Fix it now

The citizen’s initiative to take growth decisions out of the hands of politicians and give the decisions to voters is fighting back get on the ballot this November. The group remains a few thousand verified signatures short of having enough to be on a ballot, a predicament it blames on ” a hostile Legislature, well-heeled corporate opposition, erratic counting procedures by supervisors of elections, questionable emergency rules from the secretary of state and inexplicably blasé (or non-existent) news coverage.”

What exactly is Florida Hometown Democracy? Basically, it is telling our elected officials that they suck and we no longer give them the right do make growth decisions for us. Sounds like the American way on the surface: Citizens — fed up with politicians who are permanently bent over for big developers with no regard to the environment or our quality of life — start a grassroots petition drive to get an initiative on the ballot. Get enough signatures and, bingo, citizens get to decide if they want to continue to trust the politicians or if they would rather have vote directly on land-use decisions.

FHD gathered the required number of signatures (and then some) and turned them in. Not so fast, said the building lobby (and the politicians that they buy up easier than rural land). The excuses made by the state for not putting it on the ballot were pathetic and seemed downright dirty. FHD did not give up and is now in court to decide whether it will make the ballot.

Opponents of the initiative say it will stop growth … NOT TRUE.

Growth is dictated by local governments’ Comprehensive Plans and will continue as those allow. What Hometown Democracy does is gives the power to decide on whether that plan is AMENDED to citizens. For example, that Comp Plan hearing I attended last week where 6 of our 7 Hillsborough County Commissioners voted to increase densities in rural areas — against the Comp Plan and against the advice of the Planning Commission thus creating more sprawl — I would have had an actual vote on that and so would you!

Only Commissioner Rose Ferlita voted against violating our Comp Plan. Team Sprawl (Jim Norman, Brian Blair, Al Higginbotham, Kevin White,  Ken Hagan and — I am sad to report— Mark Sharpe) voted to violate it, making the perfect argument FOR Hometown Democracy. This isn’t about stopping growth; it is about stopping special interest, out-of-control growth. It is about telling our politicians that they clearly can’t be trusted so we will do it ourselves, thank you.

In my opinion, this is the best chance of saving what we have left of Florida for future generations to enjoy. I believe if the referendum is passed, our grandchildren will have Ms. Blackner, who started Hometown Democracy, to thank for saving Florida from certain demise (unless you live here for the concrete). She is a fearless competitor against a mountain of developers and their sea of politicians.

What can you do? Support Florida Hometown Democracy by signing the petition and spreading the word. Vote to approve it in November, providing the courts do the right thing and actually put it on the ballot.

Hillsborough County’s Environmental Protection Commission just released its slick 2007 State of the Environment report.

Download it here.

Preliminary thoughts, anyone?

I was unable to attend last week’s EPC meeting in defense of our wetlands but I did tune in to catch the end of it. I was very impressed with my fellow citizens as they fought for our environment and held our elected officials accountable for it to the dismay of developers. Seeing them in action is always inspiring, but in addition to their regular performances, there were a few I didn’t expect. As the motion by Commissioner Rose Ferlita to approve the staff recommendation was made and seconded by Commissioner Mark Sharpe, Commissioner Jim Norman jumped in and started to push for the staff to work on classifying the wetlands. This is something that the staff, the advisory committee, and the citizens were on record as AGAINST, yet the developer community wants it. Commissioner Brian Blair seemed like he was going to make a second motion to include this and tried to take his cues from Norman but fumbled.  Sharpe boldly intercepted Norman’s attempt to weasel this directive to staff and even EPC director Dr. Garrity showed a hint of a backbone as he told Norman that the staff was against classifying the wetlands. Blair, still looking like a deer in headlights (after it has been hit), finally just comes out and asks to hear Norman’s opinion but does not end up making a second motion. The staff’s and citizen’s recommendations passed unanimously and even though Norman and Blair voted for it their comments indicated to me that it was not because they wanted to. November is good for this county and so is public awareness.

So, kudos to  Sharpe for taking a stand and not allowing Norman to bully the staff. Thanks to  Ferlita for making the motion in the first place, and Commissioner Norman……….you might want to try clicker training with Commissioner Blair……it seems to work for dog trainers. Blair was still speaking when Commissioner Al Higginbotham adjourned the meeting……..the camera was on just long enough to see everyone get up and leave while Blair still continued on.

What can you do? Stay informed and get out and vote.

I know we have 10 categories to choose from in Fix it Now and usually my posts fit nicely under transportation or suburban sprawl but this one really needs another category, WTF will probably do it.

Boy, just a few short days to celebrate the death of the Bypass/ Green Swath of Death and then I read the July 1 front page of the Trib showing the cracks in the reservoir. Great, so I won’t have a road destroying my community but now I might need to don my scuba gear to get out to the barn. Tampa Bay Water (who look to me like the TBARTA of water with their regional board) are saying that the reservoir is safe (yeah and their inspectors said they had 12 inches of cement when it turns out there is only actually 3 in some places). Hmmm, claiming to have 12 inches while really only sporting 3…………. seems to me that overestimating how well-endowed the reservoir is could be disastrous. When it comes to holding back 15 billion gallons of water, I think size probably does matter and oh yeah, taxpayers paid for 12 inches! This photo is from last year’s report that I found on their website, so they have known about this for some time.

When we first heard these rumblings last year we were told everything is fine, and not to worry our pretty heads about it. I was busy fighting a road at the time and Ronda Storms said in the paper she would take care of it. (hey, give me some credit here for not making a comment about Storms). After reading the most recent article about the cracks, I contacted some of our BOCC (Commissioners Higginbotham and Sharpe are on TBW). Mr. Johnson, Higginbotham’s aide, replied promptly via e-mail and gave me some information about the reservoir. Mr. Johnson explained that the soil-cement was a less expensive alternative than other options such as rip-rap. He also made me aware that it was “essentially recycled material” since the native soil from the excavation was used. (Not a good case for recycling but I give him an A for effort on that one). He also provided parts of David Carrier’s June 20th report and describes Carrier as the state expert from FDEP on dams and reservoirs. Carrier reports his findings from the consultants Black and Veatch who are excavating the test pits. Here are the parts of his report that scare me: the B and V folks found seepage/erosion conduits in the soil beneath the geotextile. The diameter of the conduits varies from several about 8 inches; and they “evidently meander beneath the soil cement.”

Evidently meander? Hey, I am not a scientist or engineer but evidently meandering past the layer that of geotextile that is supposed to be keeping the water out of my neighborhood does not make me feel safe. It gets worse he is later quoted in the report: “In one of the conduits a tape measure could be pushed to a length of 12 feet, but presumably it extends even farther.” Presumably? How much money does this guy get paid to presumably inspect the reservoir that evidently has some meandering holes underneath the cracking surface? These types of descriptions from an expert beg the question………… Is he inspecting crack or smoking it? As you can probably tell, I wasn’t feeling too confident about this guy when I read the end of his report “In particular, the geomembrane deep in the embankment has not been breached and the safety of the dam has not been compromised.” Um……Mr. Expert, how long before those 12 ft (but presumably farther) conduits extending beneath the geotextile meander even farther? What happens when the dam has 15 billion gallons of water in it instead of just under the 4 billion gallons that it is holding now?

Why should you care especially if you don’t happen to live in rural Lithia? Because your tax dollars built this cracking mess and it is costing a fortune to fix it. After reading Wayne’s recent article on Ralph Hughes, concrete mogul, and his ties to 6 of our 7 current county commissioners I am surprised they couldn’t at least get us a deal on real concrete.

My question is how far does 15 billion gallons spread if the reservoir is completely breached? Can anybody presumably guess just how far that water will meander if it breaks through the rest of the barriers? TBW is proposing to put another reservoir out here. I say NO. Why should one little corner of the region assume so much of the risk for all the counties (Hillsborough, Pasco, and Pinellas) that TBW supplies to? The land surrounding the current reservoir will be for hiking, biking and horse trails and it is scheduled to be opened next spring. This sounds great but adding another reservoir would decrease the land available for this and certainly increase the risk they have already imposed on our community.

TBW needs to FIX IT NOW but the question is how? The pictures in the Trib show them patching up the visible cracks where the reservoir is dry but I wonder how they patch those cracks underwater and how do they fix that tunneling that is described outside the cracks and in the mound itself? You can contact TBW here and ask them. You can contact our BOCC here and let them know if you have concerns. Mr. Johnson assured me that Commissioner Higginbotham will continue to monitor the reservoir very closely and remains committed to ensuring the safety and continued operation of the reservoir. I do hope that is the case but if living in rural Lithia has taught me anything it is that citizens need to pay attention and look out for ourselves.

UPDATE: Since this was submitted I heard back from Eric Larson, Commissioner Mark Sharpe’s aide.  I have found him to be accommodating and helpful anytime I have a question or request.  He provided me with more information (in the linked .pdf) regarding the structure itself and assures me that the safety of the dam has not been compromised.  He provided contact information to TBW and suggested I attend the next TBW Board Meeting on August 18 in Clearwater and put my concerns on the record.  I did email TBW on July 3 regarding this issue and have yet to hear back from them.  I also questioned what they were filling the cracks in with since it looked like real concrete and not soil-cement to me in the pictures.  Mr. Larson informed me it was grout cement.

I also heard back from Mr. Johnson who expressed confidence in the state inspector.  They both harped on the fact that the soil-cement is not what is holding back the water it is just a wave-attenuation (so I could have been surfing in Lithia if not for this wave-attenuation device?) and that the cracks have nothing to do with the integrity of the structure.  It is the “evidently meanders beneath the geotextile” part that is scary to me.  I am glad that I am a good swimmer just in case that meandering continues.

If you want to reduce your carbon footprint and save some money in your ever-dwindling fuel budget you may want to stop making those time-consuming and wasteful left turns.

This strategy has been implemented by numerous companies, including UPS, FedEX and Home Depot. UPS’s routing software, also used by Home Depot, plans routes for drivers that minimize the number of left turns a driver makes. This measure reduces idling time if drivers have to wait to make the turn. While left turns cannot be completely eliminated, left-turn reductions have reportedly saved UPS over 28.5 million miles of travel, which in turn resulted in over three million gallons of fuel and shaved carbon emissions by 31,000 metric tons.

Many companies with freight-shipping operations are changing routes and shipping methods in order to reduce transportation costs. These are necessary strategies that make shipping operations more efficient and prevent excess costs from being passed onto consumers. For now, at least. Read the rest of this entry »

The shortage of trees in the bay area got a little shorter recently when former Tampa Bay Buccaneer/Cleveland Browns/Baltimore Ravens/New York Jets/Dallas Cowboys/New England Patriots/Carolina Panthers quarterback Vinny Testaverde cut down a few on his new lakefront Odessa property.

By a few I mean around 40 or so (not Vinny’s ex-trees pictured at left; the actual trees are now appearing in a mulch bag in a Lowe’s near you). They could have filmed an episode of Ax Men at his house. Sheesh, Vinny, why so many? There are people around here that would freakin’ kill for that many trees on their property.

The Hillsborough Environmental Protection Commission came to the rescue and cited him for cutting down the cypress trees because they were in a protected wetland area. Testaverde said he didn’t realize it was a big problem. He apparently had a landscaping company cut the trees down and they never said anything about it being illegal.

“You’ve got to rely on the advice of these people. Whoever cut down the trees didn’t do a very good job of informing him,” Clayton Studstill, Testaverde’s attorney, told the Tampa Tribune. (We did not make up his attorney’s name, we swear. Studstill.)

OK, getting bad landscaping advice is understandable. It’s puzzling that he would want to de-tree his property to any extent, but I guess I can believe he didn’t realize he was doing something illegal. And putting aside any environmental implications caused to the waterway next to his house, or any possible deed-restrictions he may have violated, or the pissing-off of his new neighbors, it is his place after all. He should be able to cut down any trees not located in a protected wetland area of his property.

As punishment, the EPC ordered Testaverde to plant 40 15-gallon cypress trees on the property within 30 days and make sure they all survive for one year. Testaverde didn’t want to replace all the trees, so the EPC caved and said he could plant 20 30-gallon trees instead, along with some herbaceous plants along the shoreline.

If he doesn’t like that, the EPC will probably let him plant a single 600-gallon tree, only mow the lawn every third week, and do the edging only in a month that ends in a ‘y’ or a consonant.

That’s wetlands mitigation for you. You know what they say, it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.

It will probably be a few years before Testaverde’s new trees mature enough for the property to be returned to its previous ecological state. Understandably, Testaverde’s neighbors aren’t happy about the whole mess.

I wouldn’t eat any of that house-warming pie, Vinny.

photo by saveena(AKA LHDugger)

In the latest green news, Tampa Congresswoman Kathy Castor is marking Earth Day by filing a bill long sought — and long denied — by the Florida delegation and most Democrats: a permanent ban on offshore drilling around the state’s Gulf coast.

Initial media reaction is that the bill has a tough road ahead of it, caught up in the Democratic leadership’s lack of desire to revisit the contentious issue after a 2006 compromise that resulted in a temporary ban for Florida until 2022. Caster has led the fight in recent days against an effort to open Florida offshore drilling grounds for natural gas exploration, a Republican-led effort that had hoped to take advantage of public dismay with rising energy prices.

From her office comes these quotes from the Democrat:

“It is ridiculous, not just ironic that they are trying to allow drilling as part of a beach water-quality bill. If they go as far as to introduce an oil drilling amendment in a beach water-quality bill, I don’t know what else they wouldn’t do,” said Castor.

“Drilling off of our beautiful beaches is the energy policy of the past,” said Castor. “If President Bush and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle truly wanted to address high oil prices, they should have voted with the Democratic majority to take the huge tax breaks away from the big oil companies at a time that they are making record profits. Instead of these huge tax breaks for big oil the New Democratic Congress wants to invest those dollars in alternative energy and transportation opportunities to break our addiction.”

“We are fighting for a new direction on energy policy and renewable sources of energy. We value our natural environment, and we value the public health of our communities,” Castor continued. “Tomorrow, we will celebrate the 38th Earth Day, which gives us an opportunity to focus on the key challenges facing us in preserving our planet.”

“This year’s Earth Day coincides with a deepening economic crisis in America. That’s why the New Direction Congress has begun to address the global warming crisis and to spur a cleaner, greener, and more prosperous economy for the American people,” said Castor. “We have begun to reverse the failed energy policies of the past, committing instead to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and promoting renewable energy for the future. By focusing on rapidly expanding the production of clean, alternative energy and reducing our use of oil, we can both reduce global warming and create green jobs.”

“More can and must be done to deal with these challenges facing us in preserving our planet and strengthening our economy,” Castor concluded. “We shouldn’t be endangering Florida’s natural environment and vital tourism economy for 25 days worth of oil and 35 days worth of natural gas, which is all that is estimated to be produced by the area opened up under the compromise of 2006.”

Here’s a good piece by the League of Conservation voters on Dubya’s obsession with fouling our tourist beaches.

(Photo by Enrico Strocchi) 

Roberta Fernandez of Planet Partnership, an organization that works to mobilize communities to take action in reducing carbon footprints, spoke about methods both big and small to reduce our own impact on the environment.She began by saying that while natural variations in weather patterns have always been a part of the Earth’s history, most scientific research supports the theory that the extreme weather we’ve seen in recent years is a result of human negligence.

She supported this by citing some shocking statistics — for example, that two-thirds of China’s glaciers may be melted by 2060, that the Alps could be ice-free by 2050, and that Greenland lost 220 cubic kilometers of ice in 2005, the equivalent of billions of gallons of water.

These and other issues, she said, will be the most devastating for developing countries, which do not have the economic capacity to survive issues like the loss of potable water supply or the flooding of coastal homes.

Fernandez emphasized the importance of environmental consciousness in the business world.

“Eighty percent of graduating college students say that working for an environmentally responsible company is important to them,” she said. It’s not only employees who seek out green companies, Fernandez says, but also vendors and consumers.

“Lead by example,” Fernandez urged. “Look at Wal-Mart. They’ve published vendor guidelines that give suppliers 12 months to comply with their environmental standards, or they say ‘okay, you’re off our vendor list.’ But don’t think that just because your business isn’t as big as Wal-Mart means that the steps you take aren’t making a positive impact. “

Fernandez said that reducing the effects of climate change and preventing future damage “begins with the realization that it starts with me, not that guy over there … take a look at your consumption and reduce it in every way that you can.”

(Bonus track: download Fernandez’s “The Little Book of ‘Convenient’ Things You Can Do To Stop Global Warming” in .pdf here.)

Editor’s note:  CL intern and USF journalism student Franki Weddington files from the USF Going Green Expo:

My first seminar of the day is “Biodiesel and Biofuels,” presented by Michael Lokey of Lokey Trucks. If you’re surprised to hear that a lecture on environmentally-friendly fuels is being presented by someone who sells gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs, join the club.

While most of the audience of about 40 people seem to be at least somewhat familiar with the concept of homemade biodiesel, I don’t even know how a diesel engine works, much less how to create fuel for it.

Fortunately for me, Lokey begins the discussion by briefly explaining the difference between traditional gasoline-powered internal combustion engines and diesel engines, which use compression and don’t require a spark plug. He says that a diesel engine is “basically just like a bicycle.” Sure it is.

Instead of using diesel fuel, Lokey says, a more environmentally friendly option is using vegetable oil or biodiesel to run your car. (A Dodge truck biofuel converter is shown at right.) Among their advantages is that they clean and lubricate your engine, can be stored safely for more than a year and reduce carbon emissions. Also, it keeps otherwise wasted veggie oil out of our sewer systems, which Lokey says currently costs the city of Tampa $300,000 annually.

Lokey explains that engines that run on straight vegetable oil (or “svo’s” as they’re called in the industry) will never become a viable option for mainstream consumption but will remain popular in the realm the environmentallyaware individual.

This is because unaltered veggie oil solidifies if not kept at the proper temperature, which is difficult in most environments and often requires two engines to be feasible. The factory engine houses the majority of the oil, which can be used once the engine is running and has heated it to a usable temperature, and another that uses the car’s coolant (which, apparently, is actually quite warm) to heat the oil while the car is turned off.

For most people, Lokey says, biodiesel, which is basically just veggie oil that has been chemically or physically altered to remain at a usable viscosity, is a more practical option.

While this may seem like an arduous task, Lokey says that “if you can check the pH balance in your pool and wash a load of laundry successfully, you’re probably overqualified” for making your own biodiesel, because essentially the only requirement is adding chemicals that stabilize the veggie oil.

Toward the end of the seminar, someone finally asks the question that we’ve all undoubtedly been thinking: “Don’t you own a truck dealership? Are your trucks all run on biodiesel?”

Lokey looks as though he’s gotten this question more than once. “For a small sum tacked on to each monthly car payment, we can convert the trucks to run on biodiesel. That’s with approved credit, of course.”

Here’s the nice thing about effective and strong advocacy groups: they do the work so you don’t have to. Case in point is 1000 Friends of Florida, a group committed to responsible growth and conservation. They just put up a new page that will track growth management legislation in the current legislative session. You can even sign up for e-mail updates.

A first step: The fight over the environment is front and center in Hillsborough County, where a conservative Republican commission majority has undertaken a crusade to weaken its own Environmental Protection Commission’s wetlands regulations and regulators. A compromise last year saved the wetlands division, but it is being studied and modified over the course of this year. You can let Hillsborough County commissioners know how you feel about altering wetlands protections by e-mail via an online form or by telephone at 813-272-5660.

Resources:

The Hillsborough County Environmental Protection Commission’s Wetlands Division.