Latest news with #EvergladesFoundation
Miami Herald
4 days ago
- Miami Herald
Everglades scientist surrenders to serve jail sentence over ‘trade secrets' legal battle
A longtime Everglades scientist was handcuffed in a Miami courtroom and taken to jail Thursday to begin serving a 10-day jail sentence in a case that divided the normally tightknit Florida environmental community. The sentence caps a three-year battle between hydrologist Tom Van Lent and his former bosses at the Everglades Foundation, who accused him of stealing trade secrets when he quit in 2022. ' The foundation has no trade secrets, but they do wish to hide anything that would embarrass them or worse,' Van Lent told WLRN News outside the Miami-Dade County courthouse before surrendering. ' While I remain frustrated and angry at this injustice, I believe that serving 10 days in jail is worth protecting my and my wife's privacy and standing up for science and the Everglades.' READ MORE: In fight over research, influential Everglades Foundation sues its former chief scientist Van Lent, a well-regarded hydrologist who began working on Everglades restoration at the South Florida Water Management District in the 1980s, quit the nonprofit foundation in a dispute over a planned Palm Beach County reservoir. Van Lent had argued the project would likely fall short of providing clean freshwater — a primary aim of the massive $23 billion restoration effort — because lawmakers had scaled back its size. The Foundation hailed it as the 'crown jewel' of restoration, despite backing an earlier report that laid out Van Lent's concerns. WLRN explored the case in its podcast Bright Lit Place, in episode 4. Van Lent further angered his bosses on his last day, when he tweeted that he was leaving to work for another Everglades nonprofit, Friends of the Everglades, 'who put facts over politics.' On Thursday, Van Lent, 67, said he was not told what kind of conditions he would encounter serving his jail sentence. His attorney had advised him to wear laceless shoes, he said. 'I'm not looking forward to this. It's an absolute outrage,' he said. 'But I will follow the directive of the court and this battle will continue.' As a deputy cuffed Van Lent in a small, fourth-floor courtroom, his wife, family and colleagues looked on, seated in chairs normally reserved for a jury, some in tears. Most had sported stickers that read, 'Science over politics,' or had Van Lent's initials in the center of a heart. Just after deputies led him away, his wife Lois headed to her car for the eight-hour drive back to Tallahassee. ' We live in terrible times, but there is power through community, and that's what y'all are — a community,' Lois Van Lent said before thanking her husband's supporters. In addition to a jail sentence, Van Lent was also ordered to pay $178,000 for Foundation attorney fees. Van Lent has filed for bankruptcy. Van Lent lost his appeal. 'Environmental unraveling' The case highlighted the behind-the-scenes political maneuvering that has long dogged restoration work, even as publicly environmentalists and politicians have struggled to maintain a bipartisan alliance. It also stunned Everglades advocates, many of whom have fought for decades to restore the wetlands that protect South Florida's drinking water and help keep it from flooding, often sharing information and working hand in hand. In its lawsuit, the Foundation claimed Van Lent stole trade secrets and asked a judge to issue an injunction barring him from sharing the information. It demanded he turn over all Foundation material along with his computers and electronic devices. Van Lent has said he complied, but began removing personal information, that included health and financial records. Two weeks later, the Foundation claimed Van Lent violated the injunction and asked a judge to hold him in criminal contempt, which carried a potential jail sentence. Then, just before a hearing five months later, both sides agreed to settle the case when Van Lent signed off on a permanent injunction barring him from using or sharing any Foundation material. The settlement unraveled weeks later when the Foundation claimed Van Lent violated both the original injunction issued by the judge to stop downloading material and the settlement agreement by failing to turn over all his electronic devices. ' I never in a hundred years thought I would be here seeing a scientist of his caliber, of his integrity being sent to jail for stealing trade secrets,' Chris McVoy, a soil scientist, Lake Worth city commissioner and board member for Friends of the Everglades said before Thursday's hearing. 'Trade secrets from nonprofits? Trade secrets in science? Trade secrets in restoring the Everglades? It's ludicrous.' While Van Lent vowed to continue fighting the case to clear his name, Foundation attorney Jorge Piedra said following the hearing that once Van Lent serves the jail sentence, the case will end under the terms of the September 2022 settlement. In an emailed response to WLRN, the Everglades Foundation said it considered the matter closed and remains 'focused on our mission to restore and protect America's Everglades through science, advocacy, and education.' The trade secrets claim settled without ever being proven. The sentence comes at a pivotal time for the Everglades, While long-delayed restoration work has sped up in recent years with record-spending, the swamp continues to struggle with increasing impacts from climate change even as the Trump administration has cut funding for researching the dangers fueled by a warming planet. The administration is also taking aim at key laws that help protect the Everglades, including the Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act. And this month, the state opened an immigrant detention center in the middle of the River of Grass in the Big Cypress National Preserve. 'Our leaders stitched together a fabric of environmental protections that were rooted in science,' Friends executive director Eve Samples said in explaining the organization's founding by Marjory Stoneman Douglas to protect the area now occupied by the detention center. 'Now the question is whether that fabric will hold. This sure looks like a moment of environmental unraveling.' Jenny Staletovich is WLRN's Environment Editor. She has been a journalist working in Florida for nearly 20 years. Contact Jenny at jstaletovich@
Miami Herald
30-06-2025
- Science
- Miami Herald
How much do wetlands like the Everglades protect private properties?
Though construction and development have diminished the Everglades to half their original size, South Florida is still defined by this vast wetland. Just how, exactly, do they help protect us from flooding, which is intensifying as a warmer climate brings more precipitation and stronger hurricanes? To answer our readers' questions, the Herald spoke to Meenaksahi Chabba, an ecosystem and resilience scientist at the non-profit Everglades Foundation who earned a PhD in Earth System Science at Florida International University and used to work on economic evaluations and risk reduction at FIU's Disaster Risk and Resilience in the Americas Program. How do wetlands in South Florida protect residential communities from flooding? Meenakashi Chabba: Wetlands are actually the very best natural protection we can have from flooding, whether they're swamps with trees or marshes with grasses. In South Florida, where we get four to five feet of rain a year, inland freshwater wetlands like the Everglades absorb and hold that water very quickly – they're like a natural sponge. Without them, rainfall and stormwater would overwhelm our neighborhoods. These wetlands have rich organic soil and unique plants that soak up rainwater, that's just how they're designed, and that reduces flood heights. The healthier the wetland, the better it holds water, and the better its ability to protect us from flooding. On the coast, mangroves are critical defenders during hurricanes and tropical storms. Their dense roots and tangled canopies form a physical barrier that slows down storm surge as it pushes inland. This reduces both the height and energy of the floodwaters hitting coastal neighborhoods. They're superheroes, really. Is there any proof wetlands have reduced damage in real storm events? Chabba: Yes, we have scientific studies to prove that. After Hurricane Irma in 2017, the economic damages from storm surge alone were about $5 billion. But mangroves, for example, decreased a lot of the impact. Without the mangroves, South Florida would experienced another $725 million in storm surge damages, much of it to private properties. They really reduced the impact on the homes behind them. On average, we know that mangroves reduce annual flood damages by 25% to nearby properties. We also have a recent study that shows that Everglades wetlands provide at least $5.3 billion in flood mitigation benefits each year. Coastal wetlands – so that's mangroves, corals, and oyster reefs – add another roughly $3.5 billion annually in storm surge protection. That's why we need to keep them healthy and push for nature-based solutions in city planning. This Q&A has been edited for brevity and clarity. This story is part of a periodic Miami Herald series where we answer reader questions about climate change. Send us yours at climate@ This climate report is funded by Florida International University, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the David and Christina Martin Family Foundation in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners. The Miami Herald retains editorial control of all content.
E&E News
27-06-2025
- Politics
- E&E News
Former Biden admin official heads home to Florida and a new Everglades gig
The Everglades Foundation this week announced the hiring of former Interior Department official Shannon Estenoz as the nonprofit organization's first-ever chief policy officer. The move marks a return home for Estenoz, a fifth-generation Florida native who worked for the foundation prior to her service in the Biden administration from 2021 to 2025 as Interior's assistant secretary for fish and wildlife and parks. 'For more than 30 years, the Everglades Foundation has been a leading voice in the effort to restore America's Everglades,' Estenoz said in a statement. 'As chief policy officer, I am eager to collaborate with scientists, decision makers, and environmental advocates to advance the Foundation's restoration efforts and to secure the long-term protection of the Everglades.' Advertisement According to the foundation, the Florida State University graduate will be responsible for 'developing and advancing Everglades policy' through collaboration with the organization's staff as well as outside policymakers, scholars, conservation groups and others.
Miami Herald
19-06-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
Not just a swamp: Everglades worth $31.5 billion to local economy each year, study finds
Crocodiles, alligators, and destructive Burmese pythons thrive in the Everglades, but a new study shows that the singular ecosystem is also vital to South Florida's economy, helping sustain millions of people who live around its periphery. Each year, according to a new report from an environmental advocacy group, the sprawling wetland contributes some $31.5 billion to real estate, tourism, and other sectors of the local economy. Over the next 50 years, that value will add up to more than $1 trillion. 'This really shows that the Everglades are a vital component of South Florida's economy that brings benefits to all our households,' Paul Hindsley, chief economist at the Everglades Foundation, the non-profit working to protect the ecosystem which co-published the report, told the Miami Herald. Several sectors were assessed for the new report, including the positive impact the Everglades have on real estate prices, fisheries, and recreation and tourism. The two biggest sectors of South Florida's economy are also the ones profiting the most from the Everglades: The annual real estate market sees some $9.23 billion in added value, while tourism profits by $8.5 billion, said Hindsley, who co-authored the report along with colleagues from the Everglades Foundation and Earth Economics, a nonprofit that specializes in calculating the economic value of nature. Previous studies have already shown that projects to restore the Everglades bring a 4 to 1 return on investment, a vital argument, Hindsley said, pointing to the massive benefits to real estate as a key example. With the help of extensive market analysis, the authors were able to quantify the premium buyers of close to 1 million properties between 2019 and 2023 paid for proximity to and views of clean surface water. For residential properties, being located close to fresh water, a bay or the ocean accounted for more than 7 percent of the overall value. For condominiums, that number was more than double, with 14.4 percent of the total value. Without continued restoration, however, the opposite could happen: The 2018 'red tide' algae bloom on the west coast, for example, saw property values near the water drop by as much as 30 percent. Living nearby these bodies of water means being directly linked to the Everglades, which act as a natural water management system for all of South Florida, from the aquifers that provide drinking water to feeding rivers and canals, and maintaining the delicate balance of salinity in coastal estuaries and bays. That's becoming ever more challenging, in part because rising sea levels are pushing salt water into the aquifer. If the Everglades don't continue to feed enough fresh water into the system to keep salt water at bay, our drinking water would become saline. 'That's a real problem, and that would be very difficult to reverse,' Ken Cousins, an ecological economist and research principal at Earth Economics, told the Miami Herald. Though the economic value of the Everglades was estimated at $1 trillion over 50 years, Cousins said that the figure is an gross underestimation because many aspects, including the value of potable drinking water the Everglades help supply for millions of people as well as industries, could not be fully assessed. Similarly, the $8.4 billion price tag the authors placed on how the Everglades help mitigate natural hazards, including by acting as massive sponge that protects South Florida from even worse flooding, is 'a very conservative estimate,' Cousins said. 'The true value is considerably more, and that's just the economic value -- that doesn't account for what it means in terms of habitat or local identity,' he said. The record funding that's already gone into restoration needs to continue to protect the future of all of Florida, Hindsley said. 'There are so many challenges, like salt water intrusion, fires…we see these larger threats going forward and Everglades restoration is one of key parts to make sure we are meeting resiliency needs going into the future,' he said. This climate report is funded by Florida International University, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the David and Christina Martin Family Foundation in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners. The Miami Herald retains editorial control of all content.
E&E News
05-06-2025
- E&E News
Everglades scientist heads to jail after spat with ex-employer
A longtime Everglades scientist is preparing to start a jail sentence in July in the latest chapter of a high-profile legal drama that has roiled Florida's conservation community. A judge ordered scientist Tom Van Lent to surrender to a Miami court July 17 to serve a 10-day jail sentence after the court found him guilty of criminal contempt. The jail sentence is part of a legal dispute that dates back to 2022, when the Everglades Foundation sued Van Lent, its former scientist of 17 years, alleging that he had swiped confidential information and 'trade secrets' and destroyed data belonging to the foundation when he left the group. Advertisement Van Lent and his allies have argued that the lawsuit was an attempt to punish him after he clashed with the foundation on Everglades restoration and posted what the foundation referred to as a 'disparaging tweet' about the group on his way out the door.
