FEATURED STORIES
By Paul Quinlan and Michael C. Bender
Worsening economic projections, a looming U.S. Environmental Protection Agency mandate and even rising sea levels now threaten to scuttle Gov. Charlie Crist's half-billion-dollar Everglades restoration land deal with U.S. Sugar Corp. before its new, Sept. 30 deadline.
By Scott Finn
Florida water managers have voted to keep alive a half-billion dollar plan designed to restore the Everglades.
By Don Van Natta Jr. and Damien Cave
When Gov. Charlie Crist announced Florida’s $1.75 billion plan to save the Everglades by buying out a major landowner, United States Sugar, he declared that the deal would be remembered as a public acquisition “as monumental as the creation of the nation’s first national park, Yellowstone.”
By Damien Cave
Facing legal challenges and growing deficits, South Florida water officials on Thursday gave themselves six more months to finance a controversial $536 million purchase of land from United States Sugar for the Everglades.
By Jim Ash
Gov. Charlie Crist fired back Monday at critics who pummeled him for a $536 million Everglades land deal that they describe as a giveaway to U.S. Sugar Corp.
By Michael Peltier
With lawmakers already frustrated over a lack of oversight, recent reports on the state's landmark $536 million Everglades agreement with U.S. Sugar Corp. may add momentum for a legislative response in an attempt to prevent a repeat of the controversial deal, a key House lawmaker said Monday.
By Brian Skoloff
Gov. Charlie Crist's grand plan to revive the dying Florida Everglades by buying back the land, a key part of his legacy, could be on the cusp of collapsing and dealing another blow to his Senate hopes.
By Manley K. Fuller and Laurie Macdonald
Loggerhead turtles need endangered label, feds say
Florida Times-Union
Obama pushes senators for climate bill
The Associated Press
Moccasin Slough cited as example of Florida Forever funding worth
Florida Times-Union
Bronson knocks Florida Forever after Cabinet purchase
FloridaEnvironments.com
By Zac Anderson
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Despite all the attention Florida has gotten for its clean energy efforts -- including President Barack Obama's recent visit to a solar plant in Arcadia -- many experts say the state's clean energy market is on the verge of collapse.
Gator in the ‘Glades.
The Big Oil roundup: news and information about Big Oil’s push to rig Florida’s coastline for the week ending 3-12-10:
By Abel Harding
ProgressFlorida.org, a progressive blog, has compiled a map that provides a visual of all the coastal communities in the state of Florida who have announced opposition to offshore drilling.
By News Service of Florida
Military backers told a House panel in no uncertain terms Friday that any talk of oil drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico better not hamper military operations in the region.
By Abel Harding
A blog post I had made Monday morning in regards to offshore oil drilling was criticized by a reader because, in his words, I parroted a "whackadoddle view without any context or balance."
By Matt Dixon
In testimony before a House committee Friday, officials from Naval Support Activity Panama City and the Bay Defense Alliance laid out the potential impact of oil drilling in state waters, which extend 10 miles offshore.
By Michael Peltier
Environmentalists, coastal business and tourism-related enterprises have a formidable ally in the fight against offshore drilling in the Gulf that is not normally associated with wading birds and preserving the pristine.
By Dusty Ricketts
With Senate Bill 2622 filed in the Florida Legislature, drilling for oil and natural gas in the Gulf of Mexico has become one of the major issues this session.
By Dave Rauschkolb
Florida is on the brink of decisions that could forever endanger our clean waters, our clean beaches and our valuable tourism-based economy.
By Sue Gross
While offshore-drilling enthusiasts tour the state promising thousands of new jobs for Florida (20,000 rig jobs and 231,000 jobs overall), we are being bombarded by TV and print ads from "The people of America's Oil and Natural Gas Industry," which sounds so much friendlier than the American Petroleum Institute — which it actually is — made up of 400 "corporate members" of the oil industry.
By Angel McCurdy
A South Walton County man has taken his opposition to drilling off Florida’s coast to a new level.
By Theron Trimble
Risk analysis is composed of two elements: The probability that an event will occur; and the impact of the event if it does occur.
Progress Florida unveiled the "Resolved Against Drilling" map, a powerful illustration and visual reminder to lawmakers of the overwhelming opposition to legislation (SB 2622) that would end Florida's ban on oil drilling in state waters. The map shows that at least 55 cities, counties, chambers of commerce, and local agencies around the state have passed resolutions (you can view the list of resolutions here) opposing Speaker-Designate Dean Cannon's (R-Winter Park) and Senate-President Designate Mike Haridopolos's (R-Melbourne) effort to sell Florida's world famous coastline to Texas oilmen. From Key West to Pensacola, few other issues to be tackled this legislative session have met with such unified opposition from local communities. "This map demonstrates in clear terms that Floridians aren't buying the misleading claims and empty economic promises Big Oil is selling our state," said Mark Ferrulo, Executive Director of Progress Florida.
Write Your State Senator: Big Oil's Promises Are "Empty"
MORE ONLINE ACTIONS
Pass a Resolution To Protect Florida's Beaches Now, via Audubon of Florida.
Urge President Obama’s Ocean Policy Task Force to recommend against offshore drilling within any previously protected coastal waters, via Defenders of Wildlife.
Tell Obama: Offshore Drilling is NOT the Answer to Energy Crisis, via Oceana.
Help Drill for Solutions Not for Oil, via Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.
Let us decide! Petition to Governor Charlie Crist, Senate President Jeff Atwater, and House Speaker Larry Cretul, via Civic Concern.
Contact Your Officials About New Drilling Off Florida's Coasts, via Civic Concern.
Ask your state legislators to keep the rigs out, via Save the Manatee Club.
Write a letter to the editor, via Audubon of Florida.
Write your state legislators, via Audubon of Florida.
Urge Senate President Jeff Atwater to oppose offshore oil drilling, via Progress Florida.
Tell Sen. Atwater Not To Allow Oil Drilling In Special Session, via Audubon of Florida.
Sign the petition against oil drilling, via Protect Florida’s Beaches.
Tell Salazar: No drilling off Florida's Coast, via Environment Florida.
Tell new Senator LeMieux to Repower America, via Environment Florida.
Related action: Don't go drill crazy in the Everglades, via Center for Biological Diversity.
Related action: Keep oil drilling out of climate change legislation, via Oceana.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES OF NOTE
Hands Across The Sand website; their Twitter page is here.
Protect Florida’s Beaches, recently launched coalition website.
Protect Florida’s Beaches on Facebook.
Think, Baby, Think blog via Protect Florida’s Beaches.
Don’t Drill Florida website.
Don’t Drill Florida Facebook page.
Save Our Shores Florida website; their Twitter page is here.
Floridians Against Big Oil social network.
Save Our Shores Florida Facebook page.
Florida Coastal and Ocean Coalition website.
Environment Florida offshore drilling page.
Southern Alliance for Clean Energy offshore drilling page.
Skytruth blog, an excellent source of info.
Not the Answer blog, courtesy Surfrider Foundation.
Eye-opening map of oil and gas leases and infrastructure in Gulf of Mexico, via MMS.
EnergyFLA.com, online hub of drilling proponents; their Twitter page is here.
Cumulative oil slick "footprint" resulting from the 10-week Montara oil platform blowout and spill that occurred in the Timor Sea off Western Australia in 2009; superimposed on the Gulf coast of Florida for scale. More info here.
State to have trouble meeting water needs
Gainesville Sun
Like Apple Pie: Everyone Wants Water
WFSU Public Radio Tallahassee
Airport Built, It’s Time to See if the Traffic Comes
New York Times
State report raises doubts about renewable energy goals
Florida Tribune
State could shrink cleanup list
Florida Tribune
Python season opens on state lands; all you need is a license and $26 permit
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Whooping cranes settle into life at winter home
Ocala Star-Banner
January chill killed corals in Keys, less damage to Palm Beach County and Treasure Coast areas
Miami Herald via Palm Beach Post
McClash, Thaxton debate Amendment 4
Bradenton Herald
After listening to Joe McClash and Jon Thaxton debate Hometown Democracy for an hour Tuesday night in Town Hall, an audience of 64 seemed split.
By Diane Brown
It is not surprising that Bay County commissioners want to stop passage of Amendment 4, a constitutional amendment on the November ballot.
By Katherine Albers
Voting for it has been called a move to “put the power back into the people’s hands” and “pulling the pin on a hand grenade for the state of Florida.”
By Curtis Morgan
It started out so big, so bold and with so much promise for healing the River of Grass that environmentalists
By Caren Burmeister
Three centuries of commercial whaling nearly exterminated the North Atlantic right whale that's seen off the coast of Jacksonville and Ponte Vedra Beach during the winter calving season.
By Michael C. Bender and Paul Quinlan
It's hard to overestimate how personally important Gov. Charlie Crist considers the half-billion-dollar land deal he brokered with U.S. Sugar Corp. in the name of Everglades restoration.
By Robert Samuels
As a bill banning the sale and trade of Burmese pythons and other invasive reptiles came up for a vote at a House committee hearing Wednesday, sponsor Rep. Trudi Williams made a mockingly stern request: "No hissing, members."
Editorial
Like everything involving the Everglades, the state's agreement to purchase 72,800 acres of U.S. Sugar Corp. land for $536 million has its share of champions and critics. But though it's less than perfect, the deal is worth doing.
Editorial
Consultants pushing the 5,000-home Rybolt Park development near the region's prized Econlockhatchee River say they expect a "favorable" decision on its future today from the Orange County Commission.
By The Editors
Florida officials are stepping up efforts to deal with the python population in the Everglades, measures that include a special hunting season that begins on state lands on Monday.
Editorial
After nearly a half-decade of unrelenting and unwelcome pressure on local governments and utilities to pony up hundred of millions of dollars to pump Central and North Florida's lakes and rivers to meet the region's long-term water needs, the St. Johns River Water Management District is suddenly embracing a new, more economical strategy.
Manatee Springs.
Wildwood Preservation Society is a non-profit 501(c)(4) project of the Advocacy Consortium for the Common Good. Click here to learn more.
