Sign-On Statement

 As many of you are aware, the House and Senate are currently in conference debating two versions of a Transportation bill in the hope of finding agreement on one final package to pass before June 30th. The Senate's version of the Transportation bill (S. 1813) contains a critical provision that was added during floor consideration of bill in March. It provides $700 million for the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) in each the next two years and was passed with an overwhelming 76-22 bipartisan vote.

It is imperative that this LWCF amendment added to the Senate transportation package is included in the final transportation bill that the House and Senate are now negotiating. To ensure that we have robust and consistent funding for LWCF through this transportation bill, we must show the depth and breadth of support for LWCF across the country. Therefore, we are circulating a statement of support for LWCF in the Transportation bill (see attached and below for full statement) which urges that this critical LWCF provision be included in the final Transportation package. Doing so will help stimulate our nation's outdoor recreation economy, create jobs that can't be exported overseas and provide access to open space across the country. LWCF makes a substantial contribution to these critical priorities by supporting the economic asset that our federal, state and local public lands represent.

As a supporter of LWCF, we greatly appreciate the leadership you have shown for this important program. This is a big and timely opportunity - maybe the best opportunity we will have this year - to ensure that LWCF receives the funding needed to protect and conserve critical land and water across our country. Please consider signing onto this statement by Friday, May 25th so that we can show Congress how important it is to our local communities that LWCF be included in the final Transportation bill this year.

We urge your organization to not only sign onto the statement, but also encourage you to pass it along to the network of partners groups you work with and encourage them to sign on as well. In this way, we can reach more and more people like you across the country who understand how important LWCF is.

Thank for you for your continued support of LWCF and if you have questions or would like to sign the statement, please email Gareth Jones of Outdoors America at:

gjones@outdoorsamerica.org
 

Your support at this historic juncture in the fight to ensure consistent LWCF funding is critical and much-appreciated!

Please Support LWCF in Transportation Package- Sign on Statement below

As a broad coalition of sportsmen, business, recreation, historic preservation and conservation leaders concerned with America's outdoor heritage, we express our strong support for the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) provision included in the Senate-passed Transportation bill. This provision, which was approved on the Senate floor with an overwhelming 76 bipartisan votes, directly addresses several of the most urgent conservation, access and funding problems facing American hunters and anglers, outdoor businesses, and recreationists today at the same time that it provides for state and local recreation projects, working forest and ranching easements and protection of our unique American history. As the Transportation conference between the House and Senate proceeds, we strongly urge that the LWCF amendment passed in the Senate is included in the final legislation.

LWCF represents a promise that was made to the American people almost 50 years ago to take the proceeds from natural resource development in our nation's Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) and invest a small portion of those dollars in conservation and outdoor recreation. It is an incredibly successful bipartisan program that, in its nearly five decades of existence, has touched all fifty states and nearly every county in America. Despite that success, however, the central promise of LWCF has remained largely unfulfilled-- almost every year in its half-century of existence, only about one-third of LWCF's authorized funding has actually been directed to its intended conservation purpose. Every part of the LWCF program is oversubscribed, with the demand for state and local recreational needs, access for sportsmen, working lands opportunities and conservation driven by strong local support far exceeding the funds that have been available.

The Senate-passed amendment represents a critical opportunity to begin addressing the backlog of unmet needs this diversion has created, and build a solid base of state, local and national recreation as well as conservation funding in the short-term while we continue working toward a permanent fix. As a reminder:

·LWCF is already paid for - without using a single taxpayer dollar. Every year, $900 million is deposited into LWCF from the many billions of dollars the Treasury collects from offshore oil drilling and other federal energy revenue sources. Congress created LWCF with a simple idea in mind: when we sell oil and gas that belongs to all Americans, at least a small portion of the proceeds should be reinvested in something of lasting value for us all. NO tax dollars or other general revenues are used for LWCF.

·The Senate LWCF Provision Funds Only Willing-Seller Conservation. The Senate language guarantees that any land purchase under the bill - as is typically the case for LWCF purchases - will be from willing sellers. Across America, landowners needing to sell their properties want to see those lands conserved for public use. Providing LWCF funds honors their property rights as willing sellers, including their rights to fair compensation, and their public-spirited intent as landowners. The Senate language explicitly ensures that property rights will be respected and that landowners will be treated fairly.

·The LWCF Provision Expands Recreation Access for Hunting, Fishing, and Other Public Use. LWCF is essential to make public lands public by securing recreation access, particularly where opportunities for sportsmen and others to access public lands are limited or precluded. Language in the Senate bill that is strongly supported by sportsmen ensures a sustained commitment to resolving access issues long after the bill's two-year term. The Senate LWCF provision opens more land to the public.

·LWCF also provides critical funding to states for state and local park needs as well as funding for the Forest Legacy Program, which allows for working lands easements keeping jobs in the woods throughout the country.

* LWCF supports a vibrant and important part of our nation's economy. The Senate-passed amendment ensures continued investments in the economic asset that our federal, state and local public lands represent. The parks, trails, forests, wildlife refuges, battlefields, historic sites, and working lands sustained by LWCF funding support an outdoor recreation and tourism sector that contributes a total of $1.06 trillion annually to the American economy, supporting 9.4 million jobs (1 out of every 15 jobs in the U.S.).

We are well aware that difficult choices must be made in this time of fiscal austerity. As we measure those choices based on their effects on America's people, communities, and economy, the need for sustained investments through LWCF is clear. The Land and Water Conservation Fund has long been supported in a bipartisan fashion with important oversight provided by Congress through the Appropriations Committees. As Congress considers how best to meet our nation's infrastructure needs, we urge inclusion of the LWCF provision in the final transportation bill as an historic step forward to provide this country with the critical recreation infrastructure necessary for strong economic growth.

Thank you!

Lindsey

Lindsey Levick

National Conservation Representative

The Wilderness Society | Central Rockies Regional Office

office: 303.650.5818x134|cell: 303.895.9253

We protect wilderness and inspire Americans to care for our wild places

 Collier closing books on strong tourist season

 By JENNA BUZZACCO-FOERSTER

   

NAPLES -More feet on the street. More toes in the sand. More tushes in the seats of local restaurants.

Tourism officials say more people visited Southwest Florida in the first quarter of the year - nearly an 8 percent increase in Collier County alone - compared to a year ago.

Officials said the uptick in visitors is a sign of good times to come, but they're acutely aware visitor numbers have miles to go before they match the peak tourism years of the mid-2000s. Still, increased group bookings and direct visitor spending means tourism is on the rebound.

"That's a good sign the economy is getting better, but we aren't back to what we would call the top years," Collier County tourism director Jack Wert said. "That was the height of it and it's going to take a long time (to get there)."

Collier County saw about 551,500 visitors in the first quarter of 2012, according to an April 30 report to Collier County's tourism development council. That's up 7.8 percent over the same period in 2011.

Direct visitor spending in Collier also is up: Visitors spent more than $537.5 million in the first quarter, up 12.9 percent from the same time last year.

More than 816,000 visitors came to Lee County in the first two months of 2012,.....

 

 May rains bringing watery relief for Everglades, drinking water supplies

 

By Andy Reid

 

 

South Florida water supplies - from drinking water wellfields to the Everglades - are benefiting from steady May showers that followed an April soaking.

While the 16-county region stretching from Orlando to the Keys still has an almost 6-inch rainfall deficit since November, continued rainy weather is helping ease South Florida's otherwise drier-than-usual winter-to-spring dry season.

April's average rainfall of nearly 3.4 inches was almost a full inch above normal for what is typically one of the driest months of the year.

And a series of rainy days in May is a taste of what's expected to come during the summer rainy season.

"We think we may be seeing a glimmer of hope," said Tommy Strowd, director of operations for the South Florida Water Management District.

Thanks to the rain, groundwater levels - relied on to fuel drinking water supplies - are largely at normal levels along the southeast coast of Florida, according to the district.

Also, the Everglades water conservation areas in western Palm Beach and Broward counties are above normal water levels. That's good news for wildlife habitat that last month was drying out in the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge, considered the northern reaches of the Everglades.

While the rainfall has been a big boost for water supplies along the southeast coast, including Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, not enough as been falling north of Lake Okeechobee. Rainfall in the Kissimmee River region is needed to send water flowing into Lake Okeechobee, which serves as South Florida's primary back-up water supply.

Lake Okeechobee dropped about half a foot during the past month, down to about 11.62 feet above sea level. While that's nearly two feet below normal, it's almost one foot higher than this time last year.

Water levels rising down south mean "significant improvement" for wildlife habitat in the Everglades, but Lake Okeechobee's dried-out marshes rimming the lake are still "waiting for recovery," said Terrie Bates, district water resources director.

Wading birds and other wildlife are still trying to rebound from last year's drought conditions that diminished the smaller prey species they feed on, Bates said.

 

 

Copyright © 2012, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

 Note:  The SFWMD continues to recomend that no evironmental releases be made to the Caloosahatche despite continued MFL violations and a rising Lake O level.   

The River, Estuary and Coastal Observing Network (RECON) is a network of optical water quality sensors deployed throughout the Caloosahatchee river and estuary to provide real-time, water quality data to scientists, policy makers, and the general public. RECON's network of high-quality, autonomous, in situ sensors can detect the presence of algal blooms and nutrient hotspots.

The extensive watersheds of the Caloosahatchee (1,400 square miles) and Lake Okeechobee (4,400 square miles) each contribute water that flows into the Caloosahatchee estuary and the Gulf of Mexico. Water quality is affected by both Lake Okeechobee discharges and runoff from the Caloosahatchee watershed. Over time, these watersheds have changed from low-nutrient loading marshes and wetlands to high loading urban and agricultural land uses. Nutrients increase turbidity and decrease concentrations of dissolved oxygen (DO). In addition, excess nutrients fuel nuisance algal blooms. Losses of low-nutrient adapted communities, such as seagrasses have contributed to changes in fish, crustacean and marine mammal communities.

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To preserve and enhance the commercial, recreational, and ecological values of District waterways

The West Coast Inland Navigation District
 (the "District") is a multi-county special taxing district, comprised of Manatee, Sarasota, Charlotte, and Lee counties, with an estimated 1.1 million people. The District assists in the planning and implementation of waterway projects that promote safe navigation and the enjoyment of water-based activities, such as boating, fishing, and beach recreation.

CHNEP grants:

The Charlotte Harbor National Estuary Program (NEP)  Micro-grant applications are accepted throughout the year.

 Micro-Grants are available for up to $250.

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