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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
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NEWS & HEADLINES - Current Development
BEST selection of relevant NEWS - more HEADLINES |
The EvergladesHub DISCONTINUED news highlights service. HAPPY 2018 |
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Recommended for the latest
NEWS |
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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.
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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. |
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OFFSHORE OIL DRILLING
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The Gulf oil disaster does not directly
concern the Everglades - let's keep
focused.
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MARINE OIL SPILL
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CLICK photo for a satellite view of early spill
extent, also see OIL SPILL page
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VIDEOS - professional, easy and brief
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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 ! |
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- What are our top 10 environmental problems ?
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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
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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 |
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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.
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by Michael Grunwald - worth reading more
- Water author speaks at CF
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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
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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.
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Read more
- Crony capitalism dominates sugar business
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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
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- For FL clean water, depend on judge, not state
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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. - -
- Everglades sulfate runoff & methylmercury
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Florida Independent: May 2, 2011
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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.
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Read more - -
- Protecting Water State's resource
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Ocala.com, Feb.21, 2010
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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. - -
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Read more
- Turning wetlands into rock mines
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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
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True/Slant: Feb. 18, 2010
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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 - -
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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 - |
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ECONOMICS of P-removal for Everglades
»Read more - - |
WHO pollutes ? WHO pays ? |
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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 % |
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ECONOMICS of Everglades Restoration
»Read more - -
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$11.5 bil. invested >> 4:1 benefit |
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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 |
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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 |
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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.
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Recent Sci-Literature :
Full Texts - Extraordinary
Digital Library
President to read
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South Florida Environmental Report
2016 (by Nat. Res. Council)
South Florida Environmental Report
2014 (by Nat. Res. Council)
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South Florida Environmental Repor
2012 (by Nat. Res. Council)
South Florida Environmental Report
2010 (by Nat. Res. Council)
South Florida Environmental Report
2008 (by Nat. Res. Council)
CALENDAR Everglades Events |
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