A return to the Interior Department of Todd Willens is drawing concern from those who recall his successful efforts to have Everglades National Park removed from the World Heritage Committee's "site in danger" list, where it had landed because of threats to the park's integrity/NPS

There is only one site in the United States, Everglades National Park, that is listed as a World Heritage Site "in danger" by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. It's not a prestigious listing, for it reflects threats to the park's integrity.

But being on the list serves as recognition of those threats and, hopefully, encourages efforts to mitigate the threats.

Back in 1979 the park was designated a World Heritage Site, a recognition extended by UNESCO on sites around the world for their outstanding universal values. There are nearly two dozen World Heritage Sites in the United States, from Everglades to Yosemite and even the Statue of Liberty. In 1993, due in part to damage caused by Hurricane Andrew, Everglades was listed as being "in danger."

It retained that ranking until 2007, when Todd Willens, a deputy assistant secretary under then-Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne in 2007, asked the World Heritage Committee at its annual meeting to remove Everglades from the list. Interior officials realized at the time that Everglades hadn't solved all its issues, but they believed significant progress was being made.

"I am gratified that the World Heritage Committee recognized the major commitment the United States has made to restoring one of our nation’s and the world’s greatest natural treasures," Secretary Kempthorne said in June 2007 after the committee's vote to remove Everglades from the list. "The committee has highlighted our work to restore the Everglades as a model for the rest of the world to follow."

At the time, in addition to the hurricane damage, Florida was struggling with drought that some feared would jeopardize water flows through the national park, urban sprawl was a problem then as it is now, and there were impacts on the park from agriculture and surface water pollution. 

"...(W)e realize that much work remains for all of the partners to accomplish our long-term restoration goals. Removal of the park from the list in no way
diminishes our commitment to the work ahead," said Secretary Kempthorne.

Also acknowledging the challenges faced by Everglades at the time was Mr. Willens.

"Although full implementation of some of these measures is still a few years off, we have committed significant resources toward the restoration of the Everglades, detailed plans are being implemented, and significant on-the-ground work has already been accomplished," said Mr. Willens, the co-head of the U.S. Delegation to the World Heritage Committee meeting in New Zealand. "Indeed, as the committee’s report points out, we are well along the way of implementing the world’s largest environmental restoration initiative at the Everglades ecosystem."

But just three years after that action by the World Heritage Committee, the Obama administration convinced the committee to relist Everglades National Park in 2010 as a site in danger. In doing so, the committee cited "concerns that the property's aquatic ecosystem continues to deteriorate, in particular as a result of:

• Alterations of the hydrological regime (quantity, timing, and distribution of Shark Slough inflows);
• Adjacent urban and agricultural growth (flood protection and water supply requirements that affect the property's resources by lowering water levels);
• Increased nutrient pollution from upstream agricultural activities;
• Protection and management of Florida Bay resulting in significant reduction of both marine and estuarine biodiversity.

The infestation of Everglades by Burmese pythons is one threat that landed the park on the "in danger" list/NPS, R. Cammauf

Earlier this year the committee said the park still is threatened by sprawl, invasive species such as the Burmese python, surface water pollution, and mercury contamination of fish and wildlife. The park also struggles to achieve desireable hydrological conditions, the National Park Service noted in its year-end 2016 report to the World Heritage Committee.

The most recent reporting period (late 2014 through 2016) coincided with the 2015 El Niño event that brought weather conditions (unseasonal local drought conditions followed by a prolonged, heavy rainy season) that stressed the ecosystem and tested the recently implemented restoration infrastructure. Targets for the Desired State of Conservation for hydrology were not met for this period, and were too low even during the period of unusually high rainfall. This situation emphasizes the importance of the future water control plans that use the infrastructure to bring natural patterns of hydrology to the park.

The severe dry period of 2015 had negative effects on salinity levels and seagrasses in Florida Bay. A large-scale die-off of seagrass has affected about 40,000 acres of seagrass meadows in the bay, and has been followed by an algal bloom. This situation is similar to the seagrass die-off and algal bloom that began in 1987, which affected Florida Bay for more than a decade. These events, the result of a severe but short-term weather pattern, demonstrate that the property is still in a fragile state, and that the ecosystem lacks resilience. Consistent, more natural hydrologic patterns that reach established targets are required for the plants, fish, and wildlife of both terrestrial and marine areas of Everglades National Park to achieve the Desired State of Conservation.

But the return to the Interior Department of Mr. Willens, announced by Interior on Wednesday, has drawn the concern of U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Florida, who was highly critical back in 2007 when Everglades was removed from the in danger list and who called on the Obama administration to reverse that move.

“Is this the same guy coming back to the Department of Interior? He might try to take it off the list again," Sen. Nelson told the Miami Herald this week. "Anybody who has a disregard for the importance of the Everglades like this fella has indicated...shouldn’t be in the Department of Interior in a high and influential position.”

Efforts to reach Mr. Willens on Wednesday were unsuccessful. Interior spokeswoman Heather Swift did not immediately reply to a request to interview him. 

Matthew Schwartz, executive director of the South Florida Wildlands Association, said Wednesday that Mr. Willens' return to Interior was a concern not only for Everglades, but for endangered species.

"Willens' success at temporarily removing Everglades National Park from the list of World Heritage Sites in Danger politicized a process that should have been carried out under objective review. Than and now, the Everglades and Everglades National Park clearly remains an ecosystem in grave peril," Mr. Schwartz said in an email. "Freshwater inflows to the park are a fraction of what they should be, seagrasses are dying off in Florida Bay due to hypersalinity caused by that lack of freshwater and wetland soils in the park are being oxidized and lost for the same reason. Restoration of natural water flows is slow at best. There's also lots of new development and road expansions outside the park - which is eating up habitat necessary to fish and wildlife populations and further diminishing the flow of freshwater that is available for the park's ecological restoration.

"Aside from that, we're also very concerned by Willens' work when he was legislative director for (former) Congressman Richard Pombo, chairman of the House Resources Committee. Pombo put a lot of effort into attempts to water down the protections of the Endangered Species Act," added Mr. Schwartz. "Specifically, he was interested in removing protections for habitat while still allowing protections for the species themselves. But you can't separate species and the habitat they need to survive. Most species end up in trouble these days not through indiscriminate hunting but through habitat loss and degradation. With a focus on jobs and economic growth - and the fights we've always had over wildlife habitat protection - we're very concerned about where endangered species protections will go with this appointment. And right now the (U.S.) Fish and Wildlife Service is considering the conservation status for the endangered Florida panther. Delisting the panther for example would throw open the floodgates to development in the small amount of habitat the species has left in southwest Florida."

Florida panthers are just one of the endangers species that makes Everglades home/NPS, R. Cammauf

Beyond Mr. Willens' return, the Trump administration has proposed to cut funding to a key program that has been monitoring water quality in the Everglades.

“It gives you an idea (of whether) things are improving or not improving, and the rate at which they’re improving or not improving,” Tom Van Lent, director of programs at the Everglades Foundation, told the USA Today back in April. Halting the program “would cripple the federal government’s role in maintaining water quality for the Everglades and basically blind us to what’s going on out there.”