environment

It's been more than 20 years since the last comprehensive plan to manage the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.

A crack in a half-century old iron sewer pipe has grown and could keep leaking for up to three weeks while workers struggle to fix it, Miami-Dade County Water and Sewer Director Kevin Lynskey said Friday.

Over the weekend, a crack surfaced in a 55-year-old underground sewer pipe in Miami's Oleta River.

The small crack is less than two square inches in diameter and has so far spewed about a half million gallons of raw sewage. But the flow will continue as workers race to install a bypass pipe on the aging line - work they expect to complete by Thursday night.

While less severe than originally suspected when a kayacker discovered the leak Sunday, the spill is drawing attention to a worsening problem across Miami-Dade County: polluted waterways.

Four thousand years ago, rising seas decimated huge swaths of mangroves in Florida Bay.

Today, seas rising at a far greater rate, combined with increasing storms and drought, could lead to another catastrophic loss of mangroves that help keep the state from sliding into the sea, according to a new study published by the U.S. Geological Survey in the journal Nature Communications.

Randall Dasher is a fourth-generation Florida farmer and until last year, he never had a crop of iron-clay cowpeas fail.

"Something has changed and somewhere, someway, that has affected our yields," he said Monday during a panel at the University of Florida, where farmers met with U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor of Tampa, scientists and agriculture officials.

A grand jury convened by the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office has sounded a dire warning about the state of Biscayne Bay, which it calls the “crown jewel of our environment.” The group warned local officials that immediate action should be taken to save it, and included a variety of recommendations.

In the last few months, Key West has banned the sale of chemical sunscreens and the use of styrofoam and some pesticides on city property. Now the city is taking on single-use plastics.

More than a week's worth of King Tides set a new record at Virginia Key, running higher than the high tides during seasonal tides that typically hit in the fall.

For the last eight days, each high tide has set a new record for the day, said Brian McNoldy, a University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science senior researcher. At it's highest, on Aug. 2, the tide reached 2.55 feet, more than a foot above the daily average of 1.33 feet. 

A new study from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration looking at 20 years worth of data on pollution has found a new risk threatening Biscayne Bay: "regime change."

The sparkling waters of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary help pump $4.4 billion into the state's economy while supporting 43,000 jobs, according to a report published Tuesday.