"With something like the snails we've got the trifecta," said Putnam. "It carries human Meningitis, so people are concerned. It eats 500 different plants, so agriculture's concerned. And it eats houses, so homeowners are very concerned."
The snails, which can eat stucco, have brought together a team of 70, all engaged in the fight against it.
A simple Google search turns up dozens of results for the sale of the snails, though most seem to be in the U.K. But access to exotic pets, which owners often can't properly take care of, is part of the problem.
Though the African land snail has gained notoriety in recent months, perhaps Florida's most infamous invasive species is the Burmese python. Pythons can be purchased at a relatively inexpensive price, but, as is the case with many exotics, they can grow to incredible sizes — in some cases, more than 20 feet long. Those who are ill-equipped to deal with a 20-foot snake might set them loose, as many pet owners in South Florida have done, where they make their mark on a local ecosystem. Last Thursday, workers from the South Florida Water Management District captured and killed a 16-foot-long Burmese Python that had ingested a 76-pound female deer.
The key to keeping a lid on the problem, Putnam told CBS, is educating Floridians about the dangers of invasive species. "Wherever you're coming from, leave all that stuff behind," he said, "because any one of those things can carry the larvae that's going to become the fly that's going to wipe out a $100 billion industry in our state."
According to the Florida Department of Agriculture, the last reported outbreak (and eradication) of the Giant African land snail in Florida occurred in 1966, when a boy smuggled three Giant African land snails into Miami as pets. Seven years after the boy's grandmother released the snails into her garden, more than 18,000 snails were found, which cost the state more than $1 million and took an additional 10 years to successfully eradicate.
Florida Panthers
Panther Depredation: A Serious Threat to Recovering the Species Biologists now estimate there are between 100 and 160 adult breeding Florida panthers in the Greater Everglades south of the Caloosahatchee River, indicating recovery efforts are working! In fact, it is possible that panthers are occupying most suitable habitat available, as evidenced by the number of cats hit by vehicles. As populations are increasing, commercial cattle ranchers, many of whom are partners with Audubon of Florida and Collier County Audubon Society in the Florida Panther Protection Program (FPPP), have begun sounding the alarm about panthers killing calves, worth around $700 - $900 each at market.
Likewise, hobby livestock enthusiasts who leave their pigs, goats and chickens out at night are suffering losses from panthers and other predators. Both situations threaten to make panthers unwelcome as their populations recover. In response to increasing depredation, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, US Fish and Wildlife Service and University of Florida have partnered with two afflicted Collier County ranches to conduct a two-year study on causes of calf losses, which may form the basis for an eventual compensation program for ranchers.
To address hobby livestock losses, these agencies together with Audubon, Defenders of Wildlife, Florida Wildlife Federation, FPPP and several other groups sponsored the first annual Florida Panther Festival on October 29. More than 1000 people attended and learned ways to keep their animals safe and coexist with panthers. Maintaining support by the public and landowners alike is critical to the future of this emblematic species. Without the goodwill of ranchers and communities near the Everglades, panthers have little hope of successfully expanding in other regions of Florida or the Southeast US, which is essential for full recovery.
Development company controls key to Florida panther survival This has not been a great year for Florida panthers. The number killed so far in 2011 is one short of tying the record of 25, with nearly two months left. Four were killed under suspicious circumstances, prompting federal officials to launch a criminal investigation. Meanwhile cattle ranchers and pet owners have complained that panthers have started eating their animals.
So what can be done to save the panther? According to the federal government's top wildlife official, its fate depends on a Miami real estate company known for running 30-minute infomercials that air repeatedly on Spanish-language radio and television.
The reason: That company, American Prime, controls the panthers' only escape route out of South Florida.
"If we give them the pathway, they'll find a way," Dan Ashe, who became director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service four months ago, said in an interview with the Times.
Although they are Florida's state animal, for decades, panthers have been largely confined to the peninsula's southern tip. But development and agriculture have shrunk their remaining habitat. The last time Ashe's agency objected to anything built in panther habitat was 1993.
As the panther population has been squeezed into smaller territory, a few young male panthers have swum across the Caloosahatchee River, heading north into the rest of Florida.
That's why Ashe contends the most crucial thing his agency can do now is to preserve a 1,100-acre parcel in Glades County owned by American Prime. The land is not pristine swamp or forest — it has been used as a ranch and a sod farm — but it's the place where the male panthers have been documented crossing the river.
"We want to preserve a corridor for the panthers to get across the Caloosahatchee," Ashe said.
Federal wildlife officials have long contended that the only way to guarantee a future for the Florida panther is to create more than one colony of them. Ideally, there would be three, each with at least 250 adult cats. Right now there's only one colony of 100-150 panthers.
Some panther advocates contend the federal government should capture a few male and female panthers and relocate them to create a new colony. But federal officials have always shied away from moving panthers to save the species.
"We'd like them to do it themselves," Ashe said.
Although only males have crossed the river so far, "hopefully as the population expands to the south, you'll get exploring females as well," he said.
"We must take this opportunity to secure this property," said Laurie Macdonald of Defenders of Wildlife, a group that has worked with the federal agency on panther issues. "That location is absolutely strategic."
What worries Ashe and others is that the route north is controlled by a company that once wanted to develop that land — panthers or no panthers.
Since the 1970s, American Prime has been touting real estate deals in Cape Coral and other communities in southwest Florida in what was then panther habitat. To sell the land they used infomercials on Spanish-language stations, some repeated 50 times a week.
Company officials did not respond to several calls from the Times about its land on the Caloosahatchee.
Three years ago, American Prime wanted to build 624 homes there — one less than the number that would trigger heightened state scrutiny of its plans — as well as a marina with more than 200 boat slips. Glades County officials were happy to oblige the company's request for a land-use change, despite the warnings of environmental activists about the effect on panthers. One commissioner asked whether the panthers couldn't just be moved elsewhere.
But the proposal ran into objections from the state Department of Community Affairs and other state agencies over its destruction of wetlands, its location in a flood-prone area and other issues. The project stalled.
Now, Ashe said, the owners are willing to work with the Fish and Wildlife Service to ensure panthers continue to have a safe passage. Although Ashe talked openly about the need to preserve the property for panthers, his staff is tight-lipped about the status of the negotiations.
"It's looking kind of bleak," said Amber Crooks of the Conservancy of Southwest Florida, which has been involved in trying to preserve the land. "It's out on the market for development."
The problem, according to Jennifer Hecker of the Conservancy, is money. Funds for buying environmental land are in short supply right now, from both state and federal agencies, she said. But if they don't preserve that land, "it really would doom the panther to eking out its existence on the remainder of its land south of Lake Okeechobee."
Endangered Species
Fla. streamlines tortoise relocation permits Developers will have an easier time getting permits to relocate Florida gopher tortoises from prematurely cleared land inhabited by the threatened reptiles.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission agreed to streamline the permitting process at a meeting Thursday in Key Largo.
The panel's gopher management plan coordinator, Deborah Burr, said the revision balances tortoise conservation with the needs of people.
It will conform with the plan's objective of decreasing tortoise deaths on lands set for development through relocation.
The new permitting process also will help meet another goal of repopulating public conservation lands that have few or no tortoises.
The creatures can live up to 60 years. They once were common in Florida and widely hunted for food.
Now rare, their main threat currently is loss of habitat.
Everglades and Water Quality Issues
Feds: Gov. Scott's Glades plan falls short Good start but it doesn't go far enough, fast enough.
In a nutshell, that sums up the federal government's initial response to an Everglades pollution cleanup plan personally laid out last month by Gov. Rick Scott during a visit to Washington.
Nevertheless, both sides remain upbeat about resolving the long-running legal and political battle over Florida's repeatedly delayed plans to reduce the flow of the damaging nutrient, phosphorus, that pours off farms and yards into the Everglades after every rain storm.
In a meeting Monday with the editorial board of The Miami Herald, U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said he was "cautiously optimistic'' that the state would address initial concerns sketched out in a Nov. 10 letter to the governor from four federal agencies involved in Everglades restoration.
Salazar, whose department manages Everglades National Park and other federal lands in the Everglades, said he had discussed the issues personally with Scott, who also was in Miami to attend a round-table on auto insurance fraud.
"I acknowledge and he acknowledged that the dialogue will continue,'' Salazar said.
The governor's office Monday directed questions to the South Florida Water Management District, which released a statement saying the state was pleased with the "collaborative approach.''
"This letter is validation that we are on the right track,'' it said.
But it was also an indication that considerable disagreement remains over how much needs to be done. Under orders from U.S. District Court Judge Alan Gold, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed a massive expansion of the artificial marshes the state uses to scrub phosphorus from water flowing into the Everglades.
Scott's plan, according to the letter, calls for "significantly smaller'' cleanup marshes than the EPA plan and also would push back the deadline another two years to 2022. That's on top of earlier delays by the state that had pushed an original 2006 cleanup deadline back by a decade.
The letter, signed by Salazar, EPA administrator Lisa Jackson and top officials for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of Justice, also questions the state's technical assumptions and whether the plan would "compromise achievement of water quality goals.'' Gold would likely have to approve any new cleanup plan worked out among the agencies.
Environmentalists also have complained the Scott plan did not impose any new fertilizer restrictions on farmers, relied too much on using public lands for water storage and failed to put to use 27,000 acres of U.S. Sugar land acquired in a controversial land deal backed by former Gov. Charlie Crist.
Salazar called the cleanup dispute "big and complex'' but also the key to all other efforts to revive the Everglades.
South Florida's emergency watering restrictions lifted as heavy October rains bring dramatic boost to water supply
By Andy Reid, Sun Sentinel
Drenching October rains and rising water levels convinced South Florida regulators on Thursday to ease drought-triggered watering restrictions on homes and farms from Orlando to the Keys.
That won't trigger big changes for landscape watering in Broward and Miami-Dade counties, where twice-a-week watering remains the year-round rule.
But most Palm Beach County homeowners will be allowed to water lawns and gardens up to three times per week as South Florida transitions back to its normal year-round watering rules.
Since March, South Florida has been under emergency watering restrictions that limit landscape watering to a maximum of twice a week in most areas.
Likewise, South Florida golf courses had been required to cut water use 15 percent. Sugar cane growers and other farms south of Lake Okeechobee had to cut water use 45 percent.
On Thursday, the South Florida Water Management District lifted those emergency limits on landscape watering for homes and businesses as well as the irrigation limits on golf courses and growers.
One of the wettest Octobers on record has water levels back to or above normal from the Everglades to Lake Okeechobee, South Florida's primary backup water supply.
Just one year after the driest October in South Florida history kicked off a record-setting drought, now brimming water supplies have the water management district projecting a much more hopeful outlook for the coming winter-to-spring dry season.
"Welcome to Florida," water management district board Member Kevin Powers said. "We vacillate between the two extremes."
That doesn't mean landscape watering rules completely disappear for South Florida homes and businesses.
Now South Florida shifts back to its normal year-round watering rules, which allow watering up to three times per week unless local communities opt for stricter rules.
Broward and Miami-Dade counties have made twice-a-week watering their year-round rule, while Palm Beach County allows watering three times per week.
West Palm Beach, Palm Beach, South Palm Beach and Lake Worth had been under once-a-week watering restrictions during the drought due to heightened concerns about their water supplies. Those cities could opt to keep those limits in place.
After lifting the heightened watering restrictions Thursday, the water management district board did issue a water-shortage warning, encouraging conservation.
Lake Okeechobee rose almost 3 feet during the past month, hitting 13.79 feet above sea level Thursday. The lake is now 1 foot above the water-shortage range.
October rains also have water levels above normal in the Everglades water conservation areas that stretch across western Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties. In addition to providing wildlife habitat, the conservation areas help restock community drinking-water supplies.
"We are kind of topping off the tank heading into the dry season, which is good news," said Terrie Bates, district director of water resources.
Global Warming and Climate Change
What Global Warming? Science-Doubting Florida Lawmakers Move to Kill Cap-and-Trade With the sponsor raising questions about climate-change science, a House panel moved forward Tuesday with repealing a law that could lead to using a "cap and trade" system to limit greenhouse-gas emissions.
The law, pushed through in 2008 by former Gov. Charlie Crist, has never been used to pursue cap and trade — an approach that would provide incentives for businesses, such as electric utilities, to reduce emissions.
But Rep. Scott Plakon, a Longwood Republican sponsoring the repeal bill, described cap-and-trade laws as "government picking winners and losers" and said such laws kill jobs.
"This is government central planning in a place where I don't think it should be," Plakon told the House Agriculture & Natural Resources Subcommittee, which voted 8-5 along party lines to support the repeal bill (HB 4001).
Plakon, who is chairman of the House Energy & Utilities Subcommittee, said the climate-change science that led to such efforts to reduce emissions has been "called into question." Skeptics contend that scientists have misused information to bolster the idea that man is creating climate change.
But Rep. Dwight Bullard, a Miami Democrat who voted against Plakon's bill, dismissed such arguments, saying only about 8 percent of scientists reject the idea of climate change.
"I tend to go with the other 92 percent who are out there advocating for it, that it is real," Bullard said.
Early in his administration, Crist drew widespread attention for taking steps aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The 2008 law — dubbed the Florida Climate Protection Act — set up a process by which the state Department of Environmental Protection could develop rules for a cap-and-trade system and seek ratification from the Legislature.
Under a cap-and-trade system, the state would set an overall limit on emissions and would set aside certain amounts for businesses such as utilities. If the businesses emit less than they are allowed, they could sell "credits" to other companies that might be over their emission limits.
With no state movement toward such a system, Democrats on the subcommittee Tuesday questioned the need to repeal the law.
"I'm a little confused why we need to repeal something just because it's dormant at this moment," Bullard said.
But Plakon raised the possibility that future lawmakers could enact a cap-and-trade system and said it should be erased from state law. The House bill is only scheduled to go before one more panel, the State Affairs Committee. An identical bill (SB 648) has been filed in the Senate.
Underwater cities: Climate change begins to reshape the urban landscape Dan Kipness, a retired fishing boat captain and a 60-year Miami Beach resident, has a video that offers a glimpse of where this coastal city is headed. In it, cars and trucks kick floodwater into the air as they drive down Miami Beach's streets. This isn't rainwater -- the skies are at least partially sunny and blue. Instead, the waters seeped into the streets from underground storm sewers during high tide.
Kipness says he never saw such flooding until a decade ago, but now sees it up to twice a day during the fall, when tides are especially high. He says he's watched the undersides of $100,000 cars get rusted away by salt water.
This happens, many experts say, because of rising sea levels attributed to the melting of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica. We can expect to see more of the same across South Florida in the coming years, as a warming climate accelerates the faraway melting. Researchers are just now beginning to grapple with what this will mean for the inner workings of the city.
Miami is one of the world's most vulnerable cities to rising sea levels from climate change, according to the international Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development. Sea levels have risen nine to 12 inches here in the past century, and are expected to rise up to six more inches by 2030, 12 to 21 inches by 2060 and by three to five feet by 2100.
What will this look like? With a two-foot rise, water would cover 28 percent of South Florida and wetlands would be lost as far from the coast as Homestead, about a 125-mile drive from Key West. Miami would become a barrier island, Hal Wanless, chair of the University of Miami's geology department, told members of the Society of Environmental Journalists, which held its annual conference here last week.
With a four-foot rise, 48 percent of the land in South Florida would be soaked, the Everglades would become an estuary, and two proposed nuclear plants at Turkey Point along the eastern coast would be underwater. At five feet of rise, storm surges would flow in all directions. At six feet, 56 percent of the land would be gone and 73 percent of what's left would be less than two feet above sea level.
"In other words, you wouldn't want to live in it," says Wanless, who co-chairs a science committee for the Miami-Dade County climate change task force.
Energy
Sen. Nelson tries to block Cuba drilling Hoping to discourage oil drilling in Cuban waters near South Florida, Senators Bill Nelson and Robert Menendez introduced a bill that would make it easier for Americans to sue foreign polluters for damages.
The bill would also remove a $75-million liability cap for oil spills that come from foreign waters, and it would allow those who suffer damages to be compensated from an Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund.
The bill was inspired by plans to begin drilling in January in waters north of Havana near the Florida Keys. Repsol, a Spanish company, has contracted with Cuba to explore for oil using a giant floating rig.
An oil spill in these waters most likely would be caught in the Gulf Stream, a powerful ocean current that would bring a slick to the South Florida coast and carry it north along the Atlantic Seaboard.
Nelson said the result could devastate American fisherman, coastal communities and tourism. "Our goal here is to hold foreign oil companies liable if they have a spill that reaches U.S. waters," Nelson said.
Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey, said he hoped that "companies seeking to drill in Cuban waters will think twice once they know they would be fully liable for any damages to the Florida Keys, South Florida beaches, or if the spill reached the Gulf Stream, anywhere up the East Coast."
Land Conservation
Five-Year Survey Shows Wetlands Losses are Slowing, Marking Conservation Gains and Need for Continued Investment in Habitat America's wetlands declined slightly from 2004-2009, underscoring the need for continued conservation and restoration efforts, according to a report issued today by the Department of the Interior's U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The findings are consistent with the Service's Status and Trends Wetlands reports from previous decades that reflect a continuous but diminishing decline in wetlands habitat over time.
The report, which represents the most up-to-date, comprehensive assessment of wetland habitats in the United States, documents substantial losses in forested wetlands and coastal wetlands that serve as storm buffers, absorb pollution that would otherwise find its way into the nation's drinking water, and provide vital habitat for fish, wildlife and plants.
"Wetlands are at a tipping point," said Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar. "While we have made great strides in conserving and restoring wetlands since the 1950s when we were losing an area equal to half the size of Rhode Island each year, we remain on a downward trend that is alarming. This report, and the threats to places like the Mississippi River Delta, should serve as a call to action to renew our focus on conservation and restoration efforts hand in hand with states, tribes and other partners."
"This report offers us a road map for stemming and reversing the decline," said Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe. "It documents a number of successes in wetlands conservation, protection and reestablishment, and will be used to help channel our resources to protect wetlands where they are most threatened and reduce further wetland losses."
The net wetland loss was estimated to be 62,300 acres between 2004 and 2009, bringing the nation's total wetlands acreage to just over 110 million acres in the continental United States, excluding Alaska and Hawaii.
The rate of gains from reestablishment of wetlands increased by 17 percent from the previous study period (1998 to 2004), but the wetland loss rate increased 140 percent during the same time period. As a consequence, national wetland losses have outpaced gains.
The net loss includes a combination of gains in certain types of wetlands and losses in other types, especially forested wetlands.
"In a five year period, we lost over 630,000 acres of forested wetlands, mostly in the Southeast – an area equal to half a million football fields each year," Director Ashe said. "We should all be concerned about the substantial loss of this diminishing resource, which helps ensure good water quality for local communities and provides vital habitat for a diversity of important wildlife species."
The southeast United States, primarily freshwater wetlands of the Atlantic and Gulf coastal plain, and the Lower Mississippi River experienced the greatest losses. Losses were also observed in the Great Lakes states, the prairie pothole region, and in rapidly developing metropolitan areas nationwide. The reasons for wetland losses are complex and reflect a wide variety of factors, including changes in land use and economic conditions, the impacts of the 2005 hurricane season on the Gulf Coast and climate change impacts.
This report does not draw conclusions regarding the quality or condition of the nation's wetlands. Rather, it provides data regarding trends in wetland extent and type, and it provides information to facilitate ongoing collaborative efforts to assess wetland condition. Further examination of wetland condition on a national level has been initiated by the Environmental Protection Agency in conjunction with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other federal, state and Tribal partners.
Wetlands provide a multitude of ecological, economic and social benefits. They provide habitat for fish, wildlife, and a variety of plants. Wetlands are nurseries for many saltwater and freshwater fishes and shellfish of commercial and recreational importance. Wetlands are also important landscape features because they hold and slowly release flood water and snow melt, recharge groundwater, act as filters to cleanse water of impurities, recycle nutrients, and provide recreational opportunities for millions of people.
The report, Status and Trends of Wetlands in the Conterminous United States 2004-2009, is the most recent of the five reports to Congress reporting on the status and trends of wetlands across much of the United States since the mid-1950s.
For more details on the report, visit www.fws.gov/wetlands/StatusAndTrends2009
Air Quality
Coal and Mercury U.S. coal-fired power plants pump more than 48 tons of mercury into the air each year. The Martin Lake Power Plant in Tatum, Texas, spews 2,660 pounds per annum all on its own (it burns lignite, a particularly mercury-heavy form of coal). Compared with the vast amounts of mercury churning out of Asia, the U.S. contribution is fairly small-about 3 percent of the global total. Roughly a third of our emissions settle within our borders, poisoning lakes and waterways. The rest cycles through the atmosphere, with much of it eventually winding up in the world's oceans.
Inorganic mercury isn't easily assimilated into the human body, and if the mercury emitted by power plants stayed in that form, it probably wouldn't have made Gelfond and many others sick. But when inorganic mercury creeps into aquatic sediments and marshes (as well as mid-depths of oceans), bacteria convert it into methylmercury, an organic form that not only is easily assimilated but also accumulates in living tissue as it moves up the food chain: The bigger and older the fish, the more mercury in its meat. It takes only a tiny amount to do serious damage: One-seventieth of a teaspoon can pollute a 20-acre lake to the point where its fish are unsafe to eat. Thousands of tons a year settle in the world's oceans, where they bioaccumulate in carnivorous fish. Forty percent of human mercury exposure comes from a single source-Pacific tuna.
Air Pollution: Bad for Health, But Good for Planet? Cleaning up the air, while good for our lungs, could make global warming worse. That conclusion is underscored by a new study, which looks at the pollutants that go up smokestacks along with carbon dioxide.
These pollutants are called aerosols and they include soot as well as compounds of nitrogen and sulfur and other stuff into the air. Natalie Mahowald, a climate researcher at Cornell University, says so far, scientists have mostly tried to understand what those aerosols do while they're actually in the air.
"There are so many different kinds of aerosols and they have many different sources," she says. "Some warm and some cool. But in the net, humans are emitting a lot of extra aerosols, and they tend to cool for the most part."
As we clean up the aerosols, which we really want to do for public health reasons, we are going to be perhaps causing ourselves more trouble in terms of the climate situation.
The aerosols reflect sunlight back into space, or they stimulate clouds that keep us cool. But it turns out that's not all they do. These aerosols also influence how much carbon dioxide gets drawn out of the air by plants on land and in the sea.
"They can add nutrients, for example, to the oceans or to the land," Mahowald says. "But also while they're in the atmosphere they can change the climate, and so that also can impact the amount of carbon the land or the ocean can take up. So there are quite a few different ways that aerosols can interact."
In an article published in Science magazine, she concludes that those effects add up to quite a bit. At the moment, aerosols are not only helping reduce global warming by cooling the atmosphere, but they're helping reduce the amount of carbon dioxide that stays in the air once we emit it.
That's good news for now — it means the planet isn't heating up quite as fast as it could. But that's bad news looking down the road a little bit. That's because many aerosols make people sick — heart and lung disease in particular. So some nations are now in the process of trying to rein them in.
"As we clean up the aerosols, which we really want to do for public health reasons, we are going to be perhaps causing ourselves more trouble in terms of the climate situation," Mahowald says.
This is not a brand-new idea. For example, other research has found that switching from coal to much cleaner natural gas might not do much to help with global warming because it would also be reducing the pollutants in coal smoke that help offset warming.
Mahowald's results suggest that reducing those pollutants could be an even bigger problem than realized, when you consider that aerosols help remove carbon dioxide from the air by encouraging plant growth. Hard numbers on this effect are highly uncertain at the moment, but this could turn out to be quite significant.
"This is something that's really poorly studied, and I think that the main point of the paper is we've been ignoring this potentially important topic," she says.
And studying it is not easy because the effects aren't well understood. For example, nitrogen can be a fertilizer, but it can stunt plant growth when nitrogen comes out of the air in acid form. Lisa Emberson at the Stockholm Environment Institute and York University in England, who studies these biological cycles, says there are so many subtle effects it's hard to be sure which ones will prove to be the most important.
"I think the take-home message of this paper is we need to understand those interactions far better and we probably need to take action much more quickly than we are doing at the moment," Emberson says.
Right now it seems like we're much more likely to clean up aerosol pollution, while increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the air. So scientists, unfortunately, may have a chance to see how this inadvertent experiment on our planet starts to play out.
7 Florida facilities run afoul of EPA air quality standards Florida is home to seven air polluters that have been included in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Facility Watch List, according to the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting. The list identifies "high-priority violators" of the Clean Air Act with violations that have gone unresolved for more than 270 days.
The Florida sites listed are the Pinellas County Resource Recovery Facility, the Brevard County Central Disposal Facility in Cocoa, Eager Beaver Trailers in Lake Wales, the Miami-Dade County Resource Recovery Facility in Doral, Motiva Enterprises in Tampa, Tampa Electric Co.'s Big Bend Station in Apollo Beach, and Naval Air Station Jacksonville.
The resource recovery plants in Pinellas and Miami-Dade are two of a dozen such facilities in the state. The Pinellas plant burns 3,000 tons of garbage daily in one of the country's largest waste-to-energy incinerators, generating enough electricity to turn a $20 million annual profit. But state officials fined the county $50,000 last year for excess emissions during a boiler refurbishment. Facility officials say the violation has been resolved.
The piece details how pollution regulators have run into enforcement roadblocks: "The seven polluters demonstrate how toothless, and at times helpless, federal, state and county regulators can be in preventing hazardous emissions from entering the air Floridians breathe."
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