December 29, 2001 

Glades renewal blueprint drawing criticism

The Bush administration's first blueprint of how it plans to go about restoring the Everglades lays out a broad plan but contains few of the hard and fast details environmentalists had urged.

A draft of the plan, released Friday by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the lead federal agency in the $8 billion project, sketches a scheme to remove canals, build pumps, dig reservoirs and track impact on wildlife. But it also sets no deadlines, gives few specific goals and allows Florida wide latitude in calling the shots in the largest ecological restoration in American history.

Stu Applebaum, chief of the restoration project for the Corps, said Congress did not request timelines when it ordered the development rules.

``Not everyone is going to like everything, and that is why we are putting the draft out there for public review,'' Applebaum said. The plan of what are called ``programmatic regulations'' will be revised after 60 days of public comment.

The initial assessments from environmental groups were not positive.

``This just screams business as usual,'' said Shannon Estenoz, the World Wildlife Fund's Everglades director. ``They talk about states' rights. What about the rights of taxpayers to get what they're paying for: Everglades restoration?''

One glaring omission for environmentalists was any mention of perhaps the most controversial question of the project: How will the billions of new gallons of water produced from the 40-year project be divided among nature, farmers and the booming cities fringing the shrunken Everglades system?

Because no specific assurances were written into the Everglades law itself, some conservation groups had been hoping the regulations would mandate first dibs for the natural system and also adopt congressional language suggesting that 80 percent of the water be diverted to the River of Grass.

Also notably absent were biological standards for judging the success of various projects.

CORPS ACCUSED

The Corps, some environmentalists said, merely caved in under pressure from Tallahassee, which has been lobbied heavily on the issue from farmers and, particularly, urban utilities. As the regulations are written, Florida, which is footing half the cost of restoration, could potentially delay many projects that should be on the fast track to restore the system's most parched section, they said.

Brad DeVries, spokesman for Defenders of Wildlife, called the plan ``a recipe for inaction.''

Applebaum defended the draft, saying it focused on process.

``We have to save the water,'' he said. ``The Everglades have been fundamentally altered by nearby development, and a lot of the water has been drained away by a canal system that often dumps water out to tide.''

U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., one of the most vocal proponents in Washington for the restoration law, the Water Resources Development Act of 2000, was noncommital about the potential impact of the regulations. But he said they helped resolve concerns about the pace of developing them. Under the law, the regulations have to be in place by December 2002.

``I am pleased to see the process is finally moving along. There is sure to be some controversy about the draft regulations, including the establishment of interim goals for the restoration plan.''

The battle over how to revive the struggling River of Grass, now about half its historic size, has been waged in a series of lengthy and contentious debates. Some environmental groups had hoped the regulations would eliminate individual battles over 68 construction projects planned over the next four decades.

DETAILS DEFERRED

Instead, the Corps put off the details of looser ``protocols'' that will be written later. That was the position of sugar and vegetable farmers, water utilities and other thirsty Florida interest groups, as well as Gov. Jeb Bush. Gov. Bush's aides had argued that more detailed legal rules attempting to reserve water for the Everglades would trample on the state's right to allocate water as it sees fit, an argument the Corps cited in its documents Friday.

CHANCES FOR CRITICS

``I'm sure plenty of groups are going to zero in on something they don't like,'' said Applebaum. ``When you have something this extraordinarily complicated with this many stakeholders, that's what you'd expect.''

The project, he said, should be judged by future results, not by rules.

``This is a partnership between two sovereign governments,'' Applebaum said. ``There have to be checks and balances, but there also has to be trust.''

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