Legislation before the Florida Legislature calls for the purchase of 65,000 acres to help improve the flow of freshwater through Everglades National Park/NPS
Legislation calling for the purchase of 65,000 acres of land just south of Lake Okeechobee in Florida would bolster the flow of fresh water through the "river of grass" and is being supported by the Everglades Coalition, which wants the Florida Legislature to adopt the measure.
The land purchase proposed in the bill, SB 10 by Sen. Rob Bradley, would help alleviate harmful discharges to the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie estuaries while sending clean, freshwater south to Everglades National Park and Florida Bay, according to a release from the coalition, which includes the National Parks Conservation Association. Funding for the purchase would come from the Legacy Florida Act, which sets aside dedicated funding from the state’s budget for the preservation of water and land resources.
The Everglades provides drinking water to 8 million people. This internationally unique ecosystem is the lifeblood of South Florida’s environment, public health and economy – reverberating statewide throughout Florida’s tourism-based economy. However, this past year marked one of the worst for Florida’s estuaries. The Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie rivers were inundated with polluted releases from Lake Okeechobee while Florida Bay remains starved for more freshwater.
“Florida has a serious and ongoing water crisis,” said Cara Capp, national co-chair for the Everglades Coalition and Everglades restoration program manager for NPCA. “Three estuaries are in peril and there is one solution – send clean water south. We applaud Senator Rob Bradley and Senate President Joe Negron for outlining a path forward with tangible benefits for Florida’s estuary communities and America’s Everglades. The Everglades Coalition calls on all members of the Florida Legislature and Governor Rick Scott to support this smart and appropriate bill to tackle one of the biggest threats to our state’s water.”
The EAA Reservoir is not a new idea, but rather is one of the 68 project components authorized in the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan in 2000. Currently, project planning for the reservoir is set to begin in 2021. SB 10 proposes to move up that planning timeframe in response to the prolonged state of emergency that plagued South Florida through 2016.
“We believe this is an important and common-sense step in the journey to restore America’s Everglades,” said Mike Baldwin, state co-chair for the Everglades Coalition and vice president of the Ding Darling Wildlife Society, the friends group of the J. N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge. “By sending clean water south, as outlined in CERP in 2000, it is possible to restore some of the historic River of Grass that was the hallmark of this unique ecosystem. Doing so will benefit the economy, ecology and quality of life for all Floridians.”
Comments
Between the need for water and the bonus of tourist dollars... this is a no brainer.
Please send clean water south. As an avid fly fisherman and someone that cares about the future of our water, I feel this is a no brainer.
Fund restoration now.
1: This is state funds, purchasing lands that will become state lands, presumably part of the Everglades Water Management Areas. This isn't federal or NPS owning lands (or even FWS expanding Loxahatchee).
2: 65000 acres is a bit over 100 square miles. Think something like 5 miles by 20 miles, or roughly a 5 mile wide swath or right of way connecting Lake Okeechobee to the WMAs to the south through the rest of the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA).
3:It's not just that these lands are in the way of sheet flow from Lake Okeechobee. Draining them for agriculture hastened the decomposition of the peat, so the surface has subsided by 10' or more, which is a huge fraction of the elevation gradient in the Everglades (potentially reversing flow directions).
4: Their prior agricultural uses involved massive fertilization with phosphorus (P) and some sulphur (S). Dealing with those and other nutrients will be tricky & costly. The Everglades is a P-limited system, with water concentrations of P on the order of 1-2 parts per billion. The algae, bacteria, diatoms, etc. can form a polysaccaride (sugar) matrix (biofilm or periphyton or pond scum) so nutrients like P released from one organism are quickly taken up by neighboring organisms. Bacteria can't eat all that polysaccaride because there isn't enough P for them to survive. Once P concentrations reach 10s of PPB, the stochiometry allows bacteria to quickly eat that matrix and collapse the periphyton (mmmm, sugar). Some pointy-headed scientists (friends & colleagues of mine from a former life) have been working on not only the problem, but also possible solutions, scaling up from small experimental flumes to water treatment sites on the scale of 1km square. [On google maps, turn on satellite view, look about halfway between I-75 and Lake Okeechobee. You'll see "Stormwater Treatment Area 5/6" west of Holey Land Wildlife Management Area, and more treatment areas east of Holey Lands.] At least for now, EPA has some info on their website at: https://www.epa.gov/everglades
5: S as sulfates is a bit tricker and a dark horse, but it appears to be important in mercury methylation (methylated Hg is what gets concentrated in fish tissue and is bad for you, metallic Hg isn't so bad). Already there are health warnings against eating too much fish from the WMAs; not dealing with the S would make that much worse. EPA, USGS, and academic biogeochemists have been thinking about S, not just P, for over a decade, driven by their monitoring of methylated Hg.
6: All of this spending is driven by water supply for current and future human uses, which is why I think this is appropriate to be funded by state, not federal, funds. _Maybe_ Everglades National Park will benefit in another decade or more. But, some things require a long-term perspective. Federal funding (via ACoE) is going toward removing levees and blocking canals that drained Everglades water to the east & west, redirecting flow back toward the south.
7: Science.
Please send clean water south.
This make sense for the environment and Florida's economic engine, tourism. Absolutely a no-brainer.
Save the Glades
This is a justified way to stop this horrible pollution of all our estuaries