Tom Bayles
WGCU Environmental ReporterTom Bayles is WGCU's Senior Environmental Reporter and a 35-year veteran journalist in Florida. Prior to 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 degree in journalism and a bachelors 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 is a recipient of the Gold Medal for Public Service from the Florida Association of News Editors, the Waldo Proffitt Award for Excellence in Environmental Reporting, was named top environmental journalist in Florida by the Florida Press Club, and received a Gold Charley Award for public service long-form feature writing from the Florida Magazine Association. Bayles has been nominated four times for a Pulitzer Prize.
Email: tbayles@wgcu.org
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Most stormwater retention ponds emit more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than they store at the bottom
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Southwest Florida's most influential environmentalists share a report warning the next massive red tide or blue-green algae outbreak will be a multi-billion-dollar disaster.
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Last year’s sargassum bloom was so big it posed challenges on a hemispheric scale for marine ecosystems and coastal towns. The size of this upcoming summer’s fledgling bloom is setting records.
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DeSantis has announced more than $340 million in grants to cities and counties throughout Florida in recent months to mitigate the effects and impacts of red tide and blue-green algae.
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DeSantis has earmarked $30 million to pay for efforts to reduce blue-green algae in Caloosahatchee River and increase water quality
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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
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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
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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.
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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
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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.