Everglades Cleanup Exposes Environmentalists

[Tony]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,98950,00.html

Don’t tell me that so-called “environmentalists” are “for” the environment. The ongoing controversy over the cleanup of the Florida Everglades is further evidence that eco-activists are more interested in uncontested political power and dominating business interests than in workable environmental protection.

The Florida Everglades (search) are experiencing an overgrowth of cattails that crowd out the sawgrass and reduce the habitat for wading birds, alligators and other indigenous species. The cattail growth is fueled in part by run-off from farms and cities that is overly rich in phosphorus, a nutrient essential for plant growth.

By the early 1990s, cattails were overtaking the Everglades at a rate of more than six acres per day.

Thanks to an $8 billion federal-state partnership started in 1994 and implemented by the South Florida Water Management District (search), the rate of cattail growth has been reduced to about two acres per day.



More evidence that the enviroment wackos are more about politics than the enviroment.

[peptoabysmal]

No doubt about it. A good many of them do not care for the environment as much as they care to cause as much damage to government and industry as possible.

Also from the article:

In knee-jerk fashion, the “environmentalists” called the 1994 law a sell-out to the sugar industry and claimed it wouldn’t work. They favored their standard expensive, command-and-control crackdown on farming and business interests.

[a_unique_person]

It's costing 8 Billion dollars to clean up the phosphorous runoff. Take note, this is a government funded program, to fix up poor farming practices. It sounds like the runoff is from sugar farmers, who already receive massive subsidies.

The reduction in phosphorous has reduced but not stopped the growth of the weed.

I don't see how it is the greenies that are stopping anything here. How is it their fault?

[Malachi151]

Ummm... what a totally biased piece of "journalism", that piece did not even belong in a semi-respected news outlet.

Don’t tell me that so-called “environmentalists” are “for” the environment.

Umm.. okay, where did this come from?

Instead of being pleased, however, the “environmentalists” are foaming at the mouth.

Really? Who? Quotes? Sources? Why the rethoric?

In knee-jerk fashion, the “environmentalists” called the 1994 law a sell-out to the sugar industry and claimed it wouldn’t work. They favored their standard expensive, command-and-control crackdown on farming and business interests.

"They"? “environmentalists”? Why not just say "The evil commie vial bastards", that's really what is trying to be conveyed here is it not?

Though the cleanup is progressing amazingly well, the triviality of the deadline change sent the “environmentalists” into orbit, even to the point of engaging in harassment and intimidation.

Into "orbit"? Can we get any more colorful with the words here?

So what if the cleanup is not proceeding according to some arbitrarily rigid timeline and standard demanded by activists with dubious goals?

Dubious goals? Such as?

Steven Milloy is the publisher of JunkScience.com, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute and the author of Junk Science Judo: Self-defense Against Health Scares and Scams (Cato Institute, 2001).

Oh yes, great resume, Cato is a load fo crap.

http://www.junkscience.com/

09/12 -- Hillary's Sept. 11 Smoke Screen

09/05 -- KFC Chickens Out to PETA

Are Children More Vulnerable to Environmental Chemicals?...

Passive Smoke: The EPA's Betrayal of Science...

Global Warming and Other Eco Myths: How the Environmental Movement Uses False Science to Scare Us to Death,

Oh no, that guy is not politcally motivated :rolleyes:

http://www.sptimes.com/2003/09/24/State/Judge_in_Glades_case_.shtml

For 15 years, one federal judge oversaw the cleanup of the Everglades. He pored over documents, listened to legal arguments, sifted through scientific studies. He even toured the River of Grass by airboat.

But on Tuesday U.S. District Judge William Hoeveler was removed from the Everglades case, not for misbehaving in court or making outrageous rulings.

South Florida's chief judge removed him for talking to reporters.

Hoeveler's comments this spring blasting Gov. Jeb Bush, the Legislature, the sugar industry and the South Florida Water Management District "demonstrate an objective doubt as to Judge Hoeveler's continued impartiality," wrote Chief Judge William Zloch.

Contacted at home, Hoeveler at first declined to comment because, "I may say something that is impermissible."

But then Hoeveler expressed disappointment.

"I feel for the Everglades," said Hoeveler, 81. "I feel protective of it. But I don't think that's a reason to get me off the case."

Hoeveler pointed out that only U.S. Sugar and a subsidiary of Flo-Sun Sugar pushed for his ouster. Everyone else involved in the complex lawsuit over Everglades water pollution - the state Department of Environmental Protection, the U.S. Justice Department, the Miccosukee Indian Tribe and environmental groups - wanted him to stay.

And of course the fact is that without the environmentalists bringing pressure to bear none of this cleanup would have happened in the first place. If they can come up with a cheaper and effective way then that's good, but the pressure of a more expensive way is the only thing making any of this happen in the first place.