The Florida Roundup - Live from Key West: Sustainability, affordability and healthcare

Episode Date: August 9, 2024

This week on The Florida Roundup, we went to Key West for a special show with a live studio audience. First, we spoke with former Congresswoman Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (00:52). Then, we were joined by WLRN’s environment editor Jenny Staletovich to talk about warming ocean waters and coral reef restoration (21:28). And later, we heard from Julia Cooper, WLRN's reporter covering the Florida Keys (38:32).

We are live now on the Florida Roundup from the Tropic Cinema in Key West. I'm Tom Hudson and welcome to ouridians here in the Keys. Live music here from Brian Roberts as well as we go full island with Brian. Early voting underway here in the Keys and across all of the Sunshine State. It is a primary election summer after all and a big statewide race for the United States Senate. Four Democrats are vying for their party's nomination. for the United States Senate. Four Democrats are vying for their party's nomination. Debbie Mercosel-Powell is the leading candidate in both polls and in fundraising, as Floridians have started early voting for this primary. She's the former U.S. Congresswoman representing Florida's southernmost congressional district, which includes, of course, this wonderful city of Key West, and she is with us today. Debbie, welcome to the program. Nice to have you.

Thank you so much for having me. What a great audience filled with incredible people that I've had the pleasure to know for many years now. It's terrific to be here. Now, we did invite Senator Rick Scott for a separate interview today. He declined. He has been and will be invited back for future programs. So lots of big issues in this primary election and general election.

The economy, immigration, abortion, insurance, cost of living, all big issues for Florida voters. Hurricane Debbie hitting Florida this week is a simple reminder that Florida has more homes with federal flood insurance than any other state. And that insurance program is billions of dollars in debt. So housing costs across the state are high. Social Security, Medicare face fiscal cliffs in about a decade that the future Congress people are going to have to deal with. So what do you want to ask the candidates here in the audience? Write your questions down. And if you're with us across the state, we still want to hear from you via our email. The inbox is open for you. Radio at thefloridaroundup.org. Radio at thefloridaroundup.org. So before we dig into policy, Debbie, let's talk a little bit about politics because things have

changed quite a bit on your side of the ticket, on the top of the ticket. On Monday, the Vice President Kamala Harris officially became the Democratic Party's presidential nominee for president. There's no Democratic presidential primary here in Florida. That was canceled in March by the Florida Democratic Party. The process has led to some saying that it's an undemocratic process that led to the vice president being nominated as president. How do you answer those criticisms? You know, one of the things that I can tell you, and I've been saying this since I launched my campaign back in August, I have been focusing specifically on the U.S. Senate race. I really can't tell you why they made that decision.

I do support a free and fair democratic process. Obviously, I'm going through that right now. As you mentioned, there's a democratic primary primary and I applaud anyone that's willing to serve and to run for office. It's never easy. We have some great candidates here with us today that I that I'm supportive of. And we all know the work that has to be put in. But this is about Florida. This is about families. This is about electing a senator that's going to be working for every single Floridian, regardless of political affiliation. Yes, there is a Senate primary, as we know, but there was no presidential primary. So what's your message to the Florida Democrats who didn't have a vote during this presidential process? Well, you know, what I found out after the fact, the one thing that I saw is that some of the candidates hadn't filed a paperwork to qualify for the primary. And that was the reasoning behind canceling the Democratic primary. But I'm going to let the Florida Democratic Party answer that question.

I think that we should always support a fair and free process that allows anyone that wants to step up and run for office to run for office. anyone that wants to step up and run for office to run for office. Would you have supported some kind of snap primary election for Democrats after President Biden decided not to run for re-election? I was very excited to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris very quickly for many, many reasons. One of the things, I've known her for many years now, and I had the honor of serving under this administration for the Summit of the Americas. And I worked hand in hand with Vice President Harris on providing significant funding, a public and private partnership of funding that brought funds to Guatemala, El Salvador, countries in Latin America, so that people can stay in their home countries. It was part of a migration agreement that we were working on to deal with the mess that we've been seeing in the border. We do have a border crisis. And I've seen that work. And so I was very excited to see a woman step up very quickly to see a unifying effort by the entire country. And this is not just Democrats. We saw

independence. We've seen Republicans here in the state of Florida form a coalition to support the vice president. So I'm excited to support her and I'm glad to see that unifying effort across the country. Let's talk about policy here, Debbie. On your website, you state that you oppose raising taxes on the middle class. Yes. President Biden and his administration have called for raising the top tax rate for people making over $400,000 a year. Is that a policy that you would support in the U.S. Senate? I'm not crazy about that proposal at all. I can tell you that people here have been paying taxes for too long. And part of the problem is that we haven't had

the appropriate oversight of how we're spending that money. What do you mean by people are paying taxes for too long? I mean, we've been paying high levels of property insurance rates here in the state of Florida. Which are locally decided. We've been raising, we've been paying into our public education system, but they're not using those dollars properly. They're taking out funding from public schools and from public universities, and they're giving it to voucher programs and charter schools, which are being run by for-profit entities. But those are all state taxes, though, and the U.S. Senate has no... So it's not about... For me, it's not about raising taxes. For me, it's about making sure

that we are allocating the taxes that we're already paying to the programs that are meant to be funded. There is a federal piece of legislation from 2017, I believe, that capped the amount of local and state taxes that taxpayers could write off their federal taxes, the SALT exemption. Yes, that's right. That caps it at $10,000. And for places throughout Florida that have high property taxes,

for instance here in Monroe County and elsewhere, for richly valued property, it limits the amount of those local taxes, what taxpayers can take off of their federal taxes. Would you support continuing with that cap of $10,000 or perhaps removing that cap? You know, that was an issue that when I was in Congress came up and that's when they placed that cap and it does hurt certain areas in the country and it affects the amount of funding that we can collect through tax collection there. I'm not sure where I stand on that. And look, I'm someone that you will

always get a straight answer. And if I'm not sure, I'll tell you I'm not sure. And when I'm sure, I'll tell you. And that's my position. So what would you like to hear if former President Trump wins reelection? He has stated flatly he would like the 2017 tax bill to be renewed, essentially. And so the SALT, this so-called local and state tax exemption piece, is going to come up again for the U.S. Senate. Well, first of all, let's remember what happened when they passed that bill under Republican control of the White House, the House and the Senate. House and the Senate, they gave over $1.3 trillion in tax cuts to the ultra wealthy, to the top 0.01% population of this country. It added to the deficit. You know, I hear Rick Scott talk a lot about government spending in the deficit, but he was very happy to support that bill that gave him significant tax cuts, but it caused an increase in the tax rate for middle-class families.

And that's exactly what's included in Rick Scott's plan. And so when they say they want to continue and allow that bill to continue, it's just giving a tax cut to the ultra wealthy. It's not helping middle-class families. It's not helping the average Floridian that is working 40, 60 hours a week and can't afford to live in the state of Florida. Debbie Mercosel-Powell is our guest here live on the Florida Roundup from the Tropic Cinema here in Key West on this Friday. Great to be along with you. She is the leading Democrat for the U.S. Senate in this primary election season that we find

ourselves in here in Florida. Debbie, more than 1.3 million Floridians work in the hospitality industry. About one in three workers here in the Florida Keys works in the hospitality industry. About one in three workers here in the Florida Keys works in the hospitality industry, and many work for tips. That's where a majority of their income come from. The former president, President Trump, has talked recently about not taxing tips at the federal income tax level. Is that a policy that you could support? Okay, so let's talk about the reality of what they're trying to do. They're trying to distract because they have never been for the working people.

They don't support raising the minimum wage at the federal level. Can you believe, Tom, that we are still having a $7 minimum wage for workers across this country? Florida has raised the minimum wage, $12 an hour. country. Florida has raised the minimum wage, $12 an hour. We passed it to 15, and then the legislature decided to put a hold on that and do it throughout the next five years. But when you're talking about a federal wage, we're talking about federal policy, a federal wage that only pays workers $7 an hour, people can't afford to do that. They want to make cuts to Social Security and Medicare. They want to eliminate the Affordable Care Act, which would send over 4 million Floridians off their health care coverage. They want to raise taxes for the middle class families, but then lower taxes for

high income earners. That doesn't work. We've seen that economic policy. Simply not taxing tipped wages. How about paying our workers a living wage? I mean, let's start with that conversation. The ex-president uses that as a messaging and marketing tool to distract. Of course, our waiters and waitresses who are getting paid, I mean, it's like two, three dollars. And I've talked to business owners, small business owners, restaurant owners that say, you know, we can't go from paying them $2 to $3 when they were making their wages from tips to all of a sudden going to $15. Of course, we need to look at that.

We can't afford to hurt small business owners either. at the federal level of not taxing tips on waiters and waitresses that can barely make a living with the wages that they're making right now is a distraction. So it sounds like you would prefer addressing this through the minimum wage federally as opposed to the tax code. Let me ask you about another tax issue that the former president has talked about recently, which is wanting to exempt Social Security benefits from federal taxes. More than half a million Floridians collect Social Security benefits, $4 billion last year alone. Do you support reducing or eliminating the federal tax obligation on Social Security benefits? I mean, I'm listening to all these questions, and we're talking about policies that are, again, distracting from the fact that I'm running for the U.S. Senate against a man, a senator, and Rick Scott, who has been in office for 14 years, who wrote a plan to eliminate Social Security and Medicare.

And so which which he then about a year later retracted that portion and said it was never meant to reauthorize Social Security and Medicare. And the question, and I hear the audience laughing, the question for every Floridian is, do you trust Rick Scott? He's someone that has hurt Florida time and time again from the beginning when he was governor. He made significant cuts to workers' benefits. He made significant cuts to public education. He repealed environmental protection laws. He cut over 700 million in water management projects. He voted against contraception and IVF. And of course, the next day put ads all over the state of Florida saying that he wants to protect IVF. So no, you cannot trust Rick Scott. He will, if he has the opportunity, he would privatize Social Security,

which would hurt seniors like my mom, who are living right now in a fixed income, that Social Security check and that Medicare that seniors have worked their entire life paying into that system and to those benefits. Would you like your mom not to have to pay federal income tax on her Social Security benefits? She doesn't pay. I mean, it's limited. Most seniors are not receiving a benefit through Social Security where it has them pay taxes. The recipient is not high enough for them to pay taxes. But for some seniors, it is. And that's why I'm saying that these proposals are all to distract. But let's go back to the actions that the ex-president has made, right? I mean, he passed this tax cut, which hurt seniors, which hurt middle class families.

They want to make cuts to the Affordable Care Act. They want to cut Social Security benefits. They want to cut Medicare. And so let's be real with the American people, with Floridians, on what this Project 2025 would look like if the ex-president goes back into the White House, and if Rick Scott gets his way, gets reelected, leads the Senate, and then pushes that extreme agenda through? We did invite the current U.S. Senator, Senator Scott, who was your likely opponent in the fall election, should you win the primary and should he win his own Republican primary. We invited him to our program here live in Key West for a separate interview. He decided not to take us up on the offer. We will continue to invite Senator Scott to another conversation here in the Florida Roundup in the

weeks ahead. Let's talk about insurance, another big issue, which is oftentimes a state issue, but there is a big federal insurance program that affects millions of Floridians, the flood insurance program. More Floridians than any other state have protection to their homes because of the National Flood Insurance Program, which is $20 billion or so in debt. The U.S. Senate has been investigating the state-backed insurance company here, Citizens Insurance. Is that an investigation that you would support continuing if you win election? Yes, absolutely. And Tom, everywhere I have been, it doesn't matter if I'm talking to students that go to FAMU or seniors living in Orlando, the affordability crisis is really crippling Floridians across our state, regardless of age, regardless of property insurance. So it's really affecting our economy, our livelihood here in the state of Florida. And it started under Rick Scott when he was governor. He gave $50 million to campaign contributors, his friends, these private insurance companies, and took that money

from our public option, from citizens. So a lot of what we're facing now started years ago when Rick Scott was elected to be Florida's governor. And so we can't continue with these failed policies. I have had conversations with the senators that are doing that investigation. And part of the problem, and this is something that we don't talk about when we talk about the insurance crisis, is that the lack of investment on climate resiliency, the fact that we're facing higher sea levels, the fact that we're facing stronger and stronger storms are directly linked to this property insurance rates and the crisis that we're facing. And we're going to have to look at federally backed programs to protect our coastal communities. On abortion, as you know, Florida voters will decide whether or not to prohibit the state government from putting in any restrictions when it comes to abortion beyond viability or the ability to protect the life of a mother.

You support that effort, correct? Yes. Okay. Should it also require Medicaid, state Medicaid funds, to pay for abortions? I think that we should absolutely fund Medicaid, and that includes, of course, supporting women's health care, because the issue of reproductive health care is central to a woman's health care. And abortion bans disproportionately affect women of color, low income women, we have seen it, it's directly tied to high levels of violence against women and also higher rates of maternal mortality

that disproportionately affects black women, Latina women. And so we have a problem here in the state of Florida with the lack of coverage. It includes covering women's health care. And again, reproductive health care is central to a woman's health care. So we should fund, we should expand Medicaid. We know that we passed a bill when I was in Congress to bring significant funding for Medicaid coverage to the state of Florida. We saw Rick Scott denying that funding, and then DeSantis had to accept the funding because it was part of the larger CARES Act that we passed when I was in Congress. And now, this year alone, close to half a million children lost their coverage because those Medicaid dollars were returned and they're not fully expanded. It was part of the COVID response in the CARES Act. And the previous rejection of those dollars was part of the Affordable Care Act, the so-called Obamacare. But back to this question, it sounds

like you would support using Medicaid dollars for abortions in Florida if the burden passes. I mean, why would we discriminate against women that have Medicaid if they have an emergency in their reproductive health care, if they have to be forced to terminate a pregnancy, whether it's because of rape, incest, whether it's hurting the life of the mother, of the fetus? Why would we discriminate against women because they have Medicaid and not regular insurance? That's the question that we need to ask ourselves. regular insurance? That's the question that we need to ask ourselves. Debbie Mercosel-Powell, the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination. Florida voters are voting now. Thank you so much for coming down to Key West to join us here live in the Tropic Cinema. We always appreciate you, and thanks for your time. Thank you.

Again, we did invite Senator Rick Scott to be part of our conversation. He turned us down, but we will continue to make that invitation in the weeks ahead. Still to come, lots more here from the Tropic Cinema in Key West. Stick with us here on the Florida Roundup. We will be talking about, well, the hot weather, right? But really the hot oceans. We don't have coal mines here in Florida, and so we don't have canaries to send into those coal mines to warn us about something, but we do have coral reefs in very hot water so what are they trying to tell us about climate change that is all still to come here on a live edition of the florida roundup here from the tropic cinema in key west brian roberts on guitar play us out here as we'll be back in about 90 seconds Thank you. This is the Florida Roundup.

We're live today from the Tropic Cinema in Key West. Great to be here in the Florida Keys at the end of the road, an A1A. Please, let's say hello to everybody throughout Florida here from the Tropic Cinema. My name is Tom Hudson. Brian Roberts is with us on guitar. He's helping us get that island vibe live on this Friday. He's got a new album coming out in the fall that includes a cover of Jimmy

Buffett's Come Monday and many original tunes. That name of that album is Golden Guaranteed coming out this fall from Brian Roberts. Great to have you, Brian, with us. BrianRobertsMusic.com. Next week on our program, we want to tell you about what we're going to be talking about. It's back to school.

That means backpacks. It means school books. It means new pencils. But no cell phones in some of the largest public school districts in the state. From Fort Lauderdale to Orlando, the Treasure Coast to the Gulf Coast, students are banned from using their cell phones during the school day. So we want to hear from parents. Are you allowing your kid to pack a phone to school? Students, how are you doing without being able to swipe or scroll during lunch? And how goes the enforcement teachers of

those new bans? We want to hear from you now. Radio at thefloridaroundup.org. You can share your story. Radio at thefloridaroundup.org. And we'll share those stories next week. And I'll tell folks that, you know, for those folks here live in our studio audience, I did ask you to mute your cell phones. Everybody still has their device on them. You're not banned from using them. But I did ask everybody to mute them here for the radio program. Ginny Stoletovich is moving her phone across the table here for us now, just in case

it happens to go off. We are here in Key West this week, the last island marking the end of Florida, of course, and often the first place of many of the impacts that we feel in the Sunshine State for climate change. The hot ocean temperatures not only help fuel hurricanes, but they also threaten marine like protective coral reefs just offshore here in Key West and across Florida. So if you fish or dive or snorkel, share what you've experienced in and under the water where you live. Our inbox is open now statewide radio at the Florida roundup.org radio at the Florida roundup.org. And if you're with us live here in Key West at the Tropic Cinema we've got open mics write down your question we'd love to hear from you Jenny is the environment editor at our partner station WLRN Jenny Stilettavich great to have you again Jenny thank you so how hot is the ocean

this summer so not as bad as last summer and we had that horrible heat wave but it's warm it is it we are still at record levels and I was out on the Gulf Stream yesterday off Miami the Gulf Stream was above 88 degrees so and we were already in like a month ago reaching temperatures that we normally experience in August which had a lot of folks worried because it's that prolonged heat that really does a lot of damage to the environment, especially the reefs. So this is one of those simple questions that I think everybody kind of knows the answer to, but it bears asking, which is why? Why is the water so warm and warmer than it's been historically? Climate change. No, the ocean absorbs 90% of the additional heat that

is getting trapped in the atmosphere. And that's, you know, that's what happens. And that's what causes it. It's a simple answer, actually. And so what, under the ocean, under the water, what's susceptible? What changes happen because of these hot and prolonged hot ocean temperatures? So most of what we know is really like shallow waters. When I was out yesterday with a fisheries biologist, and we are barely scraping the surface on what's happening in the deeper ocean, but in the shallow

waters, we know coral reef, you know, it's shallow, it's warmer. So they're going to take a hit first, but the coral are hugely susceptible reefs. We're already getting hammered by disease and pollution. So that's been the canary in the coal mine but we're also... I'd like to think of it as the coral reef in the hot ocean instead, right? That's the Florida version of that at this point. Yeah and last year we heard about that coral bleaching when the coral turns white as it responds to the hot ocean temperatures. We've gotten reports that the coral off the shores here in South Florida is beginning to pale. Not bleach, but pale. What's the difference?

Well, so prolonged heat, the corals start to spit out the algae, the symbiotic algae that live inside them and produce the nutrients that they need to leave. So bleaching just doesn't happen automatically. It's something that builds up over time. So the paling is the first signal that bleaching is coming. Right now there's an alert level one from NOAA for the reef, which means there's a risk of bleaching reef-wide. The next level will be reef-wide bleaching and mortality, risk of mortality. That does not sound hopeful at all here for the coral reefs across

Florida. We're talking with WLRN environment editor from our partner station in South Florida, Jenny Stiletovich, as we're live here in the Tropic Cinema in Key West on this Florida Roundup. Radio at thefloridaroundup.org is our email address, but if you're lucky enough to be in the audience, well, you've got an open mic, and hello. Thanks for being here. What's your name and where are you from?

Hi, I'm Sue Waltansky. I'm the chair of the Monroe County School Board. I live in Tavernier. I'm here speaking for myself, just to be clear. During the past legislative session, Florida eliminated the words climate change from state statute. And then this summer, science textbook editors were told to eliminate passages mentioning climate change as well. And so what does that mean for those of us who live at sea level in the Keys? And so what does that mean for those of us who live at sea level in the Keys?

Yeah, yeah. How is this intersection and, frankly, collision between science and education happening? I mean, it is, you know, students aren't getting a clear picture of what's going on, and educators are being sort of boxed in in what they can convey. I think the state has always tried to reframe climate change as a resilience issue, like, oh, it's just rising seas, and if we build enough infrastructure, we can deal with it and make everyone safe. But what the state is not coming to terms with,

I think Governor DeSantis has made this clear, that the causes of climate change, you know, he, I'm trying to choose my words carefully here, but does not believe that we are fully the cause of climate change. And if you only deal with one side of the equation, which is doing resilience work, you're always going to be doing resilience work because you're never going to make the problem go away or at least slow down. And so if others have questions, please be sure to write them down and come on up to our microphones here as we're live in Key West. Or if you've got them on the email, radio at the Florida Roundup dot o r g.

As as the climate change impacts are being seen in real time across the state, there are some of those mitigation efforts that are addressing lots of different infrastructure things. But I want to focus, Jenny, with your reporting on what's happening below the surface in some of the mitigation efforts with the restoration efforts regarding coral reefs because of, again, that proverbial canary in a coal mine,

coral reef in a hot ocean. What's that telling us about the state of climate change in Florida and what those efforts are to restore and respond to it right so i think a really interesting thing happened last number last summer with that heat wave which again was like a holy smokes moment they realized that um the restoration efforts that had been ongoing with offshore nurseries that that wasn't going to work they had to move a lot they lost a lot of that coral, they moved them to inland facilities, so they are now working and shifting their focus to growing coral on shore and not using those ocean nurseries anymore. At a meeting, a sanctuary meeting last week, they also said that they're going to shift from staghorn and the branching corals that are most susceptible to bleaching

to breeding boulder and the foundation the corals um those are kind of the cornerstone of reeds yeah they're slower growing than a branching coral but they are the foundation and they're they're going to focus on those and until they can figure out how to breed more resilient branching coral they just feel like putting these coral out over and over again and bleaching conditions is is not to be a viable solution. I thought that was really interesting, the idea that we're moving those ocean-based nurseries onshore. What struck you about that? Because you have been covering this restoration effort for as long as it's been an effort, frankly, here in the Keys.

They have been growing coral in nurseries for more than 15 years. That was always seen as the best way, the easiest way, the cheapest, most efficient way. And now waters are too hot to operate those nurseries. And they've replanted, what, more than a quarter of a million of these? I hate when you ask me numbers. I know, I know. The scale sounds enormous, but then when you think of the size of the reefs that have been damaged by these hot ocean temperatures is exponentially enormous. Right, so the Keys have lost 90% of their coral cover, so they are racing to catch up and it has been a big effort and they've done a lot of good work. Another question

here, live from the Tropic Cinema here in Key West. Go ahead, hi, how are you? I'm good, how are you? Good, good. Go ahead. I'm a resident of Key West and of course we see everything that's going on with coral restoration. My question is the resources we're doing that, what should we be doing more state and federal level for water quality? Because that seems like something coral reefs, they need nutrient clear water and it seems like the focus is so much on this restoring coral with

you know planting and things like that and what's going on I guess on the top level yeah well so I mean further north around Miami and Biscayne Bay and stuff we've done a lot a lot of work on septic tanks I mean we do need you need to enforce the regulations you need to clean up old, dirty sewer systems and septic tanks. You need to make sure the Clean Water Act remains strong. I mean, that's sort of... Monitoring isn't a big piece of that, too. State funding for those types of stations across the state, not only in the Everglades, but in the headwaters of the Everglades and also in the Apalachicola Bay with the oyster farming that happens there, all of it. Right, right. And years ago, I was just telling Julia back in like 2018 when we had this big outbreak of red tide and blue-green algae in the St. Lucie estuary and on the West Coast,

when I was talking to scientists, monitoring had been defunded. Like they had lost so many monitoring stations and one of the scientists I talked to said essentially we're flying blind without that monitoring. They need long-term data sets so they can see how the system works and predict what it's what's going to happen under different conditions. Monitoring is like you know they're bread and butter. Yeah there is some pretty relatively significant federal dollars that have been coming into some of these efforts, maybe not on water quality exactly or monitoring directly, but the federal government has provided millions of dollars, for instance, to help restore and protect coral reefs, $7 million

to the Mote Marine Lab in Sarasota, $16 million to the University of Miami. And this is money from recent legislation, essentially. What's the goal of that and how do those dollars match against the the demand for money that these problems are requiring well i think about when we think of the scale of everglades restoration which is getting going to cost 23 billion dollars to 16 million and seven million really meet the need what that money is going to do is focus on the Keys Reef again last summer when there was a sort of all hands on deck response I think everyone realized there needed to be kind of a command center and and a better structure and organization to it so the University of of Miami, a professor there is going to kind of be that command center

in case we have another event like that. And also try and coordinate all the different restoration and research activities so that they're all working, you know, rowing in the same direction. That's a good point because you're covering all of these agencies, these local agencies and local efforts, state agencies and state efforts of what they may be, and of course the federal government and lots of different federal agencies responsible. How are they working together as you're reporting through these, and how well are they communicating and coordinating some of these responses? I mean, there have been reef coordination efforts for a long time. I remember sitting in on a panel one time, and it was headed by a Stanford professor. I'm like why is Stanford overseeing our research? But it is it's wide, it's been around, but the conditions are accelerating so

quickly that it's and the science is accelerating that it just needs to be rejiggered and it needs a little more more up an update we are live on this friday on the florida roundup from the uh tropic cinema here in key west i'm tom hudson jenny stiletovic environment editor from our partner station wlrn as we're talking about the environment you're listening to the florida roundup from your florida public radio station jenny let me ask you last fall uh first on social media and then reports and you were first on these reporting about fish spinning in the water here in the Keys saw fish were dying these prehistoric looking fish which are just fantastic to look at but

they were dying off the waters in the Keys five dozen now more than five dozen about five species yeah I have died yeah are we any closer to understanding the causes yes and no I mean there there it is the the cause is likely the cigua toxin it's an algae and microscopic dinoflagellate that lives at the bottom of the ocean why that suddenly turned lethal and fish they they can usually tolerate this it accumulates in the fish it makes us sick if we eat them and they have too much but usually the fish do fine but but something happened either a different kind of cigua toxin or more likely an expansion these these toxin just sort of

like an algae bloom we know what triggered maybe true well there are a lot of people who think that the heat wave sort of set the stage for it. But connecting that dot directly is still not exactly a done deal. But I talked to somebody who studies, you know, events on ocean life, like what happens when a hurricane comes through, what happens when there's a freeze, what happens when there's a heat wave. And he said, like, normally, you know, that's precedent setting. That heat wave was unprecedented. People were like, we know something's going to happen next. We just don't know what. Whether the spinning fish and the sawfish die off is directly caused by the heat

wave, they have not connected that die yet. What's the setup as we're here in quickly mid-August? What's the setup here for the rest of the summer in these waters off of the peninsula? Right. So we're transitioning into an El Nino. You know, I think they expect conditions to continue to warm and be hot. Like I said, we're at an alert level one now. We could hit a two. So everybody is,

especially in the wake of last summer, we've already got a damaged reef that got hit again very hard. So they're kind of on alert. When it comes to ocean temperatures too, I'd like to point out this is not just a South Florida problem. The Gulf of Mexico is heating at twice the rate of the global average around the world. So there are other impacts happening in deeper water, too. Again, we're just starting to scratch the surface. We don't know what happens to that pelagic level where, like, 80 to 90 percent of the biomass in the ocean lives. I mean, I'm just starting to—scientists are starting to talk to me about that, and I'm like, whoa. We know more about the moon than we do the ocean bottom. We have to remind ourselves. You mentioned in the beginning of this conversation, just yesterday, you were out

on the Gulf Stream on the Atlantic coast. Paint that picture. What was that like? So I was out with a professor who has a boat that they're, like, these boats are great with a, he's got, like, basically a souped-up Google map, but then a sonar that detects depth and temperature. So as we were like moving out into deeper and deeper water, I expected the water to get cooler and it was actually getting warmer. That had partly to do with the winds, but it also had to do with the fact that the Gulf Stream is carrying water up from the tropics and that water is super hot. You know I talk about eddies a lot in the Gulf of Mexico.

I'm fascinated with eddies. These are these, you know, the loop current that's coming up into the Gulf of Mexico and eventually meets up with the Gulf Stream will break off these eddies that can last for months and be a hundred miles across and it is just hot water. They're the same temperature as the loop current. So I feel like we talk a lot about ocean heat in terms of hurricanes and reefs and the things that we see directly. There is just so much that we do not see and don't know about that this ocean heat is going to. Well, it also helps explain why Jenny brought her snorkeling gear along with her to Key West

this weekend as part of a reporting trip. Jenny Teletovic, thanks so much for being along with us. Environmental Editor at our partner station in South Florida, WLRN. We've got more to come here on the Florida Roundup, live from the Tropic Cinema here in Key West. Prices and Paradise, the high cost of living. You want to share your cost of living story, you can do that now. Our inbox is open, radio at thefloridaroundup.org, radio at thefloridaroundup.org.

More from the Florida Roundup here live from the Tropic Cinema in Key West, still to come here on your Florida Public Radio station. Stick with us. This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. We are live today from the Tropic Cinema in Key West. Welcome to our studio audience. Thank you for being here along with us today. It's great to be here at the end of the road in the Florida Keys and great to be along with you wherever you are here in the Sunshine State. Brian Roberts, you can hear him playing guitar. He is live on stage with us. You can find out more at brianrobertsmusic.com. Well, the Florida Keys here, a magical place, no doubt about it. It may be the end of the Florida map, but this island chain is also at the top of the most expensive counties to live in here in Florida. Some of what pushes

prices up here is unique. You've got the million dollar water views, right? No more land to build on here in the Keys, very little of it. The remoteness of all this, one way in, one way out. But the Keys also share plenty with communities all over the state dealing with the escalating prices of Paradise. High insurance premiums, access to affordable health care, housing competition from short-term rentals and visitors. So how are you dealing with the high cost of Florida life? What happens when full-time residents get priced out of Paradise? You can share your question here live at the Tropic Cinema here in Key West, or you can also email us radio at the Florida Roundup dot org

Radio at the Florida Roundup dot org. Julia Cooper is with us who covers the Keys for our partner station WLRN. Julia welcome to the program. Nice to have you. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, you grew up a little bit here in the Keys so this is a community you know very, very well. What does affordability mean here at the end of the island chain? Affordability issues in the Keys are increasingly putting strains on a lot of different aspects of daily life. But something I recently reported on was the release of an updated report that comes from United Way. That's a nonprofit fundraising charity organization. And they produce what's called the ALICE report that stands for Asset Limited Income Constrained Employed. Basically, what they do is they track the number of households that fall above the federal poverty level, but make less than what it takes to live comfortably

in a given local economy. And what they found was across the state, that is 2.9 million households that fall under that ALICE criteria. In the Keys, that's... Which I'll point out is more than 10% of Floridians. We're in a state of about 20 million, 21 million. So if 3%... 3 million people are at that level, that's one out of 10, more than one out of 10. Yeah, absolutely.

On the local level here in the Keys, it's 43% of households. And... You can hear the buzz throughout the crowd when you hear that statistic. That is enormous. Yeah, absolutely. You can hear the buzz throughout the crowd when you hear that statistic. Absolutely. That is enormous. Yeah, absolutely.

And the threshold for what it takes to stay living here comfortably is increasing. It is now for a family of four about $98,000. That's almost six figures just to not be living paycheck to paycheck. Yeah, and I think the median income in Monroe County is about $65,000, $70,000 a year. So how does all this compare with rural counties? And I say that because the Keys is considered a rural county. It's about 80,000 full-time residents, which is not a lot. Four million visitors every year, that's a lot, right?

But how does that compare to other rural areas in Florida? Yeah, according to that same report, some other rural counties fare worse. In some cases, it's up to 64% of households that are considered Alice. And those, I believe, are Glades and Dixie County. But I'm glad that you brought up the Keys as a rural county, because we don't automatically associate it with that, because we are this global tourist destination and bring in lots of money from that industry. But because of our unique geography, we have strains on different aspects of life,

education, healthcare, that make it more rural. So talk more about the impact of this affordability crisis and the impact on daily life. Yeah. For full-time residents. Yeah, we are very unique. We're a connected island chain of over 100 miles, only one road in and out. And with that comes not a lot of

land availability. And so while we do know that we need more affordable housing in the area, there isn't always the land to develop that. And on the affordability piece, the Keys has some of the most restrictive building rules in the state, arguably in the country. And part of that is because of the one way in, one way out, and the predilection of storms in this island chain. This rate of growth ordinance, the ROGO, right? Like what's the status of the state reviewing some of those rules? Yeah. So while other parts of the Florida may be able to regulate development locally, because we are so unique, we are considered what's called an area of critical state concern, and that means that the state actually oversees our development rules,

and it is very restricted. Over the last 10 years, we were given about 3,500 building permits to allocate over that whole time period. And that period of time is done, and now we're in this process where we're reviewing how much more can we handle so what's guiding and driving the review process in other words what were some of the rules that these regulators are using as they're reviewing all of this oh interesting I was actually gonna talk

about you know where we are and and the conversations that locally we're having now yeah because that's guiding kind of what regulators are hearing. Yeah, absolutely. So initially a report was released by a state department that said, you have about 8,000 vacant lots currently. Here's the possibility of what would happen if you develop over all of that. And that spurred local county authorities to start their own investigation and own review. I mean, they came back and said, actually, we only have about 3000 that are that are viable

to build over. And now, county officials are in this process of surveying residents talking to them, having these public meetings, asking them, how much do you think we can safely handle? So obviously, excuse me, housing obviously a huge component of driving this affordability challenge, but there's other repercussions from that, right? In terms of access, as you mentioned, education, transportation, healthcare is another big one here in the Keys and in rural communities

as healthcare providers perhaps have found it difficult to stay in business. Yeah, absolutely. When you don't have the housing availability to have a workforce be here locally year round, it does become hard to staff schools and hospitals, which is something that we're seeing here. And we've seen some efforts of school districts,

for instance, providing housing for teachers, especially first-time teachers. But when it comes to healthcare, particularly here in the Keys, some of those indications of the difficulty of maintaining a full community of services, the cancer center, a cancer center, the only cancer center in the Keys, for instance, left about a year or so ago. I know you're doing some reporting about prenatal care and the availability of prenatal care for expecting moms here in the Keys. Yeah, so to fill those gaps we have a collection of nonprofit organizations that are working together to build coalitions to kind of address those gaps where we don't have that

happening in cancer care services. We do see it in prenatal care services. And so you know as you are reporting and talking to residents here, it's in August, and if you're in the Keys in August, odds are you're a full-time resident. Am I right, audience? You're here full, you're full on, you're dedicated to the Keys. What are you hearing about the longevity, you know, about the ability to stay in the Keys and in this rural community and continue to form a community, even with these affordability crisis challenges. Yeah, that's something that people are definitely is top of mind, especially older residents. Because there is such a high

cost of living down here, people are really reevaluating, you know, is it sustainable to live here a long time, if I don't have access to the specialized health services that I might need? Yeah, like a lot of rural counties, Monroe County has an older population than the state. About one in four people living here are over the age of 65. Talk just a little bit more about the unique challenges perhaps that that population is facing. Yeah, I mean that goes directly back to staffing issues, right? If you have older workers that are beginning to get ready to retire and no young people or young families coming in to, you know, replace that workforce, you have issues where you'll have businesses with issues staffing. We've seen this in other kind of ex-urban areas, rural areas, where that difficulty of household

formation is what the demographers will call it, right? Of young people being able to afford a starter home or a starter condominium as it is, and then having children and being able to have all the services that it takes to start a family and stay in a community. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I'm not going to ask you your favorite key lime pie place here in the Keys here, because I know you've got sources to protect, but Julia Cooper is the Keys reporter for our partner station WLRN in Miami. Julia, thanks so much. Always great to have you here. Thank you so much.

All right. Terrific. We are live on this Friday here on this Florida Roundup from the Tropic Cinema here in Key West. And finally, on the Roundup this week, you know, what started and starts in Callahan, Florida it's 329 miles away from where we are here in Key West. It's the modern Sunshine State which was born in the 19th century but really came of age, let's face it, in the age of the automobile, right? Florida is a state we're tied together by lots of things including concrete and asphalt and few roads here in Florida do that, like A1A.

It's literally connecting communities up and down the Atlantic coastline. This road that we all are nodding here in Key West, we know very, very well as the overseas highway, but it really is a symbol, I think, of what Florida and the idea, the ideal Florida is for many of us. The sun is shining, the sand and surf is just right outside our windshield, right? And our worries are wafting away in the warm sun. Everybody,

come on now, it's a Friday. There you go. I can hear you on I-4 singing along to this song as well. You know you're there. Well, by the end of the month, new signs will be going up along A1A from mile marker zero where we are right here in Key West, just a couple of blocks away from the Tropic Cinema, all the way north to the Georgia state line. Now, it's the same road that many of us have driven

and dreamed about what that ideal Florida is, but it's going to have a new name. Pack your sponge cake, bring along your shaker of salt. It's the Jimmy Buffett Memorial Highway. I can hear you in the back row there. Yeah! There you go. So get your left arm tan and keep Florida on your right as you're heading to the end of the road. That'll do it for this edition,

this live special edition of our Florida Roundup. It is produced by WLRN Public Media in Miami and WUSF Public Media in Tampa. The program is produced by Bridget O'Brien and Grayson Doctor. Thank you, Bridget. Thank you, Grayson. And Katie Munoz helped out as well this week. Thank you so much, Katie. WLRN's Vice President of Radio and the Technical Director is Peter Mitz.

Engineering help each and every week from Doug Peterson, who put all this together live from the Tropic Cinema. Charles Michaels back up in Miami. Jackson Harp in Tampa. Thanks to everybody for making this possible. And live music this hour from one Mr. Brian Roberts. Special thanks to the Tropic Cinema for hosting us.

Thanks for emailing and supporting public media from Key West to Pensacola and everywhere in between. I'm Tom Hudson. Have a terrific weekend.