everglades

The state agency overseeing Everglades restoration is threatening to stop participating in congressionally mandated scientific reviews of its progress.

The South Florida Water Management District says it is considering withdrawing financially from the National Academies of Sciences and seeking scientific guidance elsewhere.

Spokesman Randy Smith says the scientists are overstepping their authority and threatening to slow Everglades restoration by weighing in on budgetary and engineering issues.

So much rain so early in the wet season has led to a slow-moving crisis across South Florida: what to do with all the water before things get really bad.

A day after concerns about westward growth sunk a request to extend the 836 expressway into Kendall, Miami-Dade’s mayor stepped in to try to revive the proposal with county commissioners.

Mayor Carlos Gimenez called for the commission to reconsider Tuesday’s 3-2 committee vote against the proposed extension. The plan would take the busy expressway past the county’s Urban Development Boundary, which divides intense development from land with growth restrictions designed to protect the Everglades.

Blue-green algae blooms that devastated Florida's coasts last summer contained as many as 28 types of bacteria, some of which can harm humans.

A controversial proposal to extend State Road 836 — aka the Dolphin Expressway — has been delayed on its route to the Miami-Dade County Commission.

The county’s Government Operations Committee, which consists of five county commissioners,  announced Tuesday it's deferring until next month a vote on the plan that would extend the western end of 836 south by about 15 miles into Kendall. The plan aims to give commuters another highway option west of Florida’s Turnpike. But critics say the expansion would encourage more development in agricultural areas and the Everglades.