Tom Bayles
WGCU Environmental ReporterTom Bayles is WGCU's Senior Environmental Reporter and a 25-year veteran journalist in Florida. Before his tenure at WGCU Public Media, he worked for The New York Times Co. in Sarasota, the Associated Press in Miami and Tallahassee, and the Tampa Bay Times in Clearwater. He earned a master's in journalism and a bachelor's in education, both from the University of South Florida. The proud father of three sons, Bayles spends his free time fishing along the Southwest Florida coast in his 20-foot Aquasport with his Whippet pup, Spencer.
Bayles’ top awards include the Gold Medal for Public Service for Investigative Reporting from the Florida Society of News Editors, the Waldo Proffitt Award for Excellence in Environmental Journalism in Florida, and being named the Sunshine State’s top environmental journalist by the Florida Press Club and FSNE. Bayles has been nominated four times for a Pulitzer Prize.
Email: tbayles@wgcu.org
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The South Florida Water Management District is offering grants to pay up to half the cost to develop alternative water supplies that will help meet the growing demand -
A massive pump station to retrieve polluted water released from Lake Okeechobee into the headwaters of the Caloosahatchee River is completed — now it will sit idle -
Imagine the surprise felt by sea turtle lovers when the number of egg-filled clutches laid on Southwest Florida beaches during last summer’s nesting season totaled a normal year despite shorelines transformed by Hurricane Ian.Even better: The mommas kept coming.Female sea turtles often return to the beach of their birth to nest every three years or so, which made understandable the fears of the large and active cadre of turtle volunteers that Category 5 Ian in September 2022 had rendered nesting beaches so unrecognizable the females would be lost, search aimlessly, then dump their eggs at sea. -
Even the defunct Bobby Jones golf course has contributed to water quality improvements in Sarasota Bay so that waters are cleaner now than at any time over the past 10 to 15 years -
Nearly 40 square miles of North Cape Coral is sinking, an inch or more every year, due to over-pumping the aquifers below the city for household water. -
The pig frog is the only one of the species that inhabit Sanibel and Captiva islands that did not make it through Ian or made its back to the islands during the last year-plus. -
Opponents of the Town of Big Cypress say it will doom the Florida panther by bringing more people into the animals' domain, creating more traffic to hit and kill more panthers -
Col. James Booth is in charge of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Florida, which means he is also the agency’s official in charge of Everglades restoration today. He does what he is supposed to do in terms of being available to the public, but that doesn't mean he gets a pass from the media. -
Some corals were left behind during an evacuation of many corals off Florida despite water temperatures that rose far above 87 degrees. -
Residents of Sanibel, and north Cape Coral, are being reminded about the drought unfolding in coastal Southwest Florida and to stick to the water restrictions.
