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Coast Lines: Happy Earth Day from Anna Maria Island

Coast Lines: Happy Earth Day from Anna Maria Island

Written by Cindy Lane on . Posted in Coast Lines, Outdoors.

As the COVID-19 pandemic progresses, the Florida Department of Health is no longer monitoring water quality at local beaches because they are closed. Likewise, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is reducing its water testing for red tide.Coast Lines logo

But local waters have been unusually clear this month, a great reason to get outside and celebrate the 50th anniversary of Earth Day on Wednesday, April 22.

One Florida event is #GetTrashed, a challenge to take a walk outside with gloves and a plastic bag and pick up enough trash to fill a bag. But wear your mask and stay at least 6 feet from anyone else. Check out more events here.

Arbor Day is also still being celebrated on Friday, April 24. Organizers suggest virtual celebrations, like live-streaming a reading of the poem, “Trees,” by Joyce Kilmer on your Facebook page. Check out more virtual celebration suggestions.

And if you do nothing else environmental this week, resolve to learn enough about federal oil spill policy to help you decide whom to vote for in the next presidential election, in honor of the 11 people killed in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which happened 10 years ago April 20.

The spill poisoned the Gulf of Mexico and its marine life with 200 million gallons of oil for nearly three months, some washing up on beaches from Texas to Florida.

The Washington, D.C.-based environmental group Oceana says that the federal government’s proposal to expand offshore drilling to nearly all U.S. waters will result in more spills.

“Offshore drilling is still as dirty and dangerous as it was 10 years ago,” said Diane Hoskins, Oceana campaign director. “If anything, another disaster is more likely today as the oil industry drills deeper and farther offshore… When they drill, they spill. The BP disaster devastated the Gulf, and we cannot afford to repeat it. Protecting our environment has never been more important than it is today. President Trump’s plan is still a preventable disaster if we stand together to protect our coasts.”

In a recent report, Oceana found the Gulf coast suffered significant economic losses following the Deepwater Horizon disaster:

  • The recreation industry lost more than $500 million, and more than 10 million user-days of beach, fishing and boating activity.
  • Fisheries closed and demand for Gulf seafood plummeted, costing the seafood industry nearly $1 billion.
  • Housing markets across the region experienced a decline in prices between 4% and 8% that lasted for at least five years.

Oceana also found the environmental impact of the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf was unprecedented:

  • For five years, more than 75% of all dolphin pregnancies failed in the oiled area.
  • Bryde’s whales, one of the most endangered whales in the world, decreased by about 22%.
  • As many as 800,000 birds died, including up to 32% of laughing gulls and 12% of brown pelicans.
  • Up to 170,000 sea turtles were killed by the spill.
  • About 8.3 million oysters were killed, and certain populations of fish, shrimp and squid decreased by as much as 85%.

See Oceana’s full report here.

Then turn off your computer, go outside and celebrate the Earth.

Earthy ideas from The Sun

Earthy ideas from The Sun

Written by Cindy Lane on . Posted in Awards, Awards 2019, Coast Lines, Outdoors, Special Sections, Third Place.

Odette Katrak was sitting at her computer in Bengaluru, India Googling “Imagine There’s No Plastic,” a song based on John Lennon’s “Imagine” that she had recently recorded and posted on YouTube.Coast Lines logo - border

What popped up was The Anna Maria Island Sun’s Coast Lines column headlined “Imagine there’s no plastic,” published July 24, 2018.

She reached out from the other side of the Earth and wrote to us.

We both noted how interesting it is that ideas often pop up at the same time across the universe.

“So delighted to read your article titled ‘Imagine there’s no plastic’ which I chanced upon just now,” she wrote. “I too am bothered about the untold amounts of plastic in our lives.”

Third Place
Commentary
2019

While Bengaluru (Bangalore) and Bradenton Beach are quite different – the former has 12 million people, for starters, and it only seems like that many here during tourist season – it turns out that we also have quite a lot in common.

Earthy ideas from The Sun
Odette Katrak, co-founder of Beautiful Bengaluru.

Bengaluru has water shortages, just as we do in Florida.

Called an eco-warrior by her local newspaper, the Deccan Chronicle, Odette’s response to water shortages was to send out one message a day during March about saving water.

India also has plastics washing up on the beaches of the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal, just as we do on the beaches of the Gulf of Mexico and Palma Sola Bay, including plastic pieces of an oil rig that appeared on Bradenton Beach in 2015.

That was the year Odette co-founded Beautiful Bengaluru, a group working for “a clean, green, safe city and a greener planet.”

She’s a lot like the subject of The Sun’s story, Capt. Bill Brooker, who picks up plastic from Sarasota Bay during his lessons and charters.

“Today, one of my core raison d’etre’s is to eliminate plastic  – not from my life (it’s gone already and we are a zero-waste family) – but from the lives of people who don’t even realize it is harming them,” she wrote.

Beautiful Bengaluru will be publishing a new website soon that will include a startling poster with a piece of plastic covering a bird’s head and long neck. The photo was taken by American photographer John Calcolosi, who gave Odette permission for it to be used for the “Imagine there’s no plastic” video.

“This is fortunate, as this stunning visual sends out a powerful message on a vital worldwide environment theme. It will be one of many teaching tools “relevant to any city in the world,” she wrote.

Earthy ideas from The Sun
This “Imagine There’s No Plastic” poster will be one of many on the forthcoming Beautiful Bengaluru website.

Maybe someday we can keep our plastic trash from washing up on each other’s shores, with a little help from our friends.

Earth Day

A good day to pick up plastic trash from the beach is Monday, April 22, Earth Day.

Back in 1970 when Earth Day was founded, few had any earthly idea about the things that were about to happen to the Earth. Climate change. The Exxon Valdez. Melting glaciers. Fracking. Repetitive red tides. Blue-green algae.

Deepwater Horizon.

April 20 marks the ninth anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill, the worst environmental disaster in the history of the Gulf, which killed 11 people, injured 17, and killed millions of fish, marine mammals, sea turtles and shorebirds. An estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil leaked into the Gulf of Mexico, treated with a chemical dispersant that broke down the oil, but did not eliminate it.

While we didn’t see any oil wash up on local beaches, Manatee County qualified for RESTORE Act funding, fines that BP paid for the disaster.

Local RESTORE Act projects include the Gulf Shellfish Institute Sea Farm to Table project for research on shellfish production and the Coastal Watershed Management Program to address flooding and drainage problems, including nutrient runoff in local waters that worsens red tide.

To observe the Deepwater Horizon anniversary and Earth Day, help “restore” a beach and pick up some plastic from a local patch of sand.

And enjoy the Earth.

Kingfish boat ramp

County fast-tracks Kingfish improvements

Written by Cindy Lane on . Posted in Community News, Holmes Beach.

HOLMES BEACH – Manatee County commissioners have moved Kingfish boat ramp’s rebuilding and expansion project to the top of the list for RESTORE Act funds.

The most heavily used boat ramp in the county has “severe structural deficiencies” that require both emergency and permanent repairs and expansion to accommodate increasing use, Parks and Natural Resources Director Charlie Hunsicker said.

The project is expected to cost about $4.5 million and begin next year.

RESTORE Act funds are a penalty paid by BP for the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in the northern Gulf of Mexico in 2010, which killed 11 workers and caused the worst environmental disaster in the Gulf in history. Pieces of the rig washed up on an Anna Maria Island beach in 2015.

The 23 Florida counties on the Gulf coast are allocated $12.7 million each from the funds for environmental projects, Hunsicker said, with Manatee County set to receive funds every four years for 15 years beginning next month.

The new priority list topped by Kingfish will be submitted for approval to the Florida Restore Act Gulf Consortium, which administers the funds, he said.

The reprioritization requires delaying other projects, including a $5 million Palmetto Green Bridge fishing pier replacement project, now set for 2023. Other projects, including a $3 million Manatee River oyster restoration project and a $1 million Larry Borden artificial reef enhancement project in the Gulf will be deferred to the 10th year and beyond, Hunsicker said.

Additional projects in line for county BP oil spill funds include a $1 million living shoreline at Portosueno Park on Palma Sola Bay and $300,000 to research shellfish aquaculture and restore habitat at Port Manatee.

RESTORE Act projects for preserve management and coastal watershed management will be taken off the list and funded by other sources to free up funds for Kingfish boat ramp, he said.

Hands Across the Sand oil protest

Oil drilling proposal may be headed for ballot

Written by Cindy Lane on . Posted in First Place, Special Sections.

Updated March 27, 2018

The Florida Constitution Revision Commission (CRC) has selected 25 of 36 proposals, including Proposal 91, to send to its Style and Drafting Committee.

Sponsored by CRC member Jacqui Thurlow-Lippisch, Proposal 91 would prohibit drilling for exploration or extraction of oil or natural gas beneath all state waters between the mean high water line and the outermost boundaries of the state’s territorial seas.

After the proposals are written in their final form, the 37-member CRC will reconvene next month to vote on them. Proposals must receive at least 22 votes to be placed on the 2018 General Election Ballot.

As the eighth anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon disaster approaches, a proposal to prohibit drilling for oil or natural gas in Florida’s coastal waters is one of 36 in the running to be placed on the November ballot for voters to decide.

The Florida Constitution Revision Commission (CRC) is scheduled to meet for five days beginning on Monday, March 19 to decide which, if any, of the proposals – and several others initiated by citizens – will make it onto the ballot.

Every 20 years, the commission is appointed to review proposals that would amend the state constitution with 60 percent of the popular vote. Statewide public hearings on the proposals ended this week.

First Place

Environmental Writing

2018

Proposal 91, sponsored by CRC member Jacqui Thurlow-Lippisch, would prohibit drilling for exploration or extraction of oil or gas beneath all state waters between the mean high water line and the outermost boundaries of the state’s territorial seas.

“We have a chance to make history and turn the ship. We would be the only state in the nation to have this in our state constitution,” Thurlow-Lippisch wrote in a press release. “The oil and gas industry claim oil drilling is safe and that it would be good for Florida’s economy and job creation. I say, look no further than what happened in Louisiana during the BP oil spill. Drilling so close to shore, as is done in other coastal southern states, has the potential to be visually, environmentally and economically destructive to Florida’s unique marine, wildlife, real estate and tourism resources.”

The proposal has been supported by environmental groups and representatives from the fishing industry, including local groups Suncoast Waterkeeper and the Manatee Fish and Game Association.

Lucan Thompson, of St. Petersburg, said during the final CRC public hearing on Tuesday, March 13 that Proposal 91 would “protect us from air and water pollution.”

“Oil is not sustainable,” Jeanie Ghafari told commissioners, reminding them that the Deepwater Horizon/BP explosion and spill on April 20, 2010, killed 11 people.

“What is at risk? Oil spills are not contained in the ocean. They contaminate the shoreline. They can last more than 30 years like the Exxon Valdez,” she said. “Tourism feeds Florida’s economy. Are we willing to destroy tourism, our main industry? Are we willing to destroy the shoreline for decades? Are we willing to contaminate the Florida aquifers that millions of families depend on? Are we willing to kill fish and other sea life? I say no.”

Florida not safe

U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) warns that despite a federal moratorium on drilling within 125 miles of Florida’s coast, which expires in 2022, and despite U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s assurance to Gov. Rick Scott earlier this year that the waters off Florida’s Gulf Coast would remain off limits to drilling, the Trump administration appears to be including Florida in a new, five-year offshore oil leasing proposal.

“Interior Secretary Zinke doubled down on confusing lawmakers in Congress when he admitted in the House Natural Resources Committee (on Thursday, March 15) that, ‘Florida did not get an exemption,’ referencing the agency’s five-year offshore drilling plan and his announcement in January with Gov. Scott saying Florida was ‘off the table’ for oil drilling,” Nelson said in a press release. “More and more, it’s beginning to sound like no deal really exists and, as feared, it’s all one big political sleight of hand.”

Nelson wrote to Zinke this month requesting that Florida be removed from the Interior Department’s proposal, which would begin in 2019.

He concludes: “Under Section 18 of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, the Interior Department is required to balance oil and gas interests with environmental sensitivities and the policies of affected states, such as Florida’s Coastal Management Program. From everything I have discussed in this letter and all I have heard from my constituents, there is no justification for including Florida in the five-year plan. Once again, I strongly urge you to truly take Florida “off the table” by removing the Atlantic Coast, the Straits of Florida, and the entire eastern Gulf of Mexico moratorium area from consideration for future lease sales.”

Watch the live hearings beginning Monday, March 19 at 10 a.m.