Word: florida
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...largest wetlands systems in the world, and the most imperiled. Despite the protection of the national park, the population of wading birds has dropped from more than 2.5 million in the 1930s to 250,000. Thirteen Everglades animals are now endangered species. Only about 30 Florida panthers remain, and in recent years several have been killed on roads cutting through the area. Half the original Everglades has been lost to development. Now the biggest threat comes not from bulldozers but in nutrient-laden runoff from sugarcane and vegetable farms that lie to the north, between the Everglades and its chief...
...Federal Government contends that Florida, despite overwhelming demands on its limited natural resources, can re-create the ecological balance necessary to keep the Everglades alive. The water that replenishes the marshland once spilled out of Lake Okeechobee in a shallow sheet 50 miles wide, moving slowly south for 180 miles before emptying into Florida Bay. But since the mid-1960s, the lake overflow has been channeled through a massive flood-control project -- 1,400 miles of canals and hydraulic pumps that can drain a field or rush water to urban centers on command. Using computers, engineers now try to mimic...
...There's nothing simple about trying to replicate nature," says Jim Webb, regional director of the Wilderness Society, "but it has to be done." Florida's research shows that high levels of phosphates and nitrates from farm runoff have transformed more than 20,000 acres of Everglades saw grass into cattails. These intruders, which thrive in high-nutrient water, suck the oxygen from the marsh and suffocate aquatic life at the bottom of the Everglades food chain. On shallow ponds and canals, nutrient-fed algae grow so thick that they block the sun from underwater plants. So far, most...
...Attorney Lehtinen, 43, grew up in Homestead, next to the park, and was appointed federal prosecutor for South Florida in June 1988, just when George Bush was campaigning for the White House by promising "no net loss of wetlands." An Army paratrooper who was badly wounded in the face in Viet Nam, Lehtinen was a Democratic state legislator when he married a Republican colleague, Ileana Ros; a year later, he switched to the G.O.P. Last month Ileana Ros-Lehtinen won election to Congress to fill Claude Pepper's seat. As a legislator, Lehtinen earned a reputation as a hot-tempered...
...didn't invent the environmental laws," says Lehtinen, who denies that he is using the Everglades to promote his political fortunes. "All we are asking is that the state of Florida abide by what is already on the books." To comply, however, the state will have to take on the powerful sugar lobby. While not a defendant, sugar is clearly the suit's target. For Florida to meet Lehtinen's water-purity standards, farmers would have to convert at least 40,000 acres into marshes to filter their pollution. Instead, the sugar industry has questioned the U.S. Attorney's motives...