Manatees — those lovable dopey floaters bobbing in the waters around South Florida — had a really bad 2013. For the first time since scientists began tallying the number of the animals killed in the wild, the body count broke the 800 mark. Yeah, read that line one more time…
It seems like a miracle — or at least a statistical unlikelihood — that none of the Filipino workers onboard the cargo ship Ocean lost anyone in the wake of Typhoon Haiyan. Thousands of people were killed and millions were left homeless after the storm ravaged the nation’s 7,100 islands…
Yesterday afternoon, Rep. Patrick Murphy gave us a shout to talk about the briefing he’s holding in Washington, D.C., today for members of Congress regarding the nasty pollution that’s flowing from Lake Okeechobee through two rivers and killing everything all the way to the east and west coasts of Florida…
Tomorrow, Rep. Patrick Murphy a 30-year-old Democrat from Jupiter; and Congressman Trey Radel, a Republican from Fort Myers, are scheduled to hold a public briefing to members of Congress regarding the massive pollution that’s flowing from Lake Okeechobee through the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers to pollute estuaries as far…
On a cool November night, just days before Thanksgiving, a spaceship landed on the corner of Collins Avenue and 16th Street. In an instant, traditional gawker fodder cruising through the streets of South Beach — the Lamborghinis,Bentleys, Bugattis — were made irrelevant by comparison. In terms of strangeness and complexity,…
You sit around all day playing Candy Crush and bitching on Twitter about how Facebook sucks, so why not get paid a crapload of money while doing that? NASA is recruiting volunteers to lie in bed for 70 days to research the effects of microgravity on the human body. Volunteers…
The South Florida Water Management District had been planning to uproot dozens of oak and gumbo limbo trees that sit along a canal between Nob Hill Road and SW 101st Avenue along the C-11 canal of Linear Park trail in Davie. But, after Davie residents, and Mayor Judy Paul, asked…
Another day, another tree-removal controversy in our neck of the woods. This time around, it’s the South Florida Water Management District that is planning to uproot dozens of oak and gumbo limbo trees that sit along a canal between Nob Hill Road and SW 101st Avenue along the C-11 canal…
Sorry, Egypt. The “eyes of the world [were] on Fort Lauderdale” last night. At least, that’s what Marina Lofts developer Asi Cymbal said without the slightest hint of irony before a packed house at a Fort Lauderdale City Commission meeting Wednesday. The commission, voting on the relocation of a century-old…
Yesterday, the law firm of Searcy, Denney, Scarola, Barnhart, and Shipley held a news conference about lawsuits related to a cluster of pediatric brain cancer in the residential neighborhood Acreage, located in western Palm Beach County. Five couples who lived in the area and whose children developed brain tumors are…
According to the American Lung Association, a Deerfield Beach couple, Amaury and Renata Rosa, were expecting a baby. But when Renata was eight months along in her pregnancy, they began to seriously worry that secondhand smoke from a neighbor’s apartment could hurt the unborn child. Secondhand smoke has been linked…
Two South Florida parks, the Dry Tortugas and Biscayne National Park, have been voted part of the Top Ten “Sexiest National Parks” in America on sugar-daddy travel website MissTravel.com, a “destination-dating” site that hooks up “attractive” travelers with “generous” ones. According to the company’s public relations manager, Jennifer Gwynn, 8,500…
The Dan A. Hughes Company, an independent oil and gas exploration company headquartered in Beeville, Texas, apparently owns the mineral rights to an onshore oil reserve known as the Sunniland Trend, which stretches from Ft. Myers to Miami. And they fully intend on fracking the crap out of it. According…
Back in April, honor student Kiera Wilmot, made some waves when she was arrested for felony charges after she conducted a science experiment where she mixed some toilet bowl cleaner and some tin foil in a bottle and blew the cap off on school grounds. The experiment caused some smoke,…
Environmental activists across Florida have been waiting more than two years for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to land a serious body blow against the state’s enforcement branch. The question was whether Herschel Vinyard’s place at the top of Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection was a violation the Clean Water…
Florida got the Earth Day festivities kicked off early with some good old-fashioned litigation. Over the weekend, Florida joined Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana in suing BP and Halliburton over the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The suit, filed by State Attorney General Pam Bondi in U.S. District Court in Panama…
There’s been a lot of talk about space rocks falling on top of us ever since a meteor tore through the Russian stratosphere and broke a lot of shit a few weeks ago. And now comes word that some space debris will be flying dangerously, perilously close to us down…
The environment hasn’t been a high priority for legislators at any level since Al Gore was wearing earth tones, but what’s happening in Florida under Rick Scott is downright scary. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection is in serious fox-guarding-henhouse mode. Its current secretary is Herschel Vinyard, whose background is in…
The Mayan Beach Club has obliterated a 176-foot-long sand dune on Fort Lauderdale’s beach that helped prevent beach erosion and provided a nesting place for endangered green sea turtles, because the it blocked the view of the ocean. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection apparently made the beach club prove…
Sad news today for South Florida environmentalists, sea turtles, and Mother Earth: After a circuitous and arguably shady legal battle, Fort Lauderdale’s Mayan Beach Sand Dune was plowed over at some point in the past 48 hours. Even though an August court decision sealed the dune’s fate, the destruction blindsided…
A recent round of job cuts at the Department of Environmental Protection has stoked the wrath of environmentalists. Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility on Wednesday issued a statement blasting the DEP’s decision to lay off 26 employees from the agency’s Southwest District Office while eliminating 14 vacant positions. “These are nonmanagement employees,”…
Chris SweeneySeveral hundred yards before traffic cones wedge northbound traffic on Fort Lauderdale’s scenic A1A into a single, slow-moving lane, a yellow sign alerts drivers and pedestrians that they’re smack in the middle of a turtle nesting zone. But now that strong tides, rough seas, and severe erosion have decimated a four-block stretch of…
