a PDF of the graphic

A St. Petersburg couple follows smoke to find a horror in the alley. 3B
On the
radar
BEADS ANYONE? For
those who didn’t want to
pay $800 to hobnob with
the celebs in town this past
weekend, you can party all
you want for free Saturday
at the Gasparilla Pirate
Invasion and Parade. The
flotilla of boats led by the
Jose Gasparilla begins at
11:30 a.m. in Hillsborough
Bay. The Parade of Pirates
starts at 2 p.m. at Bay to Bay
and Bayshore boulevards.
IT’S A JUNGLE ON
STAGE: It’s not as famous
as that other European-style
Cirque performance, but
at Cirque Dreams: Jungle
Fantasy you’ll still encounter an exotic performance
inspired by nature’s unpredictable creations, brought
to life by an international
cast. The show’s run starts
Tuesday night at 7:30 at the
Mahaffey Theater, 400 First
St. S, St. Petersburg. Tickets
start at $30.
FEELS SO GOOD: His
voice is instantly recognizable and disarmingly soothing. As the host of public
radio’s A Prairie Home
Companion, Garrison Keillor shares stories from Lake
Wobegon, Minn., a little
town that time forgot. He
will be on stage at the Van
Wezel. 8 p.m. Wednesday
at Van Wezel Performing
Arts Hall, 777 N Tamiami
Trail, Sarasota. Tickets start
at $45.
ON THE DOTTED LINE:
It’s both the most important
day in your football players’ lives, and one of the
most boring to watch. But
members of the University
of South Florida coaching
staff and local radio station WQYK-AM 1010, spirit
squads and select members of the 2009 football
team will try to get people
excited about Signing Day
on Wednesday at a special
event at Splitsville. It starts at
5:30 p.m., 615 Channelside
Drive, Tampa. Free.
tampabay.com
* * * * Monday, February 2, 2009
No return for Sansom
Florida Republicans move to permanently remove House speaker from leadership.
BY ALEX LEARY
Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau
TALLAHASSEE — Three days after
announcing he was temporarily stepping aside as speaker of the Florida
House, Ray Sansom will be forced
tonight to fully give up the job.
Worried about the cloud of legal
investigations surrounding Sansom
and conceding that rules do not allow
for a protracted speaker-in-limbo, top
Republicans called a 9 p.m. meeting
in Tallahassee to anoint a new leader
of the GOP caucus.
“We must not allow the turbulence
of the past to damage our ability to
focus on the tremendous challenges
facing our state,” Majority Leader
Adam Hasner, R-Delray Beach, wrote
in a memo to colleagues. “There is too
much at stake for Floridians for us to
be distracted.”
The move is designed to install
Rep. Larry Cretul of Ocala as the permanent speaker when the regular 60day session begins March 3 and to
Putnam vies for Cabinet
U.S. Rep. Adam Putnam wants to be
agriculture commissioner. Story, 3B
bring order and focus as the House
prepares for a difficult budget-cutting session.
If it goes as planned, tonight will
complete a swift and intense fall for
Sansom, 46, who spent years working toward one of the most powerful political offices in Florida only to
watch it crumble.
From state
mines to
dead zone
ERNEST HOOPER
[email protected]
Now, cops’
quarterback
taking heat
from inside
1 Phosphate is mined
and made into fertilizer.
2 Fertilizer is shipped out of the
Port of Tampa to farming regions.
Roughly 75 percent of the
phosphate fertilizer used in the
United States comes from Florida.
The phosphate industry, which
once boasted 100 companies
working in an area of Florida
known as Bone Valley, has shrunk
to just three, employing about
4,000 people.
The Port of Tampa ships more phosphate and
fertilizer than any port in the world. Crude
fertilizers are the port's biggest output
commodity. U.S. consumers used 8.5 million
metric tons of fertilizer in 2007.
Phosphorus sources in the gulf
20% 25%
37%
18%
corn and soybean
other crops
pasture and range
urban and natural
Just days ago he was pledging to
hold on and fight allegations that
his six-figure job at Northwest Florida State College was a reward for
millions in construction money and
other favors he got for the school
before taking an unadvertised
$110,000 job there in November —
on the same day he was sworn in as
speaker.
Among the questions raised in a
series of articles by the St. Petersburg
.
See SANSOM, 7B
St. Louis
Memphis
3
New Orleans
4
Port of
Tampa
2
1
200 miles
3 Excess fertilizer enters the
Mississippi River system from farm runoff.
Farmland
and pasture
Mississippi
River basin
In 2007, government support for ethanol production
prompted Midwestern farmers to plant 20 percent
more of their land with corn, producing a record
13.1 billion bushels. Last year they produced the
second-highest amount, 12.1 billion bushels. That
boosted the use of fertilizer, producing record profits
for phosphate companies. But chemicals from
excess fertilizer use flow into the Mississippi River
system, which gets runoff from 31 states.
4 Chemical runoff results
in a “dead zone” in the gulf.
Dissolved oxgyen,
6 June and July 2008
0 mgl
Phosphate in river water leads to huge
algae blooms in the gulf delta. The
algae die and decompose on the sea
floor, where they deplete oxgyen. Fish
know to swim away, but slow-moving
shrimp and crabs can't escape. That's
why the dead zone threatens the gulf's
$2.6 billion-a-year fishing industry. As
the zone grows, the size of the annual
shrimp catch shrinks.
Sources: National Research Council, Gulf Hypoxia Watch, USGS, Times archives
T
DARLA CAMERON | Times
F
BY CRAIG PITTMAN | Times Staff Writer
or a good example of the law of unintended consequences, look no further than the nationwide push to
promote ethanol. ¶ Ten years ago, federal officials
became concerned that a common gasoline additive
called MTBE, which reduces air pollution, turned out
to be a carcinogen, causing major water pollution problems.
The Environmental Protection
Agency recommended phasing out
MTBE, so many states ordered refineries to switch to ethanol. Meanwhile, Congress in 2005 mandated
an increase in using renewable fuels
A scandal
has crippled
Speaker Ray
Sansom’s
viability.
Chicago
Phosphate fertilizes corn used
for ethanol and kills gulf fishing.
he debate regarding St.
Petersburg police Chief
Chuck Harmon reminds
me of arguments about quarterbacks, who get a little too much
credit when things go right, and
perhaps too much blame when
things go wrong. The difference
this time: It’s the players themselves, not necessarily fans, questioning Harmon’s approach.
Patel Conservatory student Ryan Desort wrote an
essay about his drug problem.
His mother, Karol, a choreographer and dance instructor, drug
him from performance to performance.
The essay helped Desort, 14,
earn a spot on the Broadway
League’s Kids Advisory Board.
He leaves today for New York
after becoming one of only 30
kids to earn the honor. …
Seen on a bumper sticker:
I’m Not Paranoid. Why? What
Have You Heard? …
Kudos to Vince Monticciolo, the founder of Dentistry
from the Heart. The nonprofit
has enlisted hundreds of dentists across America to provide
free care to more than 5,500 people. On Friday, Monticciolo celebrates eight years and 4,000
smiles saved, by providing a free
day of dental care for up to 600
Tampa Bay area residents at his
practice in New Port Richey. …
I appreciate that State Vacuum owner David Epstein
doesn’t want the two University of Tampa students who
stole Pickemup, his beloved faux
gorilla, punished, but I think it
would be appropriate if they had
to vacuum a building.
That’s all I’m saying.
| 1B
such as ethanol. Now each gallon of
gas sold in Florida contains up to 10
percent ethanol.
Because most ethanol is made from
corn, the increased demand spurred
Midwestern farmers to increase
their corn production. That led to an
increased demand for fertilizer.
Most fertilizer in the United States
comes from phosphate mined in Florida and shipped through the Port of
Tampa. The ethanol boom led to big
profits for phosphate companies that
run mines near Tampa.
But more fertilizer led to more nitrogen and phosphorus polluting the runoff flowing into the Mississippi River.
They boosted an area in the Gulf of
Mexico called “the dead zone.”
The dead zone, which appears every
summer, is an area where the water
lacks oxygen. Nothing can live there.
First mapped in 1985, the dead zone
has grown steadily. Last year it was
nearly as big as New Jersey. As it has
grown, the gulf ’s fishing industry has
shrunk.
Last year the EPA issued a plan
that talked about reducing the dead
zone, but the plan “contained very few
actions with time lines attached,” said
Matt Rota of the Gulf Restoration Network.
A month ago, an arm of the National
Academies of Science issued a report
blasting the EPA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture for failing to deal
with the problem more quickly, “given
that it will require years, if not decades,”
to start seeing results.
Another treasure ship found Teens arrested in
Tampa’s Odyssey Marine Exploration may recover 4 tons of gold.
Associated Press
TAMPA — Deep-sea explorers who found $500 million in
sunken treasure two years ago
say they have discovered another
prized shipwreck: a legendary
British man-of-war that sank in
the English Channel 264 years
ago.
The wreckage of the HMS Victory, found below about 330
feet of water, may carry an even
bigger jackpot. Research indicates the ship was carrying 4
tons of gold coins when it sank
in a storm, said Greg Stemm,
co-founder of Odyssey Marine
Exploration, ahead of a news
conference today in London.
.
See TREASURE, 6B
vehicle, house fires
Two 16-year-olds face felony arson charges
after 15 fires were set early Sunday morning.
BY RITA FARLOW
Times Staff Writer
Odyssey Marine Exploration
So far, two cannons have been recovered from the wreck,
Odyssey said. The company said it is negotiating with the British
government over collaborating on the recovery project.
ST. PETERSBURG — Cassandra Cushing has been using her
2007 Toyota Solara to get to job
interviews since she was laid off
in November.
Sunday, she awoke at 6 a.m.
to find her white, two-door,
soft-top convertible had been
set on fire.
“It’s my only way of transportation,” said Cushing, 47. “It’s
just been a terrible day.”
Cushing’s was the last of 14
vehicles to be set on fire over a
two-hour span early Sunday. A
final arson occurred at a home.
No injuries were reported.
Police arrested two 16-yearold boys Sunday and charged
them each with four felony
arson charges. They were identified as Mathew Pineda Kiernan and Francis Huy Du, both
of whom live in central St.
Petersburg.
Police said they are still looking for “a few more juvenile sus.
See ARSON, 7B