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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

The Sunshine State's Dirty Secret?

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Monday, December 5, 2011   

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Calling Florida's growing toxic algae pollution of rivers and streams "nauseating," Earthjustice, along with the Florida Wildlife Federation and the Sierra Club, recently filed a legal challenge against the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).

Earthjustice Director David Guest claims the DEP regulations were written by lobbyists for corporate polluters, with little regard for the growing waves of green slime choking the state's waterways.

"A massive fish kill is under way in southwest Florida, a major tourist destination. The system we have now favors polluters over people."

The Florida Wildlife Federation has created a virtual "Slime Tour" using Google maps. FWF and the Sierra Club invite the public to take the tour.

The Florida DEP has said in the past that the agency is working closely with the federal Environmental Protection Agency to stunt the algae outbreaks. However, St. Johns Riverkeeper member Neil Armingeon is scratching his head over what he describes as a bureaucratic "code of silence."

"What we as the public don't understand is when we have fish kills, why do the agencies never tell us the causes. We're still waiting, a year and a half later, to understand why thousands of fish died in the St. Johns River in the summer of 2010."

One barrier to waterway cleanup is a Florida Capitol head-in-the-sand attitude, Armingeon says.

"There's a group of people in this state who don't want to admit we have a problem."

The virtual Slime Tour is at http://goo.gl/N7kVI. More information is available at www.floridawatercoalition.org.




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