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Governor Scott's Caloosahatchee Tour & Local Fishing Guide and Clean Water Advocate

Rachel Iacavone
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WGCU
Governor Rick Scott during his tour

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced they are suspending releases of water from Lake Okeechobee as of Sunday evening. Nutrient-laden water coming from the lake is blamed for a toxic blue-green algae bloom that's been moving down the Caloosahatchee River and impacting Lee County waters for about the past two weeks. Governor Rick Scott toured the Caloosahatchee River this morning to see impacts of the toxic bloom first-hand, and said afterwards he would be declaring a state of emergency. We’re sitting down with WGCU’s Rachel Iacovone to find out more about this visit.

Credit Rachel Iacavone / WGCU
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WGCU
Blue-green algae on the Caloosahatchee River on July 9, 2018.

RELATED: Gov. Scott Tours Blue-Green Algae Bloom in SWFL, Declares State of Emergency

Plus, we meet Port Charlotte resident, Captain Chris O’Neill. He’s owner of Tail Chaser Charters, a fishing guide serving mostly around Charlotte Harbor and Boca Grande. Chris has more than 20 years experience guiding anglers. He also owned Coastal Angler Magazine, and has been a nationally published outdoor writer for decades. He’s a guest on multiple national outdoor fishing shows per year, and is founder of the Hooked on Kids foundation to help fatherless teens.

Chris got our attention via Facebook -- he recently began posting photos of massive fish kills caused by red tide, including huge goliath grouper and snook, as well as other marine life like sea turtles, and a manatee. He’s become a vocal advocate on social media for finding a solution to our region’s water issues like red tide and blue-green algae blooms in Lake Okeechobee and the Caloosahatchee River. Several of his videos have gone viral, and he recently started a Facebook group called Save our Gulf Information Exchange, which has gained more than a thousand followers in less than a week.

Rachel Iacovone is a reporter and associate producer of Gulf Coast Live for WGCU News. Rachel came to WGCU as an intern in 2016, during the presidential race. She went on to cover Florida Gulf Coast University students at President Donald Trump's inauguration on Capitol Hill and Southwest Floridians in attendance at the following day's Women's March on Washington.Rachel was first contacted by WGCU when she was managing editor of FGCU's student-run media group, Eagle News. She helped take Eagle News from a weekly newspaper to a daily online publication with TV and radio branches within two years, winning the 2016 Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence Award for Best Use of Multimedia in a cross-platform series she led for National Coming Out Day. She also won the Mark of Excellence Award for Feature Writing for her five-month coverage of an FGCU student's transition from male to female.As a WGCU reporter, she produced the first radio story in WGCU's Curious Gulf Coast project, which answered the question: Does SWFL Have More Cases of Pediatric Cancer?Rachel graduated from Florida Gulf Coast University with a bachelor's degree in journalism.