Florida
Local control over plastic regulation safe in Florida, for now
![Local control over plastic regulation safe in Florida, for now Local control over plastic regulation safe in Florida, for now](https://res.cloudinary.com/graham-media-group/image/upload/f_auto/q_auto/c_thumb,w_700/v1/arc-cf/02-07-2024/t_626ca8ce796545018edcb64c973bdb9d_name_image.jpg?_a=ATAPphC0)
MIAMI – Plastic pollution continues to strangle our marine environment — and there’s no place where that is more apparent than South Florida.
Social media account Only in Dade shared a video with Local 10 News showing a dolphin swimming in a littered Biscayne Bay.
Only in Broward shared another scene from a Pompano Beach canal showing a manatee struggling to eat while surrounded by plastic debris.
Despite these startling sights, state lawmakers in Tallahassee have been trying to pass legislation to ban local governments from further regulating single-use plastic containers.
The proposed, and now stalled, SB 1162 and HB 1641 would put plastic regulation specifically about “auxiliary containers” into the hands of the state.
This means that any laws regarding single-use bags, cups, bottles, cans, or any other packaging would not be able to move forward at the local level. Additionally, any existing laws regulating these sorts of single-use plastics would be preempted to the state.
“That is a huge flaw of this bill I haven’t heard anyone realize,” Ryan Smart, executive director of the Florida Springs Council, said during a meeting of the House Agriculture, Conservation & Resiliency Subcommittee. “You are going to jeopardize the most important resources we have.”
State Rep. Jim Mooney, R-Islamorada, expressed similar concerns.
“How can you say that there’s no impact to local governments when it fact they’re continuing to clean out storm water drains?” he asked.
The sponsor of the house bill, State Rep. Brad Yeager, R-New Port Richey, argued that bans on single-use containers are too heavy a tax on small businesses.
“That, most activity is going to go on anyhow regardless of what happens here,” Yeager argued. “With that said, I think we need to protect small businesses and this does that.”
But at what cost? Data from a 2021 Florida Department of Environmental Protection retail bags report shows that some 7,000 tons of plastic entered Florida’s marine environment in 2020 alone.
Once it is in the environment, it’s estimated that it could take up to 450 years for some single-use plastics to biodegrade.
Throughout the state, at least a dozen municipalities have placed laws on the books regulating single-use plastics.
Still, local cleanup organizations report that the tsunami of plastic trash has not slowed down. A 2022 global study found that less than 9% of all plastics are ever recycled.
“This is not a solution,” commented Clean This Beach Up founder MJ Algarra. “What we do here every single weekend, picking up trash from our shorelines and beaches, we are done… we need change starting from the top.”
The largest international ocean conservation advocacy group, Oceana, is another environmental organization that has been fighting the proposed legislation.
“Make no mistake, this is a harmful bill, it’s going to lead to more trash and more plastic pollution into our waterways and our oceans,” Oceana Field Campaign Manager Hunter Miller asserted. “So if this bill passes, it really slams that toolbox shut and puts a lock on it… it really takes us out of the picture of being a part of the solution.”
In 2015, Miami Beach prohibited the sale and use of polystyrene, commonly referred to as Styrofoam.
Following that ban, the state of Florida adopted a statute that preempted any polystyrene ordinance enacted by a local government before 2016. Under that statute, Miami Beach’s ban was safe. But, the proposed HB 1641 and SB 1162 would change that.
Volunteer Clean-Up President Dave Doebler was among those community members who pushed for the Miami Beach ordinance in the first place.
“Styrofoam was the number one product we were finding on our beach clean ups and in our waterway cleanups,” Doebler explained. “The problem with foam is that it’s very brittle and it breaks apart very easily into teeny tiny little pieces. When this gets on our streets, it goes into the storm drain system and the pollution controls are unable to stop it.”
Ninety-three percent of all Floridians surveyed in that 2021 FDEP report said that they believe that regulation of single-use plastics is a necessity.
Still, powerful lobbying groups pushing for the bills say that local governments should stay out of it.
“We shouldn’t be dictating and saying, ‘Hey you can’t do it in this area, because it’s going to be impossible for businesses to compete long term and it’s also going to drive up costs for consumers,’” Americans for Prosperity Florida director Skylar Zander said when speaking with Local 10 Environmental Advocate Louis Aguirre.
“So the argument that you’re making is that this is good for business?” Aguirre asked.
“It’s good for business and it’s good for consumers overall,” Zander maintained.
“But it’s not good for the environment,” Aguirre underlined.
“Well, look, what’s good for the environment is that if people really care about this issue, they can bring their reusable bag to the store,” said Zander.
Environmental advocates say that putting the burden on consumers is not the solution.
“That trash is affecting our community, we need to be able to control it,” emphasized David Cullen, of Sierra Club Florida. “The bill says that the answer is do nothing, that cannot be the answer for Florida.”
As of Tuesday, SB 1126 has officially been “temporarily postponed”. Local 10 reached out to bill sponsor, State Sen. Jonathan Martin, R-Fort Myers, to find out why, but has not heard back.
As for the related HB 1641, future discussion has not been scheduled for the remainder of the regular legislative session. We reached out to the sponsor of that legislation as well and did not hear back from them either.
Environmentalists are cautiously optimistic, but warn that the legislation could come back. Local 10 News and Don’t Trash Our Treasure will continue to follow this closely.
Copyright 2024 by WPLG Local10.com – All rights reserved.
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Florida
Virginia boy charged with making swatting calls to Florida schools
![Virginia boy charged with making swatting calls to Florida schools Virginia boy charged with making swatting calls to Florida schools](https://assets3.cbsnewsstatic.com/hub/i/r/2023/05/12/eb3046d8-ea20-4c77-8309-3c5a737d47ab/thumbnail/1200x630/2b74a63547c55893dab4e6dc31a92f8d/south-broward-high-school.jpg?v=5501038cbc281520ff9fdc308faab7dc)
An 11-year-Virginia boy has been charged in Florida with calling in more than 20 bomb or shooting threats to schools and other places, authorities said Thursday.
Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly said that authorities worked hard to find the caller before the school year resumes.
“This kid’s behavior was escalating and becoming more dangerous,” Staly said. “I’m glad we got him before he escalated out of control and hurt someone.”
Swatting is slang for making a prank call to emergency services in an attempt to send a SWAT team or other armed police officers to a particular place.
Flagler County emergency services initially received a bomb threat at Buddy Taylor Middle School on May 14, officials said. Additional threats were made between then and May 22.
Investigators tracked the calls to a home in Henrico County, Virginia, just outside Richmond. Local deputies searched the home this month, and the 11-year-old boy who lived there admitted to placing the Florida swatting calls, as well as a threat made to the Maryland State House, authorities said. Investigators later determined that the boy also made swatting calls in Nebraska, Kansas, Alabama, Tennessee and Alaska.
The boy faces 29 felony counts and 14 misdemeanors, officials said. He’s being held in a Virginia juvenile detention facility while Florida officials arrange for his extradition. Investigators didn’t immediately say whether the boy had a connection to Florida.
A 13-year-old boy was arrested in Florida in May, several days after the initial call, for making a copycat threat to Buddy Taylor Middle School.
Florida
Is there a sunken nuclear bomb near Florida? Here’s what to know
![Is there a sunken nuclear bomb near Florida? Here’s what to know Is there a sunken nuclear bomb near Florida? Here’s what to know](https://res.cloudinary.com/graham-media-group/image/upload/f_auto/q_auto/c_thumb,w_700/v1/media/gmg/W6DCEII3XJBRTEXKRZYYCQLLWQ.jpg?_a=DATAdtfiZAA0)
TYBEE ISLAND, Ga. – Off the coast of Georgia, a massive bomb potentially sits in the water after having been flown out from Florida decades prior.
According to NPR, the whole incident began in 1958 when a B-47 bomber plane took off from Homestead AFB in Florida with the 7,600-pound nuclear bomb in tow, heading out to meet up with another bomber for a training exercise.
HOW DID IT HAPPEN?
The plan was to reportedly simulate an attack on the Soviet Union as part of the exercise, and everything was going well — until another training mission mistakenly crashed into the B-47 carrying the bomb.
As a result, the pilot chose to let loose the bomb over the water off Tybee Island in Georgia before making an emergency landing in a nearby swamp.
The bomb didn’t go off even after dropping into the ocean below, though that could be because the nuclear material needed to set such bombs off was typically kept separate from the weapon until it was needed, the BBC reports.
DID THEY FIND IT?
Federal officials spent over two weeks searching for the bomb in the aftermath, but it was ultimately determined to be irretrievable.
While a receipt written by the pilot shows that the necessary capsule wasn’t added to the bomb before the training exercise — meaning it wouldn’t be at a huge risk of detonation — other federal officials have claimed otherwise, such as a former Assistant Secretary of Defense W.J. Howard, who claimed that the bomb was “complete.”
“He concluded that despite our best efforts, the possibility of an accidental nuclear explosion still existed,” a declassified report reads.
Nowadays, the bomb is thought to be covered by several feet of silt on the seabed, but if the explosives within are still intact, it could pose a major hazard to the environment. As such, federal officials have determined that it should be left undisturbed — even by further recovery attempts.
CAN AN ATOMIC BOMB GO OFF UNDERWATER?
If it’s actually off the coast of Tybee Island, then yes: the bomb can still detonate, even underwater.
In 1946, the U.S. tested an atomic bomb at the Bikini Atoll — in the Pacific Ocean far southwest of Hawaii — by suspending it below several ships filled with pigs and rats.
After it was set off underwater, nearly all of the animals died, either thanks to the initial explosion or from the radiation poisoning afterward. And the area is still irradiated to this day.
WHAT HAPPENS IF IT DETONATES?
For starters: it doesn’t appear as likely that the bomb will explode.
While Howard initially claimed the bomb was complete, a military spokesman told The Atlantic in 2001 that they’d spoken with him, and “he agreed that his memo was in error.”
But if the bomb did manage to get outfitted with a plutonium trigger and detonated, it would erupt into an explosion with a mile-wide radius — and thermal radiation reaching 10 times that distance, according to the Savannah Morning News.
That would no doubt cause havoc within the immediate proximity, but on the bright side, Tybee Island is well over 100 miles (roughly a two-hour drive) from Florida’s border. This means Florida residents have little to fear from the direct impacts of such an explosion.
So you can sleep tight knowing you’re not likely to find yourself on the worse end of a nuclear weapon.
That being said, there are still plenty of other scary things in Florida to keep you up at night.
Get today’s headlines in minutes with Your Florida Daily:
Copyright 2024 by WKMG ClickOrlando – All rights reserved.
Florida
Trulieve adds $5M to recreational marijuana campaign in Florida
![Trulieve adds M to recreational marijuana campaign in Florida Trulieve adds M to recreational marijuana campaign in Florida](https://images.foxtv.com/static.fox35orlando.com/www.fox35orlando.com/content/uploads/2023/06/1280/720/GettyImages-455527934.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
Stream FOX 35 News
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – The medical cannabis company Trulieve has contributed another $5 million to a campaign to allow recreational marijuana in Florida, according to a newly filed finance report.
The company made the contribution on July 15 to the Smart & Safe Florida political committee, which is leading efforts to pass a recreational marijuana initiative on the November ballot.
MORE HEADLINES:
According to a state Division of Elections database, Trulieve had contributed about $60.39 million to the committee as of July 19.
The committee raised a total of $66.475 million in cash and nearly $129,000 in in-kind contributions, and it spent $53.963 million.
The initiative, which will appear on the ballot as Amendment 3, says, in part, that it would allow “adults 21 years or older to possess, purchase, or use marijuana products and marijuana accessories for nonmedical personal consumption by smoking, ingestion, or otherwise.”
Voters in 2016 passed a constitutional amendment that allowed medical marijuana.
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