The Florida Roundup - Students walk out over diversity and inclusion; also, Florida executes a killer

Episode Date: February 24, 2023

Students protested the loss of diversity, equity and inclusion programs until the policies of Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Welcome to the Florida Roundup and thanks for listening. I'm Melissa Ross in Jacksonville. And I'm Danny Rivero in Miami. Students at campuses across the state walked out on Thursday. Kaylee LaChapelle is the president of Florida International University's Pride Student Union and is trans. I know for one I've barely slept during these times just being a student leader that cares so much about the people I represent. Now they call their statewide movement Stand for Freedom. From noon to 1 p.m. on Thursday, students on Florida campuses

took part in the walkouts in all corners of the state. Why were they doing it? Well, they're calling for bringing an end to what organizers say is, in their words, the DeSantis administration's attacks on LGBTQ plus and BIPOC students, faculty, and staff. And the marchers also asked their school administrators to restore diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in all colleges across the state. The governor and his administration have targeted DEI initiatives, particularly on college campuses. And we want to hear from you, our listeners on this topic. You can call us at 305-995-1800. Again, that's 305-995-1800.

And you can also tweet at us at the Florida, sorry, at Florida Roundup. Your calls and tweets in a bit. With more on the student walkouts Thursday, we welcome Megan Bowman, reporter for WUSF. Hey, Megan. Hey, how are you? And two of the students, Ben Braver, head of the student group Stand for Freedom at the University of South Florida. Hi, Ben. Hi, I'm so happy to be on here.

Good to have you. Also with us, USF medical student Andy Pham, also part of Stand for Freedom. Andy, good to be with you. Good to meet you. I'm actually an undergraduate biomedical major. Oh, thank you for the correction. We got bad information. Thank you for that. I gave you a promotion, didn't I? Okay. We'll hear from the students in a moment. But first, Megan, with so much going on in higher education right now and a bill actually being filed in the state legislature that would bring major changes to Florida's college and universities. There's a lot to discuss. But how widespread were these walkouts this week and what

was their main grievance? You know, the walkouts were all throughout the state. They went from, you know, as far north as FSU to down south in Miami. And, you know, students just want to be heard. I think from what I've heard and the students I've spoken to, they're nervous about what's happening first with new college and then the DEI initiatives and, you know, then the trans record requests. And really, students want to be heard and they want to be in charge of what they can learn at their schools. Ben Braver, let's hear from you. You're the head of the student group Stand for Freedom at USF. group Stand for Freedom at USF. You collected more than 2,500 signatures asking your school not to share information about transgender students with the DeSantis administration. So tell us about the walkout and the university's response.

Yeah. So students, faculty, staff, they're all scared. We don't know when this will end, right? But what this was, what this walkout was, what this movement is, is a celebration of diversity and thought and freedom in education. What we care about as students is our education and this is one of the fundamental tenants of that education. When we talk about diversity, it's the freedom to access new ideas and the freedom to engage with new ideas. And those are the ideas that are being taken out of our school systems. They're being mandated out of our classrooms.

And so we walked out of the classrooms. Look, I love NPR. I know I'm going to lose some supporters, but I'm actually a nerd and every single channel on my car is tuned to a different NPR station. And I love it because of the diversity and thought represented. Every time I turn to NPR, I hear a different voice, a different perspective. And that's what we believe is necessary to hear the voices we don't always hear so that we can, so that their ideas can can compete and cooperate as though we can build better opinions for ourselves. And so what we want to do is celebrate that freedom of education, that diversity of thought. Well, I appreciate that. We should note, by the way, that we did reach out to the Department of Education and the governor's office about the walkouts. They were not able to appear, but they did reply and direct us to statements the governor made about education reform at the end of January. He says that he's introducing legislation to elevate civil discourse and intellectual freedom in higher education, pushing back against what he calls the tactics of liberal elites who suppress free thought in the name of identity politics and indoctrination.

That from the governor's office. Let's hear from another student. Andy Pham, why did you walk out? So I was part of the original group that organized the rally to defend the trans students' healthcare data. I am an officer of the USF Trans Student Union, and Ben originally reached out to us, right? After that text, you know, over the next few hours, it crystallized in my mind that we were in a position to affect real change. And I thought, you know, possibly we could start a movement on the scale of the protestors and petitions for saving the US of ASL department or the USF Forest Reserve, right? So we messaged a couple of other people,

right? And it all started to snowball through that trans rally and then into Stand for Freedom. And is it your concern that data about, in particular, transgender students could not be kept private? Is that a big motivation or are the concerns wider than that? That was one of my immediate concerns. So I did read the full text of the memo, right? It does not break HIPAA. Nominally there is no personal identifying information.

That is like wonderful. However, however, we are a miniscule portion of the population, about 0.5 to 1% of all adult Americans, right? So when you start narrowing that sample size to people who are perhaps undergraduates or receiving services through student health, it becomes very small. I can tell you that the Trans Student Union's membership is across platforms perhaps 300 people. Of all the people that I have met over four years, I note two. Two who have gotten these much-publicized bottom surgeries. If you look at the text of the memo, it enumerates surgeries line by line, procedure by procedure, and each line is broken down by age and by year. I knew that because of the rarity and like the cost of these procedures, they are exceedingly rare among college students, right? So, you know, I thought it could be possible that

one data point could represent a single student, and that would be the immediate privacy concern. You can call us to join the show at 305-995-1800. Again, that's 305-995-1800. And we do have a caller calling in. We have Andrew calling from Jacksonville. Andrew, you're on the line. Thanks for calling. Yes, hello. I just want to say this, and I've called many times into First Coast Connect.

I live in Jacksonville. I love WJCT. I think public radio is the last thing standing when it comes to giving the correct news. But the citizens of Florida, especially Republican citizens, are going to really understand. I compare Governor DeSantis up there with Xi Jinping and Putin. He has become an autocratic leader. He's trying to personally tell people what they can do with their bodies. leader. He's trying to personally tell people what they can do with their bodies. He's trying to personally tell the African-American citizens in Florida that it's not important to learn about

Jesse Owens. It's not important to learn about the truth about America. It's not in a negative way. We're not going to end up beating up all the white people in this thing. But the truth has to be told. And if we're not careful, Florida is going to be the last in stock of this nation. And it is pathetic how the Republican legislators are letting Governor DeSantis wheel his way and do whatever he wants to in the state of Florida. Thank you so much for the call, Andrew. Megan, I want to bring you back into this and ask you a question, because yesterday, University of North Florida President Moise Lemayem told students that the school will do everything it can legally do to protect, in particular, the diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and courses on campus.

But he added that the school will not break the law. And, you know, Megan, my question to you is, School will not break the law. And, you know, Megan, my question to you is. Are schools, the administrations of particular schools fighting or pushing back against the DeSantis administration on this? Or, I mean, is there anything that they can do? Reporting, I've gotten very simple responses from administration here on campus. Just, you know, that they will release the records, but they will make sure that they are in an aggregated and de-identified format. But Ben, I think you could really help me out on this. Yeah. So we've been talking to these administrators. There's a man at USF named Matt who is an event organizer. All these other people try to do events here.

They get angry at him, but he's doing his job. But he has been doing his job. He's protecting our right to speak, right? And the other administrators on campus, they've been doing their job. They are pushing students forward to engage in civic debate. At other universities, presidents have – big universities, universities that you've heard about have said, yeah, we want these protests, we want these walkouts. But they are afraid to say it in public.

They are afraid to press students to speak for their rights. They are afraid to protect our First Amendment activities because they think they'll be fired. And so I want to say that I agree with you, Andrew, the caller from before. Yeah, there is plenty of room to debate about how to teach history, but there's no debate that history should be taught. And yesterday, we also heard from a professor here at USF a couple professors spoke at the movement right at Stand for Freedom on our campus and one of them you know really just said like the teachers are in your corner we support you but especially the

associate professors they don't have the ability to really speak their mind and say their truth because their job is on the line. They have families. They have mouths to feed, you know, bills, and they can't risk that. But at the same time, they are in support. And I have a question for both Ben and Andy. I mean, the argument in particular for cutting diversity, equity, and inclusion programs from conservatives is partly that they're a big part of the exploding administrative costs in higher education that are actually driving up the cost of tuition.

And I want to point the Heritage Foundation issued a report last year that found the average university it studied had 45 employees dedicated to DEI programs. And so they're arguing that if students want tuition to come down, then you have to look at cutting costs that are not directly tied to actually teaching, to teachers in the classroom. I mean, Ben, let's start with you. How do you respond to that line of argument? Two things. The gall to use

students not being able to afford college as a political football is criminal. If you want to talk about why college is expensive, talk about the advertising, talk about there are just so many more reasons. And diversity is a central part of that education. Florida has some of the best colleges in the world because we have diversity, because we can engage and access new ideas. If we take that out of our classrooms, then we have no more classrooms, right? And diversity is how we've gotten this far. Being able to ask new ideas. When people tell me, hey, a protestant isn't going to do anything, I want to say, yeah, then what do you want to do about it? But then I think for a second and say, yeah, then what do you want to do about it? And so what I want to say is if you, the listener, the watcher, the reader, if you have an idea for how we can push our movement forward,

if you have an idea for how to protect rights, how to protect your freedoms, please tell us. If you're a student, if you're a teacher, if you're a Lizzo, if you're a Disney, if you're Joe Biden, if you are Ron DeSantis and you want to protect the students in the state, and you want to make sure that we can enshrine laws that lay down a line that no government should ever cross, that no government can ever do anything to take away these liberties from our people, then work with us. Help us stand for freedom. It's 305-995-1800.

Rosie in Lakeland, Florida. Go ahead, Rosie. Yes. Go ahead, Rosie. Yes, I just wanted to add my voice to the conversation and my outrage at how this administration is treating everything and everybody that's in its way, in its conservative GOP way. The slogan that is being batted around, education, not indoctrination, says precisely what they are doing. But it's precisely what is being done here in many ways. This administration is continuous looking for, quote, solutions for non-problems.

And yet the real problems that we do have, nothing is being done about that. All of this... And when you say real problems, what are you referring to? For example, you know, the high cost of tuition, the cost of education, the cost of how to send your child to school, teacher salaries, benefits, all those things. Those are real problems that need to be addressed. And yet here we are spending so much time, energy and treasure and discussions about something that is totally and completely political.

Rosie, thank you. Lots of tweets about this. Here's one from Allison. I'm embarrassed that the governor thinks diversity is a problem. I'm starting to think my kids need to go to college out of state, even though they both have Bright Futures scholarships. He's destroying education in Florida, says one listener on Twitter. Again, let us be clear.

We did receive a statement from the governor's office saying that they believe these measures will improve education, higher education in Florida. Andy Pham, what about that, that some people may choose not to educate their kids in Florida based on what's happening on Florida campuses. Anecdotally, I have been seeing that. I think that both Rosie and Andrew really hit the nail on the head. And I wanted to touch back with the previous question. I think that something that maybe the current administration is missing is we, the students, we want to attend higher education alongside people from all walks of life and, yes, all schools of thought, right? We value that kind of debate and discussion, that kind of back and forth and civic participation. We want to become global citizens, for example. My instructors and my classmates are Argentinians, they're Nigerians, Koreans, Jamaicans, Mexicans, Malaysians, they're British,

they're Australians, they're Colombians, they're Puerto Ricans, and that's amazing. I cannot tell you how much I value that and the things that I learned that I would never have been able to conceive of if I hadn't been exposed to people from all of these different experiences. I wanted to talk a bit about history because while I'm a Biomed major, I'm a history minor, and seeing sort of the tension in the history department is very interesting because history is not a list of dates or events to memorize. History is a culmination of processes and people and stories that have resulted in our globally interconnected present. And it's nuanced and multifaceted,

and the art of writing history is an ongoing process subject to bias and debate. And we need to put value in that. We need to value perspectives that have not always or that have really been diminished or dismissed in the past. Right. And we're going to continue that discussion. Right. And we're going to continue that discussion. And we welcome the perspectives of everyone listening statewide right now as we speak with students who walked off campus this week. It's the Florida Roundup from Florida Public Radio. We'll be right back. Terima kasih telah menonton so Thank you. Welcome back to the Florida Roundup. I'm Danny Rivero in Miami.

And I'm Melissa Ross in Jacksonville as we continue the conversation now with Megan Bowman of WUSF and two students who are part of a student activist group called Stand for Freedom. Students across Florida on college campuses walked out Thursday to protest the governor's education policies. Let us know your thoughts. It's 305-995-1800. Tweet us at Florida Roundup. Thomas in Ocala. Hey, Thomas. Go ahead. Thanks for taking my call. Sure.

What I want to say is the history of Governor DeSantis, I know, and I hope a lot of people should know that. Governor DeSantis' family was immigrants from Italy. And remember, Italy and Spain was the Portuguese, was the first country that started the slave trade. Right? So we vote for the governor

not to become the dictator. So why you don't want us to know about our history? What is this problem? All right. You can't dictate to everybody in the country. Thanks, Thomas. Thank you.

Go ahead, Danny. Thanks for the call, Thomas. Thank you. Ben or Andy, I don't know which one of you would like to take this question, but student government elections are actually happening across the state in the coming weeks and in different universities and at your school

at USF, the elections are actually happening next week. And my question to you is have all of these issues that we've been talking about permeated into the student government debates at this point? Like, are people campaigning on how they say they're going to stand up to school management or administration or the DeSantis administration? So first, I actually want to say that our caller hit on a good point. We are talking about gender studies, right? DeSantis just released a bill that would erase gender studies as a minor or a major from all the public universities. He is taking trans students' health data.

He is dehumanizing them, blatantly ignoring their consent and their opinions, and then stopping people from learning about that. That is a pattern of behavior. That is cruel government overreach. That is abject. It's a flagrant abuse of power. Just for our listeners' sake, I will point out that that is accurate. There was a bill introduced in the Florida legislature yesterday, actually on Thursday, that would eliminate gender studies majors.

It would do a broad variety of things. But I just wanted to point out that what you said was accurate. But please continue. It would also implement tenure reviews every five years. So if you want to talk about extra administrative costs, that's an extra administrative cost. They are trying to make their own accreditation services for the colleges. You want to talk about administration costs, that's an extra administrative cost. They are trying to make their own accreditation services for the colleges. You want to talk about administration costs, that's a huge administration cost. And so then when we talk about student voices, yesterday there was

an inspiring amount of students that came out to speak for the freedoms they believe in, to protect their rights, to stand up for their communities. And to any student listening, there are so many organizations tailor-fit to what you want to do. If you want to protect the climate, go talk to the Clio Institute. They are paying for people to go up to the Capitol, I think, on March 5th. If you want to help people register to vote, talk to People Power Florida. They will give you the resources to register somebody to vote. Any change that you want to make, there are people that want to help you make that change. And our voices haven't been heard. Our narrative has been taken from us. And so people don't know that there are all these strong organizations that want to help. And then when we all band together, when we all take our stand for freedom together,

we win. Now, speaking of that, if I could tweet from Terry, he asked how widespread was support from other students and staff in addition to the LGBTQ students? Megan Bowman, WUSF, how many people walked out statewide? Do we have a number? And how many of them were not from the LGBTQ community? Do we know this? So we don't have exact numbers yet. But what I can tell you is here at USF campus, a few hundred students and faculty members gathered outside the Marshall Student Center, which is right here on the Tampa campus. Schools from around the state also participated. Numbers right now, we're looking around the thousands. Around how many? We're thinking 5,000. 5,000 total. Low, and that's a low, low shot of a number. But it wasn't even just university students yesterday at USF.

High school students also came. And so it's, you know, it's not just college anymore. OK, OK. Lots of calls. Terry in Miami. Go ahead, Terry. I have two points. One is if the politicians knew anything about education, they would know that, number one,

the most important thing for students to learn is to be in an environment where they feel seen, accepted, understood, and emotionally safe. That's number one. Number two, the idea that the money being spent on these diversity and equity and inclusion programs is what's causing financial hardships for the schools is absolutely absurd. How about the football program? Look at all these schools. I guarantee you that they're spending more money on that than they're spending on diversity and inclusion. All right. Thanks for your opinion on all of that, Terry. Andy Pham, you know, it's interesting to hear that high school students took part in these protests,

a youth movement certainly happening. What do you expect next to come from Stand for Freedom? freedom? I was really blown away by the energy and the, I mean, we are really hopeful, right? But we're also very frustrated because we have so much on the line, right? That's why historically, you know, so much of activism has been student-based, right? What I would like to see personally, right, is participation from people who are not sort of in the student sphere, right? I think that on so many sides of this fight, parents are such an important demographic, right? There's a reason why Governor DeSantis is appealing so much

to the base of parents and people who want to protect children. I can really empathize with that, actually, because, I mean, I talk to parents and they say, we want our kids to be safe. We would do anything for them, right? I think that there is a lot of energy both within and without the student movement, right? And right now it's less harnessed, I guess. And to any parents listening, I guess I have some words for you. I want to say that I hope that some people among you will listen. One of the biggest things that we've tried to stress is that the learning environment and this growing environment, you want your kids to be happy, right? As an officer of the Trans-Tunisian Union, I just wish you could see your daughter be in a dress for the first time in her life.

And it's so joyous, even if it's a bit awkward. I want to show you your child's face when we use their chosen name. And the smiles are amazing. I hope. Thank you. Yeah. I'm sorry. Thank you, Andy. We have been talking with Megan Bowman of WUSF and also USF students, Ben Braver and Andy Pham of the student group Stand for Freedom on the USF campus.

Thank you, all of you, for joining us for this conversation. We really appreciate it. Thank you so much for having us. Thank you. Well, after the Supreme Court decided not to intervene last night, a man convicted of a murder here in Florida decades ago was executed by lethal injection. Donald Dillbeck was convicted of fatally stabbing a woman named Faye Vann near Florida's Capitol Building in Tallahassee back in 1990. And Florida has now executed 100 convicted people, including notorious serial killer Ted Bundy, since 1976, when it started executions again. The state has the highest rate of new capital punishment

convictions and the second largest death row roster, with 303 inmates currently awaiting execution as of June of last year. And Florida is also the most recent state to ban the practice of putting death row inmates into solitary confinement upon arrival at a correctional facility. Let us know your thoughts and opinions about the death penalty in Florida. Give us a call or tweet us at the show at 305-995-1800 and also tweet us at Florida Roundup. Craig Torosino is director of the Miami Law Innocence Clinic, and Jim Saunders is the executive editor of the News Service of Florida. And they join us now with more about the death penalty in Florida and around the country. Craig, Jim, thanks for coming on. Thank you. Jim, let's start with

you. Tell us more about what happened with this execution that happened last night and the significance of it, because this is something, you know, it's not it's not the most common thing for an execution to actually happen. And Governor DeSantis signed the death warrant last month. He really hasn't said much about this execution, but he did sign the death warrant and trigger it. Mr. Dillbeck, the person who was executed, he did commit a murder in 1990 in Tallahassee while he was on – essentially he had escaped from a work detail that he was under at a prison. He had, when he was 15 years old, he was, he had, he killed a sheriff's deputy in Lee County. He was sentenced to life in prison. And then he was up in, up here in North Florida and walked away from a prison detail and wound up murdering this woman. Her name was Faye Vann in a mall parking lot as he tried to carjack her.

But he's been on death row since he was convicted in 1991. He's been pretty much on death row ever since. And then the execution happened, yes, last night at Florida State Prison. As you indicated earlier, it is the hundredth since the death penalty was returned in Florida in 1976. It had been on hiatus for a few years after a Supreme Court decision, but it is the hundredth execution since the death penalty was reinstated in Florida. And Craig, I want to bring you into this conversation. You're the director of the Miami Law Innocence Clinic. As we've been talking about yesterday, the 100th

execution in Florida since the 70s, first in four years. From your perspective, what's the significance of this? Well, the significance of it is they're obviously, the state of Florida has decided they're going to start ramping up executions again. And I don't think it's necessarily a coincidence that Mr. Dillbeck's execution was scheduled right around the time this new proposed bill that's going to change the jury verdicts on that penalty case is eight to four because Mr. Dillbeck's jury recommendation was eight to four. So I think that was all by design to do that. You're listening to the Florida Roundup from Florida Public Radio. Craig, can you explain a little bit more about that bill? It would change the current statute, it's my understanding, requiring a unanimous verdict on executions. Instead, the jury would go to eight out of 12 votes to call for the death penalty. Is that right?

understand where this bill is now, where it's proceeding. We have to go back a little bit, because originally when Mr. Dillbeck was sentenced, Florida had a non-unanimous sentencing scheme. But then in 2016, the United States Supreme Court, in a case called Hearst v. Florida, ruled that that sentencing scheme was unconstitutional and struck it down. After that, the Florida legislature created the current scheme that we have, which requires unanimity. And there has been a push, presumably in the wake of the Parkland verdict, to change the unanimity requirement. And I think that's the genesis of this particular bill. What this bill also does is put the hand, put the sentencing in hands of the judge, because regardless of what the jury's recommendation is, whether it's eight to four, it's unanimous, then according to the bill,

it shall go to the judge and the judge can make a decision whether it's going to be life without parole or death. And then the judge has to make findings if it's death. So it's taking all, it's making the jury essentially irrelevant. And the judge makes the ultimate findings on a death penalty, a death sentence, which I believe is unconstitutional under that first case I mentioned earlier. Tim in Bradenton. Hi, Tim. Thanks for calling the Florida Roundup. What are your thoughts? My thought is we just got too many dangerous, savage people in this world. And, you know, for sure. I mean, they have a track record. This isn't just one of the fluke. Most of these people have track records and they're just predators and stuff.

And, yeah, there's no shortage of people, especially evil people. So I don't think we need to be protecting them. I mean, so you're pro. Yeah. Pro death penalty. Thank you for that. You know, 24 states allow the death penalty. Twenty three states have abolished capital punishment. Obviously, Florida is not one of them. Jim Saunders, you know, Texas, I believe, executes the most people in America. earlier, this has kind of gained momentum again after the Nicholas Cruz verdict or the sentencing in the Parkland shooting. The jury was not unanimous in seeking the death penalty for him, so he was sentenced to life in prison.

That's caused a lot of outrage. Broward County, but also it has sort of opened the door to reopening that issue in Tallahassee. I tend to think that over the past few years, there's been other people in the legislature who have wanted to change that law, but this really sort of gave them the springboard for that. springboard for that. And, you know, as was mentioned, there's bills filed in both the House and the Senate that are identical to go to eight to four and also to give the judges more sway, you know. And so I think we're going to be seeing more executions, you know, that there will be more momentum now, you know, and how this plays into Governor DeSantis' political future also is an issue that I think needs to be watched. I mean, as I said, he really hasn't said much about the Dilbeck execution, but he is running. Well,

if he runs for president, he's on sort of a law and order tour, right, has been lately. So this kind of fits into that as well. And quickly, Craig, I want to ask you the last question. I mean, is there politically anyone that's really coming out against the death penalty? I ask because the both Democratic candidates in the governor's race, for instance, said that they were pro death penalty. Just last thoughts quickly. in the governor's race, for instance, said that they were pro-death penalty. Just last thoughts quickly. Yeah, I don't know.

I mean, there are grassroots organizations and advocacy organizations that are coming out against it. I don't know about the people in the political sphere. But I will say this, that Florida, this was the 100th execution last night. Florida leads the nation in people who were exonerated from death row. 30 people were exonerated from death row. That means the jury got it wrong 30 times. The vast majority of those incorrect verdicts were non-unanimous verdicts. Thank you.

We've been talking with Craig Trolcino of the Miami Law Innocence Center and Jim Saunders of News Service of Florida. We'll be right back after these messages. We're going to take a look at the giant seaweed blob making its way to Florida's beaches. The theme was not playing. Thank you. Welcome back to the Florida Roundup. Thanks for listening i'm melissa ross in jacksonville and i'm danny rivero in miami a giant blob is making its way towards florida and we're not talking about the 1958 horror movie right what the heck i mean this is a real 8.7 million ton seaweed blob. It's also called sargassum. Learned something new this week. Sargassum. Now, the size of the bloom, more than a thousand square miles. It's expected to make landfall and hit Florida's beaches just in time for the summer tourist season. in time for the summer tourist season. If you've heard about this, call us up at 305-995-1800 as we welcome Kimberly Miller, reporter with the Palm Beach Post. Kimberly,

you've been writing about this. Good to have you. So why is this thing so big? Well, the scientists are still trying to figure that out. I mean, one thought is that large sargassum years will spawn larger sargassum years the next year because it has more seeds to build on itself. There's also concerns that nutrients coming from the Amazon are feeding it. I mean, Amazon, but also the Mississippi and the Congo. but also the Mississippi and the Congo. There's some thoughts about how burning farmland in Africa and for burning farmland for burning fields for, for farming is putting nutrients into the atmosphere. And when that comes down, that's helping feed the sargassum.

So they know it's growing. They're still trying to figure out why. Yeah. They don't know exactly why, as you write in your article, you can't stop it from raining. They're still trying to figure out why. Yeah, they don't know exactly why. As you write in your article, you can't stop it from raining, you can't stop snow, and you can't stop seaweed. It just comes, it's just going to come ashore and there's not much coastal communities can do or is there? Well, I mean, first we should say that it, the report was in January. And so we don't know 100% how Florida is going to be impacted this year. But in past years, whenever it was a major event, we have seen a lot on our beaches. 2016 was probably the last year where we didn't see a large quantity. 2018 was a record year. And then last year even topped 2018 with 22 million tons of sargassum during the summer months where when it is the most heavy.

And that's another mystery this year is that they can't figure out why it's doubling in the winter months because that's not it grows year round. But that's not normally its fastest growing season. not normally its fastest growing season. So one thing that they're seeing the Caribbean islands do, some of them, and in Mexico is putting out booms, like you see sometimes with oil slicks. Those have had varying effects as far as keeping it off the beaches. In Palm Beach County, we have a problem because we can't use mechanical rakes above the mean high tide line during summer because of sea turtle nesting. So you can manually rake it. And I have seen some of the Singer Island resorts have guys out there raking little paths for people to get from the hotels to the water. But then once you get in the water, you're surrounded by it in the water.

So it's a quandary. I think Broward County has some programs where they're trying to get it off the beach and compost it somehow to use it as a fertilizer or a mulch type. But there's also arsenic in the seaweed. They're not 100 percent sure, you know, what the chemicals are in it, so it could be harmful. One person was like, why can't we just eat it? Well, we've got to test it first. Yeah. Are warming waters driving it? Is this due to climate change or not? Okay. So that does seem like that would make sense. Common sense is warmer water. That's what we've seen with every other algae, right? Blue, green algae, warmer waters exacerbate it. They're not 100 percent sure that that's the case with sargassum, because one one theory is that the colder waters that are coming up from the bottom are bringing up nutrients. So then if the water is cooler, like sea surface temperature is cooler, that wouldn't necessarily mean that that's bringing nutrients and that's

increasing the sargassum. So that is not doesn't jive exactly with warmer sea surface temperatures. So they're still kind of trying to figure out how climate change works into this scenario. And Kimberly, I want to ask you because I mean, this seems to be like one of those things that we think about it and we talk about it in economic terms, like what is this going to mean for tourism? You know, how is it going to impact the infrastructure we've built? Right. But on the other hand, I mean, seaweed can be really good for the environment. Right. I mean, yes, the the birds and critters, they find food in it. Can you tell us about that a little bit?

Well, yeah, of course. I mean, Sargassum is a rainforest in the ocean and it's full of little crabs and things that the fish and the birds and the turtles and, you know, everyone, it's a food chain, right? So, and that's one reason why we can't harvest it in the water, in Florida waters. Like you cannot go out in a boat. You're not supposed to harvest it because it's necessary. But then too much. And this was one thing that they saw in 2021. There wasn't a lot of life in the sargassum that was coming to the beach. Like if you could pick up a snatch of sargassum and drop it like on your like on a surface, on a piece of paper, you'd often see little things shooting around.

Yeah. Yes. And so in 2021, those weren't being seen. And so one thing a professor at Florida Atlantic University was saying, look, if this is growing so fast, then the biological organisms can't keep up with the growth of the sargassum. So it's kind of, and also when it comes ashore in like these massive quantities, it goes into the mangrove roots and it creates dead zones. So that's bad, you know, for the environment because it takes up all the oxygen. And then that's when you get the sulfur dioxide, the rotten egg smell. So it is good. We need it. But in mass quantities, not so much. And it is a it does affect tourism. The one professor at University of South Florida said he's been getting calls from like bankers and investors asking where to purchase oceanfront property, like where is the least likely place that the sargassum is going to go?

So I thought that was kind of interesting too. Now investors are starting to even think about how they're going to deal with it. We'll be back in a second. Yes, you're listening to the Florida Roundup from Florida Public Radio. So I'm wondering, guys, what are coastal communities doing to prepare? Because isn't this very unsightly and with a bad odor?

Isn't that the big concern? Yes. I mean, that is what happens. And there's some online tour books that say, like, why is the key? Why does the key smell so bad? And explains why, you know, what happens when the sargassum starts to break down. You know, it is a tourism concern and the public beaches are often raked to a certain point. So the sargassum either gets mixed in with the sand or it's just not as bad. But not all beaches are public. And so and it's a lot of money to rake the beaches.

So you could be like, you know, on one beach and it looks cleaner. But then you go 20 feet to the south and it's not public and it's, you know, mounds of sargassum in that sense is going to waft. You can't control that. So it is, you know, it is a concern. And I know that I've seen on TripAdvisor boards about like, when is the sargassum the worst in South Florida? So people are starting to think more about it. And I also got a lot of emails from people who go to Mexico saying that they had incidents where they went and couldn't get in the water because there was so much, I mean, you can get in, but it's yucky. Yeah, not a good feeling. To that point, I mean, Kimberly,

can you give us an idea of like where in the state we're expecting this if it does come ashore? You know, it seems like it's mostly on the East Coast and it hits the Keys and all the way up to Jacksonville. So Palm Beach County sticks out a little bit. It's like a little knuckle into the ocean. And we tend to get a lot of it. And also mixed in with it is like a lot of trash. And so even though we have beach cleaners, it's hard to pull the garbage out of the sargassum.

It can really go anywhere. I mean, the ocean is constantly moving. And so it depends on the winds and the currents. And if there's, you know, a storm out there, waves. But I mean, it pretty much slimes everybody. You know, I'm reading about this. There's a project in Belize called the Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism. They're trying to turn the sargassum into innovative projects that will create jobs and income and even help build the region's climate resilience. So maybe there's a silver lining

when it comes to this stuff coming on shore, if they can build it into some kind of usable product, kind of interesting. Sure, yes, of course. And I think there's gonna be more people looking into that. As it, you know, if it keeps getting worse, like I said, we've had a down year, and then people forget about it. And then it comes back, you know, full force the next year. So I do think people will be looking at more innovative ways on how to handle it rather than just dumping it into a landfill. Like I said, when I think it's

a Broward, somebody in Broward County might be for using it to compost it, like they're letting it dry out and then they're mixing it with soil and it's being used as an additive. So that might be part of it. It's just part of living in Florida, isn't it? There's never a dull moment. living in Florida, isn't it? There's never a dull moment. Alligators, hurricanes, giant blobs of seaweed. You know, what's next? Red tide. We love our algaes, right? We love them. Right. Not so much. Yeah. I mean, it's just something that is part of the the daily life here but uh an interesting piece and i want to thank you for checking this out kimberly miller writing about this 8.7 million ton blob of sargassum seaweed heading straight for south florida's beaches actually as she said they're gonna make their way all as far north as jacksonville so all up and down Florida's eastern seaboard.

You can expect to see those seaweed blobs on the beaches this summer, and they don't smell so great. Try not to interact with them. But, you know, they're unsightly, but we're just going to have to deal with them. Kimberly Miller of the Palm Beach Post, thank you so much for being with us here today on the Florida Roundup. We appreciate you being here. Thank you. And that's our show. Thanks for listening. The Florida Roundup is produced by WJCT Public Media in Jacksonville and WLRN Public Media in Miami. Heather Schatz and Natu Tway are producers and Brendan Rivers is associate producer. WLRN's vice president of radio and our technical director is Peter Mayers.

Engineering help from Doug Peterson, Charles Michaels, and Isabella Da Silva. Richard Ives answers the phones. Our theme music is provided by Miami jazz guitarist Aaron Libos at AaronLibos.com. I'm Danny Rivero. And I'm Melissa Ross. Thanks for listening. Have a great weekend. We'll be back next Friday at noon.