30 Days in Florida; Environment News

Environmental News for Florida; the last 30 days

This Florida News briefing made possible from the sale of Green License Plates and EarthRehab

Florida has been a hot spot for Environmental News over the last 30 days. I would like to highlight and link to a few great moments.

June 24, 2008- Governor Crist tells US Sugar to pack their bags and buys back a section of the “River of Grass.”
The Sugar Deal

July 7-11, 2008- To kick off the 11th International Coral Reef Symposium, Governor Charlie Crist signed a bill to close all of the sewage pipes that pump 300 million gallons of untreated sewage into the Atlantic Gulf-stream. Ed Tichenor and Reef Rescue of the Palm Beaches get the hard won victory and credit.
The Sewage Deal

July 16, 2008- Surfrider Foundation and the City of Lake Worth join in a lawsuit to stop the useless Dredge and Fill projects that suffocate the Reefs.
The Dredge Lawsuit

July 16, 2008- Ciguatera Outbreak, 5 cases reported in Florida. Ciguatera is a disease caused when you eat reef fish that have consumed Harmful Algae Blooms.
The Ciguatera Outbreak

July 17, 2008- EarthJustice files a lawsuit for Clean Water Act enforcement in Florida vs. Harmful Algae Blooms.
The Clean Water Lawsuit

Help celebrate Environmental Victories and support Nature Research with the 100% Bright Blank Recycled Green License Plate by EarthRehab.
Check out the photos.

Water Quality Monitoring and TMDL

The Term Water Quality Monitoring and Abbreviations WQMS and TMDL will become more familiar over the next century.
The simple fact that our Current System for calculating TMDL or Total Maximum Daily Loads for a Water Quality Monitoring Standard is broken.You could spend an entire week researching future and past meeting minutes and power point presentations regarding WQMS and come to the only conclusion, our current Water Quality Monitoring System is broken; and the standard for judging clean healthy water is broken.
Here are the Minutes for a meeting in December 2007: http://acwi.gov/monitoring/minutes/san_diego_120407.html

If any Group or Foundation claims to be a Coral Reef Initiative, the very first step should be a Water Quality Monitoring Program.Without a Water Quality Monitoring Program in place and working they are just spinning their wheels and wasting their investors money.

EarthRehab has established a Coral Reef Initiative in which Phase 1 is to establish a Water Quality Monitoring Program for South East Florida and The Atlantic Ocean Gulf-stream.

The funding for this program is made possible solely by the sale of Our Green License Plate, with proceeds to benefit Nature Research.visit http://www.earthrehab.com/

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Marine Preserve proposal for SE Florida; at FWC

Marine Preserve proposal w/ public hearing today..

Marine Preserve from coastline to 90 ft. for SouthEast Florida proposal.(credit to Sun Sentinel)

The federal government is now proposing to declare an extensive protected area for the two species from the coasts of Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties through the Florida Keys to the U.S. islands of the Caribbean.
Designation of the 4,931-square-mile area could affect plans for beach-widening, port expansions, sewage discharges, ship anchoring and other coastal activities.
Although it is unlikely to halt them, it would add a layer of scrutiny that could force changes or relocations to avoid harming the corals, said Sarah Heberling, natural resource specialist for the National Marine Fisheries Service

Invitation to collaborate for this effort.(credit to Ed Tichnor, Executive Director of Reef Rescue)

Critical Habitat designation Proposed to protect threatened Florida Corals Under the Endangered Species Act the federal government has proposed designating almost 5,000 square miles of reef area off the coasts of Florida, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands as critical habitat for the protection of threatened Staghorn and Elkhorn corals.
The area includes all coastal waters in Palm Beach County from the beach out to 90 feet deep. Critical habitat is one of the most important safety nets for wildlife listed under the Endangered Species Act, said Miyoko Sakashita, attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity.

A public hearing will be held on the proposal Tuesday, March 4, 7-9 p.m. at the International Game Fish Association, 300 Gulf Stream Way, Dania Beach.

EarthRehab’s William will attend "said" meeting and keep this thread posted of the outfalls.

Atlantic Water Quality Monitoring update

Hello Ocean Eco-Activists,

I wanted to give you an update regarding our Water Quality Monitoring program for Palm Beach County. (on hold for now)

As I previously mentioned, we were interested in finding out if the public would support a Non-profit/Non-funded Independent Water Quality Monitoring program with donations.

Pilot Phase 1 of the project would include: (collaboration not partnerships)
A) EarthRehab and Volunteers (possibly Jupiter High School Environment Club) to collect the Live water samples and obtain data like temperature, salinity, date, time, visibility, current tide status, and photography.
B) Samples would be delivered to Reef Rescue for fecal coliform bacterium testing.
C) Test results would be deciphered by SEFCRI, made public, and copies would be sent directly to the sponsors.

I submitted several news stories regarding my intentions and posted on-line in Forums and Message Boards including YourHub, Topix, Palm Beach Post, Orlando Sentinel, Sun-Sentinel and many others.
Unfortunately I could not find a pulse or get any response from the general public without the support of BIG media.

From December 14th up to our current date several Funds and Grants have been made available from EPA, and DEP (millions) to establish and maintain a WQM program.

We (EarthRehab) have invited the EPA and DEP to discuss the funding further and have approached the Dept. of Agriculture for appropriate legal direction.

I will continue to seek for the Media to announce our program and its mission.
‘An Independent WQM program for the Atlantic Ocean and Florida’s Future.’

Cordially,

William Djubin
Founder
EarthRehab
http://www.mygreenlicenseplate.com/

Water Quality Standards

Mentorship received a few years back:
A 2 time General manager of the Year at the #3 busiest restaurant in Orlando held a meeting with his Mgmt. team, I was a member and was present.
He asked for the current Assistant General Manager to leave the table and go into the kitchen and return with a cooking pan that meets our standards.
A short dispute arose on his return with a clean new pan; so the General Manger went to the kitchen and returned with a filthy, blackened from carbon, rusty Pan and exclaimed:

'No, this is our current standard for cookware, simply because we allow it to exist.'

We fixed the cookware issue immediately and also terminated the bottom 12 personnel on the Staff, mixed from different departments.
We raised our Standards by 40% quickly and consequentially increased our volume.

Reason for the short story:
Water quality standards should not be judged at their best, nor should they be judged vs. other bodies of water from other locations.If we (Florida) have 272 known bodies of water classified as Impaired, and that possibly over 1000 may exist, then Our Current Water Quality Standard is “Impaired.”

272 Water Bodies Impaired in Florida

the original web-site that brought you this report
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/dec2007/2007-12-21-092.asp

Thank you Environment News Service.