January 2024

Time and time again in the H2O Zone we’ve highlighted examples of young people leading the way in the fight against global warming. This story is similar, but slightly different, as it involves students in Miami-Dade enjoying the fruits of action taken on their behalf.  Before long, those students will be riding to school on a fleet of 100 electric buses which cut eliminate emissions. The switch to electric school buses will improve the quality of the air these children are breathing, and it is being helped by funding of $20 million from the Environmental Protection Agency. The money is enough to cover the cost of 50 new electric school buses and 16 fast chargers, meaning that there will be 100 of the ‘clean’ buses either on the road or already on order. In all, the 50 new buses will make it possible for 3,000 more Miami Dade students to enjoy green rides to school, and, in the same funding round, Hillsborough and Orange County were selected to purchase over 20 buses and Seminole County received sufficient funding to purchase 15.

All too often, stories which link technology and the changing climate revolve around the damage some form of technology is wreaking upon the environment. The previous story about electric school buses, however, helps to highlight the key role which technology can play in helping to protect the natural world and promote the principals of conservation, and this story does something similar. The Florida Keys Eco Experience Trail pass is a newly launched digital tool which users can download to their phones and access when exploring places such as wildlife centers and refuges, nature tours, parks, eco-adventures and coral restoration projects stretching from Key West to Key Largo. The app offers points which can be collected and exchanged for prizes and unique offerings from participating businesses. The hope is that by interacting in this informed and in-depth manner, visitors to Florida Keys will make choices that help to protect the environment.

Many of the stories we highlight in the H2O Zone cover large scale initiatives aimed at tackling issues around sustainability, and in particular, water conservation. Despite this, the lesson to be learned from almost every initiative is that individual people taking positive action can help to make a difference. One great example of this was provided this month by the example of Marisa Carrozzo, a Senior Coastal and Wildlife Program Manager in NPCA’s Sun Coast Region, who received the 2024 Conservationist Award at the 39th Annual Everglades Coalition Conference. The reward, given by an organization which has been safeguarding national parks since 2019, was presented in recognition of the work carried out by Marisa over the past 13 years. In that time she has worked to protect wildlife and public waterways from Big Cypress National Preserve to Biscayne National Park to Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary and beyond. The initiatives she has championed include the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary Restoration Blueprint, which was set up to protect the United States' only coral reef from threats posed by a changing climate and pollution.

It goes without saying that any stories involving conservation and sustainability revolve around the delicate balance between human beings and nature. All too often this means having to take steps to repair the damage inflicted upon the natural world by human beings, but this particular story demonstrates how human beings and nature can sometimes work side by side. It involves the Charlotte Harbor Environmental Center, and the steps which are being taken to improve the water quality in Charlotte Harbor.  The main tool in the battle for better water quality is the oyster, just one of which is capable of filtering 50 gallons of water per day. Oyster numbers in the harbor had dropped by 90% - due to factors such as pollution and dredging – and so the Environmental Center have been running workshops teaching people how to build vertical oyster gardens. The process is simple, involving stringing reclaimed oyster shells from local restaurants onto ropes and hanging them from docks in the Charlotte Harbor estuary. Once in place, these ‘gardens’ provide the perfect environment for juvenile oysters.

Here at the H2O Zone we like to bring you positive news stories as often as possible. While we don’t shy away from pointing out the struggles involved in protecting the environment, we know how powerful it can be to have positive examples to look to when planning to take action of your own. This is a particularly spectacular example, and it involves 932 manatees turning up en masse at Blue Spring State Park in Orange City on the morning of January 21.

This impressive showing broke the existing record of 736, which had only been set as recently as January 1^st. The reason for the mass gathering was as simple as the manatees wanting to stay warm during the winter – the water at Blue Springs stays at around 72 degrees all year round, and the manatees are generally happy with any water warner than 68 degrees. The number is even more impressive when you realize that back in the 1970s, when research into manatee numbers began, Blue Springs only contained 36 manatees.