Craig Pittman, a Florida native, is a reporter for the St. Petersburg Times, and Matthew Waite, who hails from Nebraska, is the Times's news technologist. Their reporting on wetlands has twice earned the top investigative reporting prize in the nation from the Society of Environmental Journalists.

Florida possesses more wetlands than any other state except Alaska, yet since 1990 more than 84,000 acres have been lost to development - despite presidential pledges to protect them. In this hard-hitting book, "St. Petersburg Times" investigative journalists Craig Pittman and Matthew Waite explain how taxpayers who think they're paying for wetland protection have been stuck with a program that creates the illusion of environmental protection while doing little to stem the tide of destruction. A potent combination of groundbreaking historical research and no-holds-barred reporting, this book portrays a landscape that has been compromised by greed, fear, and incompetence.