Friday, July 18, 2014

A sorry week for South Florida's environment: how low can we go? … by gimleteye

One of the world’s rarest forests, a section of Miami-Dade County’s last intact tracts of endangered pine rockland, is getting a new resident: a Walmart.

1) FPL force-marches ratepayers on new scheme to take clean fresh water away from highly threatened natural resources and dodge accountability for severe pollution caused by its nuclear reactors in order to facilitate permitting on two new nuclear reactors.

2) University of Miami links up with Walmart to squeeze money from its land holdings in the last remaining pine rock lands -- that once were a defining feature of Miami next to the river and the Everglades.

3) Plans press forward leading to an incursion against the Urban Development Boundary (UDB) help FIU with its expansion plans by moving the Dade County Youth Fair.

4) Riverkeeper announces its intention to sue the US Army Corps of Engineers for failing to adequately monitor the dredging of Biscayne Bay to accommodate ships that may or may not ever come to the Port of Miami.

But on the good news front: Gov. Rick Scott agrees to meet with Florida climate change scientists. … talk about setting a low bar.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

We can go lower. Don't tempt the fates by asking.

Anonymous said...

Everyone of these issues mentioned are large and looks who we have making the decisions.

Anonymous said...

Very grim ... but worth the fight on all fronts.

Anonymous said...

Result of kleptocrats winning every election and almost every seat.

Anonymous said...

Donna Shalala and the University of Miami look like low life polluters.

Dave said...

Maybe if FIU didn't devote the majority of its campus purely to parking they could find more room. No college campus should have room for vast surface parking lots (FIU does). Here's an idea, build classroom buildings with parking and class/office space stacked in the same building rather than putting the parking in physically separate garages taking up twice the space. For example here are 3 campuses at the same zoom scale. 2 have vastly more office/classroom space in the same footprint. One totally wastes its space.
FIU:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Florida+International+University+-+Modesto+A.+Maidique+Campus/@25.7548667,-80.3758647,1399m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x88d9b69bf858fbb1:0xff1381214a65683d

Harvard:
https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3753663,-71.1180816,1147m/data=!3m1!1e3

Cal-Berkeley:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/University+of+California,+Berkeley/@37.8713951,-122.260262,1226m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x808f7718c522d7c1:0xda8034ea3b6b3289

Anonymous said...

You forgot to add: County Commission approves use of taxpayer owned waterfront urban land previously promised as parkland to be used by a private entity for another Cuban Museum. This after taxpayers just funded a $10million Cuban Museum about to open just 3 miles away.

Anonymous said...

Soon as another recession or storm hits we will go much lower. Schemes galore.

Anonymous said...

This is what I was going to say, but someone posted it already:

"You forgot to add: County Commission approves use of taxpayer owned waterfront urban land previously promised as parkland to be used by a private entity for another Cuban Museum. This after taxpayers just funded a $10million Cuban Museum about to open just 3 miles away. "

Anonymous said...

It's so frustrating that few seem to care that we're destroying the environment, pollution, ocean acidification, over fishing, etc.

Soon, parts of the country will have to be abandoned due droughts in the SW and sea level rise along the coastal regions.

I'm loosing hope, and I'm starting to cheer for Mother Nature. Go ahead, pave over the Everglades! Spend Billions of dollars building nuclear and sewer plants next to the bay! Mother Nature will have the last laugh when it's all underwater.

Anonymous said...

With the technology available, colleges and universities should be getting smaller in physical size rather than larger physically. A lot of classes could be taken on-line, lectures on video tape, and class testing done at testing centers. The best teachers should have their classes taped. And those tapes used over and over again. I wish I had tapes of some of my old professors. While most are dead and gone now, and exist only in the memories of their students, if we had the technology then that is available now, their lectures could have been taped for a whole new generation of students. Many of them were legendary teachers in their fields. Old knowledge from the 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries could easily be handled with much of the technology available. And the good thing about computers is that they are patient and will go over the info a zillion times until you get it. Tapes can be played over, and over. Labs are a different thing. But just straight up giving of information, we need to rethink that process.

Anonymous said...

They shouldn't build another waterfront museum simply because it will be swallowed up by the sea and destroyed by storm surge. Have we learned nothing since Superstorm Sandy? Where's the Climate change taskforce when you need it? Funny this concept - very real possibility- never came up at the County Commission meeting. Not only would we waste. $130 million but we would miss the opportunity to protect downtown Miami because the land would no longer serve as a buffer and absorber of rising waters. See how that works?

Anonymous said...

They shouldn't build another waterfront museum simply because it will be swallowed up by the sea and destroyed by storm surge. Have we learned nothing since Superstorm Sandy? Where's the Climate change taskforce when you need it? Funny this concept - very real possibility- never came up at the County Commission meeting. Not only would we waste. $130 million but we would miss the opportunity to protect downtown Miami because the land would no longer serve as a buffer and absorber of rising waters. See how that works?

Anonymous said...

I suppose FIU doesn't teach urban planning classes anywhere on campus?

They charge MORE money for online classes than in person. One teacher, a zillion students, no brick and mortar overhead to speak of and it costs more.

I have given up as well on South Florida. I am flying north for work weekly, and when I see walkable communities, public transit and wonderful forest preserves in the middle of urban areas, it is sad to come home.

In fact, I am the anti-tourism branch of MD County - anyone asks me "how's living in Miami?", I tell them horrible and don't visit.

Anonymous said...

I tried to sign the petition but it didn't work.