Eco-Voice Digest
 
Sunday, June 17th, 2012  #1339
In This Issue
Record Payments for Counties with Fed Lands
Coastal Center Newsletter
Land and Water Conservation Fund
EPA Regional Director on 'Gades cleanup
Solar Power in Sunshine State
New WMD from DEP
Peace River Park - restoration site
Living with Panthers
Urbanization!
Red Tide Maps
CEPP Task Force Meeting 12/16
Everglades Foundation Website
SFWMD 2012 Report
Green News Links

 

 


HAPPY FATHER'S DAY 

 

  An Eco-Voice 2012 Sponsor 

 

 

  

 

Southwest Florida Watershed Council

 

The mission of the Southwest Florida Watershed Council

 is to protect, conserve, manage and/or restore the land

 and water resources of the Caloosahatchee and

Big Cypress Watersheds. Through increased awareness, participation and cooperation among all stakeholders in consensus building, planning and decision making, we are working to meet the economic, natural and cultural needs for this and succeeding generations.

 

 

  Get the Daily Digest

Limestone rainbow
Limestone rainbow
Peace River Gardner -- Mark Renz photo

 

 

 

Feds announce record payments to counties in lieu of paying property taxes

 

 


Bruce Ritchie,  

Florida counties will receive nearly $4.9 million in payments from the federal government in lieu of property taxes on federal lands, U.S. Interior Ken Salazar announced Thursday.

The payments are made to counties based on the amount of federal acreage. The federal government is paying a record amount this year and Salazar wants Congress to reauthorize the program, which is set to expire. 

"It is hard to overstate the impact of (payment in lieu of taxes) funding for rural counties in particular, where these investments can make the difference in keeping a search and rescue crew on the job or a teacher in the classroom," Salazar said in a news release.
Collier County, home to Everglades National Park, Big Cypress National Park, Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge and Ten Thousand Islands National Wildlife Refuge, will receive more than $1.2 million -- the most of any Florida County.
Monroe County will receive the second largest payment at $1.1 million and Dade County is third, receiving $853,512.......

  

 

 

 


 

 

 

Oceans Month

 

 

What's New at the Coastal Center
Fishing Exhibit
Our newest addition to the Children's pavilion is an interactive fishing activity funded by a donatation from the Treasure Coast Golf Superintendent's Association.
As we brainstormed how to actually have kids mock-fishing in the pavilion, Michelle Byriel, our Education and Exhibit Specialist, piped in that she always wanted a boat in there. Before we knew it Nicole Bowser, our Administrative Assistant, was on the phone figuring out how to get one.
The tricky part was creating the fish and how to hook them and that's where Steve Rusnak, our Operations Manager, made the magic happen. He fashioned a piece of the ocean with a place for each of twenty different fish. There are ten fish species and two of each kind, one legal-sized and one not the right size.
Children hook the fish, identify it using our new sign and then determine if it's legal to keep after measuring it on a special fish-cleaning table donated by Wallaby Fabrications in Fort Pierce.
Children of all ages have been having lots of fun testing their fishing skills and learning at the same time.

 

 

Dads Get In FREE!
Spend Father's Day at the Coastal Center. Dads get in FREE with a paying child. more...

 

 

 

 

 

The Land and Water Conservation Fund conserves irreplaceable lands and and improves outdoor recreation opportunities across the nation.
 
 

 

 

 

 

All dressed up
All dressed up and nowhere to grow
Mark Renz photo

 

 

 

 Agreement on pollutants will help restore Everglades

 

By Gwen Keyes Fleming, EPA,  special to the Times
  


We are all painfully familiar with the decline of the Everglades over the years. One of the sources of this decline is phosphorus pollution from agricultural sources and urban runoff. This pollution has caused thousands of acres of destroyed and degraded habitat, and hindered our ability to truly enjoy this landmark. Restoring the Everglades will also have significant economic benefits. The Everglades supports tourism, recreation, agriculture and supplies drinking water to a growing South Florida population. The ecosystem also supports jobs and contributes billions to Florida's economy.

On Wednesday, the Environmental Protection Agency took a significant step toward restoration when we found that permits submitted by the state of Florida will satisfy the agency by taking specific measures to improve water quality to levels that will restore and protect the Everglades. These permits were submitted in response to a September 2010 amended determination, authored by EPA and filed in federal court, which provided a blueprint for remedies needed to restore water quality in the Everglades. The state built upon and modified that work, proposed an alternative approach, and has further modified the proposal at the request of EPA.

Restoring the Everglades is one of the largest, most ambitious and complex ecological restorations ever undertaken, requiring a coordinated effort among many stakeholders to be successful. Over the last two years, the EPA, Florida Department of Environmental Protection and South Florida Water Management District have worked closely to develop a plan that contains a set of scientifically sound restoration projects to reduce phosphorus pollution. We will remain an active partner with the state in overseeing implementation of the plan.

The state's package has many positive attributes. There will be a formal, science-based protective limit known as Water Quality Based Effluent Limit on phosphorous pollution discharges into the Everglades. This limit will be achieved by implementing a suite of projects on a specified schedule, and includes a state and federal enforceability framework agreed to by the parties. While EPA would prefer an earlier schedule for implementing the corrective actions, EPA is hopeful the timetable can be accelerated if circumstances and resources permit.

The Obama administration and the EPA are firmly committed to protecting and restoring the Everglades. In fact, the administration has reinvigorated federal leadership in Everglades restoration, investing more than $1.4 billion to jump-start construction projects and protect essential habitat on working lands.

EPA appreciates the hard work that Florida's DEP has undertaken to deliver this final package to us. This effort puts the state back on the path to achieve the final levels of phosphorus removal that will protect the Everglades, paving the way for other major restoration projects that depend on clean water. The most important thing is to begin now on this final phase of restoring water quality in the international treasure that is the Everglades.

 

Gwen Keyes Fleming is the regional administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 4.


  
 

 

 

   

Florida lags behind other states on generating solar energy

 

By Ivan Penn, Times Staff Writer

 

 

 

 

Ask state lawmakers why Florida doesn't focus more on solar energy and they'll complain about too many clouds.

So with little political will to aggressively tap the sun, Florida now lags behind other not-as-sunny places such as Massachusetts, Ohio, New York and New Jersey in developing more solar capacity.

New Jersey installed the most new solar in the first quarter of 2012, according to a report released Wednesday by the Solar Energy Industries Association. Florida ranked 14th.

The difference was huge. New Jersey added almost 174 megawatts from January to March. At that rate, the state would add the equivalent of a mid-sized nuclear reactor to its electrical capacity by the end of the year.

Florida added just 2.8 megawatts.

California still led in overall solar generation (1,662 megawatts). Florida ranked a distant 10th with less than 6 percent of California's total, according to the solar industry report.

Why is the Sunshine State falling behind in development of solar electricity? Several reasons.

The primary one, experts say, is a lack of a state requirement or even a goal for increasing the amount of solar electricity. Florida is one of just 14 states - almost all in the southeast United States - without a renewable energy policy standard or goal.

"Fundamentally, it's a policy issue," said Tom Kimbis, a vice president at Solar Energy Industries Association, during a conference call about the report. "If you look at where solar gets installed, it's the states that have the right policies in place."

James Fenton, director of the Florida Solar Energy Center at the University of Central Florida, put it this way: "Florida itself does not have a vision for its future. That's true on everything in Florida, but particularly in regard to energy."

Rep. Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, and the incoming speaker of the House, said that renewable energy standards require subsidies to corporations to entice them to generate more electricity from sources like solar or wind. He said he believes solar will play "a larger part of energy production in Florida and across the world," but he would rather the falling price of solar dictate whether to invest in it rather than government mandates.

"Subsidies mean people have to pay more," Weatherford said. "It's essentially a tax. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing that we don't have a standard."

In 2006, former Gov. Charlie Crist pushed for a policy that would have required 20 percent of the state's energy to come from renewable energy sources by 2020, but that effort died.

State lawmakers scuttled the idea, saying Florida's "intermittent cloud cover," or essentially clouds that come and go, would disrupt solar power generation and make it unreliable. It's a claim lawmakers echo today.

"I heard that for 10 years ... intermittent cloud cover," said Susan Glickman, a lobbyist for the environmental group Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. "A good number of states have set targets for renewable energy and that helps to create a market where renewable energy can thrive and Florida policy makers have not done that."

Tim Leljedal, a spokesman for Progress Energy, said solar is a part of Florida's energy solution but that it is only "a piece of the puzzle."

"We need to make sure we build and install capacity that meets needs at all times," Leljedal said. "When you look at solar generation, it is by its very nature ... intermittent."

Progress Energy offers rebates and assistance to customers who want to install solar, and the utility pays for installation of solar at schools throughout its Florida service territory.

But the state has only once offered a major incentive for utilities to build large-scale solar. Florida Power & Light, the state's largest utility, snatched it up to build three solar electric power sites. FPL was allowed to recover the costs by adding 25 cents per 1,000 kilowatt hours of usage to customers' bills each month. (The average residential customer uses about 1,000 to 1,200 kilowatt hours a month.)

FPL is now the largest solar energy producer in the state, though solar accounts for less than 1 percent of its total power generation.

Another factor hindering the growth of solar in Florida: In other states, the cost of solar is the same or cheaper than other sources. In Florida, it's not, at least yet.

Last year, Fenton presented a state-by-state breakdown of the average cost to produce a kilowatt of electricity based on 2009 figures during a forum about solar energy.

With the cost of solar running about 16 cents a kilowatt, Fenton said, it is less than what utility customers in Massachusetts pay for electricity at 17.4 cents and those in New Jersey at 16.6 cents.

"Their existing rates for electricity are more expensive," Fenton said. "They're suffering. They have pain. They're looking for options... and solar's prices are coming down."

In Florida, the cost of solar remains higher than the average cost of retail electricity. Based on Fenton's numbers, Florida's average was 12.3 cents in 2009.

But because the price of solar continues to drop, it will eventually make economic sense, he said.

"If you have a choice between building a natural gas plant or solar, from a utility standpoint, you're going to choose natural gas," Fenton said. But he predicts that "solar will be cheaper than natural gas by 2022."

Ivan Penn can be reached at ipenn@tampabay.com or (727) 892-2332.

 

 

 

 

Old World map
Old World map
Peacock butterfly -- Mark Renz photo 

 

 

With water fears rising, DEP's Ann Shortelle picked to lead Suwannee River water district
Bruce Ritchie,  

Ann Shortelle was named executive director of the Suwannee River Water Management District on June 12. She is director of the Office of Water Policy at the Florida Department of Environmental Protection until she starts with the district on June 18.

LIVE OAK -- Amid concerns about the region's water future, Ann Shortelle of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection was picked Tuesday to lead the Suwannee River Water Management District.

Shortelle, 58, becomes the third DEP manager in the past 13 months to be tapped as a water management district chief. The directors of all five districts resigned or were pushed out within 15 months of Gov. Rick Scott taking office.

As director of DEP's Office of Water Policy, Shortelle said everybody has heard the rumors of a department takeover of the districts -- but she says they're not true. She said she applied for the job because she loved it.

"I don't think there is a conspiracy," she said. "I like the job that I have at DEP. I had to apply for this job. I love this water management district -- I always have."

As district executive director, she'll earn $133,848 annually -- the same her predecessor earned. At DEP she earned $101,700 since taking over the Office of Water Policy this past August.

At DEP she said she had close connections with the districts and will continue to be involved in a department initiative to improve consistency among the districts on water-use permitting. The department expects to hold a series of workshops across the state in August.

"We have been working very hard the last many months since I've been on staff at DEP to bring the water management districts together to break down communication barriers and work on consistency issues," Shortelle said. "And the water management districts have been great about that."

David Still resigned as executive director of the Suwannee River water district in February on the same day he told a Senate panel during his confirmation hearing that district residents were "mad as hell" and were looking for revenge.

The district says water use in Jacksonville in the neighboring St. Johns River Water Management District is affecting the flows of Suwannee River springs. The Suwannee district this week is enacting its first-ever residential watering restrictions as heavy rains from Tropical Storm Beryl in May failed to improve groundwater levels, according to agency scientists.

Asked whether the district is on the right course for its water future, Shortelle said the Suwannee River Water Management District came to the realization in 2010 that anticipated water supplies will not necessarily meet the district's future growth needs.

"They are turning the ship and putting their foot on the accelerator with regard to their (water supply) plans and projects," she said. "We do have a lot to do but I'm excited about the challenge."

 

Reporter Bruce Ritchie can be reached at britchie@thefloridacurrent.com.

 

 

 

Peace River at Mosaic Park at Bartow.  Access to phosphate mining  site  restored in '70s.

 

 

 

 Engineers hope project to raise level of Lake Hancock will help ease Peace River problems  


TheLedger.com
 
BARTOW | In wet years, expect to see more of Lake Hancock. In dry years, expect to see more of the Peace River. That's the plan anyway.
Southwest Florida Water Management District officials are building a new, taller control structure on Saddle Creek south of the lake. It will regulate the lake level and replaces a smaller one built in 1963.
That new $6 million dam-like structure, which is being built by Censtate Contractors of Winter Haven, will allow the lake to rise to 100 feet above sea level. The current apparatus, which cost $65,000 half a century ago, allowed the lake to rise to a maximum elevation of 98.7 feet.
The replacement will keep more water in the 4,519-acre lake so it can be released downstream to keep the Peace River flowing during all but the most serious droughts.
WILL IT WORK ?
Lake Hancock and the upper Peace River are at the mercy of weather and geology.
The highest recorded level was 101.88 feet above sea level on Sept. 16., 1960, following ­Hurricane Donna. The lake-level project will increase the base flood elevation from 102 feet above sea level to 103.85 feet, Swiftmud engineer Scott Letasi said.
The lowest recorded level was 93.98 feet on May 23, 1968, after a sinkhole drained the lake. The lake also declined seriously during the 2000-2001 drought.
Flow in the Peace River at Bartow pretty much reflects the same extremes.
Given that history, one recurring question is whether the lake-level plan will really work.
FACTS:
Lake Hancock Timeline
* 1850: First government survey of Lake Hancock, which likes at the head of the Peace River in an area surrounded by Lakeland, Winter Haven and Bartow.
* 1927: Lakeland sewer plant begins discharging into Stahl Canal, which connects to the 4,500-acre Lake Hancock via Banana Lake and Banana Creek.
* 1952-1968: Phosphate mining under way on east and south sides of Lake Hancock.
* 1960: Lake Hancock reaches 101.88 feet above sea level following Hurricane Donna.
* 1963: Control structure completed on Saddle Creek south of Lake Hancock to regulate lake level, replacing old drainage structure that dates from 1930s.
* 1968: News story mentions suggestion to mine Lake Hancock to ease serious pollution. Sinkhole in lake seriously drops water level to 93.98 feet.
* 1985: State wildlife officials use Lake Hancock as site for experimental alligator hunts as prelude to resumption of legal alligator hunting in Florida. State environmental officials ban pollution discharges from industrial and sewer plants into Lake Lena Run, one of the lake's sources of water.
* 1987: Lakeland halts sewer discharges into Lake Hancock via Banana Lake.
* 1986-88: Consultant studies feasibility of mining Lake Hancock bottom to aid restoration, concludes it's not feasible.
* 1989: Major fish kill leaves an estimated 1 million fish dead.
* 2000: Drought hits Lake Hancock, leaving lake bottom parched.
* 2001: Circle B Bar Reserve along Lake Hancock purchased.
* 2002: Southwest Florida Water Management District officials begin discussing raising lake's level to as high as 100.5 feet above sea level.
* 2004: Lake Hancock level reaches 101.5 feet above sea level following series of hurricanes.
* 2007: Swiftmud governing board votes for project to raise Lake Hancock level from 98.7 feet "up to" 100 feet above sea level. Plan proposed for recreational uses of land around lake, including trail system and boat ramp.
* 2008: Swiftmud begins buying 32 homes and 8,000 acres of land in areas expected to flood as a result of higher regulated lake level. Tab comes to $118 million, though some of land will be sold to recoup part of the cost.
* 2011: Work begins on development of filter marshes on south side of lake to clean up water flowing downstream.
* 2012: Work begins on replacement of structure south of lake to allow for higher lake level as part of plan to use Lake Hancock as a reservoir to maintain minimum flow in Peace River. Plans for boat ramp shelved.

  

 

 

 

Take a Walk to Protect People, Pets, Livestock, Bears and Panthers

 

What: Volunteer to join us in walking a neighborhood in northern Golden Gate Estates to distribute information to residents on how to live responsibly with Florida panthers, bears, and other southwest Florida wildlife.

 

When: Saturday, June 23, 2012

At 8:00a.m.

 

Where:

Golden Gate Estates Library

1266 Golden Gate Blvd., W.

Naples, FL 34120

 

Sign up by contacting Shannon Miller at Defenders of Wildlife smiller@defenders.org

 or (727)823-3888 or Lisa Östberg at

(239)642-5472 or SwedeLisa@aol.com

 

 

 

 



 

 At the basis of Florida deep hidden troubles is its rapidly expanding population.

 The socio-economic concept of perpetual growth is just not sustainable. Urbanization of natural landscapes is actually threatening the people.   
 

 

 

 
Preschool introductions
Preschool introductions
Cattle egrets (left), Tri-colored herons (right)
Mark Renz photo 

 

 

 

Red Tide Report

 



Please follow this link to the current statewide interactive Google Earth map:
Tables and maps of sample results are   available   on our Web site: (http://myfwc.com/research/redtide/events/status/statewide/).
 

 

 

 

 
  
 

 

  
South Florida Ecosystem Restoration  Meetings   

www.sfrestore.org
    

 

 

 

 

.

 

 

Everglades Foundation website

 

http://www.evergladesfoundation.org/ 

 

 

 Please  learn  more about the locations and current status of efforts underway to save America's Everglades.  Please feel free to contact us with comments or questions at info@evergladesfoundation.org.

 

 

  

 

South Florida Water Management District

 

2012 Environmental Report  

 
         

Marking the 14th year of agency consolidated reporting, the 2012 South Florida Environmental Report unifies dozens of reports into a three-volume publication, complemented by an  Executive Summary.  

Spanning the entire South Florida region, Volume I findings were derived from various monitoring and research projects and highlight the District's financial management during the  reporting period. Volume II provides an annual update on the planning and project status for eight annual reports required of all water management districts. Volume III expands on Volume I by further streamlining unified reporting and complying with various permit-related reporting requirements.


  


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