From a distance, it looks like college kids in sweat clothes tossing a football around on a campus green space. Draw closer, and it’s apparent this is no sandlot game. A coach is explaining routes he wants receivers to run on a play he calls “Bingo.” Then he tells his quarterbacks to make quicker decisions. Next, he demonstrates how a receiver in motion sets up as a blocker next to the center and the running back takes a handoff and heads for a hole that should open on the left side. The women Jaison Jones is coaching listen intently and ask lots of questions. More than half showed up at Midland University from faraway places to continue playing the growing sport of flag football at the 1,600-student school in a town of 26,000 nestled in the farmland of eastern Nebraska. Ottawa University women’s flag football team cheers before an NAIA flag football game against Midland University in Ottawa, Kan., March 26, 2021.Allison Maulfair and Spencer Mauk were teammates at their high school in Bradenton, Florida, a state where a nation-high 7,700 girls at 278 schools play varsity flag football. Jones recruited them at summer showcase, and after Maulfair and Mauk made the 1,500-mile drive to Fremont for a visit, they decided it was where they wanted to be. “I’m just really passionate about this sport,” Maulfair said. “I fell in love with it my freshman year of high school and haven’t stopped loving it. It doesn’t matter where I’m at. It just matters playing the game with great people, really.” E’leseana Patterson figured she was done with flag football after she quarterbacked her Las Vegas high school team to a state championship in 2019. Her plan was to stay home, help her mom and take classes at UNLV. On a lark, she went to a showcase in Vegas and ended up impressing Jones. She took a virtual campus tour and knew she wanted to be part of what was happening at Midland, as did four other players she competed against in high school. “Once my mom saw someone wanted me to play the sport I love, she was like, ‘Go,’ ” Patterson said. “I took the chance and came out here. I’d never heard of Midland University. I heard of Nebraska, I heard of Omaha. Not Fremont.” Ottawa quarterback Madysen Carrera passes to a teammate while pressured by a Midland defender during an NAIA flag football game in Ottawa, Kan., March 26, 2021.Women’s flag football is in its first year of competition in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics. The NAIA entered a partnership with the NFL and Reigning Champs Experiences, which operates flag football programs across the country. It’s classified as an emerging sport, meaning there’s no NAIA-sponsored championship. Championship status is achieved once there are 40 programs, a threshold flag football could reach in two or three years. The National Junior College Athletic Association recently announced a similar partnership with the NFL and Reigning Champs and intend to start games in spring 2022. The sport is played seven on seven on a field 80 yards long and 40 yards wide. There are four 12-minute quarters. It’s 20 yards instead of 10 for a first down. All players are eligible receivers. Players are “tackled” when a defender pulls one of the three flags attached to the ball carrier’s belt. Midland and 12 other small schools received $15,000 in seed money from the NFL. That’s about half of what it costs per year to operate a program, according to the NAIA, but doesn’t include cost of scholarships. Midland offers 33 sports and more than 70% of its students are athletes. The Warriors have 14 flag football players, and all pay more in tuition than they receive in scholarship aid. Athletic director Dave Gillespie said he expects a strong return on investment. “You’re talking about kids who love playing the sport and probably didn’t think they would have the opportunity to combine it with getting a college degree,” Gillespie said. “I think that’s a strong pull.” The 40-year-old Jones, the Midland coach, played small-college football in Kansas and is defensive coordinator for an Omaha women’s semipro tackle football team in the summer. His day job is general manager for a pest control company. Ottawa quarterback Madysen Carrera (21) is tackled by Midland defender Casey Thompson, left, during an NAIA flag football game in Ottawa, Kan., March 26, 2021.”The sport is going to flourish more than what people think,” Jones said. “I was in Tampa for a showcase about a month ago and there were about 1,500 girls there. You come back to the Midwest and people question you, like, ‘Girls play flag football in college? Is that a thing?’ ” In addition to Florida and Nevada, Jones recruited two players from Alaska. Four Nebraskans also are on the team. “There’s still work to be done, a lot of work getting girls to come in,” Jones said. “It’s a continuous grind to get the program where I want it to be and to have a winning program.” Florida has by far the most girls playing flag football, followed by Nevada (1,900) and California (660), according to the most recent participation numbers provided to the National Federation of State High School Associations. From 2013-18, high school participation increased 27%, to more than 11,000. Midland is 4-7 after a 34-13 home loss to Ottawa University of Kansas last Friday, a better showing than the 39-0 loss to the Braves a week earlier. Ottawa is 7-1 and among the best of the new programs. Only one of the Braves’ 21 players is from Kansas, and their coaches are former San Francisco 49ers assistant Katy Sowers and her sister, head coach Liz Sowers. The competitiveness of games varies. Ottawa beat Milligan (Tennessee) 84-0 but lost 26-25 to Keiser (Florida). Midland has won 88-0 and lost 52-0. Midland receiver-linebacker Casey Thompson, who grew up 30 miles away in Omaha, played basketball two years at Midland before she decided to try football for the first time this spring. “You have some players who are high-level players,” she said, “and then there’s the other ones who aren’t quite up there.” Thompson said she couldn’t imagine doing what many of her teammates did — move across the country to attend a small college, sight unseen in most cases, and play flag football. Maulfair, the receiver and cornerback from Florida, said the pull of the sport was too strong. Her parents and siblings weren’t going to hold her back. “They didn’t know where I was going to go,” Maulfair said, “but once they found out I was going to commit, they were stoked.”
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Day: April 6, 2021
A recent report published by the National Academy of Sciences paints a grim picture of declining diversity in ocean life. The study spanned decades, and as VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports, researchers link a drop in species to a rise in ocean temperature. Camera: Reuters Produced by: Arash Arabasadi
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The promise to return several Benin Bronzes from three Western institutions to the former Kingdom of Benin in Nigeria was celebrated by many. But returning all the artifacts looted by British soldiers 125 years ago will continue to be a challenge.In recent weeks, a university in Scotland and museums in Germany and Britain pledged to repatriate the Benin Bronzes they own. The restitution is hugely symbolic to Timothy Awoyemi, a British-born Nigerian who helped repatriate two Benin Bronzes in 2014 from a private collector whose grandfather had been part of the 19th century looting. Awoyemi says he was elated when he heard about the latest returns. “They stole it so it makes me happy, because the stolen artifacts are going to be returned back to where they rightly belong,” he said. British soldiers looted the Kingdom of Benin in what is currently Edo state in Nigeria, during a punitive military expedition in 1897. The high valued plaques, masks and sculptures functioned as an historical archive to the Benin royal palace. The sculptures made of brass, bronze and ivory are now owned and displayed across Western museums and institutions. FILE – Steve Dunstone, of the Richard Lander Society, holds 2 bronze artefacts taken away during the British invasion of Benin in 1897, and returned to Benin by a British pensioner, during a ceremony in Benin City, Nigeria, June 20, 2014.Oxford Professor Dan Hicks is the curator of the Pitts River Museum, which holds 145 Benin objects. He authored a book about the bronzes, and says the displays of stolen art in Western museums continues to hurt people in the present. “The dispossession of arts and culture was a central sort of part of how military operations that sought to remove sovereignty, and sought to destroy traditional religion, and sought to remove identity, culture. That was a central part of what the Europeans were doing in the 1880s, 1890s across Africa,” he said. Hicks says the argument that Western museums would be emptied out or shut down is unlikely as restitution needs a case by case approach. Thousands of bronzes from the former Benin empire are held in private collections and in over 160 museums around the world. Most have offered to discuss loaning the bronzes instead of repatriation. The British Museum in London holds about 900 Benin objects, the largest collection in the world. Its website reads no formal written request has been received for the return of the entire Benin collection, despite the bronzes being filed under “contested objects.” Additionally, laws would need to be changed because British national collections are prohibited from giving away their collection. The African Foundation for Development, Afford, is a British based charity, which, for the past year, has investigated the challenges and obstacles related to returning African artifacts. Executive director Onyekachi Wambu says that even if the national collections aren’t willing or able to repatriate, there are many more places and people owning Benin Bronzes. “There’s lots of different museums around the country, which have their own collections, and they’re not covered by the law. There are others that are in private collections, and those are going to be much more difficult to do because, you know, those people sometimes don’t want to do it,” he said. FILE – A visitor looks at two heads of a royal ancestor from the former Benin Kingdom displayed at the Quai Branly Museum in Paris, France, Nov. 23, 2018.It’s said over 90 percent of African cultural legacy is held outside the continent. Although many Western countries have laws ensuring the return of Nazi-looted art, this approach has not been extended when it comes to art stolen from Africa and other parts of the world.
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Haiti does not have a single vaccine to offer its more than 11 million people over a year after the pandemic began, raising concerns among health experts that the well-being of Haitians is being pushed aside as violence and political instability across the country deepen.So far, Haiti is slated to receive only 756,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine through a United Nations program aimed at ensuring the neediest countries get COVID-19 shots. The free doses were scheduled to arrive in May at the latest, but delays are expected because Haiti missed a deadline and the key Indian manufacturer is now prioritizing an increase in domestic demand.
“Haiti has only recently completed some of the essential documentation that are prerequisites for processing of a shipping order,” said Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, a Geneva-based public-private partnership that is co-managing the U.N.-backed COVAX effort.
The country also didn’t apply for a pilot program in which it would have received some of its allotted doses early, according to the Pan American Health Organization. However, a spokeswoman commended its other pandemic efforts, including reinforcing hospital preparedness.
Meanwhile, a human rights research center cited in a new U.S. State Department report found Haiti’s government misappropriated more than $1 million worth of coronavirus aid. The report also accused government officials of spending $34 million in the “greatest opacity,” bypassing an agency charged with approving state contracts.
Lauré Adrien, general director of Haiti’s Health Ministry, blamed the vaccine delay on scrutiny of the AstraZeneca shots and concerns that the country lacks the necessary infrastructure to ensure proper vaccine storage, adding that his agency prefers a single-dose vaccine. AstraZeneca requires two doses.
“It’s no secret that we don’t have excellent conservation facilities,” he said. “We wanted to be sure that we had all the parameters under control before we received vaccine stocks.”
Adrien also noted all the money his agency received has been properly spent, but said he could not speak for other agencies. A presidential spokesman did not return calls for comment.
Many poorer countries have experienced long waits in getting COVAX vaccines as richer countries snapped up supplies, though most have received at least an initial shipment. Some took matters into their own hands, securing shots through donations and private deals.
Haiti’s lack of vaccines comes as it reports more than 12,700 cases and 250 deaths, numbers that experts believe are underreported.
Perceptions also remain a big challenge.In this March 14, 2020 file photo, boxes of rum are stacked as a duty free employee wears a mask amid the COVID-19 pandemic while working at Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.While face masks remain mandatory at Haiti businesses, airport closures and curfews have long since been lifted, and other precautions are rare.
“People don’t really believe in the coronavirus,” said Esther Racine, a 26-year-old mother of two boys whose father died in the catastrophic 2010 earthquake.
Racine once worked as a maid but began selling face masks at the beginning of the pandemic, making brisk business with some 800 sales a month. Now, she barely sells 200.
“Look around,” she said, waving at a maskless crowd bustling around her in downtown Port-au-Prince. The only customers nowadays are those who need a mask to enter a nearby grocery store, she said, adding that Haitians have other problems on their mind: “People worry more about violence than the virus.”
Ongoing protests and a spike in kidnappings and gang-related killings have some wondering how any vaccine will be administered given the lack of stability coupled with a growing number of people afraid to leave their homes.
Many also fear being inoculated, despite educational campaigns. In addition, some officials have raised concern about the AstraZeneca vaccine, which has recently come under scrutiny in Europe after a very small number of people who received it developed unusual blood clots.
“We can receive the vaccine and then discover with a heavy heart that the stocks expired a couple of months later because no one wanted to be vaccinated,” Adrien said.
Among those in Haiti who say they will not be vaccinated is Dorcelus Perkin, a brick factory owner. On a recent morning, the 60-year-old supervised more than a dozen employees working outdoors. No one was wearing any personal protective equipment.
“We can’t wear masks in the sun. We would be suffocating,” he said, adding that the sun kills the virus, something scientists have not proven.
Perkin also credited drinking a traditional green tea mixed with salt every day for his good health: “I believe more in these remedies than the vaccines. I don’t know what’s in the inside of these vaccines.”
International groups are behind most of the resources and educational campaigns related to COVID-19 in Haiti, with the Pan American Health Organization providing the government 500 test kits, along with instruction on lab diagnosis and virus detection. It also supplied thermometers, PPE and other items including megaphones and batteries as workers fanned out into rural areas. In addition, PAHO trained more than 2,800 health workers in Haiti and met with community leaders including Voodoo priests and traditional birth attendants to share information about protective measures and treatment centers.
In May 2020, the organization’s director said she was particularly concerned about the effects of a potential large-scale outbreak given Haiti’s frail health care system and the fact that many live in overcrowded households and lack access to clean water. But perplexed experts say that anticipated outbreak has not happened.
“It’s a surprise to a lot of people,” said Aline Serin, head of mission in Haiti for the international aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres. “For the moment, there is not enough research and documentation to explain why some countries were less affected by severe COVID-19 cases.”
Meanwhile, it’s unclear exactly when the country’s first vaccines, via COVAX, will arrive.
Haiti is among 92 low-income countries expected to receive them. It’s also among dozens that will be affected by last week’s announcement of a suspension of deliveries in March and April of doses made for the program by the Serum Institute of India – the world’s largest vaccine maker – amid a spike of coronavirus cases in India.
When the shots do become available, experts acknowledge it will be a struggle to get them into arms.
They would have to convince Haitians like Duperval Germain, a 55-year-old carpenter who said neither he nor his children will be getting a vaccine. He worries about falling ill from it and not being able to receive proper medical care.
“All these heads of state who have been here, any time they get sick, they all fly out of here,” he said. “If we get sick, where would we go? They can keep (the vaccines) to themselves. Use it in places that need it. Haiti doesn’t need the vaccine.”
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North Korea says it will not participate in the upcoming Tokyo Olympics due to concerns about the coronavirus pandemic. The country’s sports ministry said the decision was made “in order to protect players from the world public health crisis caused by COVID-19,” in a statement dated Monday. If North Korea follows through with the decision, it would be the first time it has skipped an Olympics since 1988, when the games were in Seoul. It is the first country to pull out of this year’s Tokyo games. The Tokyo games have been delayed a year due to the coronavirus but are set to begin July 23 with strict virus-prevention measures in place. North Korea, which is particularly vulnerable to disease outbreaks, has imposed perhaps the world’s most stringent coronavirus prevention measures. For more than a year, the country has attempted to almost completely seal its borders and has implemented even stricter than usual domestic travel restrictions. North Korea insists its border restrictions have succeeded in keeping the virus out of the country — a claim largely dismissed by experts. Some Korea watchers express concern Pyongyang will use the pandemic to extend its draconian restrictions indefinitely to impose greater control on the population. North Korea has one of the world’s poorest countries, observers say, and does not have adequate health infrastructure. The coronavirus lockdown made things worse, with reports emerging of food and medicine shortages. Cherry blossom flowers bloom outside the Japan National Stadium, where opening and closing ceremonies and other events for Tokyo 2020 Olympics will be held, as a guard stands along the fence Tuesday, April 6, 2021, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato)Impact on diplomacy The North’s decision to skip the Tokyo Olympics suggests the lockdown will not end anytime soon. But experts say Pyongyang could reverse its decision. “This seems as much a political decision designed to snub/pressure Tokyo & Seoul as much as it is a public health concern,” tweeted Jean Lee, Director of the Korea Program at The Wilson Center in Washington, D.C.Has any other country announced it would skip #Tokyo2020 Olympics? This seems as much a political decision designed to snub/pressure Tokyo & Seoul as much as it is a public health concern.https://t.co/rzvlS1ZL60— Jean H. Lee (@newsjean) April 6, 2021South Korea had proposed using the summer games as a catalyst for renewed sports diplomacy between the two Koreas. Such a strategy has worked in the past. In 2018, Seoul successfully converted inter-Korean sports cooperation at the Winter Olympics into a series of North-South meetings, which eventually led to talks between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump. Those talks have now been stalled for more than a year. North Korea said last month it considers any talks a “waste of time” unless the United States changes its approach. South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in, leader of the country’s Democratic Party, has less than a year in office and is willing to resume talks with North Korea.North Korea Tops Agenda for US-Japan-South Korea MeetingDiscussions about Pyongyang follow recent provocative missile tests it conducted Some in South Korea are pushing for South and North Korea to jointly host the 2032 Olympic games, though it is far from clear whether Pyongyang would accept.
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U.S. President Joe Biden is announcing Tuesday that every adult in the country will be eligible by April 19 to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, about two weeks earlier than his original May 1 date.
As the available supply of three vaccines expands in the U.S., Biden last week said that about 90% of U.S. adults would be eligible by the April 19 date, but he now is expanding that to all adults who want a shot in the arm.
National polls in the U.S., however, show that about 20% of adults say that for various reasons they will refuse to get vaccinated. Some have said they think it is unnecessary or that the injections could prove to be harmful, while other have expressed distrust in a government-run program.
The percentage opposed to the inoculations has declined over the last several months, as most people vaccinated have reported no or only temporary medical reactions lasting a day or so.
Biden, who was inoculated before taking office in January, is making the announcement at the White House after visiting a vaccination site in suburban Virginia outside Washington.
He is expected to make remarks on the “state of vaccinations” in the country. WATCH LIVE
The latest government figures show that more than 62 million Americans have been fully vaccinated, about 23% of the country’s adult population 18 and older. More than 107 million people have received at least one shot of the two-shot regimen required with either the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, or a smaller group of people with the single-shot doses produced by drug-maker Johnson & Johnson.
Originally, the U.S. made the vaccines available to older people and essential, front-line workers. The new eligibility date in two weeks will give all adults a chance then to schedule appointments for their shots at community health centers, pharmacies, drive-through vaccination sites in parking lots and elsewhere.
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Search and rescue efforts are underway for at least 72 people missing on several remote islands across eastern Indonesia in the wake of a tropical cyclone that struck the region last week. The torrential rains produced by Tropical Cyclone Seroja triggered flash floods and landslides that washed out bridges, downed trees and left roads thick with mud, which has complicated efforts by rescue crews to reach remote villages. At least 128 people have been killed, with thousands more displaced after their homes were damaged or destroyed. One of the worst incidents happened on Lembata island, where scores of homes were destroyed when the rains dislodged hardened lava sitting along the slopes of Mount Ili Lewotolok volcano. Tropical Cyclone Seroja also left a similar trail of destruction in neighboring East Timor, killing 27 people on the outskirts of the capital, Dili. Seasonal flash floods and landslides kill dozens annually in Indonesia. Two landslides in West Java province back in January killed 40 people. About half of the Pacific archipelago’s population, nearly 25 million people, live in areas where landslides are high-risk, according to the country’s disaster relief agency.
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North Korea says it will not participate in the upcoming Tokyo Olympics due to concerns about the coronavirus pandemic. The country’s sports ministry said the decision was made “in order to protect players from the world public health crisis caused by COVID-19,” in a statement dated Monday. If North Korea follows through with the decision, it would be the first time it has skipped an Olympics since 1988, when the games were in Seoul. It is the first country to pull out of this year’s Tokyo games. The Tokyo games have been delayed a year due to the coronavirus but are set to begin July 23 with strict virus-prevention measures in place. North Korea, which is particularly vulnerable to disease outbreaks, has imposed perhaps the world’s most stringent coronavirus prevention measures. For more than a year, the country has attempted to almost completely seal its borders and has implemented even stricter than usual domestic travel restrictions. North Korea insists its border restrictions have succeeded in keeping the virus out of the country — a claim largely dismissed by experts. Some Korea watchers express concern Pyongyang will use the pandemic to extend its draconian restrictions indefinitely to impose greater control on the population. North Korea has one of the world’s poorest countries, observers say, and does not have adequate health infrastructure. The coronavirus lockdown made things worse, with reports emerging of food and medicine shortages. Impact on diplomacy The North’s decision to skip the Tokyo Olympics suggests the lockdown will not end anytime soon. But experts say Pyongyang could reverse its decision. “This seems as much a political decision designed to snub/pressure Tokyo & Seoul as much as it is a public health concern,” tweeted Jean Lee, Director of the Korea Program at The Wilson Center in Washington, D.C.Has any other country announced it would skip #Tokyo2020 Olympics? This seems as much a political decision designed to snub/pressure Tokyo & Seoul as much as it is a public health concern.https://t.co/rzvlS1ZL60— Jean H. Lee (@newsjean) April 6, 2021South Korea had proposed using the summer games as a catalyst for renewed sports diplomacy between the two Koreas. Such a strategy has worked in the past. In 2018, Seoul successfully converted inter-Korean sports cooperation at the Winter Olympics into a series of North-South meetings, which eventually led to talks between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump. Those talks have now been stalled for more than a year. North Korea said last month it considers any talks a “waste of time” unless the United States changes its approach. South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in, leader of the country’s Democratic Party, has less than a year in office and is willing to resume talks with North Korea.North Korea Tops Agenda for US-Japan-South Korea MeetingDiscussions about Pyongyang follow recent provocative missile tests it conducted Some in South Korea are pushing for South and North Korea to jointly host the 2032 Olympic games, though it is far from clear whether Pyongyang would accept.
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Steam and lava spurted Monday from a new fissure at an Icelandic volcano that began erupting last month, prompting the evacuation of hundreds of hikers who had come to see the spectacle. The new fissure, first spotted by a sightseeing helicopter, was about 500 meters (550 yards) long and about a kilometer (around a half-mile) from the original eruption site in the Geldinga Valley. The Icelandic Department of Emergency Management announced an immediate evacuation of the area. It said there was no imminent danger to life because of the site’s distance from popular hiking paths. The Icelandic Meteorological Office said the new volcanic activity wasn’t expected to affect traffic at nearby Keflavik Airport. The long-dormant volcano on the Reykjanes Peninsula in southwest Iceland flared to life March 20 after tens of thousands of earthquakes were recorded in the area in the past three weeks. It was the area’s first volcanic eruption in nearly 800 years.People watch as lava flows from an eruption of a volcano on the Reykjanes Peninsula in southwestern Iceland late on March 24, 2021.The volcano’s proximity to Iceland’s capital, Reykjavík, about 32 kilometers (20 miles) away, has brought a steady stream of tourists to the area, even with the country in partial lockdown to combat the coronavirus. Around 30,000 people have visited the area since the eruption began, according to the Icelandic Tourist Board. Live footage from the area showed small spouts of lava coming from the new fissure. Geophysicist Magnus Gudmundsson said the volcanic eruption could be moving north from its original location. “We now see less lava coming from the two original craters,” he told The Associated Press. “This could be the beginning of second stage.” Iceland, which sits above a volcanic hot spot in the North Atlantic, averages one volcanic eruption every four to five years. The last one was at Holuhraun in 2014, when a fissure eruption spread lava the size of Manhattan over the interior highland region. In 2010, ash from Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano shut down much international air travel for several days.
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Emergency crews labored around the clock Monday to prevent the collapse of a wastewater reservoir’s leaky containment wall near Tampa Bay, Florida, making steady progress after officials warned of an imminent threat of flooding over the weekend. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers worked with local public safety teams to drain the Piney Point reservoir, which has a capacity of about 480 million gallons, in a bid to prevent a major breach that could unleash a cascade of wastewater into the surrounding area, officials said. While the pumping operation appeared to diminish the immediate threat to hundreds of homes near Piney Point, a former phosphate plant, the wastewater drainage was being discharged to a nearby Gulf Coast seaport, posing environmental concerns there. The crisis began over the weekend when a worsening week-old leak in the containment wall prompted authorities to order the evacuation of more than 300 dwellings, with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis declaring a local state of emergency Saturday. Authorities said they were particularly concerned that tall stacks of phosphogypsum waste, an industrial byproduct from fertilizer manufacturing, might suddenly collapse and be swept into adjacent communities. Crews from the state Environmental Protection Department and Army Corps of Engineers teamed up Monday to “reassess the stability of that wall and a second breach that we might have found,” Jacob Saur, director of public safety for Manatee County, said in a video statement. Nevertheless, he and acting county administrator Scott Hopes said the imminent flood threat had eased Monday as expanded pumping operations lowered the volume of the reservoir, reducing stress on the containment structure holding back the wastewater. “By the end of the day today when the additional pumps come online, we will more than double the volume of water that we’re pulling out of that retention pool,” Hopes said at a news conference. Just less than 300 million gallons remained as of midday Monday, he said, adding that crews were looking to drain an additional “75 to 100 million gallons a day.” Tampa Bay fearsWastewater from the property, owned by a company called HRK Holdings, was being pumped into Port Manatee at the mouth of Tampa Bay, raising concerns that the nutrient-dense discharge could spawn algal blooms toxic to marine life in the estuary. “The biggest concern from our standpoint right now is the amount of nutrients being loaded into the lower Tampa Bay,” Ed Sherwood, executive director of the Tampa Bay Estuary Program, told radio station WMNF on Sunday. “This event, in probably five to 10 days, is introducing the amount of nutrients into the bay that we would want to see over an entire year.” U.S. Representative Vern Buchanan, a Republican who represents Florida’s 16th district, told reporters on Monday that reducing possible ecological harm from the draining was a top priority and that the Environmental Protection Agency was working with local agencies to monitor and mitigate the situation. “Just the fact that we’re running water into the Tampa Bay is not a great thing,” Buchanan said. “But the reality of it is, it seems like it’s the right thing to do right now.” Representatives for HRK Holdings could not immediately be reached for comment.
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