“Got ’em on!” Mark “the Shark” Quartiano roars while his first mate stabs a shark with a gaff and hauls it out of the placid Atlantic Ocean. “In the boat, get him in the boat! Yeah, got ’em on!” Thwacking its tail and flipping over so the white of its…
Waste Management Inc’s plan to shoot “garbage juice” thousands of feet underground into the Florida Aquifer has outraged environmentalists. They fear the run-off from the company’s Monarch Hill Landfill near Coconut Creek in unincorporated Broward County will pollute drinking water with toxins. “I don’t want this thing going anywhere near…
Betty Osceola’s call to action didn’t come from a phone or Facebook. Instead, the Miccosukee grandmother says she sensed that her help was needed. When Osceola heard that hundreds of Native Americans were camped in North Dakota defending sacred reservation land from an oil pipeline, she knew that she had…
Riverland Road is known for its quiet streets and veil of tree canopy. When one owner wanted to dissect his 5.19-acre property into 13 parcels of land to make way for a new road, sidewalk, and 13 new homes, the residents of Riverland worried about the fate of the more…
Barbara Crown was standing in a hammock in the middle of the Everglades, bow and arrow in hand, listening for the sound of feral hogs. It was her first-ever hunt. As day broke, she heard the rustle of passing pigs, saw the undergrowth shake and sway, and felt a tug…
Since January, toxic algae has polluted the waterways near 10-year-old Jack Benson’s home in Stuart. Frustrated with how the adults were handling it, the incoming fifth grader flew to Washington D.C. to speak to Congress. Last week, he demanded that they take real legislative action. “Our river has toxic algae…
After the sun set on July 10, Robin Merrill headed over to the A1A median between Oakland Park Boulevard and NE 21st Street. The stump of a black olive tree lay at her feet. The artist and owner of Upper Room Art Gallery bowed her head. “Thank you,” she said…
One day early last year, Luiz Rodrigues gazed out at the dunes near the Fourth Street Beach. The sandy hills are cordoned off with rope and wooden fencing, a sanctuary for many amid the bustle of South Beach. Inside, sea oats swayed in the wind. Fuchsia bayhop flowers blossomed. But…
The Ana Cecilia carried a lot of cargo in its day. In 2012, it delivered the first shipment of humanitarian shipment to Cuba from Miami since the 1962 Missile Crisis. In 2015, border control agents seized the ship after it took $10 million in cocaine up the Miami River. Soon, its…
“Ninth Street and A1A Boulevard.” Richard Whitecloud relays his oceanfront location to the emergency dispatcher. “The fatalities just keep racking up in this intersection,” he mutters. “Dammit, man. Intersection of death!” Whitecloud, six feet one with long, curly hair kept back in a ponytail, bends down to inspect a corpse:…
Plastic doesn’t biodegrade. This is great for storing a tub of mayonnaise in your fridge, yet awful for the environment. Millions of tons of plastic pile up in landfills and oceans. There have been some ideas to address the plastic crisis, but none have been as revolutionary as the one…
Sea levels are inching up. Flood days are increasing. The threat of stronger, more powerful storms looms over us. The effects of climate change have never been more apparent in South Florida. Despite a governor who refuses to utter the C word, Floridians are more conscious about their carbon footprint…
The whitefly is back. Though it looks like the sort of adorable insect that would star in a Dreamworks film, the humble whitefly is actually a god-awful invasive species that will stop at nothing to decimate crops. The bug can carry more than 111 different plant-killing viruses — a wave…
Reefs are underwater rainforests that are mostly inhabited by corals. These fascinating little creatures can hunt, poop, and have sex. Since the 1970s, corals on the Florida Reef Tract have declined more than 80 percent and six South Florida coral species are listed as threatened on the Endangered Species list…
A Fort Lauderdale man says Broward’s coastal cities should ban smoking on public beaches. Bobby Lieberman says that he has spoken to numerous city officials in Fort Lauderdale and Hollywood Beach in an effort to get smoking banned — and when he does, he brings along a clear, coffin-shaped container filled…
Three weeks ago, Stephen Nagy was driving along A1A when he noticed a row of sea grape saplings freshly planted on the beach near his house. Right now, the plants don’t look very menacing—just pathetic branches with a few leaves on them. But according to Nagy, it’s just a matter…
Fishing guide Mike Conner putters his skiff across the Indian River Lagoon near Stuart, about a two-hour drive north of Miami. He used to bring clients from all over the United States here to stalk delicious pompano, yard-long snook, and the Holy Grail of inshore fishing: sea trout longer than…
For city officials, Hurricane Sandy was was like Fort Lauderdale’s real life The Day After Tomorrow. In October 2012, the category two storm whipped up 15-foot high waves that pummeled Fort Lauderdale’s coast. The tide breached the sea wall and flowed freely across A1A. The road was not passable, entire neighborhoods…
By 2045, sea level is expected to rise at least a foot. In South Florida, where most land sits five feet above current sea level, homes and roads are expected to start flooding more frequently. It’s only a matter of time, scientists and economists warn, before it becomes so unbearable…
Fort Lauderdale has over 200 miles of sea walls. During high tides and storms, sea walls protect properties from coastal flooding. Legally, a city ordinance dictates that sea walls be no higher than 5 and a half feet. As sea levels rise, especially during the really high tides in September,…
Today, we have fresh water to drink, clean air to breathe, and sea turtles to awwwww at. But let’s be very clear: these are not givens — particularly in a state driven by Rick Scott, a Republican legislature, and constant development. In Florida, there’s practically a war on nature. Wild…
More than 20 counties in Florida have signed ordinances banning fracking, the controversial process by which water, sand, and an unnamed cocktail of chemicals are jammed into the ground, in order to extract oil and natural gas. The process has been blamed for contaminating groundwater. Around the time Broward County…
