Misc

By BRUCE RITCHIE FLORIDAENVIRONMENTS.COM Gov. Rick Scott on Friday signed 94 bills into law including most of the notable environmental legislation that passed in the 2014 legislative session. The 2014 session overall was quiet, but only after controversial bills dealing with growth management (SB 372) and environmental regulation (HB 703) died in committees. Among the bills signed

By BRUCE RITCHIE FLORIDAENVIRONMENTS.COM Environmental groups say a coal-fired power plant along the Apalachicola River is leaking cancer-causing pollutants into the river. The Earthjustice law firm announced Thursday it had filed a federal lawsuit in Tallahassee on behalf of environmental groups to stop the alleged leaks from Gulf Power Co.’s Plant Scholz near Sneads. Coal ash

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

BY BRUCE RITCHIE FLORIDAENVIRONMENTS.COM Sometimes covering the environment and energy in Florida seems like the land of big promises and broken dreams. But I’ve decided that just comes with the beat. Witness this week when James Scrivener, CEO of National Solar Power, updated the Gadsden County Chamber of Commerce on his plans to build 400