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What a Grat Event - See you next Year!
Lake Okeechobee Pollution LawsuitRuling Finding that the South Florida Water
Management DistrictViolated the Federal
Clean Water Act in Dumping Polluted Water
into Lake Okeechobee is on Appeal by the SFWMD
(NEXT EVENT(S): 2009 at SHARK VALLEY and maybe also at least one other venue!)
EVERGLADES
SPECIAL REPORT
An Evaluation of the
Scientific Basis for "Restoring" Florida Bay
by Increasing Freshwater Runoff from the Everglades.
By: Larry E. Brand, Ph.D
Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science
Friends strives to protect and restore
the Greater Kissimmee-Okeechobee-Everglades Ecosystem. Our
primary tools are legal advocacy and education.
In
this site, you will find information on the Florida
Everglades and on how you can help us all win the fight to
protect one of the world's unique natural treasures.
Stretching south from the vast 700 square mile Lake Okeechobee, nourished by the rain soaked Kissimmee River Basin, the Everglades is a wide slow moving river of marsh and sawgrass covering some 4,500 square miles, flowing quietly, peacefully, towards the mangrove estuaries of the Gulf of Mexico.
Along the way, water nourishes plants and animal life, evaporates providing cooling, clouds, winds and rain, soaks deep into the shallow limestone crusted underground aquifers and rivers and pushes back the brackish coastal waters of Florida bay.
The Everglades knows no seasons but its own. The rainy season is primed by vernal Atlantic storms sweeping in off the African coast. Its cycle is maintained by evaporation, rising air cooling and more rain falling. This cycle continues for half the year until the steady Atlantic winds begin to calm. The cycle then slows, the rains falter and the dry season begins.
The Everglades was formed over thousands of years by this seasonal cycle of pulsing water. Fish, moving freely, flourishing in the vast wet summer marshes are herded into deeper pools as the water recedes in the dry season. Birds, alligators, raccoons, and other mammals gather to these pools to feed on fish and frogs and other reptiles. The shallowing water provides cover and food for the many colonies of nesting wading birds that have migrated from their northern enclaves - Wood storks, Herons, Sandhill Cranes, Great White Egrets and Ibis gather, feed and raise their young.
Thousands of species of plants, birds, animals, fish and reptiles make their home in the Everglades. That home is under siege. Fifty years of draining and diking, digging and building have destroyed over half of the historic Everglades. The remnants are in peril despite a much heralded 8 billion dollar restoration plan. Shortcuts are being taken and compromises are being made. Delay and apathy are becoming its enemies. The result is that none of the dozens of threatened and endangered species have, or are likely to, make any progress soon - or soon enough.
Friends of the Everglades is a grass-roots organization dedicated to education and legal advocacy. Become a member and lend your voice to that mission. We need your help.
Test your
(Everglades-IQ)
Here
Visit some of our Friends and Partners
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FRIENDS' 40th ANNUAL MEETING
April 2009!
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BOARD OF DIRECTORS
David P. Reiner
Juanita Greene
Wayne Nelson
Theo Long
Joe Browder
Herb Zebuth
Jim Kushlan
Karen Mashburn
Polly Edwards
Tom Sadler
Susan Wilson
Cindy Lerner
Shela Gaby
Terri Sabag
Lara L. Reiner
Janet Launcelott
Connie Washburn
Alan Farago
Milda Vaivada
Anna Gonzalez
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As of todayacres of Everglades have been destroyed by cattails
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Florida Department of Environmental Protection
Everglades Radio Network
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Tune into the broadcast now!
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Downloads
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