Environment Archives - WMNF 88.5 FM

On this Monday’s Sustainable Living show, Jon and expert guests Angela Fama and Edgar Castro Tello gather to discuss ways to minimize the waste stream. Angela is the recycling coordinator for Hillsborough County and Edgar is the City of Tampa’s Waste Diversion and Outreach Supervisor.

Topics discussed include:

-what is the ‘waste stream’

-what items can/can’t be recycled (and why)

-tips for making items more recyclable 

-reducing and reusing

-ways to keep items out of the waste stream

-how policies and social structures affect recycling frequency

and more!

Find out more about recycling in Hillsborough County at Tampa Bay Recycles and in their Recycling Guide.

The city of Tampa provides information on waste reduction on their website Tampa.gov.

If you love the Sustainable Living Show, make sure to tune in every Monday at 11am on 88.5fm or listen to past episodes in the archives here. You can also stay up to date with show happenings on our Facebook page. Head over to the tip jar and direct your donation to Sustainable Living to show your monetary support. Remember, it takes a community to build a community.

The post Recycling & reducing the waste stream with Angela Fama & Edgar Castro Tello appeared first on WMNF 88.5 FM.

A Tampa-based guitar manufacturer has been ordered by a judge to pay Gibson more than $4 million to reimburse legal fees over a long-standing trademark infringement case. Armadillo Distribution Enterprises is the parent company of the Dean and Luna guitar brands. Guitar World reports that the legal fees stem from a 2025 jury trial in which a Texas court largely ruled in Gibson’s favor protecting several of its guitar shapes, including SG, Explorer and Flying V, but ruling that there was no infringement in the ES body shape or the dovewing headstock. In June, Armadillo filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in order to restructure. In May, Armadillo won a separate legal battle against the estate of late Pantera guitarist Dimebag Darrell.

A new bill in the U. S. Senate would prohibit oil and gas production at a military testing and training range along the Gulf Coast. It’s called the Protection of Florida’s offshore Readiness Act.

Today is the last day to vote in next month’s general election. According to the state division of elections website, the mandatory in-person early voting period is October 24-31, but some counties extend early voting. The deadline to request that your ballot be mailed to you is October 22. The last day to vote, Election Day, is Tuesday November.

A University of South Florida group, Tampa Bay’s Students for Democratic Society, is calling for the University to protect its immigrants and undocumented students.

PETA teamed up with Nah Dogs to hand out 400 vegan hot dogs outside Tropicana Field before Saturday’s Rays playoff game.

The Scoop, produced by Jaila Harrigan

WMNF anchors Juanita Hurtado Huérfano, Seán Kinane, Lisa Marzilli, Hannah Lau Gleciano, Megan Fair.
WMNF News Director Seán Kinane
WMNF reporters Juanita Hurtado Huérfano, Lisa Marzilli, Seán Kinane, Daria Mironova, Megan Fair, Luiza Medeiros de Campos, Hannah Lau Gleciano, Joeniyah Carter, Jaelin Diehl.
Special thanks to Taylor Lovejoy and Corey Beltran.

Theme music, Fresh06, by Stian via archive.org – CC-BY-NC-SA 2.5
https://archive.org/details/jamendo-001084/02.mp3
The Scoop logo by Robin Milcowitz / Greener Pixels / greenerpixels.com / WMNF

The post The Scoop: Mon. Oct. 5, 2026, Tampa Bay and Florida headlines by WMNF appeared first on WMNF 88.5 FM.

Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri announced the arrest of Pinellas deputy Karl Gwynne who allegedly searched the automated license plate reader database about three hundred times searching for a romantic interest. Gualtieri maintains that the ALPR database does not have the ability to track people. Rather, it records a list of timestamped photographs that can be used to gather where a car has been over a period of time.

The St. Petersburg City Council voted unanimously to designate the Meinke House as a local historical landmark. The house exemplifies the traditions of a cultural city of the arts. The home sits at the intersection of two distinct creative legacies, architect and builder Mark Dixon Dodd and Florida Poet Laureate Peter Meinke and his wife, artist and illustrator Jeanne Meinke.

As the election season approaches, environmentalist are urging voters to research candidates’ water policies. Many wetlands no longer qualify for protection under the Clean Water Act. Following a 2023 Supreme Court ruling, wetlands generally must have a surface connection to a  protected waterway.

The Scoop, produced by Jaila Harrigan

WMNF anchors Juanita Hurtado Huérfano, Seán Kinane, Lisa Marzilli, Hannah Lau Gleciano, Megan Fair.
WMNF News Director Seán Kinane
WMNF reporters Juanita Hurtado Huérfano, Lisa Marzilli, Seán Kinane, Daria Mironova, Megan Fair, Luiza Medeiros de Campos, Hannah Lau Gleciano, Joeniyah Carter, Jaelin Diehl.
Special thanks to Taylor Lovejoy and Corey Beltran.

Theme music, Fresh06, by Stian via archive.org – CC-BY-NC-SA 2.5
https://archive.org/details/jamendo-001084/02.mp3
The Scoop logo by Robin Milcowitz / Greener Pixels / greenerpixels.com / WMNF

The post The Scoop: Fri. Oct. 2, 2026, Tampa Bay and Florida headlines by WMNF appeared first on WMNF 88.5 FM.

The Democratic gubernatorial candidate explained driving factors for his campaign. He stated his plans to restore local control over development and to assist rural Florida as small farms disappear due to citrus production falling.

This is an effort to be proactive against the mosquito-borne illness, since cases have risen drmatically in neighboring areas, like Hillsborough County. The fish are an environmentally friendly and inexpensive tactic for mosquito control.

Sarasota public defender, Jessica McVay is accused of stealing money from an inmate at the Manatee County Jail. The victim asked McVay to handle her affairs while in jail and handed her power of attorney. However, bank statements showed retail purchases, ATM withdrawals and bank transfers to McVay.

The Scoop, produced by Kayleigh Fuller

WMNF anchors Juanita Hurtado Huérfano, Seán Kinane, Lisa Marzilli, Hannah Lau Gleciano, Megan Fair.
WMNF News Director Seán Kinane
WMNF reporters Juanita Hurtado Huérfano, Lisa Marzilli, Seán Kinane, Daria Mironova, Megan Fair, Luiza Medeiros de Campos, Hannah Lau Gleciano, Joeniyah Carter, Jaelin Diehl.
Special thanks to Taylor Lovejoy and Corey Beltran.

Theme music, Fresh06, by Stian via archive.org – CC-BY-NC-SA 2.5
https://archive.org/details/jamendo-001084/02.mp3
The Scoop logo by Robin Milcowitz / Greener Pixels / greenerpixels.com / WMNF

The post The Scoop: Tue. Sep. 29, 2026, Tampa Bay and Florida headlines by WMNF appeared first on WMNF 88.5 FM.

Tampa Bay’s electric utilities are facing a struggle familiar to those of us who were academic delinquents: a bad report card.

The Sierra Club’s annual  Dirty Truths report evaluates every American electric utility’s progress towards eliminating pollution-heavy energy production methods.

Duke scored 7 out of 100. TECO scored 2 out of 100.

Utilities were scored by how close they are to hitting three goals the Sierra Club set: eliminating coal by 2030, not building new gas plants through 2035, and building clean energy to replace fossil fuels by 2035.

Florida’s electric companies are preparing for an explosion of demand as plans for energy-hungry data centers expand.

The report also says that renewable energy is cheaper, and sticking to fossil fuels is driving the affordability crisis. TECO doesn’t pay for fuel; they add the cost of it directly to electric bills. Fluctuations in price affect rate-payers more than they affect the company.

TECO representative Cherie Jacobs told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay that the Sierra Club’s goals aren’t achievable.

“To serve almost 900,000 customers every minute of every day, having 100% renewable energy just isn’t realistic,” Jacobs said. “We have a balance of natural gas as a fuel and renewables to produce that electricity.”

But she also said only about 11% of TECO’s energy comes from renewable sources. That’s short of TECO’s own goal, set in 2022, to have 17% of their capacity be produced by solar by the end of 2025.

Walter Smith, who leads the Sierra Club’s fight against coal in Tampa Bay, told CL that natural gas isn’t sustainable.

“Gas seems to be the cop out, right? It seems to be the one thing that they would use in order to say, ‘oh, we’re using clean energy,’” he said. “No, it’s just cleaner than coal. It is still affecting our environment in some terrible ways.”

Smith said the score reflects a lack of real commitment to renewable energy, and that utilities need to act fast to address the pressures of climate change.

While coal makes up less than 1% of TECO’s fuel mix today, according to Jacobs, Smith said it’s still putting a burden on consumers because the equipment is hard to maintain.

“Having to retrofit that old system constantly is costing them money. They’ve admitted that consistently. It’s costing them money, and it costs us money because it’s passed on to us as customers.”

Ana Gibbs, a Duke Energy Florida spokesperson, told CL that the company’s approach balances economic factors against the climate dangers of continuing to burn fossil fuels.

“Our diverse, all-of-the above fuel-mix approach supports the continued growth and economic vitality of the communities we serve,” Gibbs said in an emailed statement.

She noted that power plant upgrades and additional solar capacity have reduced fuel costs for consumers.

But renewables only account for 11% of Duke’s electricity, with much of that coming from hydropower dams that may harm the environment in other ways.

St. Petersburg’s “Dump Duke” campaign has grown in popularity. A coalition of environmental and affordability-focused groups recently launched a petition to get public power on the ballot.

The group said electricity would be more affordable with a city-run utility, in part because they believe the city is more likely to switch to renewable energy.

Duke pushed back against that, using a utility-favored firm to generate a report saying it could cost the city up to $4.1 billion.

The post Sierra Club gives TECO, Duke failing grades on clean energy appeared first on WMNF 88.5 FM.

The fish were released into five local lakes and ponds throughout Clearwater on September 25th as an effort to address the ongoing Dengue outbreak in Hillsborough County.

Just the day before, Hillsborough declared a state of emergency for this illness, which spreads through mosquito bites.

Jarett Hood is the Division Chief of Emergency Management for Clearwater Fire and Rescue.

“Those fish are mosquito eaters, so they actually go in and help to eat up the larva, reducing the population, reducing the risks then to our citizens.”

Hood says that the best way to reduce the the mosquito population would be to drain standing water.

Since the city’s ponds and lakes cannot be drained, these fish, also known as Gambuisa, are the next best solution.

“The population of reported cases has risen dramatically over the past couple of weeks. So we’re just being proactive here as the city of Clearwater to take a really good proactive step. And again, this is a really environmentally friendly way to do that instead of chemical sprays and things like that.”

The city has other tactics to control the mosquito population, including spraying, fogging, and dunks.

The fish are expected to reproduce on their own and help the population for years to come.

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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is asking for public comment on a plan that would allow fishers to drag heavy nets across Florida’s ocean floor in the habitat of the world’s last ivory tree coral reef structures.

Ocean preservation advocacy Oceana has opened a portal for people interested in leaving a comment with NOAA.

Under the proposed change, rock shrimpers could “bottom trawl” within a few hundred feet of the coral’s habitat, making it easier for them to collect and sell shrimp.

The nets destroyed 90% of this rare coral species before the process was banned in the region in the 1980s. The coral grows at less than an inch per year. That’s slower than a fingernail.

Massive mounds formed over thousands of years can be destroyed in a few minutes by fishing equipment. Even when equipment doesn’t directly hit the coral, plumes of silt stirred up by the nets can blanket the coral and kill it.

Alex Aines, a marine scientist with Oceana, said that killing coral can be bad, even for commercial fishers.

“It’s not just beautiful coral, it’s also a really important habitat,” Aines told WMNF. “They provide spawning and nursery grounds for species including snapper, sea bass, grouper, sharks, shrimp. Species that support Florida’s commercial and recreational fisheries. … It’s one of the building blocks of the ecosystem.”

Coral preservation is personal for Aines. “As a scuba diver, I think when I’ve gone down on dives, coral reefs are my absolute favorite thing to see. There’s so many small organisms that live in and around the coral. … It’s always absolutely teeming with life.”

The Secretary of Commerce denied a similar proposal in 2022 because the proposal didn’t address concerns about fish habitat and coral destruction.

The public comment period closes on November 17th.

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About five miles north of West Palm Beach sits one of the great snorkeling and diving sites in Florida.

A proposed development nearby is drawing backlash from nature lovers.

Phil Foster Park in Riviera Beach is on an island. It is connected to the mainland and to a barrier island by the Blue Heron Bridge which has a beloved snorkel trail that draws tourists from around the world.

But on one end of the bridge sits a vacant lot where The Continuum Company wants to put a 25-story condominium and marina, called Singer Island Gateway. The Continuum Company released an environmental impact statement in which a Florida Atlantic University Professor Emeritus of Geosciences concluded that “development will have no impact on the health of the adjacent marine environment; neither during the initial construction phases nor after the building is completed.”

But that doesn’t sit well with NAUI Divemaster Krista Parker, who loves traveling from the Tampa Bay area to see the underwater wonders at the Blue Heron Bridge.

“The 3 times I was at the bridge this summer, I’ve seen octopus, I’ve seen frogfish, boxfish, all kinds of stingrays, spotted eagle rays in the area that they’re saying is not, it, it isn’t as biodiverse as other areas,” Parker told WMNF. “I don’t even know if those people — the individuals who authored that paper — were in the water because there’s no way you can go down there and say it’s not as biodiverse as other areas in the at the bridge. It’s, that’s just false.”

Parker is concerned that constructing a marina so close to the snorkel trail and diving site could disrupt what makes the Blue Heron Bridge location so special.

“If I go in June and then I don’t go back till August, it’s a completely different landscape. I mean, I don’t think you would be able to even dive the east side if they put a marina in there, and it would pretty much destroy the environment for most of the critters,” Parker said.

A nearby motel and dive club displays a sign indicating they don’t want the development to move forward.

A change.org petition has more than 28,000 signatures.

“It’s a real treasure, that area, and so it’s really important that we protect it. I’m shocked that it’s not a state park by now. Like, it is something that it draws tourism from all over the world, and we just, we have to protect it,” Parker said.

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Environmental advocates are asking the City of Clearwater to prioritize its water treatment infrastructure after a sewage spill contaminated a manatee protection zone last week.

A power failure at the Marshall Street Water Reclamation Facility caused sewage to back up and overflow through a nearby manhole early Saturday morning. Over the next 30 minutes, an estimated 35,686 gallons of sewage overflowed into the surrounding area.

That volume, which  would fill 3.5 tanker trucks,  was spilled about 300 feet from the shore of Stevenson Creek—the city’s newly-designated manatee protection zone is less than 2,000 feet downstream.

Hundreds of manatees rely on the aquatic grasses that grow in the creek. For years, local activists have fought to preserve the habitat while a developer seeks to build docks that would encroach on the feeding grounds.

Three weeks ago, those activists successfully lobbied Clearwater City Council to create protections for the manatees who graze in the estuary portion of the creek.

Michael Flanigan, director of Clearwater’s Public Works department, told WMNF that the sewage treatment plant is usually beneficial to those manatees because the discharged water keeps them warm during the winter months.

Flanigan was promoted to his role earlier this year, and he inherited one of many dilapidated wastewater systems across the country. The American Society of Civil Engineers gave America’s wastewater systems a “D+” grade last year because of the aging infrastructure.

“We want this controlled,” said Sherry Day,  president of the Stevenson Creek Advocacy Group, who started the campaign for manatee protection in the estuary.

Day told WMNF  the spill shows that Clearwater needs to prioritize its water treatment facilities. “There have been recurring events, mechanical failures, equipment failures that have occurred and nothing has been done about them.”

The Marshall Street plant has seen these incidents before, and this one was small in comparison. In 2023, an equipment malfunction led to 500,000 gallons of sewage being spilled.

During Tropical Storm Debby in 2024, rather than allow sewage to back up into homes and businesses by shutting down the plant, the city allowed the final stage of the treatment process to overflow, which resulted in a spill of over 18 million gallons of partially-treated sewage.

Weeks later, during Hurricane Milton, 25 million gallons spilled.

The troubled Marshall Street plant is set to be decommissioned, but as of now the timeline isn’t clear.

“They have told us for years and years that there is a plan to decommission this, but it is a huge endeavor to reroute all of the sewage to go to another plant and put this one in idle mode,” said Day. “And we see no real efforts in that direction. I want to see a plan, and I want to see action moving towards that.”

Flanigan told WMNF that it’s going to be a complicated process. Getting funding is the biggest challenge, followed by the slow nature of massive infrastructure projects.

In the meantime, they’re implementing solutions that will help prevent sewage from leaching into the creek when overflows occur, with some of those upgrades slated to be completed later this year.

“We’re not going to be able to prevent wastewater spills,” Flanigan said. “There aren’t communities out there that do. At the end of the day, we’re environmentalists. We’re trying to do the best we can.”

Flanigan said that every dollar the city allocates to upgrading its wastewater infrastructure will help reduce those spills.

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Listen:

Years of research from the University of South Florida led to flood monitoring cameras across Pinellas County.

Flooding in St Petersburg is often caused by hurricanes and summer thunderstorms. 

These cameras take one picture every 15 minutes and operate 24 hours a day.

“Our goal over here is to collect people’s lived experience as a photograph, then use machine learning algorithms to make data out of it, so we can further validate and calibrate maps and models,” Dixon said.

The project includes a neighborhood reporting app that Dixon calls “WAZE for flooding”.

She said that much like the traffic app Waze, residents upload a real-time photo of flooding, warning others in the community to avoid that area.

“These cameras [are] helping them see what is going on in their backyard, and especially the app, because app actually helps neighbors helping another neighbor,” Dixon said. 

The name of the web app is Flood Report and you can find on Google.

Most of the cameras are concentrated in the St Petersburg area with 37 feeding information to the Flood App. 

Alec Colarusso, a PhD student working in the project, said the researchers chose the camera placement after the city of St. Petersburg recommended it.

“It’s usually a nice coastal low-lying area,” Colarusso said. “There are flood protections in place, but most of the time they don’t always ideally work as well.”

The team will install another camera in Riviera Bay.

In 2023, the lead researcher Barnali Dixon received a $1.5 million National Science Foundation grant to conduct the project, but this will not last long.

“The contract is going to be ending in 2026, and then the city and county hopefully will assume the operating costs for those cameras,” Dixon said.

The U.S. National Science Foundation is an independent federal agency that funds research in science and engineering, according to the U.S. National Science Foundation.

The researchers are still waiting on funding to know if they will be able to add cameras in other counties.

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