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Everglades ISSUES
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North Watershed

High-Phosphorus mainly agricultural run-off is out of control contaminating Lake Okeechobee.
What could be done to clean-up the watershed ?



Lake Okeechobee

The Lake is heavily polluted. Its waters cannot feed the Everglades and are diverted into St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee Rivers.
The lake clean-up is a major multi-billion $$ challenge.





Rock Mining

There is a push for extension and new mine sites - close to the Everglades.
Surface water and aquifer contamination likely.











 

In 2017 hot discussions erupted about where and how to store and clean water from Lake Okeechobee to avoid forced releases from it that disturb the Caloosahatchee and the St. Lucie rivers and their entire estuaries:

Everglades Agricultural Area
Storage Reservoir Project



       
NEWS & HEADLINES - Current Development            BEST selection of relevant NEWS - more HEADLINES
The EvergladesHub DISCONTINUED news highlights service. HAPPY 2018
NewsNews
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NEWS
News

WHAT IS ALL THE EVERGLADES FUSS ABOUT ?
For some 120 years, increasing population of Florida has painstaikingly been changing its landscape and lifestyle. An extensive canal system, draining, daming and pumping were all meant to move its plentyful water away from the land that was demanded for agriculture and development. Extensive Florida Everglades was largely drained and most of the Florida peninsula became the world's largest most plumbed natural system. Only to discover that it was ALL WRONG ! We know that most of iIt has to now be undone and Florida Everglades restored as much as possible. Why ?
Florida is flat, known for its seasonal rain extremes and sitting on porous sponge-like karst that contains aquiferous layers of moving underground fresh water supporting agriculture and population growth. Now that fresh water is running out with looming shortages threating some 8 million of South Florida population. That combines with rising seas pushing underground salt water into receding aquifers. A real and imminent threat !
All hands on deck, we need to restore Florida Everglades to resupply fresh-water aquifers and to clean and re-direct surface waters that threaten both peninsula ecology and people's safety through pollution and flooding.
Read around this web-site about what is being done and what it all takes. Multifaceted efforts and billions of dollars.






LOOK ! EVERGLADES PROJECTS in THE NEWS - locate them here :
Click if the project location has a LINK (for more details)
If a POP-UP appears, click IT (anywhere) for removing it before you can see another one.
 
Click for VIDEO Bridge NEWS Click for NEWS details Click for NEWS details Click for NEWS details Click for VIDEO Click for VIDEO Click for VIDEO Click for NEWS details Click for NEWS details Click for PICTURES REPORT Water Protect. Area
OFFSHORE
OIL DRILLING

The Gulf oil disaster does not directly concern the Everglades - let's keep focused.
Remote for Everglades

MARINE OIL SPILL
CLICK photo for a satellite view of early spill extent, also see OIL SPILL page



LOOK ! VIDEOS - professional, easy and brief :
Many more VIDEOS on different aspects of the Everglades - their challenges and ISSUES - are posted in a special section of this web-site.
Click HERE to get to the video section and spend as much time watching as you care and can afford - it is definitely worth it !
 
Kissimmee River - Restoration project: The US Army Corps of Engineers recently backfilled draining canal and restored meandering old river flow. Marshes now filter the water feeding into Lake Okeecho- bee and provide wildlife habitat.
click VIDEO

  Click DOTs for VIDEO :


  
  Everglades Restoration


    Restoring the Everglades


    Saving the Everglades


    Everglades -
      World Without Water

    Everglades Invasives


    Everglades and Sea Rise


    South Florida and Sea Level


    South Florida's Rising Seas -
      Sea Level Rise Documentary


 
Tamiami Trail - has a section that blocks water to the Everglades (NP). After protracted debates, a bridge project has been initiated (Dec,4, 2009) to lift the road and let water through to feed the Everglades.
click VIDEO
 
  The Everglades - a National Geographic video showing the beauty and unique nature of the River of Grass. Over the last century, the Everglades wetland was drained to less than 1/2 of its original size.
click VIDEO
 
  Agricultural Pollution - a clip from the PBS series: It is mainly the surplus nitrogen and phosphorus threat from fertlizers that is oozing from the fields into the surface and even underground waters.
click VIDEO
 
  The Everglades Foundation's video is wonderfully narrated by Harrison Ford. It shows the majestic Everglades and, as typical for many NGOs, the thrust toward restoring this unique ecosystem essential for the environment and people alike.
click VIDEO
 
What are our top 10 environmental problems ?
Aikenstandard.com     
1. Apathy
2. Human overpopulation
3. Habitat loss, fragment'n, and degradation
4. Freshwater quality and quantity
5. Threat of disease
6. Unsustainable agriculture
7. Air pollution
8. Degradation of marine habitats
9. Global climate change
10. Invasive plants and animals
       » Read more - -
FL Everglades, a Disaster Waiting to Happen
Men's Journal, Nov. 2007(!) - like today  
Despite a $10 billion rescue plan, the Everglades are a disaster waiting to happen.
In July 1969, Supreme Court
  ACE
Justice William O. Douglas declared the Army Corps of Engineers America's "public enemy number one." In an exhaustive screed in a national magazine, he detailed how the Corps had plundered the U.S. environment and ransacked the U.S. Treasury with preposterous water projects designed to keep its employees busy and its congressional patrons happy.        » by Michael Grunwald - worth reading more
Water author speaks at CF
Ocala.com, Oct.5, 2011    »MORE - EvergladesHUB.com
“If we Southerners knew as much about how our forbearers altered rivers and wetlands as we do about the Civil War, we'd have great appreciation for the natural waters that are left", the "Water Author" Cynthia Barnett told the audience at CF.
She said much of the problem is that governments and utilities reroute and dam water to create the illusion that there's water to spare, when in fact springs are disappearing and groundwater tables are shrinking.
“That is our illusion of water abundance,” she said.
                  » Read more
A river of fiscal insanity flows through Florida
Gainesville Sun: Dec. 7, 2011 In your wildest dreams, you could barely imagine the corporate welfare that is flowing to some of Florida’s biggest air and water polluters. From 2009 and up to the present day, the federal government gives paper mills billions of dollars to do something that they have been doing for decades: burning “black liquor” in their boilers. Black liquor is a byproduct of their process. - -
We can’t afford to keep subsidizing big polluters who are not doing their part to protect and preserve the resources that are the economic lifeblood of our state. Don’t think that the federal government will come to our rescue – they are on board with the big polluters, too.
    » Read more
Crony capitalism dominates sugar business
GreenBiz.com: Oct.25, 2011
Next time I unwrap a candy bar, I'll think about sugar, free markets, the Florida Everglades and Monica Lewinsky. Why ? Because although the sugar in that candy bar may be natural, its price is entirely artificial -- depending, as it does, on government trade barriers, price supports and subsidized water, as well as the fact that the sugar industry is paying only a fraction of the costs of cleaning up pollution in the Everglades. Put simply, crony capitalism is alive and well in the sugar business. "The sugar industry doesn't make its money from agriculture," - - »Read more
For FL clean water, depend on judge, not state
read "LEGAL"  
With the FL state Dept. of Environmental Protection reverting to what critics once derisively called -
"Don't Expect Protection", Floridians who want clean rivers, lakes, streams and estuaries must depend on the federal courts.
The US-EPA was not enforcing the Clean Water Act in Florida and it is now forced by the court to do so. - -

» Read more - - and also EvergladesHUB.com-LEGAL
understandable brief descrition of key legal cases.
Everglades sulfate runoff & methylmercury
Florida Independent: May 2, 2011           » Read more
The use of sulfate in agricultural areas near the Florida Everglades is creating an enormous mercury problem — with seemingly no end in sight. The Everglades are often thought of as the state’s natural gem, protected from the hustle and bustle of nearby Fort Lauderdale and Miami. - - It has been demonstrated that increasing MeHg occurrence there is driven by the sulfate contamination problem. To lower highly toxic MeHg is to reduce the amount of sulfate entering the ecosystem - mainly due to discharges from the Everglades Agricultural Area.     » Read more - -
Protecting Water State's resource
Ocala.com, Feb.21, 2010                               » Read more
In 2007 alone, industry dumped 1.16 million pounds of toxic chemicals into Florida's waterways - as Bush administration weakened the Clean Water Act in 2001, making Florida a polluted paradise. More alarming, the risk extends to the precious Floridan aquifer, a major source of fresh water. Based on court order, the federal EPA is in a hurry now to reverse this situation. Ethically and legally, we do not allow someone to throw a hamburger wrapper out a car window. Why, then, do public officials allow industry to discharge toxic litter that kills ? Stopping polluters and wetland developers brings immeasurable dividends. No state will benefit more from the Clean Water Restoration Act than Florida - the Water State. - -       » Read more

Turning wetlands into rock mines
Rock Mining
» An ISSUE - Environmental Fight Brewing :

For 25 cents a ton, rockmining interests, including cement exporting, are digging into the Everglades. Looking for new opportunities when the soil gets exhausted and land falls cheap, limestone quarries are a big business that destroys wetlands and disturbs freshwater supplying aquifers - - » Read more
Everglades: wisdom in an artificial swamp
True/Slant: Feb. 18, 2010                         » Read more - -
- - four rectangular ponds - a miniature of the Everglades. These are man-made structures, open-air laboratories. Nowhere else in the world is the wetland so monitored, so analyzed on such a large scale for its water-cleansing performance. ARM Loxahatchee Nat. Wildlife Refuge and its test wetlands were designed to help find the best and most efficient ways to repair decades of damage imposed on the Everglades by other man-made structures – like canals and flood gates – installed to provide more dry land for farmers, ranchers, developers and the towns that have steadily encroached - -
» Read more - -



LOOK !
Since $$$ seem to be the predominant driving force in our brains -
ECONOMICS of environmental systems and 'environmental services' invariably represent the essential 'bottom line' of our decision making -
 
ECONOMICS of P-removal for Everglades            »Read more - -   WHO pollutes ?  WHO pays ?
Everglades Foundation Total clean-up Costs:
$106 mil./year
Taxpayers
pay:
$70 m/y
66 %.
 Agriculture pays: $25.4 m/y
 24 %.
Industry+Urban:
 pollute 23 %
 pay 10%
 Agriculture
 pollutes:

 76 %
Agriculture
pays :

24 %

ECONOMICS of Everglades Restoration                »Read more - -   $11.5 bil. invested >> 4:1 benefit
Everglades Foundation Protection of
water supply:

$13.150 bil.
Enhanced value
of real estate:
$16.108 bil.
Tourism &
Recreation:


$2.142 bil.
Recovery of
Fishing Industry:

$0.524 bil.
Wildlife, Fishing & Hunting Opportunity:
$14.576 bil.
Sum
Total:


$46.501 bil

ECONOMIC Analysis of Numeric Water Qual. Standards (FL) - costs    »Read more (Nov.2010)
Economic Impact

Example
SECTION
B7:

Urban-Storm
$/year:
60-108 m.
Municipal
WWTP
$/y:
22-38 mil.
Industrial
Dischargers:


$/y 25.4 m.
Agriculture

$/year:
20-23 mil.
Septic Systems:

$/y 5 mil.

BENEFITS
-Streams:


$41.3 mil.

BENEFITS
-Lakes :


$10.9 mil

ECONOMICS - REVIEW of EPA Nutrient Criteria for Florida     »Read BRIEF (Mar. 2012)
Economics review "Conducting the cost analysis with increased attention to careful assessment of rule differences, stakeholder engagement, and uncertainty analysis, might not have been possible within the EPA's budget and time constraints. Any critique of the existing EPA cost analysis should consider this."



LITERATURE pages Be informed - READ Everglades SCIENCE LITERATURE - for ALL    click
ESSENTIAL Reading - Everglades overview.                                                                                        CLICK for science LIBRARY
IMPORTANT Reports and Everglades science - THE one key Conference presentation Posters, Slides and Abstracts
2012 EPA - WQ Economics
GEER'10 Posters
GEER'12 Abstracts
2012 Report - AVAILABLE
GEER Conference
GEER 2010 Conference
Greater Everglades
E
cosystem Restoration

July 12-16, Naples, FL
See full presentations: SLIDES - POSTERS

       



LOOK ! EvergladesHUB WEB-SITE MAP - and POLLS :
The Everglades-HUB is a service provided by Prof. B. Volesky which is intended as an information hub for the worldwide science  community and public at large. Information concerning Florida Everglades is widely scattered and this web-site concentrates and streamlines the most important aspects of it. Access to information on the pages of The EvergladesHUB is free, and if you have information which you think would be of interest please contact  http://www.evergladeshub.com/cont.htm.
 
EVERGLADES
ISSUES:

EPA water rules
LEGAL
Lake Okeechobee
Sugar land
Rock Mining
Reservoir A1

PROJECTS:
Projects
Locations

ADVERTISING
BLOG
CONTACTS



NEWS:
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CALENDAR

SCIENTIFIC
LITERATURE:

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Water-Nutrients
Water-Toxicants
Wetlands




RESOURCES:
Posters
Slides
Reports
Experts
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Fellowships
Videos


LINKS:
Business
Foundations
Governments
Professional
Libraries
Universities




LAKE
OKEECHOBEE:

The Lake
Watershed
Bio-Elements
P-removal

NATURE & MAN:
Climate Change
Hurricanes
Mercury
Phosphorus Impact
Oil spill
Urbanization
Water


OPINION POLLS     Definitely participate !
    See our polls on some Everglades issues - themes as seen here below. Click to express your opinion. Your computer IP is used to prevent repeated entries.
    What do you think is the major point
  concerning the Everglades ?
    US-Sugar land deal - how did the Florida
  Government do ?
    Reservoir A1 - waste of $$ or important.
  What do YOU think ?
    Climate change is a controversial topic.
  Indicate where do YOU stand ?
 



Papers
Recent Sci-Literature : Full Texts - Extraordinary
Digital Library




President to read For President Obama


SFER-16
South Florida Environmental Report
2016 (by Nat. Res. Council)

SFER-14
South Florida Environmental Report
2014 (by Nat. Res. Council)

SFER-12t
South Florida Environmental Repor
2012 (by Nat. Res. Council)

SFER-10
South Florida Environmental Report
2010 (by Nat. Res. Council)

SFER-08
South Florida Environmental Report
2008 (by Nat. Res. Council)


CONFERENCES
GEER-2010 - Archive:
CLICK HERE for presentations
Repeated annually,
watch for :
(Jan.7-10, 2016):
Everglades Coalition Conference (Annual)

(Mar.16-17, 2012):
Florida Academy of Sciences - (Annual
)

Oct.17-21, 2011
Quincy, FL:
SER Southeastern Chapter Ann. Mtg.


OTHER EVENTS

Some FL Events
PARTICIPATE

CALENDAR
Everglades Events
Event Calendar
Check 2 calendars :
  South Florida Water
  Management District
  US Army Corps of
  Eng.- CERP
 
     
 
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