October 2026 Newsletter SSJ Sierra Club

Something powerful happens when people realize they are not powerless.That is the story of Spare-a-Bear, Bag-a-Tag.What began as a simple idea,   - enter Florida’s bear-hunt lottery, win a permit, and use it to spare rather than kill a...

Sabal Trail is a massive interstate natural-gas pipeline system owned by Enbridge, NextEra Energy and Duke Energy. Now, nearly a decade after the original fight over the pipeline, landowners across Alabama, Georgia and Florida are receiving notices...

On October 5, the City of Alachua Commission will consider Ordinance 26-17, imposing a temporary moratorium on data centers, large-scale data centers and large-load facilities.Sierra Club, along with many others, strongly support the pause. But...

Water Summit, Data Centers, Fun Outings and more

The City of Alachua is updating its Comprehensive Plan, and new language would allow data centers on Industrial land.That may sound technical, but the meaning is simple: the City is creating a legal pathway for data centers.The draft says future...

If you have ever wondered how a tree farm becomes a big-box shopping center and 203-home subdivision, the answer is apparently: one marathon meeting at a time.After roughly ten hours of testimony - continuing proceedings that began June 22 - the...

There are public meetings, and then there are public meetings that begin to feel like a civic endurance sport. The Farmlands rezoning hearings have been the latter: long, tangled, technical, and at times so bewildering that one half-expects Scooby-...

Many people have heard that the Water First North Florida (WFNF) project is "dead." Unfortunately, that's not the case.The proposal has been deferred, not defeated. While it has been paused because of current drought conditions and shifting...

Hi, my name is Natalie Martinez, and I am a third-year student at the University of Florida studying Political Science and Economics.Ever since I was a child, I have cared deeply about protecting our planet. At first, that concern felt more like...