Florida no longer the "Sunshine" State

Time Magazine's Michael Grunwald recently wrote an excellent article on all the problems that South Florida's currently facing, including the housing and economic crises. Of the environmental crisis, he speaks at length.

Here, an excerpt of Grunwald's Is Florida the Sunset State?:

Florida now has 18 million residents, most of them south of Orlando. Such progress had a price. Half the Everglades is gone. The rest is polluted, disconnected and infested by invasive species ranging from fast-growing ferns to pythons.(Personal note- read about Florida's python problem here)

And South Florida is having an ecological and hydrological meltdown, the legacy of a century of plumbing and dredging and growing without much thinking. The Everglades ecosystem now hosts 69 threatened or endangered species, and its rookeries and fisheries have crashed. Massive algal blooms are turning Florida Bay into pea soup. The region's reefs have lost up to 95% of their elkhorn coral; persistent red tides have made it tough for sunbathers to breathe at the beach.

Now the rainiest swath of the country is running dry, facing a specter of structural droughts. And the dike around Lake O. is leaking so badly that water managers routinely dump billions of precious gallons out of the lake to avoid a 1928-style calamity, ravaging estuaries and draining the region's water supply. This spring the lake fell so low that 40,000 acres of its exposed bottom burned out of control, along with 40,000 acres of the perennially parched Everglades National Park...

Read the entire article here.

Boca Raton conservationist saves turtles in Costa Rica

Dr. Kirt Rusenko is something of a celebrity among marine life lovers, not only in Boca Raton but in South Florida. But now, his popularity, might extend all the way to Costa Rica, especially among sea turtles.

He's the leading marine conservationist and researcher at the Gumbo Limbo Nature Complex in Boca Raton, a marine life research center that also provides a home to many endangered sea turtles.

According to yesterday's Palm Beach Post article, Turtle wizard is guiding light in Costa Rica, Rusenko was recently invited to Playa Grande, Costa Rica, to address the country's sea turtle nesting decline. Playa Grande, a 3.5-mile white sand beach that lies on the country's North Pacific Coast, supports a major nesting colony of leatherback turtles, a species that is endangered worldwide.

Pressure from real/estate developers to build oceanview condominiums may jeopardize the survival of the leatherback turtle in that area. According to the article, as it is, the beach is already seeing fewer turtle nests. There were 13,000 female leatherbacks nesting on Playa Grande in 1989. In 2006, there were only 56., the article states.

Because of this, the Costa Rican government invited Dr. Rusenko to evaluate the present situation and develop ideas for the implementation of more protection laws to preserve this turtle species.

Dr. Rusenko is also working on improvements to the Gumbo Limbo Center to accomodate even more sea turtles. To read more about it, read the article by Palm Beach Post reporter Gretel Sarmiento here.

Yard-watering schedule reminder

South Florida is going through a critical water shortage emergency and one of the driest periods in its history, which has led to the enforcement of rigid, though necessary water restrictions.

Due to the drought, yard-watering can only be done one day a week. Why specifically yard-watering?, you may ask. Well, because according to the experts, since many people unnecessarily over-water their garden, the easiest way to save water is precisely, to cut back on the times we water our lawn.

And while our gardens and backyards may not look as pretty as we wished they did, we must take into account that we must do everything we can to help water conservation.
Remember:

We are experiencing one of the worst drought on record. Brown lawns are a small price to pay to have an adequate source of drinking water for our very large population.
-Carol Wehle, Executive Director.

With this in mind, here are the details on Phase III Water Restrictions for Broward and Eastern Palm Beach County.

• Odd-numbered addresses: 4 to 8 a.m. on Saturdays.
• Even-numbered addresses: 4 to 8 a.m. on Sundays. Watering by hand with one hose and an automatic shutoff nozzle: 5 to 7 p.m. the same day.

These same restrictions apply to car washing.

For more details and specific information for your area, visit South Florida's Water Management District's Web page or call the SFWMD Water Shortage Hotline at (800) 662-8876.