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What happened at the treasured Big Cypress National Preserve was “horrendous”
The Big Cypress National Preserve is a soggy wonder — a place that is, as nature writer Jeff Ripple once noted, one of the few left in Florida where you can stand still and hear nothing but the sounds of nature. Forty-six years ago, when the federal government bought the Big Cypress Swamp and created […]
Ginnie Springs and Seven Springs Water Company: Profit ahead of the public good?
Bob Knight was paddling the Santa Fe River last month when he saw the crowd. In spite of warnings from medical experts, dozens of people had crowded into Ginnie Springs to splash around and laugh and have a good time. Nobody wore a mask – it would have gotten soggy. Florida has more first-magnitude springs […]
A decade after the BP oil spill: Sick fish, Gulf pollution, and human health problems
On March 31, 2010, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich visited St. Petersburg’s Vinoy hotel to give a speech where he talked about how safe offshore oil drilling was. He was touting his book, Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less. On that same day, then-President Barack Obama announced he would open a lot of the nation’s […]
Does Florida still need that trio of billion-dollar toll roads?
Florida’s controversial new toll roads hit a potential roadblock this week. Two of them are supposed to cut through rural Levy County, near Ocala. But Levy commissioners voted 3-2 on Tuesday to say they do not want them — primarily because of the development they would bring. “I don’t want to see Levy County become […]