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Dan Egan

Dan Egan, the author of The Death and Life of the Great Lakes and The Devil’s Element, is the Brico Fund journalist in residence at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Center for Water Policy and a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist. Dan lives in Milwaukee with his wife and children.

A father shows his son the awful-smelling algae hugging the shoreline of the St. Lucie River during a summer bloom in Stuart, Florida, in 2016. The algae fouled coastal waterways, created angry communities, closed beaches and had an economic impact as tourists and others were driven away by the smell and inability to enjoy the waterways.

Florida’s Love-Hate Relationship With Phosphorus

The state has mined and abused the Devil’s Element for decades, and now it is increasingly fouling precious coastal waters