Word: grassing
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Once it was a forbidding wilderness of marshland and saw grass that had to be drained and tamed before southern Florida could realize its rich potential. Today the Everglades -- what is left of it -- is surrounded by an urban sprawl of 4.5 million people. Thriving sugarcane farms carved out of its northern reaches drain pollutants into its water; Air Force jets boom over its skies. The 1.4 million-acre Everglades National Park, created in 1947, has become an endangered relic in the nation's fourth most populous state. "Make no mistake," says outgoing park superintendent Michael Finley, "the Everglades...
...successful, the suit could be a landmark for national parks trying to reach outside their boundaries to protect their ecosystems. The "river of grass," as the Everglades was named by naturalist Marjory Stoneman Douglas, is one of the 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...
...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...
...future of a habitat for alligators, wading birds and other swamp life. "This is not just an argument between greedy farmers and anxious environmentalists," says the Wilderness Society's Webb. "It's a planning issue of fundamental proportions. It's the future of South Florida." If the river of grass turns into a sea of cattails, the water supply for coastal cities from West Palm Beach to Miami could dry up, and a sunny subtropical paradise could become a barren wasteland. Floridians are coming to realize how much they too depend on the vast marshland that once seemed so useless...
Saturday, October 7, the Stadium:The Crimson covers the crater caused by the boulder with a large, simulation-grass blanket. Lehigh falls for it and most of its starting players are trapped. Cakewalk for the Crimson...