Florida’s Environment: 13 Stories to Watch for October

To pair with the rest of our educational content in each Earth to Florida newsletter, we bring you monthly updates on statewide environmental news. Read on below to see what we found for the month of October:

13 Florida Stories to Watch

Florida has won the battle against an invasive snail infestation. The African land snail can grow to be eight inches long and eat 500 kinds of plants, including the fruits and veggies that Florida farmers grow. The unwelcome invader also carries a parasite that can cause meningitis in humans and pets. Over the past decade, the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS) invested $24 million to control its spread. And it seems to have worked. The snail hasn’t been spotted in three years. This was the second time the state has been successful in eradicating the snail; the first time was in 1975.
As temperatures rise due to climate change, rabies-carrying vampire bats may soon find cozy habitat in Arizona, Texas and Florida. The bats have been documented in Mexico near the U.S. border, and experts predict that within 20 years they will spread to the U.S. This concerns federal agriculture officials because the bats like to feast on cattle blood, while sometimes spreading pathogens like rabies.
Manatees are on the mind. Two Florida congressmen as well as the Florida agriculture commissioner are calling to reclassify Florida manatees as endangered after the species was down-listed to threatened status in 2017. It has been a record year for manatee deaths, with mortalities nearly at 1,000 and much of the decline attributed to loss of seagrass, an important manatee food source. Wildlife officials have asked for $7 million for manatee rehabilitation and conservation. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will also grant $125,000 to researchers to restore warm-water manatee habitats on the Gulf Coast.
The Rodman Dam in North Florida will not be removed, a federal appeals court ruled this month. The plaintiff, Florida Defenders of the Environment, and other environmentalists supported the removal as they sought to restore the flow of the Ocklawaha River. Opponents say the reservoir created by the dam is an important fishing spot for anglers.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has proposed lifting the ban on fishing for goliath grouper that has been in place for 30 years. The fish almost died off in the 1980s due to overfishing and pollution. While the proposal won’t be decided on until 2022 and won’t go into effect until 2023, the rule would allow 200 fishing permits a year for juvenile goliath grouper. Anglers would need to enter a lottery to win the chance to buy a $500 permit. Florida Sea Grant’s Great Goliath Grouper Count recorded 255 goliath grouper in Florida this year.
Hernando County has asked the state to declare Weeki Wachee River a springs protection zone, which supporters say would help limit environmental degradation in the area. If passed, the rule would halt mooring, anchoring and beaching watercraft on the river.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has announced a plan to spend $114 million on 16 big water quality improvement projects across Florida, $53 million of which would be dedicated to cleaning up water quality in the Indian River Lagoon. Degradation of the lagoon has been linked to starving manatees and turtles with tumors. Biorock technology, or a way to use electricity to grow seagrass and other marine organisms, has also been proposed to restore the waterway. Supporters say the technique should be considered because the Indian River Lagoon needs critical and immediate protection, but others argue that the proposal is too vague and might do more harm than good.
In March, more than 200 million gallons of polluted wastewater at an abandoned phosphate mine in Manatee County were pumped into Tampa Bay to stop a leak from flooding the surrounding area. Now, officials have proposed injecting the excess water into the aquifer. Florida’s agriculture commissioner, several environmental organizations, and some Manatee County residents have opposed this move, citing the potential for further environmental contamination. The injection well would pump the wastewater up to 3,300 feet underground, and officials say the well would be closely monitored.
Florida state senators have introduced the Clean Water Allotment Modernization Act of 2021, legislation that would update a 30-year-old rule on how to allocate money that protects Florida waterways. Legislators say the bill could “help communities work on projects affecting problems ranging from red tides on Florida’s Gulf Coast to harmful algal blooms in the St. Johns River and struggling seagrasses and dying manatees in the Indian River Lagoon.”
Programs in both West Palm Beach and Miami Beach are planting trees that are more adept at fighting climate change than the state’s iconic palm trees. Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels today are higher than at any point in the past 800,000 years, according to NOAA. Because palm trees don’t produce wood, they are the least effective at carbon sequestration. The average palm tree in Florida can only absorb about 5 pounds of CO2 per year. Other trees like oaks, mahogany, pines, and cedars can sequester more than 3,000 pounds of CO2 over their lifetime.
In South Florida, neighborhoods as far as 20 miles inland are experiencing flooding caused by rising seas. This is because as sea levels in the Atlantic Ocean rise, drainage canals don’t serve their intended purpose and floodwaters linger. The South Florida Water Management District submitted a $1.5 billion funding request to upgrade the canals. Meanwhile, a new rating system announced by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will lead to rising flood insurance premiums for most Florida homes.
The Orlando Utilities Commission gave the green light for customers to resume normal water use after an uptick in COVID-19 cases led to a shortage of liquid oxygen. Liquid oxygen is used to purify water and to remove the rotten egg smell caused by sulfur. In August, the commission asked its customers to limit irrigating lawns and landscapes to help prevent impacts to water quality caused by the shortage.
Red tide concentrations appear to be worsening in the Florida Panhandle while improving in the greater Tampa Bay region, according to the FWC. For the most up-to-date information, visit: Red Tide Current Status. New grant funding from the Tampa Bay Estuary Program will help researchers better determine the sources of nutrient pollution that are causing red tide in the region to linger. Meanwhile, samples collected from the St. Johns River earlier this month indicated high levels of microcystins, a toxin produced by certain types of blue-green algal blooms.

The Good News

Forty-nine divers and more than 30 other volunteers came out to the Okaloosa Island Fishing Pier in an effort to clean up trash from the Gulf of Mexico floor. They collected almost 300 pounds of debris, including items like car keys, cans, plastic, sunglasses, pocket knives, fishing poles and reams of fishing line – all these items can be hazardous for sea life.
The Healthy Pond Collaborative, a new program in Sarasota County, is working with communities to upgrade manmade stormwater retention ponds that help filter stormwater. With a grant from the Charles & Margery Barancik Foundation, the program will help increase the efficiency of the ponds by installing more aquatic plants that can help filter nutrients.

Things You Can Do

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is making a public plea for people to accept threatened gopher tortoises on their property. With development uprooting the burrowing tortoises, many are scrambling for a place to live, and relocating them is getting expensive. Receiving property owners must keep up with the maintenance of their land by clearing undergrowth and keeping exotic plants at bay. FWC oversight includes annual site visits to ensure conditions are followed.

Florida Research News

The University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) is launching a national program to optimize information on the Agricultural Research Data Network (ARDN). The project will combine research from different universities and help streamline the process of finding and interpreting information from numerous sources. This endeavor to make agricultural research data more accessible will aid in feeding a growing population.
A University of Florida study shows that native green anoles can coexist with invasive brown anoles by moving up higher into tree canopies. However, green anoles were most often spotted in natural areas and their numbers decreased in the face of urbanization. The opposite is true for brown anoles who tend to thrive in urbanized locations. The study suggests that green anoles may benefit from increased access to native vegetation.
Intelligent sharks have learned that boats mean food is nearby, so they’ve been gathering around recreational fishers and snatching their catches before they can be reeled in. Scientists from Florida Atlantic University and Mississippi State University received a grant from NOAA to study this process of shark depredation. They plan to study the biological and economic impacts of this phenomenon and hopefully find a solution to it as well.
Researchers at the Florida Museum of Natural History are adding numerous dead birds to their collection with help from wildlife rehabilitation clinics and the Lights Out Northeast Florida project in Jacksonville. Volunteers with the Lights Out project collect birds who have died from being distracted by bright lights and running into buildings. The information gathered from this project is helping to track the distribution of migrations and raise awareness about this crisis for birds. They are also hoping to encourage businesses to turn off their lights and help prevent bird casualties.
Researchers in central Florida are exploring ways to battle stony coral tissue loss disease by caring for the organisms in labs and eventually reintroducing them to the marine environment. Remedying this disease is critical, as scientists have found that corals are essential for shielding Florida’s coast against damaging waves, potentially even doubling a reef’s protective power if they are present, compared with manmade reefs lacking corals.

National News

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) may soon declare the ivory-billed woodpecker extinct. The bird’s geographic range used to span Cuba and the southeastern United States, including Florida. But the nation’s largest woodpecker hasn’t been seen for 77 years when it was last officially sighted in Louisiana. In Florida, the bird depended on old-growth trees which had plenty of decayed wood and beetles for the birds to eat. But, scientists say those trees are hard to come by today. After an alleged glimpse of the bird in Arkansas in 2004, the USFWS spent roughly $2 million over a period of five years searching for the bird with no luck. Along with the woodpecker, the USFWS is proposing to declare 22 other species extinct.
The White House has updated its climate website with data showcasing climate trends, stories written by federal scientists and climate visualization tools. The current administration is also working together with NOAA and FEMA to develop a plan to improve Americans’ access to climate information. NOAA also announced a record $171 million in grant funding for climate research.
Environmental groups are campaigning to do away with gas stoves — citing negative health and air quality impacts as well as the appliances’ roles in producing emissions that contribute to climate change. No federal agency currently regulates emissions from gas stoves.

The More You Know

The world was predicted to warm by 4 degrees Fahrenheit, and while that number has since been reduced to “roughly 2.9 degrees Celsius of warming by 2100,” rising temperatures and global climate change will still likely have devastating consequences. The United Nations is set to host a global conference, COP26, at the end of this month to discuss the future of the climate.
A new study has found that oceanic shark and ray populations have decreased by 70 percent over the last 50 years. But scientists believe sustainable fishing and international trade regulations could help reverse the tide.