You're watching a special environmental edition of Southwest Florida InFocus.

Coming up, more than a quarter of the state's population is highly vulnerable to extreme heat, according to a Florida Policy Institute report.

We examine the health risks for those who spend extended time outdoors as temperatures continue to rise.

Also, the challenge to confront Florida's growing water shortage using reclaimed wastewater is not a clear solution, and how some Southwest Floridians are getting paid to help improve their local water quality while tackling home improvement projects.

Hello I'm Sandra Victorova.

Thank you for joining us.

Well temperatures continue to rise and the risk of heat related illness remains a risk in southwest Florida.

According to the CDC, extreme heat causes more deaths each year than hurricanes, lightning, tornadoes, earthquakes and floods combined.

Over 60% of the cities in the southeast are experiencing worsening heat waves, which pose dangerous health risks, especially for children, the elderly and for people who work outdoors.

As WGCUs Jennifer Crawford reports, understanding how heat impacts your health can save your life.

On a sweltering August day in southwest Florida, 32 year old Marco Antonio Hernandez Guevarra collapsed working in a farm field.

The husband and father of three girls was taken to a Naples hospital and placed on life support.

He died several days later, speaking through an interpreter.

Marco's wife says she believes working in the heat caused his tragic death.

Joy fell on me forever.

I lost my partner.

My daughters lost their father.

And it's a sorrow that will remain in the family.

A recent report by the CDC states hot weather contributes to or causes the deaths of more than 1200 people every year.

Cape Coral emergency Room doctor Timothy Daugherty explains how heat can turn deadly.

There was an old commercial when we grew up.

This is drugs.

This is your brain on drugs.

And they would drop an egg onto a frying pan.

That is what happens with heat.

Your brain is full of protein at 105 degree.

Your your proteins of your brain start to gel and break down.

The cells of your body.

Start to break down your muscles of your body start to break down.

That all gets into your bloodstream.

That clogs the kidneys so you can end up with liver failure.

You can end up with kidney failure.

In addition to strokes, Doctor Daugherty says the spectrum of heat illness begins with mild impacts.

It starts with like, cramps.

So your, you know, you get a side splint if you're running and you just usually you just rest, drink some Gatorade, you're fine.

Then there's heat exhaustion.

Now you're getting lightheaded.

Now you're getting weak because of the orthostatic blood pressure goes down and you pass out.

Nausea.

Vomiting usually is involved.

Those patients, sometimes they can be treated at home just with Gatorade.

But many times they come to the emergency department and we start an IV.

He says the extreme end of heat illness spectrum is heat stroke, classified in two categories.

The first type is the classic heat stroke.

That's the heat stroke that normally little kids get, or the elderly get.

They don't.

They come in because they either, are too young and their body hasn't developed a way to dissipate heat, or they're elderly and they're on medications that prevent them from doing so.

They usually aren't sweating.

They're confused.

Again.

Coma, seizure.

They're the ones who are greater risk of dying.

Doctor Daugherty says the second kind of heat stroke is exertional or exercise induced.

They come in profusely sweating, mental status and seizures.

They're the firefighters that are creating more heat than their body can dissipate, in a very short period of time.

We also see that in laborers up on the roof, high schoolers playing football with all their athletic gear on.

But that also comes potentially with significant risk of death.

But you can usually treat them very quickly.

Concerned about how extreme heat impacts firefighters, the Bonita Springs Fire Department implemented a new heat policy.

When the heat index reaches 110.

We stopped all outside training for that time.

Chief Greg DeWitt says they receive alerts similar to lightning alerts to their phones when the heat index hits 110.

It's all about firefighter health and safety, so we need to be there for the public.

So above 110, it makes the firefighters, especially in their gear, more susceptible to heat cramps, heat exhaustion, heat stroke.

On the day Marco passed out working in the field, the heat index in the area hit 112.

Health and public safety experts hope that by increasing awareness of the impacts of extreme heat on health, more protections can be put in place and fewer lives lost.

For WGCU news, I'm Jennifer Crawford reporting.

Doctor Daugherty says while he sees an increase in heat illness and heat exhaustion cases in Cape Coral, there are fewer cases of the more severe heat stroke.

According to the Florida Climate Center's annual weather and climate summary, 2024 was the warmest year on record for the United States.

The Sunshine State also felt the heat, with an annual average temperature of 72.9°F, nearly three degrees higher than the 20th century average.

So is this surge in temperatures something to be alarmed about?

How could this impact our environment and the storms in our area?

To learn more, we are joined by Doctor Joann Muller, a paleo climatologist and the eminent scholar at the Whitaker School here at Fgcu.

Doctor Muller, welcome.

Thank you for having me.

So you study climate trends over thousands of years.

So I want you to help us to understand.

Is there anything really different?

Of course.

You know, Florida's known for super hot temperatures, lots of sunshine looking over over the big term, you know, are these, you know, increases in a few degrees a big deal concerning.

Yeah.

So the work that I do, it's kind of broken up to historical records and then prehistoric records.

So I do look at more deeper climate going back before humans were influencing the atmosphere.

And that research that's related to hurricanes shows a pretty intimate connection between sea surface temperatures and hurricanes.

So we see time periods in the past, like the Medieval Warm Period, which was, you know, back around a thousand years ago, where we see much more active, hurricane records along the coast of Florida, for example.

And actually we see this all over the Atlantic basin.

There are other paleo climatologists or what we refer to as paleo, a temp astrologists like myself, that work along different parts of the coastline.

And we all see this kind of increase activity during the medieval Warm Period.

In opposition to that during the Little Ice Age, which was a relatively cooler time period, we see less storm activity in Florida.

So when we look back in deep history, we think that there's a pretty tight connection between sea surface temperatures and hurricane.

So I know earlier you were telling us that you did quite a bit of research specifically that you looked at storm deposits on Sanibel Island.

What did that teach you?

So I've been at Fgcu now for 15 years, and when I first arrived in the area, I was looking at the historical record of hurricanes so we can go back just with the historical record about 100 years or so.

But then also the paleo record, the one I was telling you about.

So these marine layers that are indicative of, you know, usually kind of intense hurricanes, our major hurricanes, cat three through five.

And, I saw a series of events previous, to to Hurricane Ian.

So the last one was Hurricane Donna in 1960.

And we had five events, between the late 1800s and 1960, which was Donna, where we saw over ten feet of storm surge.

So when I first moved on here and I was chatting to people in the community, they would say things like, oh, we don't get those sorts of storms because we hadn't had one in such a long time with such a significant storm surge.

And I would try to tell people that those are actually pretty common.

These sort of, you know, high storm surge events.

So I think it's really important, as we move into hurricane season, for people to really be aware that that sort of thing is possible.

We could get another year in, in, like, event, just because we had an active last season and previous seasons, it doesn't mean, unfortunately, we're not going to get a landfalling hurricane this season.

It's not like the hurricanes say, oh, you got one last year, so I'll stay away.

We've seen lots of incidences in the historical past.

We will see multiple landfalls, within the same season or seasons back to back.

So I think what's really crucial is just kind of having an understanding of, you know, where you live, like what your plan is having the things that they're always telling you to have.

And, you know, I try to do that myself.

I'm not a particularly organized person, but that is one thing I do try to do ahead of season.

And also, I think having some sort of plan, so that you're not making decisions, really big decisions just before landfall.

It's very stressful leading into, kind of a major landfalling hurricane.

I think everyone that's listening that lives in this area has a sense of what that feels like leading into Hurricane Ian.

Hurricane.

Milton, and, I think having a plan ahead of that is smart.

Doctor Mueller, we so appreciate your insight.

Thank you so much.

No problem.

Thank you.

Coming up, most of Southwest Florida's currently in a fertilizer ban, but if you're using reclaimed water on your lawn, those harmful chemicals may still be getting through.

A new concern is emerging throughout the Sunshine State a shortage of drinking water.

Population booms, depleted aquifers and encroaching saltwater have led to Florida using reclaimed wastewater to alleviate the problem.

Florida leads the nation in reclaimed water usage, but that solution has led to new issues, including state laws conflicting with local ordinances like fertilizer bans.

WGCUs senior environmental reporter Tom Bayles has investigated this paradox.

Florida has gone all in on reclaimed water as the solution to the state's drinking water crisis.

Nearly 1 billion gallons of wastewater is treated every day, and nearly 400 treatment plants.

The term wastewater glosses over the source of reclaimed water, sewage, or a slurry of human feces and urine.

Hair and makeup.

Medicines and chemicals.

Everything that goes down a drain.

Wastewater flows into the often aging treatment plants where solids and liquids are screened out, skimmed off, and dissolved.

And then it's piped back out through reclaimed water's signature purple colored pipes.

In most Florida communities, the state mandates that reclaim water must be used to irrigate ball fields, golf courses and schoolyards, and millions of residential lawns.

So what's the paradox?

The aging treatment plants can't remove all the contaminants, including nitrogen and phosphorus, which are the key ingredients in lawn fertilizers.

And in the summer, some communities ban the use of fertilizers to protect local waterways from the nutrients that can feed existing red tide blooms and make blue green algae outbreaks worse, just as easily as they make turf grass grow.

Yet we're irrigating with that same reclaimed water.

The fertilizer ordinance had an intention of protecting these public waters from over nitrogen and phosphorus, nutrient inputs.

And then this when clean water is doing exactly the damage that it was intended to be protected by the fertilizer ordinance.

Earnest also dela Vega, a Lee County water quality expert, is well aware of this contradiction.

Very clean water is an additional problem that the homeowners are facing now that they're not aware all these communities are buying this water.

They pay for their water, and they pay for the problems that eventually going to be in their ponds in the form of algae that has been stimulated by the reclaimed water going into their stormwater ponds.

If reclaimed water is introducing more nitrogen and phosphorus, Gil smart, a vote water and environmental nonprofit, agrees.

The nutrient content of reclaimed water can't be ignored.

But he wonders about the alternative to help preserve the state's precious drinking water.

Do we not reuse water?

I mean, what are the consequences of that?

If we don't have it as a source of water in a state that's continuing to grow?

What what's going to happen?

What are the consequences going to be?

The solutions we come up with may be contributing to the problem.

But what?

And so what do you do about that?

One solution is to upgrade aging water treatment plants with technology that can reduce harmful chemicals.

Research in Pinellas County reports that aged treatment plants produce ten times the amount of nitrogen from advanced plants, similar to the City of Fort Myers Central Advanced Treatment Facility downtown, where the water is cleaned enough to be released into the Caloosahatchee River.

The estimated cost to modernize the nearly 400 water treatment plants in Florida is millions of dollars each.

Mike McGrath of Sierra Club, the national conservation group that focuses on water quality, said advancing the technology in treatment plants is akin to restoring the river of grass in South Florida.

The state has already invested so much into things such as Everglades restoration rate to help address our water quality woes.

And, you know, it's high time that they also address into the facilities that also treat our sewage, right?

Our human poop.

This all comes down to us having investing in our advanced wastewater facilities to have the proper treatments necessary.

So we're not creating any public health hazards for our residents across across the state.

So fertilizer restrictions are popular environmental protections in Florida.

The question is, will those who are supposed to spend tax dollars in the public's best interest start paying attention to water quality and not just water quantity?

It's a complex story and there's a lot of different factors going into it.

There's no real neat and tidy exit.

There's no neat and tidy solution.

This is just one of the stories that has flown under the radar.

This doesn't even go into the fact that reclaimed water is used in certain agricultural settings, like citrus, or how pessimistic those who work in aging water treatment plants are, that anything will change.

We'll follow up on those stories for WGCU news.

I'm Tom Bayles.

Fertilizers aren't the only concerns in southwest Florida waters.

Combating mosquitoes means those pesticides can make their way into ponds, streams, and even the Gulf.

Fgcu researchers are looking into how these chemicals are impacting local aquatic ecosystems.

Pam James brings us the latest dispatch from Kimberly's Reef.

Pesticides are necessary to combat mosquitoes in Florida.

But as humans continue to modernize methods to control those pests, those methods can cause issues up and down the food chain.

That's what doctor Melissa Mae and lab assistant Kinsey Pruett, with the Florida Gulf Coast University Water School are discovering on Kimberly's Reef.

So looking into Southwest Florida specifically.

Obviously, mosquitoes are a big deal here.

So there's a lot of insecticides that target mosquitoes.

And a lot of those active ingredients include something called pyrethroids, which are a synthetic, manmade version of a natural compound derived from Chrysanthemum flowers, actually.

So it seems like it would be very natural and organic.

However, there's a manmade version of that compound that is actually very toxic to marine species, specifically fish.

Then one of the ones we're really interested in is permethrin, which is commonly used as mosquito killer.

We have mosquito control that goes around and sprays insecticides, and all of that ends up in the water.

Insecticides, and particularly for measuring, can be really toxic for fishes.

They don't metabolize it like they do some of the other organic contaminants.

And so it really high loads, it can cause mortalities.

And so what we're trying to see is are there pesticides at the reef.

Are they getting into fish at the reef.

And if it's impacting their physiology of those reef fish with Kimberly's Reef about eight miles from shore.

The first question for Kinsey was how pervasive those chemicals could be found in Gulf waters by testing the water.

So she does from the ACLU's AG River, from a zero bay and then from Wiggins Pass and samples every two miles out to Kimberly's reef so we can see if there's, like a dose effect.

So we would expect the pesticides would be higher, closer to shore.

And as they move further offshore, they get diluted out.

The samples revealed a surprise about where a lot of the pesticides were flowing from.

It seems like they're coming from Wiggins Pass instead of from the foods that hatchery River.

And we did find pesticides at Kimberly's Reef in the water.

We haven't quantified it yet, but we were able to detect presence.

So now the next step is to see how fish are up.

Taking that.

And then what that is doing to their physiology.

In the lab, Kinsey gave live fish small doses of pyrethroid permethrin every day for a week.

The fish were then terminated to see how the pesticides affected various tissues, and theoretically more.

We had to give them the liver, mostly to kill if they're being exposed to it through the water.

Obviously, those their gills, and then the muscle is more like long term storage.

So if it stays in their body long enough and don't get worked into that testing for pesticides could have broader impacts in various waterways, especially estuaries, like a sterile bay where juvenile fish live in nurseries.

They could accumulate those pesticides and then move out to the reef as adults, sort of migrating outwards towards the open waters and take those pesticides there.

And then, for instance, a bigger fish could eat that fish and then it could slowly work its way up into the possible human food web.

Kinsey's research at the water school is ongoing and could help in the future health of southwest Florida waters.

So I think here we tend to blame everything on the Caloosahatchee, Lake Okeechobee, but there's lots of other, impaired waterways that can contribute to pollution.

And so her study will help us understand where those are coming from, which could help with management practices.

And you can learn more about the research on Kimberly's reef on wgcu.org or on the WGCU app.

Well, coming up, adding eco friendly renovations to your home and getting paid to do it.

How?

Some locals are making environmentally conscious adjustments and getting cash from their county.

In Sarasota County, residents are getting paid to be good to the environment.

The area's joining a nationwide initiative where communities give property owners cash incentives to take on home projects that increase the amount of stormwater their yards absorb and filter.

It's called the Rain Check Program.

Yeah.

Lots of bees coming round.

This guy's done really well.

Helping this new garden to blossom is a passion project for the Wilson family.

Working on it was very therapeutic, learning about all the plants.

But seeing the water come out, we come out every time it rains, right.

How's it doing?

This rain garden is about being good stewards to the environment.

A smarter way to handle the rush of water coming out of this downspout when it rains.

So the rain garden prevents stormwater from leaving our property and going out into the street because it goes out in the street and there's oil and there's chemicals and there's fertilizers, which then needs to be treated by the county.

Instead, it goes straight down into the ground.

It gets filtered naturally.

Sarasota County believes so much in projects like this.

It paid for almost the entire thing.

I think it's great.

I mean, we spent $527 and then received $500 from the county through the rain check program.

Through this county rebate program, property owners are reimbursed for a variety of eco friendly projects, from $500 for rain gardens and bio swales to up to $5,000 to replace impervious driveways and sidewalks with ones that allow water to seep through.

Jennifer Rudolph, who leads Sarasota County's neighborhood environmental stewardship team, says it will help combat the negative impact of development.

We're taking away wetlands to create hard surfaces, but now we still need those wetlands or what naturally would absorb water is now, hard surface.

So there could be yard waste as a pollutant.

In fresh water, there could be pet waste, there could be tiny little metal particles from our brakes when we break our cars, motor oil, things like that in the road.

So we want to stop that from going down into larger bodies of water, mainly out into the bays and estuaries, because we want to keep everything healthier out there.

Rudolph says it's helped her deal with a problem in her own backyard that sits near a drainage pond.

My back yard was really eroding away and going into the in the stormwater pond before this, taking with it pollutants from everybody else's house.

Every single time it rains, more would rush, and you could look on the other side of the fence and see, like a pile of sediment sitting there.

So it was very obvious that, we needed to do something, and a rain check kind of fell into my lap.

And it was like all meant to be.

She received $500 to create a bio swale.

So with frog fruit and sunshine mimosa, they don't need to be watered all the time and they'll spread and be happy even if it is a drought.

So I put them in there because I knew that they would help stabilize the ground more than grass would, because grass was just not staying.

And it's cheaper than maintaining a lawn.

It rains, it grows, and everything's happy.

For the Wilsons, both with architecture backgrounds, the savings means they can invest more in restoring their historic 1940s metal kit, home to prime condition.

They'll use the rebate program to help with a new driveway, and a second rain garden is also in the plans.

This home, both inside and out, is about giving back to the community how we deal with nature, how we deal with rainwater as an individual responsibility.

It's something we all have to do within our capacity, and if we have a property, we have a responsibility to the wider community.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step, and this is our one step.

Most Sarasota County residents can participate getting both financial and expertise help with two projects.

It is first come, first serve.

And for a list of the projects and qualifying requirements, you can go to wgu.org.

Well, coming up next week, Social Security celebrates its 90th anniversary, but changes to the program could impact the people who need it most.

We thank you so much for joining us today.

Don't forget to download the WGCU app where you can find all of our stories and extended interviews.

We hope you have a great day and we hope to see you next week.