As 2024 gets started, I hope everyone is getting outside and enjoying some nice weather, between cold fronts.
I am proud to announce and reintroduce you to your active Leadership. I was honored to be re-elected your Executive Committee Chair. I am joined by 8 additional Executive Committee Members.
Drew Martin, also acting as your Conservation Chair and Media Contact.
Gary Landau, also acting as your Political Co-Chair.
Glenn Lauffer, also acting as General Meeting and Events Chair.
Madelyn Marconi, Last but certainly not least our newest member, serving as your Newsletter Editor. If you are reading this, you have her to thank.
Other Officers and Committee Chairs include our new Treasure, Lila Kipp. And some names you may recognize. Membership Chair is Mary Cassell. Our Webmaster is Valerie Sebring. Lisa Hanley is our Communication and Forests and Public Lands Chair. Our Inspiring Connections Outdoors, ICO Chair is Meryl Davids. Charles (Chas) Hunt is our Adult Outings Chair. Haines is our Meet-up and List Serve Chair. We are currently searching for a volunteer to serve as Vice Chair and Secretary.
This month we sent out postcards to members who have opted out of our electronic communications from the Sierra Club Loxahatchee Group. If you know of a member who tells you they never hear from us or if you feel you are getting too many communications, we don’t want to lose you completely! Please don’t unsubscribe. Once you unsubscribe, we can’t contact you. Contact Ron Haines and he may be able to adjust the amount and type of content you receive.
As always, I invite everyone to visit our calendar and Zoom into a committee meeting to learn about the work they do.
Our upcoming Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute Boat Tour, Campus Tour, and Ocean Discovery Center exploration is sold out, a testament to how great this day will be. If you wanted to attend but waited too long, let me know. If I hear of a cancellation, I will let you know. Tickets are transferable.
“Activism is my rent for living on this planet.” Alice Walker, won a Pulitzer Prize for her stance against racism and sexism in such novels as The Color Purple.
P.S. The Florida Legislative Session has started. Brace for impact! To encourage future legislative champions, we continue to accept donations for the Political Committee’s Political Action Campaign. Please consider making a generous donation. Sierra Club Florida PAC is HERE.
We are stronger together!
Thank you so much,
Linda Smithe Destinationloop@gmail.com
Executive Committee Chair
Sierra Club Loxahatchee Group
Service Outings at Galaxy Sand Pine Preserve Every Sunday at 9 AM
Join other volunteers in continuing our 10-year tradition of improving gopher tortoise habitat at the Galaxy Sand Pine Preserve, located behind Galaxy Elementary School. We will work for two hours, sometimes in full sun, sometimes in the shade, depending on the weather. The work includes pulling, clipping and sometimes digging invasive plants that are choking out gopher tortoise forage.
Trip Leader: Lisa Hanley lisa.hanley@juno.com
Sunday Feb. 4, 10 a.m. Paddle Fisheating Creek in Palmdale. Up to four hours of paddling on a pristine, cypress lined tributary to Lake Okeechobee. Experience required because of distance. Rentals available. Event Details
Trip Leader: Ron Haines ronaldhaines@bellsouth.net
Saturday Feb. 10, 10 a.m. Paddle Winding Waters Natural Area. Leisurely two-hour paddle at Winding Waters Natural Area in West Palm Beach. Suitable for beginners and for paddle boarders. For information and registration, click here
Trip Leader: Ron Haines ronaldhaines@bellsouth.net
Sunday Feb. 25, 10 a.m. Paddle John Prince Park. This is a leisurely two-hour paddle in the backwaters of an urban park in central Palm Beach County. Please arrive in time for launch at 10 am. Use the Congress Avenue entrance to John Prince Park, 4759 South Congress Ave., Lake Worth. For information and registration, click here.
Trip Leader: Ron Haines ronaldhaines@bellsouth.net
Saturday Mar. 2. 10 a.m., Paddle at West Lake Park, Hollywood. A four-hour paddle through the mangroves with a stop at Anne Kolb Nature Center and Observation Tower. Entrance to the West Lake Park is $1.50/person and entrance to the Nature Center’s exhibit hall is $2/person. There is no charge to use the observation tower. Rentals are available.. For information and registration, click here.
Trip Leader: Ron Haines ronaldhaines@bellsouth.net
Saturday Mar. 9, 10 a.m., Pine Glades Natural Area in Jupiter. A leisurely morning paddle of about two hours. It is not a large body of water. Should be plenty of birds to see. Water is generally open, but there are weeds to paddle through also. No rentals here. On the south side of Indiantown Road about 6.5 miles west of I-95 and the Turnpike. For information and registration, click here.
Trip Leader: Ron Haines ronaldhaines@bellsouth.net
Sunday, Mar. 17, 10 a.m., Paddle at Okeeheelee Park South in West Palm Beach. This is a leisurely, two-hour paddle on the water trail at Okeeheelee Park South. The park is at 7715 Forest Hill Blvd, West Palm Beach. Go south from Forest Hill, NOT NORTH. Allow yourself time to launch at 10 please. For information and registration, click here.
Trip Leader: Ron Haines ronaldhaines@bellsouth.net
Saturday Mar. 30, 10 a.m. Paddle Winding Waters Natural Area. Leisurely two-hour paddle at Winding Waters Natural Area in West Palm Beach. Suitable for beginners and for paddle boarders. For information and registration, click here.
Trip Leader: Ron Haines ronaldhaines@bellsouth.net
Everglades Action Day,
Sponsored by EVCO, February 6-7, 2024 By Kay Gates
Perhaps you missed our January Advocate Day in Tallahassee, here’s another opportunity - for the purpose of advocating on behalf of the Everglades to our legislators in the Capital. It is well organized by EVCO, easy to join, and has reasonable costs. This will take place February 6-7, 2024.
There will be Training online prior. Then an organizing, dinner & training at the hotel on the evening of Tue. Feb. 6. You will be Assigned to a small group with a leader to visit legislators on the 7th. Appointments and arrangements are made prior. You just need to show up for a great experience and make a difference.
The hotel has been secured with room rates of approx. $70, get a roommate to split the cost. One night stay. The group is working on bus or carpooling there and back depending on number registered to attend.
Leave for Tally early on the morning of 6th for 6-hour ride or drive. Departure is after 3pm for late return on the 7th.
Prestigious 2023 Environmental Champion Award Presented to Paul Owens, President of 1000 Friends of Florida
The Loxahatchee Group of the Sierra Club Florida Chapter welcomed more than 100 friends and supporters to a special THANKS & GIVING CELEBRATION on November 11 in West Palm Beach.
One highlight of fundraiser was the presentation of the prestigious 2023 Environmental Champion Award to Paul Owens, President of 1000 Friends of Florida, the state’s leading not-for-profit smart growth advocacy organization known for building better communities and saving special places. Owens is also the highly respected and widely read Opinion Editor of the Orlando Sentinel.
“We are a relatively small organization, so we pick battles that are within our resources and staff, but the recent land-swap proposal was really a seminal issue in Florida. The unnecessary consumption of natural land is so important to our future, our environment and quality of life. In Florida, the environment is our economy,” said Owens when he accepted the award. “If 600 acres designated for conservation can be turned into a luxury subdivision, then no place in Florida is safe, so we decided to fight against it.”
“The only way to be sure that you are going lose is by giving up, and that’s what the other side wants us to do. They have a lot of money to throw around, but we have the power of our ideas and people power—and every once in a while, we win. We want to fight for Florida to save Florida,” he added.
The local Sierra Club’s THANKS & GIVING CELEBRATION also included hot and cold hors d’oeuvres, wine and beer, live music by Jamie Rasso, and a hot-hot-hot Silent Auction offering vacations, art, outings and adventures, and more. Proceeds from the auction benefit Inspiring Connections Outdoors, the Elaine Usherson Scholarship Program, and the Loxahatchee Group’s conservation efforts.
Sugar Cane Burning
By Gary Cochran -
Early in my conservation career, and I mean early, over 35 years ago, while working for the Department of Natural Resources, the precursor to what is now DEP, I was involved with programs that were attempting to start to convert state-owned lands in the EAA that were leased to big sugar companies to wetland flow ways to try to begin to restore some semblance of what once existed around the southern boundary of Lake O. Needless to say, we were quashed by the power of big sugar and their many lobbyists.
So much effort, projects and money have been expended since then and yet it seems so little has changed in the intervening years to change the dynamics of the political and power equation, with the Everglades continuing to decline and the people who depend on them getting short shrift.
We all just cannot give up on the pressure to the Health Department (and of course the Sugar Industry) to stop this outrageous pollution of the Glades and surrounding communities causing untold numbers of health issues.
Everyone reading this article needs to write letters to our Florida and National Legislators and Health Department. Remember when writing, that the sugar industry is receiving mega incentives to pollute the communities where harvesting is done and beyond. We are paying for this in our tax dollars.
The Florida Panther By Jeff Wittmann
Growing up on Jupiter Island, Panther sightings were not uncommon. The panthers would swim over to the island to gorge themselves on racoons that were gorging themselves on turtle eggs. The town manager told me the panthers were coming over and eating Nat Reed's ducks. The amazing thing is that the panthers are still here. I have seen three.
The range of a male panther is 50 square miles or more and a male panther was hit and killed by a car on SR 710 in Martin County in 2019. The South Florida Water Management District along with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the Florida Department of Transportation were trying to get an underground tunnel under the highway so the panthers could cross safely, but it would have cost millions of dollars. The underground passageway never got built. So, the State is aware that there are panthers in Martin County.
Martin County is the last vestige of panther habitat in Southeast Florida. They come in from DuPuis Management Area into the Corbett Area and cross the Beeline Highway, SR 710, and come into the Hungryland Slough, aka PalMar. From there they come through established tunnels under I-95 and the turnpike and either go into Jonathan Dickinson State Park or the Atlantic Ridge Park. Sometimes they come into Hobe Sound. A game camera recently caught a panther on the LoxaLucie Preserve a mile west of Hobe Sound.
The Florida Panther has been protected under the Endangered Species Act since 1967 and is very close to extinction. Florida Forever has $ 300 million available for acquisition and Florida Communities Trust has $ 91 million.
I close with a quote from Janeen Mason. " Protecting panthers in Martin County indirectly conserves other threatened and endangered wildlife. It is beyond important to ensure that there are areas that will be protected in perpetuity. If they disappear. The system will crumble."
Share Your Pictures
Calling all photographers--young, old, amateur and professional. Send us your original, outdoors pictures and we’ll share them on the Loxahatchee Group Facebook and Instagram pages. Bonus points for those photos that relate to the Club’s motto: Enjoy, Explore and Protect.
Photo Release Terms and Conditions: You permit Sierra Club to use your original photo(s) for any purpose, including advertisement, while referencing you as the original owner of the photo(s) at all times when used for any reason by Sierra Club.
You can also view the Group Directory and reach out to our group leaders. We would love you to join our committees, such as Conservation; Political; Equity, Inclusion, and Justice; or Communications.
We are excited to announce our new YouTube Channel. Check us out--watch and share!
We also invite you to to Like our Facebook page and to share updates and events with your friends. Thanks!
