Environmental Reporting

A new year for gay rights

2011-01-05T07:18:00.000-06:00

It’s a new year and the fight for full equality will not slow down as a predominantly Republican congress moves in.

There were a couple of triumphs in 2010 to be proud of I would like to point out.

In September, a Florida appeals court completely threw out the ban on gay adoptions. For over 30 years, gay men and women could not adopt in the state of Florida, Sept. 22 will definitely be remembered as a happy day for many gay couples wanting kids. The court ruled the ban on gay adoption was unconstitutional.

Then, another huge advancement was on Dec. 18, during winter break. We were all most likely home with our families when it was announced that the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell law was finally repealed after a long struggle through congress and senate. I watched with my father as each senator spoke their vote with a final 65 for repeal, 31 against repeal. I then checked to see how Florida’s senators voted and was ashamed to say George LeMieux is one of our senators. I saw he voted against the repeal and right away sent him an e-mail stating I was very disappointed in him for his vote. I have yet to get an e-mail back, even though I did ask for a response. I then e-mailed Bill Nelson to thank him for his continued support for LGBT rights.

It was a great day to watch Barack Obama sign the repeal of DADT on Dec. 22. It was a nice Christmas present to all the gay soldiers fighting in the war still hiding their identity. Even though it is not completely in effect, just yet. It will not go into full effect until Defense Secretary and Congress sign off that the military is prepared to put in a repeal and then it will be a 60 long days until the ban is officially taken out of the law books. It’s been 17 years too long.

I think this past year was fantastic. The fight was tough and long and we’re not finished yet. Next fight…marriage equality.

Happy New Year GSA!! Let 2011 be even bigger and better than 2010!

Suicide Awareness

2010-11-16T17:29:00.000-06:00

     Nine known suicides all within one month. September. All guys ranging in age 13-19. Bullied for being gay or perceived of being gay.
     Billy Lucas, 15, died Sept. 9
     Cody Barker, 17, died Sept. 13
     Tyler Clementi, 18, died Sept. 22
     Asher Brown, 13, died Sept. 23
     Harrison Brown, 15, died Sept. 25
     Seth Walsh, 13, attempted suicide on Sept. 19 and was on life support for little over a week. He officially died on Sept. 28 after being taken off life support.
     Raymond Chase, 19, died Sept. 29
     Felix Sacco, 17, died Sept. 29
     Caleb Nolt, 14, died Sept. 30
     Bad things usually happen in 3s. This has happened nine times that we know of. There were probably more that weren’t publicized. Only five of these were publicized everywhere in great detail. Anti-gay bullying is one of those issues that needs to be taken care of now and today. It can no longer be put on the back burner.

Candlelight vigil held by GSA on Oct. 12

     Bullying is something everyone has gone through at some point in their lives, even I’ve been bullied. Just now with facebook and other social network sites, bullies have become bolder, and it’s become easier to spread words of hate about another person.
     If you’re being bullied, you shouldn’t get discouraged because there is help out there. There’s The Trevor Project which is an organization “determined to end suicide among LGBTQ youth by providing life-saving and life-affirming resources including our nationwide, 24/7 crisis intervention lifeline, digital community and advocacy/educational programs that create a safe, supportive and positive environment for everyone.”
     If you feel like you are being bullied and you don’t know how to handle the situation, call The Trevor Project’s suicide hotline at 1-866-U-TREVOR.
     Dan Savage is also the creator of the “It gets better” project. He, along with his partner, posted a video on youtube on Sept. 21 after the first suicides, telling teens to not choose suicide because it does get better.
     “However bad it is now, it gets better and it can get great, it can get awesome and your life can be amazing but you have to tough this period of it out and you have to live your life until you’re around for it to get amazing and it will,” Savage said.

Wear Purple Day on Oct. 20.

     With over 1 million hits on youtube, the “It gets better” video has spread like wildfire. Celebrities and people from all over the US have recorded their own stories letting everyone know it gets better with time.
     Oct. 20 was also “Wear purple day” which was organized in remembrance of the recent suicides. Many students around the US wore purple to recognize the tragedies that had happened during September.

     Bullying can carry on into college past middle and high school. At any time that you may feel overwhelmed due to bullying, please call The Trevor Project or call the Counseling and Wellness Center at 850-474-2420 or call the Hopeline Network at 1-800-SUICIDE. And again, I am always here to help and can be contacted at any time via e-mail at jnr12@students.uwf.edu.

Hey Everyone!!!

2010-09-10T18:03:00.001-05:00

GSA: It’s the Gay-Straight Alliance. It’s not just a “gay” club; it needs its straight allies as well, otherwise it wouldn’t work. One of those straight allies is me. My name is Joslyn, and I’ll be GSA’s Public Relations coordinator for this year. As this is my first blog, I would like to introduce myself to all of you.

This will be my junior year at UWF and my second year as a member of GSA. I’m a print journalism major, and you can see some of my writing and photography in The Voyager, as I am a contributing writer.
I’m full Puerto Rican, originally from the Bronx. I now reside in Ft. Lauderdale when not at school. If you need to find me randomly, I’ll most likely be in Argo Hall where I live and work as a Student Desk Assistant. I have also just been sworn in as one of two Marketing Coordinators in Student Government Association.

As a part of my PR position, I make sure that The Voyager is notified about any important upcoming events. If the event is worthy of local coverage, I will contact the Pensacola News Journal. I will also try to write on this blog every other week, so look forward to a new one in two weeks! The next blog will either be about the new Archie comic character (he’s fabulous) or the premiere of the second season of Glee.

One last thing, if you would like to contact me, my e-mail is JNR12@students.uwf.edu. I’m always online and I should get back to your e-mail pretty quickly. This is going to be a great year and I hope all of you come out to our meetings and events.

Earth Day Symposium

2010-04-30T13:13:00.000-05:00

The University of West Florida celebrated the 40th anniversary of Earth Day on the Pensacola campus on April 22.

Starting at 9 a.m. in the Conference Center, The Earth Day Symposium presented five speakers from different lines of expertise who spoke about how being “green” was put into their career. Speakers included Andy Holdnak, from hospitality and tourism, Lawrence Howe, from philosophy, William Huth, from marketing and economics, Gary Ghioto, from environmental journalism and Sherry Schneider, from psychology.

It began with Holdnak presenting a powerpoint presentation which showed different hotels and attractions becoming greener as the years go on.

“The first Earth Day was 40 years ago, coincidentally that was the very first year of Sesame Street,” professor in hospitality, recreation and resort management at the Fort Walton campus Holdnak said. “Kermit the frog’s famous song, it’s not easy to be green and in 1970 it really wasn’t.”

Throughout the years, Florida has tripled in population from 6,789,000 to an estimated 18 million people now. The attractions were different in 1970 as well.

“We were all natured based,” Holdnak said, as he presented a 1970s Florida tourism commercial. “Notice no mouse, no amusement parks, no theme parks. Beaches, nature, that was us.”

Holdnak continued to speak about the new advances hotels and theme parks are adding to become greener. He said Disney actually asks their employees to recycle and to become greener.

“Their cruise ships are their biggest carbon footprint,” Holdnak said about Disney.

The second speaker was Howe from the philosophy department of UWF and he spoke about how important nature was to Aldo Leopold.

“One of the things he pointed out before he wrote that(The Land Ethic) was that some forms of recreation destroy their base and therefore it’s no longer desirable, and other forms of recreation don’t destroy their base and he promotes those types of recreation,” Howe said.

Howe ended his presentation by saying how he doesn’t use air conditioning in his house to save energy.

The next speaker, Huth, presented on the economic evaluation of ecosystem services, such as artificial reefs, springs and fisheries. There are 2,000 artificial reefs across Florida and of those, 400 are submerged vessels.

“They(Navy) spent $18 million on sinking the Oriskany off the coast of Pensacola,” Huth said.

Huth explained how the sinking of the Oriskany along with many other vessels has helped economically but actually hasn’t helped the natural coral reefs.

“The Vandenburg just went down in 2009 off of Key Largo,” Huth said. “It has actually caused more pressure on the coral reefs.”

The last speaker was Schneider from the psychology department and she started off by saying she could never live in a home with no air conditioning.

“No way will I live in Florida with no air conditioning,” Schneider said, referring to Howe living with no air conditioning. “My own hypocrisy was thrown back at me.”

She ended with saying that one person cannot make a difference but collectively, a community can make a difference.

“You run these risks of people taking too much,” Schneider said. “If you restrain yourself, these things will replenish. We kill the things we love.”

Deadman's Island restoration with Heather Reed

2010-04-12T11:19:00.000-05:00

Gulf Breeze is home to an island that has been needing restoration for years and thanks to Heather Reed, of the Ecological Consulting Services, that island is finally being restored.

On April 7, Reed came to the University of West Florida to explain about the restoration process and project she is currently working on. Deadman’s Island is need of nourishment due to the extreme wave erosion throughout the years.

“It’s not really an island, it’s more of a peninsula,” Reed said. “There are five shipwrecks over there that UWF has excavated.”

She says that you never know what you may find while on the island. It is home to history back until the 1800s.

“It was used by the Spanish and British,” Reed said. “In the 19th century, it was used to quarantine ships during the yellow fever epidemic.”

In 1977, Gulf Breeze took ownership of the island and since then the erosion has been increasing due to homeowners building seawalls.

“When Hurricane Dennis came through it exposed an unmarked cemetery with six coffins,” Reed said.

Reed is currently working on a five phase project to restore Deadman’s island. The first phase is complete and was to design breakwater around the island. The breakwater was made from oyster shells.

When Hurricanes Claudette and Ida came through the panhandle in 2009 Reed thought it was perfect timing to test out the anchor system on the breakwater.

“The anchor system worked,” Reed said. “Some of the structures are lopsided but none were lost, I have to look out for rogue storm surges.”

The breakwater is only 3 feet in height while the water depth around the island ranges from 2-15 feet. After seeing this she decided to go onto phase two.

Phase two includes putting together ecodiscs which are not depth limited because you can continue stacking them to whatever height you need them. They also don’t need an anchoring system and they won’t be affected by the tides or salinity of the water like the breakwater would.

“We had our first ecodisc made by the little flower school,” Reed said.

The next step is to build coir logs which will slow down the wave action and to begin planting along the shoreline.

On April 17, Reed invites everyone to come out to Deadman’s Island to volunteer their time in building these coir logs and begin the planting. For more info, visit deadmansisland.br33z3.com.

A River Restored

2010-04-07T02:19:00.000-05:00

After watching this intense documentary about Fossil Creek in Arizona I saw the hardships that environmentalists have to go through when they're trying to get a dam decommissioned. The way they went about it was really good because they had many people behind them. They weren't being forceful but telling FERC how they felt about the dam. I personally didn't know that dams were bad for the environment. I thought they were good because of the hydroelectric power that saves on the energy taken from coal. The Fossil Creek area was gorgeous after the dam was decommissioned especially when all of the fish and organisms came back to the environment.

Oneness with Nature on March 31, 2010

2010-04-04T21:30:00.003-05:00

It’s spring in the university woods along the Ball Nature Trail and I feel calm, that is until a big black ball of fuzz buzzes past my ear. It’s a little past 1:30 in the afternoon as the rest of my class continues along the boardwalk leaving me all alone to sit and wait and listen to the nature around me. The boardwalk shakes just a bit as they walk off and then dies down the further away from me they get.

There’s a wooden bench attached to the boardwalk where they leave me, it’s a perfect spot for me to sit with my notebook and pen and write what I’m sensing. The bench is littered with small pink petals and twigs that have fallen from somewhere above me and so is the ground.

As I sit quietly I notice a couple of inch long black ants crawling along the ground and up the sides of the wooden railing. As long as they don’t come close to me I don’t have a problem with them. The quiet is disrupted by a sudden rustling off into the distance in the bushes and then birds begin chirping and singing their spring songs. I’m surrounded by trees on all sides, some in full bloom others are still completely bare, having not recuperated from the long winter.

Behind the bench, I can see the bayou and the water is a murky brown-green color and sits calm and still until a quick breeze blows by, sending ripples throughout the bayou.

I decide to stand to get a better view of the area and I notice an ant approaching me, I quickly step to the side. As I move, another buzz zooms past my ear and I see the black ball of fur fly off into the trees. It turns back around and zooms past my ear yet again, I don’t think it helps that I’m wearing a coconut scented body spray.

I look back at the bench I was once sitting on and three of those large ants have taken over it, no more of me sitting there. I decide to look closely at the trees opposite of the bench as the sun blazes on my back and shoulders in between the branches of the trees. On a nearby branch I notice something shimmer; as I get a closer look I notice that it’s a spider web. Red leaves have been caught in its grasp but there is no sight of its owner.

I look to my right and there is a tall tree with a bush of bright green leaves at the very top yet the bark is shredding away like when a person shreds paper. It’s just stripping down the trunk of the tree in inch wide strips.

There are trees everywhere, fallen and standing. There’s one on its side rotting away along the edge of the water. The fallen trees were most likely from a past storm and the few left standing are the survivors. When I look straight up I can see an array of colors ranging from green to red to orange and then there’s even pink. That’s where those pink petals came from. As I’m looking at the trees behind the bench I see another glimmer of a spider web but then…bang bang bang.

Before I can even think of looking for the spider a ruckus begins on the other side of the boardwalk. I try to ignore it until I hear my professor’s voice screaming out for us to come back in. It’s 2 p.m. and I got to experience the tranquilness of the nature trail for a half hour with no one bothering me, except for the occasional buzz by of a bumble bee and the fairly large black ants crawling a bit too close for comfort.

Nature on human beings

2010-03-30T22:30:00.003-05:00

After reading the two essays in Listening to Earth, I see that every person has a different view of how nature is connected to them. Edward Abbey was writer of the essay “The First Morning,” which I found to be very interesting. It was very descriptive of the sunrise he was waiting to see and how close to nature he was as he was sleeping. He lived out in nature in a tiny housetrailer. I loved how he started the essay by saying, “This is the most beautiful place on Earth.” I believe that was my favorite line from the whole essay. His view on nature with human beings was very close, he described all of the animals that he lived so close with including the mice and rabbits.

The second essay “Landscape, History, and the Pueblo Imagination” written by Leslie Marmon Silko was a bore. It was very hard for me to even keep my eyes open to read it. I felt like I was reading a history lesson and I didn’t like it at all. The way she was describing the life of the Pueblo people was showing that they are extremely close to nature, so close that they “become dust.” She was describing how everything in nature is connected to each other and to Mother Earth and everything becomes dust in the end.

My views on how nature is connected to human beings are not as complex. I believe that everything is connected but I won’t go as far as saying that we become the dust flying around. I don’t think we are as connected to nature as much as the pueblo people. We may be connected to nature more closely to Abbey’s version. I would love to be around animals, living on a nature preserve now on the college campus I get the chance to see animals I would never see back at home. I get to see armadillos on an almost nightly affair; I had never seen an armadillo until I moved to the University of West Florida. I see plenty of squirrels back home and I’d see the occasional raccoon if they ventured out of the forest a couple of blocks from my house.

But every person definitely has a different view on how nature is connected to human beings.

Sunshine Law Survey

2010-03-26T19:59:00.004-05:00

My assignment was to go to the Pensacola Police Department and ask for the daily cop log for any day and then after reading through the cop log, pick out five incidents and get the details for them.
My roommate drove me over to the police department after Festival on the Greens finished for the day, so I had an equality heart on my face from the Gay-Straight Alliance booth and "amor" written on my arm from the To Write Love On Her Arms booth as I walked into the building.
I was shocked to see so much glass blocking me off from the officers, I guess it's for their protection. The officer behind the desk asks what I need and I asked him who would I need to talk to, to get the daily cop log? He asked me what I meant by a cop log so I just explained it and he told me that I would have to go to another office that is only opened Mondays-Thursdays 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. I thought I wouldn't be able to get anything because it was a Friday afternoon. I was about to leave with nothing but then there was another person behind the desk messing with lots of paperwork and said to the officer, "I think this is what she's looking for." The officer asked me what day did I want and I told him Wednesday. He also asked why I needed it but when I went back and said do I really need a reason he didn't push it and he willingly copied the sheet for Wednesday and handed it to me. I of course couldn't get all of the full details because I would need to come back to the office that was closed at the time.
I believe he complied with me completely. I especially didn't think he was going to make a copy of the paper for me and just hand it to me. I was really expecting him to ask me more questions but he simply gave me the paper and I left. He did have a confused expression on his face the whole time probably because of the heart on my cheek.

*By the way, I'm not naked in my photo, I promise.

Sea Grass is Dying

2010-03-21T19:37:00.005-05:00

Sea grass is a dying ocean organism. Today there is an organization that is trying to fix the decline in the Pensacola area.

Shelley Alexander from the Northwest Florida Aquatic Preserve Office came to speak about the decline of sea grass and its importance on March 17.

“It takes 20 or more years for sea grass to grow back,” Alexander said.

The decline of sea grass has progressively been getting worse since the ‘50s. This was because of the large industrial point sources.

The Northwest Florida Aquatic Preserve Office has been taking action towards the decline and has enforced a new law into the Florida statutes.

“All those years, from 1950 to 2010, we just now got regulations,” Alexander said.

There are signs located around the Gulfbreeze peninsula stating, “destruction of sea grass in Aquatic Preserves is a violation of Florida law (section 253.04(4a)F.S.) and carries a penalty of up to $1,000.”

The main causes of the decline in sea grass is overfishing and the boats going through lower water level areas and pulling at the sea grass.

“Pensacola Bay has lost all of its sea grass,” Alexander said. “The Gulfbreeze peninsula is where all of the sea grass is now in salt water.”

Some people may be thinking, what is the importance of sea grass. Sea grass acts as a habitat for many smaller fish.

“Sea grass habitat is very important for shellfish,” Alexander said. "Major oyster harvesting going on in the turn of the century also led in the decline.”

Sea grasses can be destroyed by boats just “plowing” out quickly through lower water level areas.

“Instead of plowing out of there real fast, tilt your engine up,” Alexander said.

She said there are many things that regular people can do besides being careful with their boats.

“When they’re snorkeling, people think sea grass is boring or not as cool as coral, we don’t have coral reefs but we have sea grass,” Alexander said. “The best thing you can do is pass this information along.”

NFAPO is working with the Emerald Coastkeeper group replanting sea grasses and enforcing the laws in the preserve areas.

March 27 is Seagrass Awareness day. For more information on sea grass issues visit NFAPO’s web site at http://www.dep.state.fl.us/coastal/sites/yellow.

Sea grass preparedness

2010-03-17T11:38:00.002-05:00

Questions:
1. What do you hope for the future of the water bodies in Escambia county?
2. How are you working towards cleaning the water?
3. Explain your job.
4. What have you noticed with the sea grass decline?
5. How much sea grass is actually out there right now compared to years ago?
6. What is your organization doing about the sea grass decline?

In the 1999 air and water quality grand jury report it was shown that Pensacola Bay’s water isn’t as bad as Perdido Bay’s water but the water still isn’t the best. According to the report, paper mill sludge, butchered animal carcasses, trash, road fill, household garbage, and runoff from farms and dirt roads were found in area water bodies. All of this trash has affected the habitats of many fishes and sea grasses. The sea grasses need the water to be cleaner to survive and throughout the years the water has just gotten worse, not better.

FPL makes change throughout the years for less pollution

2010-03-03T11:24:00.003-06:00

In downtown Ft. Lauderdale there’s a power plant where most of Broward County residents get their electricity from, but these consumers don’t know what else they’re getting.

Florida Power and Light Port Everglades Power Plant spews out over 100,000 pounds of emissions into the air a year, according to Toxic Release Inventory reports of 2008 filed by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Residents shouldn’t fear though because in the past 10 years the emissions have dropped fourfold. Back in 1998, FPL was emitting 433,000 pounds of chemicals such as hydrochloric acid which is a suspected immunotoxicant, sulfuric acid which is a suspected respiratory toxicant and nickel compounds which is a known carcinogen which can cause cancer later in life, according to www.scorecard.org.

Between 1998 and today FPL decided to clean up their act and produce less emissions.

“We added in electrostatic precipitators which keep the smoke from the smokestacks cleaner,” Idayna Stokes, FPL public contact said.

Today FPL emits a total of 105,039 pounds of sulfuric acid and lead into the air while 2,561 pounds of lead and polycyclic aromatic compounds are taken off-site to landfills in the area.

Lead, which is a known cancer causing agent, is mostly transferred off-site to Central Sanitary landfill of Waste Management in Pompano Beach. Of the 2,632 pounds of lead emitted from FPL, only 113 pounds is actually emitted into the air a year. And every year, less chemical emissions are going into the air because of the new technology that FPL is incorporating.

The biggest pollutant from FPL is sulfuric acid which emits over 104,000 pounds into the air and none of it is taken off-site. All of the sulfuric acid goes straight into the air. Sulfuric acid may not be a known cancer causing agent but it is suspected to “cause adverse effects on the muscles, bones, and joints” according to www.scorecard.org, it may also be a respiratory toxicant and skin or sense organ toxicant.

The last most emitted chemical is polycyclic aromatic compounds or PACs. A little over one pound is emitted into the air a year while the other 42 pounds are transferred off-site to Atlantic Industrial Services in Pompano Beach. PACs is suspected of being a cancer causing agent along with cardiovascular or blood toxicant, gastrointestinal or liver toxicant, reproductive toxicant, respiratory toxicant and skin or sense organ intoxicant, according to www.scorecard.org.

“PACs are from the oil,” Stokes said.

FPL is one of the biggest electric companies in the state of Florida with 13 power plants spread across the state from Miami-Dade to St. John’s. FPL Port Everglades power plant is just one of the many and uses natural gas and oil as its fuel to create electricity.

The Port Everglades plant produces 1,205 megawatts of power from the total of 24,997 megawatts of power produced by all 13 power plants.

FPL employs over 15,000 in 27 states and Canada and had revenues of over $16 million. For more information on the company visit www.fpl.com or www.fplgroup.com.

The power plant is located at 8100 Eisenhower Blvd. Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33316.

View Larger Map

Toxic Town Pensacola

2010-02-21T16:32:00.006-06:00

Living in the Pensacola area for school has put me at risk for many chemicals to get into my system and I didn’t know until now. One of the top polluters in Escambia County just happens to be the university’s nearby next door neighbor, Gulf Power Co., which by itself generates over 10 million pounds of environmental releases.

These are the top 10 polluters in Escambia County which together generates over 38 million pounds of environmental releases. Solutia Inc. of Cantonment, Gulf Power Co. Plant Crist of Pensacola, International Paper of Cantonment, Huntsman Petrochemical Corp. of Cantonment, Reichhold Inc. of Pensacola, Pall Membrane Tech. Center of Pensacola, Blazer Boats Inc. of Pensacola, Arizona Chemical Co. of Pensacola, Wayne Dalton Corp. Pensacola Div. of Pensacola and U.S. Navy Pensacola Naval Air Station of Pensacola.

These are the top 10 major chemical pollutants of Escambia County which together there are over 36 million pounds of in the county’s environment; nitrate compounds, hydrochloric acid, farmic acid, methanol, cyclohexanol, N-butyl alcohol, ammonia, sulfuric acid, manganese compounds and acetaldehyde.

Nitrate compounds, which is reported as having over 17 million pounds in the environment is a suspected cardiovascular or blood toxicant which may cause many cardiovascular diseases and may lead to death.

Comparing Pensacola to where I’m from, it is more polluted. I live in a little city in South Florida called Margate. The second biggest polluter in Broward County happens to be Sun Graphic Inc. which is located in Pompano Beach, a 15-minute commute from my house but I did happen to drive past it every day when I was in high school. There is a road in my county called Powerline Rd and it is where all the big industrial companies are located, for example marble and tile companies, waste management, and water treatment centers are all located on this road. My friends and I used to always say, “You know you’re in Pompano because you can smell it.”

Compared to Escambia County, Broward County only releases 787,332 pounds of chemical releases from their top 10 polluters and only 802,577 pounds of chemical releases from their top 10 chemical pollutants.

After reading Hulen’s story “Toxic Town,” I know that we are living in toxic town as well in Pensacola. Something has to be done. First, Pensacola’s water is rated the worst in the U.S., what will happen next? Just think about what we’re breathing in from the power plant right off campus.

The two photos were taken from the dock on the UWF campus. The smoke plumes from the Gulf Power Co. destroy the serene view of trees and clouds from the dock.

Water forum tells Pensacolians “water is safe”

2010-02-21T16:22:00.002-06:00

Step foot into the Clyde H. Hagler auditorium on the Pensacola Junior College campus in Pensacola last Wednesday night, you would have walked into a line of professionals explaining about our drinking water. Opposite of the professionals were a mix of students and worried adults hoping for an answer.

Wednesday night at PJC, there was a water forum held hosted by Chasidy Hobbs, Emerald Coastkeeper. There were eight panelists present to talk about the water we drink daily and the Environmental Working Group study that placed Pensacola’s water from Emerald Coast Utilities Authority number 100 on a list of 100 municipalities across the nation, meaning Pensacola has the worst water in the nation according to the EWG study.

“This panel was designed to move past that study,” Hobbs said.

After introducing the rest of the panel, Hobbs passed the microphone to Dan O’Lone from the Environmental Protection Agency. It was his job to explain how the drinking water standards are set at a federal level.
He explained that every five years there is a contaminant candidate list published which includes contaminants that may require regulations.

“We are on CCL 3,” O’Lone said. “There are 116 contaminants on CCL 3.”

According to O’Lone’s powerpoint presentation, the EPA has to choose five of the contaminants from the CCL to be regulated but before they are chosen the EPA has to find that the contaminant has adverse health effects, it occurs frequently at a level of public health concern and the regulation of the contaminant will have health risks reduced.

The microphone was then passed along to John Pope, drinking water supervisor of the Department of Environmental Protection. He spoke about all of the water systems that are regulated in this area. There are 5,800 public water supply systems throughout the state of Florida with 432 of those located in the Panhandle from Pensacola in Escambia County to Tallahassee in Leon County.

“If a contaminant is found over a certain level, the public has a right to know,” Pope said. “We get our water from the sand and gravel aquifer that is recharged from rainfall. Every time it rains, it’s a good thing.”

The ECUA has done more tests on the water than any other utility company in the US. ECUA tested over 74,000 times throughout the four years worth of data the EWG published on their site. The average amount of testing according to EWG was 420 tests throughout the four years. There were 45 pollutants found in ECUA water with 21 of those exceeding health guidelines.

Water utilities nationwide detected more than 300 pollutants between 2004 and 2009. More than half of these chemicals are unregulated, legal in any amount, according to the EWG Web site.

“We don’t deny the data they used,” Bill Johnson of the ECUA said. “It is our data.”

He continued to persuade the audience that the water is safe.

“ECUA says your water is safe. ECUA’s water meets or exceeds all primary and secondary drinking water standards, and continues to be safe and of the highest quality,” Johnson said.

Enid Sisskin, a University of West Florida instructor, was brought in to tell about the health effects all of the pollutants can have on the people.

“We do not know what the health effects are of these contaminants,” Sisskin said. “Tetrachloroethylene is used for dry cleaning; in high concentrations it can cause dizziness.”

Tetracholoethylene is the most prevalent in ECUA’s water, along with Radium-226, Radium-228 and Trichloroethylene. Sisskin’s biggest point was that the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 needs to be reformed.

Carl Mohrherr, a UWF instructor, was brought on to talk about the aquifer where ECUA’s water comes from. He said that it is very easy for the sand and gravel aquifer to be polluted. All of the wells had nitrate and radium.
After all of the presentations the audience was able to ask questions and one concerned woman asked about the fluoride being put in the water.

“Remember don’t drink the water,” she said.

William Brown, an ECUA utility worker spoke up about the sludge found in the fire hydrants.

“I’m a Vietnam veteran and hate when people say we have clean water when we don’t,” Brown said. “Pure black crap comes out of the fire hydrants.”

Research Links

2010-02-05T16:58:00.010-06:00

http://www.pnj.com/article/20100121/NEWS01/1210313/1006/news01/ECUA--Water-s-fine

http://www.miamiherald.com/486/v-print/story/1399440.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/17/us/17water.html

http://www.ewg.org/tap-water/pressrelease

The use of these four links as research for the panel discussion with the Emerald Coastkeeper will be able to keep me organized on what I want to actually write my article on. I plan on exploring how many tests were done on Pensacola's water compared to other communities around the US and how those numbers affected Pensacola's score on the list of best and worst water. Also there are many other chemicals that are in our water that are not regulated by the government and I would like to mention how these other chemicals can be regulated later on or even starting now. Lastly, all over the United States there have been issues on what is in our water. What's in our bottled water and what can actually be filtered out using a regular water filter at home?

SEJ article response

2010-02-01T00:03:00.003-06:00

In the SEJ article entitled “Why the decline and rebirth of environmental journalism matters” it explains about the sudden decline of environmental journalists today.

Environmental journalists are a dying breed because there is not enough money to cover the climate and science issues that are being produced today. According to the article, the press would rather show and tell stories about crime instead of about environmental issues.

Many reporters today that worked on the environmental beat have all the same beliefs. They all believe that there should still be environmental journalists in the pressrooms.

“Heartbreaking” is the word Feanny used. “It frustrates me. At a time when, more than ever, the public needs science and environmental news to make informed decisions, the stories are not on the air.”

Environmental journalists becoming a dying breed have impacted the welfare and health of ordinary people by there not being many stories about the climate and weather on the air or in print. The ordinary people aren’t learning the important facts about the environment like they should be. They are instead being exposed to crime and “exciting” stories.

According to the article, “beyond the loss of reporters on the beat, coverage of climate change is a low priority for many news organizations.”

The article also believes that the future of environmental journalists will continue to decline until something major happens but hopefully this will change in time.

“Former CNN producer Camille Feanny believes new journalism ventures and social media are crucial, both for coverage of environmental issues and for the journalists who cover them” according to the article.

Society of Environmental Journalists

2010-01-27T10:21:00.003-06:00

The Society of Environmental Journalists website is a great spot for beginning environmental journalists to begin their search for story ideas and to see what has already been written on a specific topic.

SEJ has been around for 20 years and has continued to grow even with the decrease of environmental journalists. Every day SEJ highlights environmental headlines that are being printed and aired around the nation. For example, some of today’s headlines include “Obama to Announce High-Speed Rail Plan Post-Speech”, “EPA to Investigate Cluster of Birth Defects in Kettleman City, Calif.”, “Scientists Link Flame Retardants and Reduced Human Fertility”, and in New Jersey “Pompton Lakes Cancer Study Widens.”

Also included on their website is a library of information. Included in their library are blogs, a list of books, a climate change guide, industry trends, reporting tools, source lists, and teaching tools. There is even a section on how to be a freelancer. Beginning environmental journalists could use these links to hone their skills when they’re out in the field, especially using the reporting tool which has a link to US EPA terms of environment, which is a list of commonly used acronyms and abbreviations from the EPA.

SEJ also offers workshops and conferences for their members so these members can learn the newest techniques in their field.

Chapter 1: Discussion of Listening to Earth

2010-01-20T00:07:00.005-06:00

John Muir, Mary Austin, Aldo Leopold, Margaret L. Knox, and Barry Lopez have all written their own views on the value of land.

Muir believed that all of nature belonged to God. Austin who was a feminist loved how nature could grow wild. Leopold was a man who loved animals and he restored a prairie in Wisconsin to its original condition without human contact. Knox is just a regular journalist doing her job concerning the environment and decides to write most of her stories about the federal government that likes to purchase all of the land. Lopez believes that people cannot own the land, the land belongs to Earth.

All five of these authors have a closeness to the environment that they love to express through their writing. If they were to see what has happened with our Earth today, I don’t think any one of them would be very happy.

If Muir’s belief was that nature belonged to God, he would hate all the construction that is being planned on the barrier beaches in Navarre and Pensacola Beach. Leopold would feel the same way as Muir because he loved all the animals and with all this building it would destroy some animals’ habitats.

I feel the same way as these authors. Even if I’m not a treehugger, I do love animals and I would hate for them to lose their homes. The county is going to be doing all this building but do they really need these new industrial buildings.

Reaction to Chasidy Hobbs

2010-01-18T22:22:00.002-06:00

I’m definitely not one of those crazy health freaks or tree huggers but when someone comes out and tells me that our water isn’t “safe” to drink, I’m going to go a little crazy. I do recycle, when I’m at home that is, but I never really paid attention to the water that I drink.

When Chasidy Hobbs came in to speak with us, she told us that we could even see what chemicals are in the University’s water. She said it was high in radium, which is highly radioactive. That scared me. I drink the water from the water fountains on campus; I take a shower using the water on campus. I would like to know how much radium I’m getting exposed to.

According to the EWG report on UWF’s water, radium exceeded health guidelines along with six other chemicals. Hobbs also said that radium can’t even be removed using a water filter so that means that the PUR water filter my roommate bought isn’t helping us against that pollutant. Thanks UWF for the radioactive water.

Chasidy Hobbs, Coastkeeper talks about our water

2010-01-18T22:15:00.002-06:00

Chasidy Hobbs is the newest coastkeeper for Emerald Coastkeeper, which is the local chapter of the Waterkeeper Alliance. She is also an instructor and advisor at the University of West Florida.

Waterkeeper Alliance is an international non-profit group dedicated to monitoring bodies of water.

“Our jurisdiction is from Perdido Bay by the Alabama line to East Bay by Panama City,” Hobbs said. “We work predominantly in Escambia County because that’s where our headquarters are.”

She had hoped her first major project to fight against would be the off-shore drilling issue affecting the state of Florida, but before she could even touch that issue, the Environmental Working Group water report came out.

The EWG rated Pensacola’s water number 100 in the list of 100 water utilities in the United States. That meant that Pensacola’s water was the worst water in the U.S.

EWG is a non-profit organization based out of Washington, D.C. They collected data from water companies throughout 45 states and the District of Columbia.

“EWG rated big city water utilities based on three factors: the total number of chemicals detected since 2004; the percentage of chemicals found of those tested; and the highest average level for an individual pollutant, relative to legal limits or national average amounts, including for the most common pollutants,” according to the EWG report.

Hobbs is planning a panel discussion to be held on February 10th at Pensacola Junior College to discuss how to regulate the water. Some issues that they will discuss will include the use of a water filter and what can actually be removed by these filters.

“Well I’m curious just what can be removed with a filter,” Hobbs said. “I know radium isn’t coming out, that’s one that cannot be filtered out.”

There are over 60,000 chemicals found in the water around the U.S but less than 100 of those are regulated by the government. According to the EWG report, there were 45 pollutants found in Pensacola’s water and of those 45, 21 of them exceeded health guidelines.

For more information on Emerald Coastkeeper visit their website at www.emeraldcoastkeeper.org and for more information on the EWG report visit www.ewg.org.