Florida Today from Cocoa, Florida • Page 24

FLORIDA 12B Friday Nov. 11, 2005 floridatoday.com NEWS EDITOR JIM LINEHAN, jlinehanflatoday.net or 242-3643 TAMPA 0. Red tide on state radar Scientists want funding for monitoring, research I Thursday. "We're looking to ramp up that distribution and cover more areas, and also deploy additional sensors." Red tide is a form of alga that perennially threatens some part of Florida's Gulf shoreline. This year's bloom began in January and has become the lasting and perhaps most damaging on record.

The algae emits a toxin that kills ocean life, can foul the air of coastal communities, and make humans sick if they eat fish or oysters contaminated with it. It's blamed for $100 million in lost See RED TIDE, 10B BY BY AARON DESLATTE FLORIDA TODAY TALLAHASSEE Florida lawmakers with coastal districts defiled by this year's red tide outbreak are anxiously awaiting a cure-all remedy. The difficulty is that scientists don't have one to throw money at yet. Even so, before the Legislature rolls into spending season next spring, researchers want money to beef up Gulf of Mexico monitoring and other ways to neutralize the threat. Florida's fishing and tourism industries have lost hundreds of millions of dollars from red tide blooms stretching from Naples toPensacola.

"Because of the impact it's having this last year, there definitely will be more interest in trying to address it," said Sen. Charlie Clary, a Destin Republican who chairs the Senate General Government Appropriations Committee. Gil McRae, director of the state's Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, said his office and other universities and private researchers want to increase the number of buoys and other underwater devices used to detect red tide while it's still offshore. With more sensors in the water, scientists could warn coastal communities before the bloom reaches their beaches, or let fishermen get their work in before bays are ordered closed. "What we'd like to do is cover the west coast more completely," said McRae, who briefed Clary's committee FLORIDA TODAY file Red tide in 2002.

A man walks along the beach at Indialantic, where several dead fish washed ashore in 2002, when Brevard County's beaches experienced an outbreak of red tide. iv --'mil v. Jp sir UAJ -V Drilling opponents celebrate victory Battles loom over coastal oil ASSOCIATED PRESS PENSACOLA Offshore drilling opponents tempered their joy Thursday over the defeat of a measure that would have brought oil and natural gas rigs closer to Florida's coastline with the knowledge that the fight may be far from over. House leaders pulled the proposed drilling compromise, supported by Gov. Jeb Bush, from a budget reconciliation bill late Wednesday.

"We have won the battle to keep Florida's coasts free from drilling, but we have not come close to winning the war," Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Orlando, said in a statement. "It's not going away it's only going to get worse as time goes on." Rep. Jim Davis, D-Tampa, a candidate for governor, said the issue may be revived as standalone legislation as soon as next week. "I think the pressure to drill off the coast of Florida is going to intensify every day," said Davis, who opposed the compromise.

He said there's too little oil and natural gas off Florida to affect prices but enough to pump up petroleum industry profits. Martinez, Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Melbourne, and House Democrats have been united in their opposition to the compromise that Bush helped negotiate with House Resources Chairman Richard Pombo, R-Calif but the issue has split House Republicans. "This was a golden opportunity for Florida to protect its own. shoreline," Rep.

Jeff Miller, R-Chumuckla, said in a telephone interview. Existing congressional and See DRILLING, 10B AP Touring damage. Kerry Herndon, owner of Kerry's Bromeliad Nurs- Hurricane Wilma to Gov. Jeb Bush, right, as they tour the facility ery, left, gestures as he explains the extent of damage caused by Thursday. The nursery suffered $28 million in damages.

Bush pushes federal farm aid School board reinstates religious holidays. The local school board reinstated Good Friday, Easter Monday and Yom Kippur as school holidays after getting more than 3,500 e-mails from around the country criticizing its earlier decision to eliminate them rather than add a Muslim holiday. The Hillsborough County School Board voted 5-2 Tuesday night to restore the holidays to the 2006-07 school calendar after a Muslim group said it didn't want its request to add the Islamic holiday Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan, to result in Christian and Jewish holidays being taken away. "It is a temporary solution," said Ahmed Bedier, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "We've been adamant the last two weeks that we would give up on our request for a holiday so the other religions won't lose theirs." BOCA RATON Boater's body washes ashore.

The body of a missing man washed ashore Thursday, two days after he was reported missing by a friend after their fishing boat sank off the coast. Roger Washington, 49, of Fort Lauderdale, told officials his 22-foot fishing boat capsized about 8:30 a.m. Tuesday when two large waves sunk the boat off Boca Raton. As Washington and his friend, Robert Lewis Moore, held onto the lid of a cooler, a shark circled them twice. Moore, 62, of Tamarac, panicked and may have had a heart attack, Washington said.

JACKSONVILLE Man dies after struggling with police. A man who lost consciousness after struggling with a Jacksonville police officer has died. Otis James Williams III, 25, died Wednesday, five days after he was arrested during a foot chase. A traffic officer stopped Williams for speeding, not staying in a lane and having a tag light out. Williams ran from the car.

Another officer caught up with Williams and the two struggled for several minutes, said Steve Weintraub, chief of investigations. Both Williams and the officer received some cuts and scrapes, but neither had any other visible injuries, Weintraub said. FORT WALTON BEACH Eviction notices stun tenants in apparent scam. Tenants at the former Island Cove Suites thought they had a sweet deal when they rented the 14 units way below market price until they received eviction notices from the complex's new owners. One of the former owners, Crestview lawyer and retired Judge Gillis Powell, said Tuesday that Steve Clercx, who allegedly rented out the units, had been retained only to look after the three-story building while it was being sold.

He had no authority to rent the suites, Powell said. Okaloosa County sheriff's deputies cited Clercx for operating a business without an occupational license, but Powell said he didn't want to press criminal charges. Tenants, meanwhile, were scrambling to find new homes. They had received three-day eviction notices Friday from the new owners, Harbor Place LLC of Sarasota. The power then was shut off Monday.

LOTTERY One ticket wins $9 million Lotto jackpot. One ticket matched all six Florida Lotto numbers to win a jackpot of $9 million. The winning ticket was bought in Bokeelia. 61 tickets matched five numbers to win $5,8 1 1 .50 each. 4,542 tickets matched four numbers for $63 each.

91,832 tickets matched three numbers for $4 each. The winning Florida Lotto numbers selected Wednesday: 1-3-6-18-44-49. One ticket wins Fantasy 5 jackpot. One lucky winner of the Fantasy 5 game will collect $224,690.79. The winning ticket was bought in Largo.

328 tickets matching four numbers will collect 1 1 0 each. 9,774 tickets matching three won $10 each. 96,607 tickets won a Quick Pick ticket for picking two. The numbers drawn Wednesday night were 3-13-1 5-22-32. V- FLORIDA TODAY wire reportS' AFTERMATH Storms cost agriculture in state $2.2 billion sues around the state, not just in the nursery business, but also in sugar cane, commercial fishing has been devastated in the Keys, fresh vegetables, fresh citrus, these storms spread canker," Bush said.

"The agriculture sector, which is one of the most important parts of our economy, has been devastated over the last 14 months." The state received a commitment of $400 million in federal aid for its growers after last year's hurricane season, and more federal assistance is expected this year, Bush said. Kerry Herndon, owner of Kerry's Bromeliad Nursery in Homestead, told them he lost $28 million worth of plants because of Wilma. The nursery's structures lost their roofs in the hurricane and the shade-loving orchids and bromeliads inside got sunburned after the storm. Nursery businesses such as Herndon's compete internationally and are the largest part of the state's agricultural sector, but federal disaster aid for agricultural losses overlooks larger operations in favor of smaller farmers, Bush said. The plants Herndon sells take up to 18 months to grow, so the sunburned crop sets production back a year-and-a-half, Herndon's wife, Nancy Harter, said.

"There's no recovery from having the foliage damaged like that," she said. "It's total crop damage." greenhouses, sugar cane and other crops and livestock. It also takes into account some damage to farms, greenhouses and other agricultural structures. Bush and state Agriculture Secretary Charles Bronson toured hard-hit areas in South Florida on Thursday. Bronson, who has said that Wilma devastated the state's agriculture more than any other natural disaster in recent memory, said Florida has lost about $2.2 billion in crops in the last four hurricanes.

"We've got some serious is ASSOCIATED PRESS HOMESTEAD Federal aid should be extended to larger farms and nurseries to help Florida's agriculture industry recover from the estimated $2.2 billion in losses caused by the four hurricanes that hit or sideswiped the state this year, Gov. Jeb Bush said Thursday. Hurricane Wilma's losses alone likely will exceed $1.3 billion, the Agriculture Department said. That figure includes damage to citrus, nurseries, Brucia case shifts focus to forensics 4 0 watched images from a security camera that captured Carlie being led away from a car wash parking lot by a tattooed man in a uniform, and they heard Joseph Smith's brother testify that the defendant had confessed to the crime and told him where to find Carlie's body. Joseph Smith, a 39-year-old former auto mechanic and father of three daughters, is charged with first-degree murder, kidnapping and capital sexual battery in the death of See BRUCIA, 9B ASSOCIATED PRESS SARASOTA An FBI evidence examiner testified Thursday that hair samples taken from Carlie Brucia's head had the same characteristics as two hairs found in a station wagon driven by the man on trial for abducting, raping and stranglingthe 1 1-year-old girl.

The testimony from Karen Korsberg came on a day that prosecutors focused on forensic evidence in building their case against Joseph Smith. Earlier in the week, jurors AP DCF worker accused of harassment ASSOCIATED PRESS TALLAHASSEE A couple is preparing to sue the state's child welfare agency claiming a case worker unnecessarily threatened to take their terminally ill child as he lay in bed dying. Debbie and Richard Brand of Yulee were caring for their 9-year-old son, Ricky, at home after doctors told them the boy, suffering from bone cancer, had about a month to live. They lowered his recommended dosage of pain relievers because it put the boy in a near comatose state and they wanted to be able to interact with him in his final days, according to a complaint filed against the Department of Children Families. A nurse who called the home heard the boy crying in the background and asked if the boy was in pain.

The parents said no. A complaint was later filed with DCF, which sent an investigator to the home. The DCF investigator and the boy's physician claim the parents were refusing to give him pain medication for religious Evidence. Lisa Lanham, a crime scene technician, looks over an evidence bag during testimony Thursday in the trial of Joseph Smith, who is accused of killing 11-year-old Carlie Brucia in 2004. Famed ballet dancer Bujones dies Fernando Bujones, a world-class ballet dancer and artistic director of the Orlando Ballet, died Thursday of cancer.

group's executive director. Bujones, born in Miami of Cuban parents, spent 30 years as a ballet dancer, teacher and choreographer. He danced for royalty and President Reagan, and is credited along with Rudolph Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov as unique contributors to men's ballet. He won the gold at the 1974 Varna International Ballet Competition known as the Olympicof ballet at 19, two ASSOCIATED PRESS MIAMI Fernando Bujones, a world-class ballet dancer who was the first American man to win the gold medal at the International Ballet Competition, died Thursday of cancer. He was 50.

Bujones died after taking a three-month leave from his position as artistic director of the Orlando Ballet to treat melanoma, said Russell Allen, the years after he joined the famed American Ballet Theatre in NewYork. He dazzled audiences as a guest artist in 34 countries and with more than 60 companies, including The Royal Ballet, Stuttgart Ballet, Tokyo Ballet and The Paris Opera. He graced the stage with noted ballerinas Natalia Makarova, Carla Fracci, Cynthia Gregory and others. A May 11, 1936, Chicago Sun-Times article praised Bujones. "He is an accomplished actor, the kind of dancer who rivets our attention when he is standing still," Wynne Dela-coma wrote.

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