Utilities Sector

Gutter Politics in WPB City Commission Race: Power Players Fund Shanon Materio's Smear Campaign

Hoping to keep her seat on the WPB City Commission, Shanon Materio led off her re-election campaign with the class envy card, trying to paint her opponent Gregg Weiss as a dilettante and an elitist. See also:-Bizarro Smear CampaignHer camp followed that up by suggesting Weiss was in bed with re ... More >>

Palm Beach Ironworkers vs Spawn of Cheney, Round Two

When Palm Beach County two years ago awarded a subsidiary of Kellogg Brown & Root a share of a $668 million contract to build a new waste treatment facility, the company's anti-union ways were no secret. But KBR's was the cheapest of three competing proposals, so commissioners gave the firm the ... More >>

Boil-Water Notice Is Up for Parts of Fort Lauderdale

A water main broke at the intersection of NW 31st Avenue and NW 26th Street in Fort Lauderdale, and now Broward County Water and Wastewater Services is advising folks to boil their water from now until at least Saturday. So, if you live anywhere between NW 31st Avenue to the west, NW 26th Street to ... More >>

Hundreds of Manatees Find Refuge From the Cold Near FPL Plant

Merry Christmas, South Florida! It's 304 manatees! The recent cold snap forced hundreds of the sea cows to the FPL plant located east of State Road 7 right off Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. The herd sought refuge from the suddenly chilly weather in the plant's discharge of war ... More >>

FPL Bills to Increase Come January

Florida Power & Light Co. and Progress Energy Florida won approval by the state on Monday to charge customers $294 million in costs for future nuclear facilities in 2013. Which means your monthly FPL bill will go up by at least $2.59. Hooorrray, Florida! On Tuesday, Florida's Public Service Co ... More >>

Southern Alliance for Clean Energy Looking to Fight Off Rising Nuclear Power Costs for FPL Customers

In 2006, the undaunted geniuses in the Florida Legislature came up with the Florida Renewable Technology and Energy Efficiency Act, a shady law that basically gives utility companies like FPL and Progress Energy Florida permission to charge customers for something that might be built or fixed, witho ... More >>

Occupy Fort Lauderdale Releases Its "Declaration of Occupation"

​Almost three months after the first "Declaration of Occupation" was released by an Occupy camp -- the first one from the Occupy Wall Street outfit -- Occupy Fort Lauderdale has now aired its list of grievances.The 40 complaints are divided into four sections in the document, including sections on ... More >>

Welcome to the Everglades Ranch Where FPL Might Build a Big-Ass Power Plant

Welcome to our new blog series "Holy Crap, That's Big," where we write about humongous things going up in South Florida and the people behind them. Today's item: a proposed fossil-fuel power plant in the middle of the Everglades.​It's a quiet, open hunting preserve right now, but if power demand c ... More >>

FAU Study: Coping With Climate Change in Florida May Cost as Much as $1 Billion

randompixels.blogspot.comThat's not exactly a transportation "plan."​Not long after the Broward County Natural Resources Planning and Management Division released its report detailing how rising sea levels could cause major flooding across Fort Lauderdale, Florida Atlantic University has released ... More >>

William Stewart: Second Person This Week to Be Caught Mid-Download on Alleged Child Porn

Palm Beach County Sheriff's OfficeWilliam Kenneth Stewart, wearing what appears to be a South Florida Water Management District shirt.​For the second time this week, cops served a warrant on a child-pornography suspect and allegedly found pictures and videos of naked kids mid-download on their com ... More >>

Huizenga CFO on Water Management Board; Does This Have Anything to Do With Yachts?

Flickr user: totalAldoHuizenga is building a megayacht center in Riviera Beach.​Rick Scott's decision to appoint a pro-business corporate executive to the South Florida Water Management District's governing board is not exactly stunning. This is the governor, after all, who declared Florida "open ... More >>

Florida Has Some of The Most Toxic Air Pollution In the Nation, Study Says

​Florida residents are the third-most at-risk among the 50 states from toxic emissions from coal and oil-fired power plants, according to a study released today.The report, from the Natural Resources Defense Council and Physicians for Social Responsibility, found that only Ohio and Pennsylvani ... More >>

Rick Scott Appoints Businessman With History of Everglades Pollution to Board That's Supposed to Keep it Safe

Smokestacks similar to this one spewed some nasty stuff under Portuondo's reign at Montenay.​If there was any question whether Florida Gov. Rick Scott favored business over the environment, this week he ended the debate. Scott appointed a businessman with a history of environmental problems to ove ... More >>

KBR Subsidiary Wins Contract to Build Trash Burner in Palm Beach

Flickr user: U.S. ArmyKBR has a horrific track record in Iraq.​Despite protests by union workers, environmentalists, and competitors, the Palm Beach County Commission yesterday handed one of its largest public works contracts to a company owned by controversial war contractor KBR.Acting as the Sol ... More >>

Florida's Nuclear Worries?

​A two-page report on a proposed Turkey Point nuclear power plant appeared this weekend in the Sun Sentinel, but calling it a "two page" report doesn't really begin to cover it. These are massive pages, 1,600 words in total. Feature-length pages, in Sentinel terms. And why? Is there a radiation le ... More >>

Meltdown Fears Growing

Two explosions in three days have rocked the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan. An endless stream of nuclear industry cronies has claimed there is really not much to worry about, but the money is doing the talking: Nuclear industry shares have already lost more than $1.5 billion ... More >>

Dodge City's Water Plan Looks Like Another Financial Disaster

Don't trust Pembroke Pines; don't ever trust Pembroke Pines. It's run by a private contractor, City Manager Charles F. Dodge, in a secretive and dubious way. The city manager is aptly named -- Charlie dodges close scrutiny while he cozies up to the vendors in the town and makes multi ... More >>

Koch's Spokesman: Wind Farm is a "Boondoggle"

Flickr user: andjohan​Yesterday, The Juice brought you the tale of Bill Koch, the Palm Beach billionaire energy mogul who has spent millions of dollars to oppose an offshore wind farm that will sully his view of Nantucket Sound. We speculated that Koch's opposition might have something to do with ... More >>

Palm Beach Billionaire Koch Likes Tax Subsidies, Too

Flickr user: andjohan​One of Palm Beach billionaire Bill Koch's main objections to a proposed offshore wind farm in Nantucket Sound -- which he has spent millions of dollars fighting -- is that it will require tax breaks to succeed. As the Juice reported earlier today, Koch has claimed that the an ... More >>

Palm Beach Billionaire Sailor Fights to Stop Wind Farm

Flickr user: andjohanWind farm? NIMBY!​You'd think Bill Koch might be a fan of wind energy. The billionaire Palm Beach energy magnate made some of his fortune off eco-friendly geo-thermal and natural gas power plants. He's also an avid sailor who won the America's Cup in 1992.But it appears that w ... More >>

Nuclear Energy: South Florida's Misunderstood Friend

Thanks for that, Smithers. Now that we're in the midst of the public hearings on whether to build two new nuclear power plants on Turkey Point, Florida Power & Light is asking you to think of nuclear power as an adorable, avuncular, and perfectly harmless cartoon character.Keep Smilin' Joe Fiss ... More >>

You're Invited! Environmentalist on Trial for Chaining Herself to Tree

Courtrooms can be such staid places -- so we love it when people treat judicial proceedings as interactive theater events. This January, an environmental activist named Stevie Lowe went to the site of the Barley Barber Swamp, an ancient cypress forest, and locked herself to a tree. The reason? Flori ... More >>

De Groot: Broward County Is Full Of Garbage

The latest from John de Groot, the king of interesting statistics. Here you have a lifetime's supply of information about trash. No wonder the mafia loves the carting business so much.   And you thought that smell was coming only from our politicians?   It jumps.  -------------- ... More >>

Sunday Reading: The Wayne Huizenga Story

I just happened on this classic written by Steve Almond in 1994 about South Florida's hard-driven, complicated, and sometimes brutal mogul.  Uh, it jumps.   Citizen Wayne - The Unauthorized Biography A college dropout and the product of a broken home, H. Wayne Huizenga rose ... More >>

This Blog Will Now Save Broward Schools a Few Million Bucks

Today's Herald quotes Broward school officials who say that in this year's budget talks, "everything is on the table." That might mean fewer high school sporting events or no more bus rides to magnet schools. Or even cutting one class out of the students' daily schedule. Desperate measures for despe ... More >>

Create Green Jobs? Can We Save 'Em First?

Last August, when the presidential race was a toss-up and the the stock market was not yet gyrating, Barack Obama's campaign released this paper, which promised that as president he would create five million "green jobs."Not many, it seemed, would be in the recycling industry. The word "recycle" doe ... More >>

FPL vs. the Environment, again

The hardcore environmentalists at Everglades Earth First sure know how to push FPL's buttons. All year, they've been waging a court battle against construction of a new power plant in Palm Beach County (right across the street from a wildlife refuge!).  Today, they picked another fight with the ... More >>

Tree-huggers mobilize to stop FPL from building Everglades power plant

Kick the Bottle

As the containers and costs mount, in South Florida and beyond, plastic is played out

Crist's Secrecy Prompts Suit

Rambo and the Phantom

Investigating a gun-slinging city commissioner and the mayor who hides in the bathroom

A Dull Post About Plantation Garbage

Deck the Halls With Waste and Folly

Just don't ask too many questions about a sweetheart trash contract in Florida's most complacent city

Deck the Halls With Waste and Folly

Just don't ask too many questions about a sweetheart trash contract in Florida's most complacent city

Best Power Couple

Mary and Kevin McCarty

Tailpipe

Davie Squeeze

Letters for March 31-April 6, 2005

Pickpocketing the Public: Part 1

The "renewable energy" program you're chipping in for spews the same old pollutants

Stagebeat

We've Got the Power

A legendary producer wants to make Fort Lauderdale a hit factory

Don't Drink the Water, Part IV

Pompano's top man still needs to be flushed from office

Don't Drink the Water III

An underling becomes the sacrificial lamb, but Bill Flaherty must go

Taking Stock of Bob Graham

The South Florida senator and presidential candidate wheels and doodles

Don't Drink the Water

A deceptive city manager. A Machiavellian administrator. An incompetent lab director. Are the Pompano taps to be trusted?

Best Place to Canoe

Loxahatchee River Canoe Outfitters

Best Topography

Broward County Interim Contingency Landfill

Awful Fishy

For Broward's canal fisherman, potentially toxic levels of mercury are a part of the catch of the day

Postcards From the Edge

Peace and quiet, great fishing, tax-free land. Welcome to the Everglades, where "hunt camps" are enjoying a new lease on life.

Postcards From the Edge

Peace and quiet, great fishing, tax-free land. Welcome to the Everglades, where "hunt camps" are enjoying a new lease on life.

If at First You Don't Succeed, Get Hired by the City Again

Consultants Hazen and Sawyer oversaw one the biggest utility failures in Fort Lauderdale history. So why does the city keep hiring them?