The Everglades Could Soon be Whole Again

Florida Governor Charlie Crist is expected to announce a $1.75 billion deal to essentially buy the U.S. Sugar Corporation, including 187,000 acres of farmland that once sat in the northern Everglades. The purchase, reported by Time magazine’s Michael Grunwald, would resurrect the almost decade-old restoration project to rebuild the Everglades.

It is hoped that the project will re-establish storage reservoirs, treatment marshes and a flowway that will reconnect Lake Okeechobee to the Glades. This could help recreate the original north-to-south movement of the "River of Grass", and eliminate damaging pulses of excess water into coastal estuaries. That would be good news for panthers and gators, dolphins and herons, ghost orchids and royal palms.

The Florida Everglades was once a vibrant, free-flowing river of grass that provided clean water from Lake Okeechobee to Florida Bay. Today, this extraordinary ecosystem is dying due in part to U.S. Sugar Corporation who has been responsible for years of sucking water out of the glades and pumping polluted runoff into the lake. Now that ex-governor Jeb Bush’s industry-friendly aides, who pumped up U.S. Sugar with obscene amounts of subsidies and have fought hard to eliminate funding for the restoration project, have been replaced with more eco-aware legislators, the project to restore and preserve this American treasure could now be back on track.

The plan was approved in the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) of 2000 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in partnership with the South Florida Water Management District and numerous other federal, state, local and tribal partners, to enhance water supplies and maintain flood protection. It includes more than 60 elements, will take more than 30 years to construct and will cost an estimated $7.8 billion.

Once again, global warming is cited as a an important reason for why this project needs to be undertaken. According to a University of Miami expert in coastal marine environments, Dr. Harold Wanless, speaking at the Everglades Coalition’s annual conference in January 2008, recreating enough of the natural flow of water to the 2.4 million-acre marsh to rebuild its eroded peatlands could hold back salt water intrusion from rising sea levels and protect South Florida's drinking water supply. He pointed to conservative estimates that predict a two foot increase in sea levels by 2100, but cited other studies that indicate the rise could amount to 20 feet by 2200, which would submerge all of South Florida.

On a personal note, I visited the Everglades during summer vacations in the early 1960’s and again in 2005. The Everglades is not nearly as vibrant and teaming with life that I remember in earlier times. It feels good to finally report some good news for the planet.

Sources:

The end of U.S. Sugar

Journey to restore America’s Everglades

Everglades reading list

Everglades Restoration Gains Urgency as Climate Warms