Latest news with #FloridaSeaGrant
Yahoo
19-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Volunteers celebrate Earth Day with beach cleanup in Miramar Beach
WALTON COUNTY, Fla. (WMBB) – Okaloosa and Walton counties partnered with the restaurant association to do multiple beach cleanups throughout the area. One of them was at the Surf Hut in Miramar Beach. With gloves on and trash bags in hand, volunteers began walking up and down the beach. The goal is to protect the environment, one piece of trash at a time. 'A lot of the trash that is in the ocean. It all comes from the land. So this is the place to start and get it before it gets into the water, because once it gets into the water, there's not much we can do about it. And we know it has detrimental effects on the wildlife, the birds, the fish, the dolphins, the turtles,' Florida Sea Grant Marine Agent Laura Tiu said. Volunteers could enter the beach clean-up contests, with prizes for the most unique items collected. The Hope Project receives help from local Amazon employees 'These are some of our more unique items. We've got what looks like a brand new pair of Coach flip flops here,' Okaloosa County Land Resources Manager Rob Fenwick said. 'We have a competition for the most unique item. And in addition to the coach flip flops that were found, we have this doll as well. And also these really nifty bright pink beads,' University of Florida Extension Services Dana Stephens said. It was also competition for the most cigarette butts collected. Event coordinators say they are the most common item found. 'We collect a lot of data from this, and we find that the most the the most numerous object that we see our cigarette butts so we're hoping some of the new regulations with not smoking on the beach will cut down on some of that,' Tiu said. The clean-up is just one week after the spring break season came to an end, but organizers say they are seeing less trash than usual. 'It's positive that we haven't seen as much trash. Seems counterintuitive, but we're hoping for less weight. So that indicates that people are becoming maybe more aware of the use of the beach and how to take care of it,' Stephens said. Volunteers dumped their findings in a trash can, nearly filling it to the brim. After the trash is collected, it goes to the landfill. 'We'll never get to the point where we don't need beach cleanups anymore. But it's nice to see, you know, the amount of trash coming off the beach going down every year,' Fenwick said. After the beach cleanup, the surf hut provides volunteers with a free pancake breakfast for all their hard work. If you missed this beach cleanup, you still have another opportunity to help the environment. Okaloosa County will host the International Coastal Cleanup in the fall. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
20-03-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Bay County wraps up NRDA artificial reef project
BAY COUNTY, Fla. (WMBB) – Bay County deployed the last set of artificial reefs on Wednesday. 30 more Bay County artificial reefs are now sitting on the bottom of the Gulf. They were all part of a multi-part artificial reef program the county coordinated, using Restore Act money from the 2010 BP oil spill settlement. Join Panama City Police Department bicycle rodeo for fun and safety tips Crews deployed phase one on February 26th. Phase two was completed on March 12th. Crews set out bright and early Wednesday morning to deploy the last 10 structures. They are hoping these reefs will help offset the damages the oil spill caused to the fishing industry. 'There was documentation to the recreational fishery that they just weren't able to get out and have the normal lifestyle that they're accustomed to by living here in Bay County in Northwest Florida. So it's our hope that this will provide opportunities that they didn't have before,' Florida Sea Grant Bay County Extension Representative Scott Jackson said. But these aren't just any reefs. Everything from the material to the size of the windows is specifically designed to benefit the marine life long-term. 'The limestone that this vendor is using to manufacture these reefs kind of mimics what we see on the ocean floor as far as the limestone ledges that occur naturally. And so this gives it a jump start to the organisms that we see over time,' Jackson said. 'Often the sea turtles will get around these structures naturally… the hole at the top is plenty big enough for a turtle to go out. And then the windows at the bottom of them are larger. They're big enough for me to go in,' Sea Grant volunteer Bob Stapleton said. The location where the reefs are placed is also chosen carefully to encourage more fishing spots. 'The more and more structure we put out, the more places there are for fish to be and more places for fishermen to spread themselves out over. So it relieves the pressure on, you know, a major pool of fish at one place,' Stapleton said. Sweet Baby's Farm hosts first-ever Spring Fling event The county will go back out and add some additional reefs to current locations. They're also working on new artificial reefs, including a re-purposed tugboat. If you'd like to see a list of where the reefs have been placed, Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
17-02-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Village of Cortez hosts Commercial Fish Festival while still cleaning up hurricane damage
The Brief The village of Cortez hosted the Commercial Fish Festival while still cleaning up hurricane damage. Residents banned together and decided to host the 43rd annual commercial fishing festival with a very fitting theme: 'Swamped but Never Sunk.' Remnants of the damage caused by five feet of storm surge can be seen on the streets months later. TAMPA - The 2024 hurricane season was undoubtedly a brutal one for Manatee County, especially in places like the village of Cortez. Remnants of the damage caused by five feet of storm surge can be seen on the streets months later, and after much contemplation on whether to have it, residents banned together and decided to host the 43rd annual commercial fishing festival with a very fitting theme: 'Swamped but Never Sunk.' What they're saying "It feels like it's coming back to life again. I'm seeing all the people out, all my neighbors, the volunteers, it's just a good feeling," said Kris Martinez, with the Cortez Village Historical Society. READ: Citrus County couple at odds with the county over size of new manufactured home In a celebration of resilience, survival, and the commercial fishing industry that keeps this old Florida community running; guests enjoyed art, music, the taste of fresh seafood from the Gulf and even educational presentations from fishery scientist Angela Collins, who works with the University of Florida and Florida Sea Grant program. "Everybody wants to know where their local seafood comes from, right?" Collins laughed. "They want to know where that seafood sandwich is coming from, so we've got a lot of our commercially important species on display. We can show people a little bit about their grouper sandwich, their snapper, their stone crab claws, and of course, the mighty mullet, which is the fish that built Cortez." Proceeds from the festival will support a cause very near and dear to Cortezians, a homegrown conservation project, called the FISH Preserve. "Its 95 acres of undeveloped land just east of this fishing village that the community banded together and purchased, so it's very important to us," Collins stressed. CLICK HERE:>>>Follow FOX 13 on YouTube The Source Information for this story was gathered by FOX 13's Regina Gonzalez. STAY CONNECTED WITH FOX 13 TAMPA: Download the FOX Local app for your smart TV Download FOX Local mobile app: Apple | Android Download the FOX 13 News app for breaking news alerts, latest headlines Download the SkyTower Radar app Sign up for FOX 13's daily newsletter
Yahoo
30-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump tries to expand offshore drilling off Florida's Gulf coast
Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill cleanup on Pensacola Beach (image via Florida Sea Grant ) A lot of us longtime Floridians commemorate big events with special T-shirts. Looking back through the collection in our closet is like having a photo album made of 100% cotton. Tom Petty Concert 1995! Gasparilla Parade 2001! Crystal River Manatee Festival 2009! Heck, I still have a T-shirt from 1992 that proclaims, 'I Survived Hurricane Andrew!' But I never saw anyone in Florida wearing T-shirts to commemorate the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Remember that? For months BP's broken offshore well spewed oil that ended up as globs of thick, brown goop on the white sandy beaches of eight Florida counties. Ten years later, the damage to both the marine environment and human health still lingered. Perhaps there were no T-shirts to buy because the vendors were too busy donning hazardous waste suits to clean up the mess BP left us. Or perhaps they realized nobody had money to buy T-shirts because all the tourists had fled, harming the economy. But if our new president has his way, we'll have another shot at printing up oil spill T-shirts. Shortly after becoming the first convicted felon to be sworn in as president, Florida man Donald Trump signed his name to a flurry of paperwork: 26 executive orders, 12 memoranda, and 4 proclamations. Some of what he signed was silly, like his executive order calling for changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the 'Gulf of ′Merica.' Some were far more serious, like his pardon of all 1,500 of the insurrectionists who participated in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, including everyone who attacked cops. But the one that caught my attention involved offshore drilling. 'Hours after his inauguration, Trump rescinded a recent executive order by former President Joe Biden that banned new oil and gas drilling leases in public waters off Florida's coast and the eastern Gulf of Mexico,' reported. 'The new president went a step further and issued his own order on 'Unleashing American Energy' that made clear that coastal waters would be open to new leases.' Trump's own order makes no mention of any exceptions, not even for his many fans in the Florida Panhandle counties that suffered through the 2010 disaster. In fact, his whole executive order seems geared toward rushing this through as fast as possible (more on that in a minute). He claimed this is necessary because of a 'national energy emergency'— except there's not one. During Biden's four years in office, the oil companies set records for both oil production and oil and gas company profits. Their only emergency is finding new pockets in which they can stuff all that cash. Bid adieu to the offshore drilling safety rules passed in the wake of the BP oil spill. Yet this week the U.S. Department of Energy tweeted, 'As President Trump outlined in his inaugural address, the policy of the United States and the Department of Energy is once again to drill baby, drill!' And the way he's doing it, odds are you'll wind up walking your beaches in a hazmat suit, scooping up brown globs of spilled oil. Bid adieu to the offshore drilling safety rules passed following the BP oil spill. Trump repealed them during his first term and Biden put them back, so you better believe Trump will repeal them again. But there are a few things that could still thwart his ugly plans for our beautiful beaches. One of them is the U.S. Air Force. The portion of the Gulf that's part of America doesn't belong to any one of us, but to all of us. It's taxpayer property. Under normal circumstances, the folks who want to drill for oil there have to jump through a lot of hoops to qualify for a permit. But these are not normal circumstances. For one thing, as he did in his first term, Trump has loaded the federal regulatory agencies with people eager to say yes to polluters because that's who they used to work for. 'President Trump is stocking the Environmental Protection Agency with officials who have served as lawyers and lobbyists for the oil and chemical industries, many of whom worked in his first administration to weaken climate and pollution protections,' The New York Times reported this week. If there were federal chicken coops, Trump would put them in the hands of the Fantastic Mr. Fox. His nominee to run the Department of the Interior threw a big shindig for oil, gas, and coal executives last year. Meanwhile, his nominee to lead the Department of Energy is Chris Wright, the CEO and founder of Denver-based fracking company Liberty Energy. Wright has argued that oil and gas are 'virtuous.' If I ever encounter Mr. Wright, I'll tell him he's Mr. Wrong. I saw the Deepwater Horizon's oil staining a beach that I once played on as a child. I didn't see any halos on those poisonous petrochemical smudges. These, then, are the folks who will make the decisions on permitting oil wells in the eastern Gulf. They're supposed to hurry, too. The executive order their boss sent out says they 'shall undertake all available efforts to eliminate all delays within their respective permitting processes.' And they're not to let any of those pesky environmental concerns stand in the way, including the Endangered Species Act. In other words, Trump wants the oil tycoons who donated so much money to his presidential campaign to be quickly approved for drilling so close to his home state. (Yet not in front of Mar-a-Lago. Go figure.) But Trump's eager minions may want to slow down, because someone important got there first: Eglin Air Force Base. Eglin, located near Fort Walton Beach, has two claims to fame: It's where the Father of Gonzo Journalism, Hunter S. Thompson, began his literary career. And at 640 square miles, it's the largest air base in the world. Eglin's main mission is blowing stuff up. It's a place for testing bombs with names like the 'Massive Ordnance Air Blast.' They need a LOT of room to do that — including a huge chunk of the Gulf: 180,000 square miles of air space and 17 miles of shoreline access. So, whenever some oil company pops up to say, 'Hey, we'd like to drill for oil in the eastern Gulf,' everyone in the Panhandle quickly responds: 'Not in Eglin's territory you don't.' 'You don't want to launch any live ammo around oil rigs,' Hunter Miller of the environmental group Oceana pointed out. The Defense Department declared the Eglin testing range a national asset that cannot be replicated anywhere else in the U.S. It's been a federal policy since 1983 to protect the eastern Gulf by restricting oil drilling there. 'Trump does not have the authority to take this action' on drilling in Eglin territory, Miller told me. This is not the first time we've been through this with him, though. In 2017, when Trump was in office the first time, his Interior Department announced it would auction off 73 million acres in the Gulf for new oil and gas exploration — including in the eastern Gulf. Fifteen members of Florida's congressional delegation jumped up and down and screamed, 'Nuh-uh!' Republicans and Democrats alike demanded the feds protect Eglin's testing range. Of course, the Eglin exception might not stop Trump this time because he's shown little respect for the military. Remember, he called the honored war dead 'suckers' and 'losers.' And he picked as his defense secretary a TV host who knows more about booze than battalions. Eglin's needs might not mean much to him. Still, Trump did back off that last time. Maybe he'll do so again this time — especially when he learns about the other president who put a moratorium on drilling in the eastern Gulf. It was a fellow named Trump. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX The first time I met Mark Ferrulo was back when Chevron wanted to drill in a part of the eastern Gulf known as 'Destin Dome.' In 1999, the Interior Department held a public hearing in Pensacola that drew about 500 people, ranging from buttoned-down yuppies to teenage skateboarders with mohawks. The one person who spoke in favor of Chevron's plans was a New Orleans attorney working for Chevron. The other 499 were opposed — including Ferrulo. My point is, the Progress Florida executive director been involved in these battles for more than a minute. 'The eastern Gulf of Mexico has truly been in the target sights of Big Oil for a long time,' he said this week. When I talked to Ferrulo about Trump trying to drill in the eastern Gulf, he pointed out that the last guy who put a moratorium on drilling there before Biden did was Trump himself. There was a pre-existing ban on drilling off Florida's Gulf coast that was set to expire in 2022, reported in 2020. 'But with Trump's signature during an event in Jupiter, he extended the moratorium 10 years and added the Atlantic coast to the ban from the Florida Keys to South Carolina.' After signing the order, Trump told the crowd, 'Trump is the great environmentalist,' referring to himself in the third person like Gollum from 'The Hobbit,' which never sounds the least bit creepy or pretentious. Then Gov. Ron DeSantis made himself useful by lobbing Trump's Sharpies to people in the front row. So even before the Biden ban, there was a ban on drilling in the eastern Gulf that Trump himself imposed. It's supposed to last until 2032. The law that allowed Trump to do that, by the way, is the same law that Biden cited in imposing his moratorium, Ferrulo told me. As Martha Collins, executive director of the environmental group Healthy Gulf, pointed out, if Trump tries to push drilling in the area now 'he's undermining his own authority. The hypocrisy here is hilarious.' Collins noted that after Biden issued his executive order, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Alaska, the American Petroleum Institute, and Gulf Energy Alliance sued to overturn it, including in the eastern Gulf. She pointed out that the ban near Florida would be none of those other states' business. Both she and Ferrulo predicted that, should those suits go to a hearing, the courts would say Florida's waters are off-limits, upholding both the Biden and Trump drilling bans. But as we've seen this week, Trump is no respecter of the law. He's refused to enforce a measure meant to shut down Tik Tok, fired people he can't legally fire, and temporarily halted tens of billions of dollars in federal spending he has no power to halt. As Politico put it this week, 'Trump barrels through guardrails, daring courts and Congress to stop him.' However, there's still one more speed bump that might at least slow down the oil industry: the oil industry itself. Several drilling opponents I talked to asked where Florida's Republican officeholders were in this fight. Politicians who were vocal last time have been noticeably quiet this time — for instance, Sen. Rick Scott, who hailed Trump's return to power as 'a golden age.' But a few have spoken up. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna is such a Trump fanatic that she's filed a bill to have his face added to Mount Rushmore. But she saw the Deepwater Horizon spill's damage firsthand, so she wants a permanent ban on drilling in the eastern Gulf. 'We have a very unique ecosystem in the state of Florida that is untouched, and we have to ensure that it stays that way,' she told WFLA-TV. I tried contacting some of the others, such as Rep. Neal Dunn, R-Panama City, but they never returned my calls. Perhaps they were too busy genuflecting toward their tangerine-faced messiah to defend their constituents' lives and livelihoods. For now, then, the last line of defense against the destruction of the eastern Gulf is capitalism. While Trump is pushing hard to make drilling there as easy as picking up a chicken sub at Publix, the oil industry doesn't seem interested. Remember, they had record production and record profits under Biden. While they like Trump's pro-oil stance, they say they'll hold off expanding their offshore drilling until gas prices go up. One of them told The New York Times that he likes Trump's 'positivity' but 'it's too early to say that that's going to translate into a change in actual activity levels here.' Thus, the free market may spare the eastern Gulf, at least for now. But that could change. I'd feel a lot better if Congress were to pass a bill like the one that Republican Vern Buchanan and Democrat Kathy Castor co-sponsored in 2023 to permanently ban drilling in the eastern Gulf. If and when that happens, I'll gladly pay for a commemorative T-shirt that says, 'We Saved the Gulf of Whatchamacallit!' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
