Author name: bruce

By BRUCE RITCHIE FLORIDAENVIRONMENTS.COM Sierra Club Florida is asking Gov. Rick Scott to veto a bill that supporters say would speed the cleanup and redevelopment of contamination sites known as brownfields. Meanwhile, the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency has awarded $400,000 to three Florida communities for brownfields cleanups, according to the Florida Department of Environmental […]

By BRUCE RITCHIE FLORIDAENVIRONMENTS.COM Five years later and the scenario sadly seems the same, but I’m not the same person. In December 2008 I was laid off by the Tallahassee Democrat. Rather than taking the day off or updating my resume, I instead went back out and covered the environment beat, created a web site

By BRUCE RITCHIE FLORIDAENVIRONMENTS.COM Graphic designer Rick Kilby of Orlando visited Florida’s springs while growing up in Gainesville in the late 1960s and early 1970s. But he says his study of them began a few years ago with a historic roadside attraction in St. Augustine — the kind of “tourist traps” he says most Floridians

BY BRUCE RITCHIE FLORIDAENVIRONMENTS.COM I’d like to say the session is winding down with just a week to go but it’s really not. It’s actually cranking up. With both chambers now going all day without committee meetings, bills are getting amended and speedily passed. Many controversial environmental bills have been amended or are dead. Here

By BRUCE RITCHIE It was the third week of the Florida legislative session and the pace definitely picked up. Bills were moving through various committees while budget hearings were being held in the Senate. EVERGLADES The biggest news was that environmentalists and the sugar industry reached an agreement on legislation to fund Gov. Rick Scott’s