CAN THIS MARRIAGE BE SAVED? Part I

Once upon a time, a long time ago, the State of Florida and the U.S. Government held hands and pledged eternal partnership. It had to be eternal because saving the Everglades will take a generation.

In the year 2000, Comprehensive Everglades Restoration was bipartisan. “Saving America’s Everglades passed overwhelmingly.

The State and the nation forged a 50/50 partnership to restore the second largest wetland in the world.

The State would be responsible for water quality and land acquisition. The feds would be responsible for constructing projects.

The State started with enthusiasm. In 1991 Gov. Lawton Chiles laid down his sword before a federal judge. The State was being sued for failing to uphold state water quality standards for federal lands. They initially fought the case in court, fiercely and expensively.

Gov. Chiles accepted the fact that it was Florida’s water and Florida’s Everglades and we would clean it up.

The State set out to do so and spent millions on stormwater treatment areas to clean the water going south to Everglades National Park.

Gov. Jeb Bush proudly supported the Florida Forever Initiative committing the State to $300 million a year to buy land. The Feds went forward with detailed planning for the separate components of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Project that created a total comprehensive plan that would restore the Everglades.

Florida basked in the happy thought that, with the Governor’s brother in the White House, project funding would follow.

The honeymoon was short and the partnership became a seesaw.

The first component of CERP that completed a detailed plan was the Indian River Lagoon – South.

Congress asked: “What does that have to do with the Everglades?”

The answer: It was the 1947 State and Federal partnership that created the Central and South Florida Flood Control Project that was causing the estuary to be irrevocably destroyed.

Other component plans were completed. No Federal construction funds could be budgeted until each project was authorized in the Water Resources Development Act. There was no WRDA Bill passed until 2007.

Meanwhile, the state got tired of paying for water quality improvements and went back to court.

In 2004 Governor Bush declared that the Feds were moving too slowly and the State would take over construction of key reservoirs and Aquifer Storage and Recovery wells under a program called Acceler8! The premise was that the Feds were slow and bureaucratic and the State would get ‘r dun through public/private partnerships.

It didn’t work.

At the same time the South Florida Water Management District finally faced up to the fact that the Aquifer Storage and Recovery wells that were part of CERP weren’t going to work as designed and more land would be needed for water storage and water quality treatment.

The seesaw wobbled.

Two big breakthroughs turned things around.

In 2008 Gov. Christ announced the US Sugar deal to buy 183,000 acres south of Lake Okeechobee to provide water storage and water treatment and move water south from Lake Okeechobee and the sugar cane fields to Everglades National Park.

Then the Department of Interior completed a plan to raise the Tamiami Trail through a series of bridges that would move more water south.

The Obama administration committed stimulus funds to build the first one mile bridge on the Trail.

The Corps committed to fast track a group of CERP projects that would take down the levees in the Water Conservation Areas north of the Trail to move water south under the new bridges.

Governor Rick Scott was elected to cut state government and put Florida to work. The environment wasn’t mentioned except to disparage the U.S. Sugar purchase proposed by his predecessor.

The State stopped buying land for CERP projects.

The SFWMD funding was dramatically reduced and they were told to return to their core mission of drainage and water supply.

The seesaw wobbled. Now the Feds were pouring money and manpower into Everglades restoration and the State was becoming a silent partner.

Then the seesaw wobbled again when Gov. Scott hammered out a settlement with the EPA for the long standing water quality lawsuit. He committed $800 million over ten years to meet the State’s commitment to clean up State waters flowing onto Federal lands.

Then it rained. They dumped Lake Okeechobee out the St. Lucie Canal and the Caloosahatchee.

The estuary turned neon green from toxic blue green algae. The Health Dept. told residents not to stick a toe in the water or breathe near splashing waves.

The Governor blamed the Corps. Then he blamed Congress. The Senate committee spent 8 hours looking for immediate fixes.

The populace took up pitchforks and staged rallies and yelled “Enough!”

All the levels of government blamed each other and went scurrying off in all directions to demand immediate answers for their angry populace.

There are no immediate answers.

The only in answer is a comprehensive plan and a State and Federal partnership.

That partnership has failed. Can it be restored?

CAN THIS MARRIAGE BE SAVED? Part II

The partnership to save the Everglades is in disarray. What will it take to put Humpty Dumpty together again?

Unfortunately, the answers are technical. Politicians and angry populace hate technical answers and long term solutions.

But if we get distracted by quick fixes and blame games we will lose the St. Lucie Estuary. The Everglades is in deep trouble, but it’s not going to die tomorrow. The Indian River Lagoon and the St. Lucie Estuary are in crisis. They might die tomorrow. The IRL is an Estuary of National Significance. It is the most diverse estuary in America. It has been battered by Lake Okeechobee discharges for decades but it is on the brink of collapse. That is not panic and hyperbole. The Corps report completed in 2002 states that without a change in water management the estuary will be irrevocably destroyed.

Irrevocable is irrevocable.

There are solutions.

Sen. Negron’s efforts to find 90 day solutions are admirable. The problem is beyond 90 day solutions.

Here’s what needs to happen:

CEPP! The Central Everglades Plan needs to be ready for authorization in the coming Water Resources Development Act (WRDA). CEPP is a group of CERP projects that will help to move water south from Lake Okeechobee to Everglades National Park. That will take all the enthusiastic efforts of the Corps and the South Florida Water Management District over the next four months. The State will have to take ownership and sponsor the Plan. The deadlines are important. It may take 7 years to get authorization if we fail now.

WRDA needs to include authorization for the C43 reservoir on the Caloosahatchee and other projects that are ready to go.

WRDA! We need to convince a dysfunctional Congress that they have to pass a WRDA Bill. It’s not enough to blame them and accuse them of being dysfunctional. We need to be in Washington making it happen.

CERP! Congress needs to accelerate CERP funding and immediately fund the CEPP project and reservoirs around the Lake. That will cut discharges to the Indian River Lagoon by half and at least put us on life support. It will deliver clean fresh water to Everglades National Park and Florida Bay. Walking away from the comprehensive plan to look for silver bullets won’t work. If one of our U.S. Senators wants to shut down the government in a partisan battle that declares government is the enemy, then the Indian River Lagoon will die and the Everglades will be close behind. The Governor’s Commission that helped create CERP was made up of more business people that conservationists. It unanimously declared that South Florida is not sustainable on its present course. It’s not just about bugs and alligators. It’s about people and the economy.

LAND! The State’s responsibility in the CERP project is to buy land. They stopped doing that. The Corps cannot buy land. Without land acquisition the projects can’t be engineered and they can’t be built. We need to sign petitions to get the Land and Water Legacy Amendment on the ballot. We need to pass it. We need a source of funding for land acquisition that the legislature can’t steal. US Sugar is ready and willing to sell land. We don’t need to resort to condemnation. We need to buy it now.

LOBBYING! There is not a single drop of water in Lake Okeechobee that came from Washington D.C. The problem of too much dirty water in Lake Okeechobee and not enough clean water going south is Florida’s problem. We broke it. We need to fix it. If the decision rests with Congress, we can’t sit home and blame them. Every single State official involved with water resources, starting with the Governor, our Congressional delegation, State legislative leaders, and the Board of the South Florida Water Management District needs to be regularly trekking to Washington to make them do what’s right. And we need to find a way for angry residents, who frequently come from somewhere else, to lobby the Senators and Representatives from somewhere else to do the right thing.

WATER MANAGEMENT! There is a whole array of things that we continue to do that make the problem worse in terms of land use and water resource management. The Florida legislature has been in a feeding frenzy to do away with regulation. The Water Management Districts continue to grant permits that make the problem worse. The legislature has fought tooth and nail against the EPA’s efforts to make water quality better. Fifteen years ago the state developed plans to cut phosphorous coming into Lake Okeechobee from 500 tons a year to 140 tons a year. Fourteen years later it’s still flowing in at 500 tons a year. A myriad of state water quality plans haven’t been implemented or aren’t working . We need to look in the mirror and stop digging the hole deeper.

Those are the answers that will make things better. They will take a while, but they are the only way out.

They can be done. Governor Scott brought significant hope to the partnership by pledging $90 million for further bridging on the Tamiami Trail. State Sen. Joe Negron recently chaired an 8 hour Senate Committee hearing to look at immediate and long term fixes. US Representative Pat Murphy has invited the Governor to Washington to help Congress understand that the Everglades can’t wait.

If we all get together we can put Humpty Dumpty together again.