A roundup of news items related to climate change and other environmental issues in Florida:
Here’s how one Florida community cut its risk of blackouts during heavy storms: ‘We are less susceptible to grid outages’ | The Cool Down
A city in Florida has approved a new development that could save residents money and help the planet at the same time.
The Lakeland, Florida, project, which is named Myrtlebrook, will be a collaboration between housing developer Highland Homes, microgrid developer BlockEnergy and utility company Lakeland Electric. The latter is funding the $4.2 million pilot project and will be its owner-operator.
Myrtlebrook will include 77 homes that are outfitted with solar panels and linked together to form a community microgrid. That means that not only will they passively generate their own electricity from a clean, renewable resource — the sun — but they will also be able to pool their harvested solar energy in a central battery storage unit, even feeding excess power back into the grid. The solar panels will also save the residents money in utility costs.
25 neighborhoods in Fort Lauderdale in line for flooding fix. Brace for a mess, critics warn | South Florida Sun Sentinel
Robin Richard says life hasn’t been the same since construction crews showed up to take on a much-needed but messy mission: Tearing up streets to upgrade drainage in her flood-prone Fort Lauderdale neighborhood.
She knew they were coming.
But she says she didn’t know a loud pump that runs 24 hours a day would be placed right outside the River Oaks home she shares with her husband, keeping them up at all hours of the night. She also didn’t know that several tall mangrove trees that line the canal across the street would be cut down. Or that gravel and dirt would be dumped in the same canal, turning 30 yards of the waterway into a messy construction zone.
State looks to secure 18 million acres of Florida for wildlife, conservation | Fort Myers News-Press
It stretches from the sand dunes of the Panhandle to the deepest parts of the Everglades.
The Florida Wildlife Corridor is a state effort aimed at securing conservation lands across the Sunshine State, from the state line near Georgia and Alabama to Florida Bay and the keys.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, or FWC, is spearheading the project, which includes public lands already secured as well as private lands that help endangered animals like the Florida panther survive.
If you have any news items of note that you think we should include in our next roundup, please email The Invading Sea Editor Nathan Crabbe at ncrabbe@fau.edu. Sign up for The Invading Sea newsletter by visiting here.
