There’s something about a swamp…that makes some people want to destroy it. The Everglades are unique in the world, a huge low-nutrient sheet flow marsh feeding lively estuaries and coral reefs. But for a long time, they were considered malarial wastelands that stood in the way of white man’s conquests. Only after they were vanquished by decades worth of massive engineering projects, did people began to see what they were forever altering. People like Marjorie Stoneman Douglas, a journalist whose book “River of Grass” catapulted the Everglades into national consciousness, and Arthur R. Marshall, an ecologist who researched the failing health of the Everglades and made solid proposals on how to undo the damage, were some of the first loud voices of ecological reason. They championed the Everglades as a vibrant ecosystem valuable in its own right and one necessary for the survival of human civilization in South Florida.

Large scale drainage projects began around 1900 and were finalized in the 50s. Recognizing that a massive mistake had been made, in 1992, a “Restudy” was authorized to review the US Army Corps of Engineer’s drainage’s effects and create a plan to restore the ecosystem. This led to the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) which was authorized in the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) of 2000, a 50-50 state-federal effort with an initial $8.2 billion budget, which has already grown to over $12 billion. The rhetoric is that CERP will “save the Everglades.”

Yet the destruction continues unabated. Rock mining, sugar farming, urban sprawl, and relentless drainage suck the life out of this world treasure. The ecosystem is so degraded that other ecosystems, like the massive Pantanal swamp in South America, worry about becoming the “next Everglades.” CERP, the world’s largest and most expensive ecological restoration project, may turn out to be little more than developers’ largest, most successful spin campaign.

CERP was born out of political consensus that gave top priority to complete agricultural drainage while leaving ecosystem restoration a secondary priority. The WRDA 2000 bill stated that the “overarching purpose” of the bill was restoration, but its substantive provisions included much stronger protection for flood control and water supply; leaving ecosystem restoration as an afterthought. CERP was the same plan that the Everglades National Park’s own scientists had said “does not represent a restoration scenario for southern, central and northern Everglades.” The latest version of CERP did not even guarantee that the project would do no harm to the Everglades – only that no one’s level of water supply or flood control would be reduced. - Rivers Coalition Defense Fund

CERP COMPONENTS

CERP is made of about 53 projects (with a total of 68 components) in the following categories:

Storage Reservoirs – 18 above- or in-ground reservoirs covering 181,000 acres are proposed for water storage. Large natural wetlands, which used to store the water, also naturally purified it and provided wildlife habitat. Man-made reservoirs by comparison are gigantic swimming pools – sterile, lined with synthetic impermeable materials, and surrounded by walls that don’t allow littoral vegetation or wildlife.

Aquifer Storage & Recovery (ASR) – This is a highly controversial plan to treat water, inject it 1000 feet underground into the deep Floridan Aquifer at 333 different sites, then retrieve it as necessary with high powered pumps, clean it, and use it. Some reasons to unequivocally reject ASR: the high cost and fuel uses of the construction and operation of the well pumps ($1.7 billion, more than one-fifth CERP’s entire cost); the incapability of this system to quickly remove large quantities of water from Lake Okeechobee as is currently needed in high water, storm events (for flood control); the uncertainty of retrieving usable water since the Floridan Aquifer is saline; and that the technology is new and untested, storing 20 times as much water as the world's largest aquifer storage site in Las Vegas.

Stormwater Treatment Areas – 19 manmade or restored wetlands on between 35,000 and 70,000 acres will be used to naturally clean up water. Wetland filtration is one of nature’s ingenious purification systems, but they can not be expected, nor have they been shown, to handle the high levels of nutrients being dumped into the system. One of the main nutrients responsible for altering the Everglades ecology is phosphorous. Maximum acceptable levels are 10 parts per billion (ppb), but the 5 currently operating STA’s only reduced levels to 98ppb, 20ppb, 13ppb, 81ppb, and 19ppb; averaging 44 ppb.

Seepage management – This involves the construction of barriers to prevent water from seeping out of levees, canals, and other artificial containment structures and into the ground. South Florida’s underlying rock structure is porous limestone that, surprisingly, seeps water. These finger-in-the-dam measures - artificial barriers to hold water in artificial structures – will not work for long against Nature's resistance to captivity.

Removing Sheet Flow Barriers – This is the only type of project that can be seen as true restoration: returning the system back to its natural state. These projects plan to remove 240 miles of canals and levees, building bridges for a 2 mile and a 1 mile portion of Tamiami Trail (while also widening the entire 10.7 mile section of highway), raise portions of the Overseas Highway through the Florida Keys, and add additional culverts.

Operational Management Changes – The levels of all significant lakes and canals in the regions are controlled according to regulation schedules, which currently operate with flood control and water supply as the principal concerns. The regulation schedules will be altered, although there is little guarantee that environmental concerns will be given much priority.

Water Reuse & Conservation – Two projects to build wastewater reuse plants to provide treated, recycled water for human and natural consumption have been temporarily suspended.

A cursory analysis of the components of these projects reveals the true priorities of CERP:

• 31 projects entirely or primarily for human water supply needs (including 20% of “new” water ) such as reservoirs, ASR, and wastewater recycling.
• 5 primarily for treatment of water polluted by industry, agriculture, and residential practices
• 11 for controlled water delivery to natural areas
• 7 with general restoration goals such as habitat restoration and invasive species control
• 3 have semi-restoration goals, such as reducing excessive water delivery to natural areas
• 8 have significant components to restore sheet flow and return parts of the Everglades to its natural state through road, levee, and canal removal

STATUS

The restoration projects were initially scheduled to be completed by 2039. As of the 2006 annual CERP report, 51% of the necessary land has been acquired and 22 projects are in the planning and design stages. The State of Florida has attempted to speed up the progress by fronting 100% of the money for 8 projects, known as Accerler8, scheduled to be completed by 2010. This jump-start is problematic, since the acclaimed 50-50 federal-state partnership in CERP was that the state would spend it’s 50% of the costs entirely in real estate acquisition, while federal resources would be put towards construction. Acceler8 violated this agreement, using land acquisition funds for water supply project construction, leaving all unsure how the federal government will respond. CERP is held up awaiting another WRDA federal disbursement.

GLARING DEFICIENCIES

One of the major omissions in the overall plan is water quality control. The Everglades is a low nutrient system, and even minor changes in phosphorous and nitrogen levels can completely alter the ecology. Cattails thrive with phosphorous, and cattails are replacing historic sawgrass marshes at the rate of 2 acres a day, with over 60,000 acres completely overtaken by the year 2003. The 1994 Everglades Forever Act established a 2006 deadline to meet water quality standards, but this legislation was amended last year to push those deadlines back to 2016. These amendments also removed the financial burden from polluters to clean up the waters, shifting it onto the general public. Without assuring pristine water quality, removing barriers to sheet flow may actually be detrimental!

The plan also does not adequately address the exotic plant and animal problem that affect approximately 1.5 million acres. Melaleuca trees were brought in about a hundred years ago to suck the water of the wetlands and they continue to do so. Brazilian pepper is one of the most aggressive invasives taking over both aquatic and terrestrial habitats. Old World Climbing Fern is literally blanketing our forests. This fern creates fire ladders that carry flames to the tops of trees, converting natural, beneficial ground fires into canopy conflagrations. Abandoned pet pythons are thriving in the swamps, as evidenced by the 15 foot python that was found with a six foot alligator poking out of its ruptured belly.

Lake Okeechobee, the heart of the Everglades system and the largest freshwater lake wholly contained in the US, is dying because of extreme nutrient concentrations and management as a water supply reservoir, not as a living ecosystem. The alleged changes in management promise the following schedule: satisfy urban needs by 2010, agricultural needs by 2015, and reach only "minimum flows and levels" to stop environmental damage to the Everglades by 2020.

CERP relies on technological risks such as Aquifer Storage and Recovery and converting contaminated limestone quarries into water reservoirs. It relies on fossil fuel powered pumps and gates to move water, forever keeping the Everglades on artificial life support. It flagrantly sidesteps real estate over-development and urban sprawl as issues; officials drop “land use” issues like a hot potato, claiming its a county issue they can't touch. It ignores water conservation practices as a necessary component. It promises restoration, but its own construction activities will destroy an additional 34,000 acres of wetlands. It is, in the end, just a cosmetic change in the artificial life support system keeping the Everglades on the map.

MICCOSUKEE SPEAK OUT

The Miccosukee Tribe of Florida, a tribe of Seminole Indians consisting of about 500 members, conducts a twice annual study of changes on their land, strictly regulate nutrient concentrations, and do proscribed burns. They published a paper called “Facing up to Problems in Everglades Restoration” in April 1999. Their chief critiques:

• The restoration effort’s focus is primarily on Everglades National Park (ENP) to the detriment of tribal and state-owned lands
• The Summary Report presented to and approved by Congress significantly differed from the full CERP that was created with public and scientific input.
• Water quality is not assured for the Everglades, and CERP merely creates a system for more efficient pollution delivery. They question the progress and effectiveness of STAs which they say were only meant to be used in the interim, not to provide final water quality. The tribe was party to a lawsuit for water quality laws being too lenient.
• The Natural Systems Model being used is inaccurate because it relies on sea level standards, but the elevation of the land has changed.
• The plan raises concern for flood control & property rights in the tribal areas.
  

ALTERNATIVE PLANS

In 1972, long before technocrats drew up CERP, ecologist Arthur R. Marshall proposed a holistic restoration blueprint that became known as the Marshall Plan. This plan pushed the importance of guaranteeing clean water, dechannelizing several rivers that had been turned into canals, plugging up key canals, and most importantly, reestablishing sheet flow in various key areas south of Lake Okeechobee and just north of Everglades National Park. This sheet flow proposal is almost identical to “Plan Six”, a restoration option in the the Army Corps’ “Restudy” that was eliminated from the final CERP document.

Other environmentalists are also pushing the idea of raising Tamiami Trail (US 41), a 2 lane road that stops the flow of the Shark River Slough, the main “River of Grass” – leaving the land unnaturally waterlogged north of the road, and dangerously parched south of the road. CERP offers to build a 2 mile bridge, but activists have been calling for 11 miles to be made into a “Skyway” in order to allow sufficient flow for the shallow, broad slough. Corps personnel recognize the need for the Skyway, but claim it is too expensive, although apparently they don’t mind spending $1.7 billion on hotly contested Aquifer Storage & Recovery.

DIY RESTORATION?

It is clear that the Everglades will not be saved by the same officials (Army Corps) who, well in this case, UNmucked it up. Developers have uCERPed the official restoration effort, and I say let's usurp it back! But what would radical, DIY restoration look like? Lots of people have asked me if they can come down to Florida and “do restoration” and I kind of silently laugh, thinking “its much larger than that, you can't just come down and 'do restoration.'” Or can you?

Well certainly individuals can be out there removing exotic species and replanting native flora. Perhaps we could conduct water testing to back up campaigns against water polluters. But is that as far as Earth First! would want to take it?

Its time to turn off those pumps that send contaminated water into Lake Okeechobee and the canal system. Its time to figure out how to jam those floodgates that create flash floods on a regular basis, scouring the wildlife and vegetation from our rivers and canals. Hell, it's even time to start plugging up those canals. Maybe next time EF! disables a dump truck, we send it down to Florida, paint some kind of “EF! Restoration Specialists” logo on the side, and use that puppy to backfill the canals that continuously drain our swamps.

We need the guidance of local tribespeople, holistic scientists, and even some old time Florida crackers to do this right, but then, maybe, then Everglades Restoration can happen at night.

For more on the Everglades & its restoration,
see our publication “Everything Everglades.”