Rose Schnabel

North Florida flat, rural cattle pastures — longtime dumping grounds of South Florida’s sewage sludge — will close their gates to feces-filled trucks by 2028. That’s owing to a provision of Florida’s Farm Bill, signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in March.

En este episodio de Noticias WUFT podrás escuchar una conversación sobre algunos desafíos ambientales en el condado de Alachua y la importancia de la conservación del agua, buscando recordar que cada acción local puede convertirse en un gesto poderoso para el bienestar del planeta.

Regulators have tried to fix algae problems in the region’s springs by focusing on nitrogen, but newly published testing results suggest successful restoration will need to consider snails, fish and other algae eaters, too.

In the 1980s, the state embarked on a major effort to clean up dairy pollution in South Florida’s waters. Florida bought out dairies, helped modernize those that remained, and strictly limited nutrient runoff. Half a century later, have the problems moved into North Florida’s springs country?

The dairy industry has long grappled with where to put cows' less desirable product: poop. Solutions turn it into fuel, fertilizer and worm food.

Measures to save water, voluntary since January, are now mandatory in much of the Suwannee River and St. Johns River Water Management Districts as drought conditions persist.

Frog Song Organics in Hawthorne will pilot a new “food hub” model to get more local produce into schools, prisons and community centers, Alachua County announced this week.

Students, scientists and area residents helped survey turtle diversity at Hornsby Spring on Sunday as part of the Santa Fe River Turtle Project. Eleven freshwater turtle species mingle in its depths, a level of diversity seen in only a handful of rivers worldwide.

Marion County firefighters fought throughout the day Sunday to extinguish a blaze of thousands of wooden railroad ties left by the side of the tracks near Dunnellon.

Host Kristin Chermont Spina interviews WUFT environmental reporter Rose Schnabel.