environment

  • The Issues: Habitat Destruction and the Gopher Tortoise

    The Issues: Habitat Destruction and the Gopher Tortoise

    The gopher tortoise is Florida’s canary in the coal mine — and every time a commission rubber-stamps another subdivision on the last dry scrub left in a county, another piece of that mine goes dark.

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  • The Issues: Mosaic Expansion and the Bypassing of Local Oversight

    The Issues: Mosaic Expansion and the Bypassing of Local Oversight

    Mosaic wants to expand its radioactive waste pile in Riverview by nearly 180 acres — toward Tampa Bay, over wetlands, inside the Alafia River watershed. Hillsborough County gets a say. The question is whether it will use it.

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  • The Piney Point of No Return

    The Piney Point of No Return

    Five years ago, I watched a major economic disaster unfold literally in my backyard. About 10 minutes down the road from me.

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  • The Issues: Glyphosate and Our Waterways

    The Issues: Glyphosate and Our Waterways

    Florida’s lakes and rivers are soaked in glyphosate. The fish know it. The manatees know it. And the people who fish, paddle, and drink from these waterways deserve to know it too. On any given weekday morning in Florida, contracted spray boats are moving through the state’s lakes and rivers. They are not monitoring water…

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  • The Issues: Teneroc and the Florida Forever Loophole

    The Issues: Teneroc and the Florida Forever Loophole

    Florida’s conservation lands are under threat — and Hillsborough County’s forgotten phosphate legacy puts District 1 directly in the crosshairs. There is a place in Polk County, just northeast of Lakeland, that most people in the Tampa Bay area have never heard of. It is called the Tenoroc Public Use Area. Twenty-nine fishing lakes. Seventeen…

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