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Environment

Environment, Outdoors, Reel Time

Reel Time: Pick up some trash, win some cash

Sep 20, 2021 – Rusty Chinnis
July 11, 2021
By Cindy Lane

Worst year ever for Florida manatees

MANATEE COUNTY – By July 2 – halfway into 2021 – 841 manatees had died in Florida waters, more than in each of the two worst years in Florida’s history. In 2018, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Cons…
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July 4, 2021
By Cindy Lane
Conservation groups sue over Piney Point discharge

Conservation groups sue over Piney Point discharge

PORT MANATEE – The dumping of 215 million gallons of wastewater into Tampa Bay this spring from a phosphogypsum stack at the closed Piney Point phosphate fertilizer plant has prompted five conservati…
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May 18, 2021
By Cindy Lane
Piney Point pollution spreading, affecting dolphins

Piney Point spill leads to lawsuit

TAMPA BAY – Five conservation groups issued a notice today saying they intend to file a federal lawsuit over the intentional discharge of “hundreds of tons of pollutants into Tampa Bay” earlier this…
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May 17, 2021
By Cindy Lane
Piney Point pollution spreading, affecting dolphins

Piney Point pollution spreading, affecting dolphins

TAMPA BAY – The Sarasota Dolphin Research Program at Mote Marine is monitoring the dolphin community near Port Manatee for impacts from the April discharge of 215 million gallons of polluted water fr…
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May 9, 2021
By Cindy Lane
Lyngbya bloom clogging bays, ICW

Blue-green algae bloom clogging bays, ICW

Nutrients and warming temperatures are feeding a bloom of blue-green algae called Lyngbya in area waters, according to scientists with Manatee County. As has been the case over the last two years…
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May 9, 2021
By Jason Schaffer
Wild iguanas are calling Anna Maria home

Wild iguanas are calling Anna Maria Island home

ANNA MARIA ISLAND – They’re not escaped pets, they are wild iguanas, and they are showing up more often on the Island. And if the Island’s lizards seem a bit larger than they used to, that’s becau…
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April 26, 2021
By Cindy Lane
Piney Point wastewater spreading

Piney Point wastewater spreading

UPDATED April 26, 2021 at 3:52 p.m. – PALMETTO – About half the wastewater in a leaking retention pond built into a gyp stack at the closed Piney Point phosphate plant has been pumped into Tampa Bay…
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April 12, 2021
By Rusty Chinnis
Reel Time: An unfolding tragedy

Reel Time: An unfolding tragedy

Rounding a mangrove corner into Clam Bar Bay on the edges of Tampa Bay, I had the sensation of a place remembered. I had first visited Moses Hole on a kayak outing in 2013. But this time, somethin…
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October 18, 2020
By Rusty Chinnis
Reel Time: The land of shining water

Reel Time: The land of shining water

Noontootla is a word derived from the language of the Cherokee Nation in northeastern Georgia. The translation, “land of shining waters,” perfectly describes Noontootla Creek, an 11-mile tributary of…
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October 4, 2020
By Rusty Chinnis

Reel Time: Vote for water and land

I have been blessed to live on a barrier island in Manatee County since 1980. I was drawn to the area by family but moved here because of my love of fishing and the natural world. I realized I’d foun…
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Upcoming Events

April 9, 2025
11:45 am

The Off-Stage Ladies of the Island Players, April luncheon meeting