An Everglades Action Plan

July 13, 2000

An Everglades Action Plan

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ust before the July 4 recess, a Senate committee approved a bill that, with some crucial adjustments, could provide the framework for the most ambitious environmental restoration project ever undertaken in the country. The stated purpose of the bill is to restore the historic flows of fresh water that once made the Everglades one of the world's most wondrous and biologically diverse ecosystems. It will cost $8 billion over 20 years, shared by the federal government and Florida, and is the product of seven years of work by the Army Corps of Engineers, the environmental community and the Clinton administration.
Its success so far in the Senate owes much to the two Florida senators, Connie Mack and Bob Graham. But most of the credit belongs to Bob Smith, a New Hampshire conservative whose stewardship of the bill has put to rest fears that he would not be as sympathetic to the Everglades as John Chafee, the reliable environmentalist who preceded him as chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee and who died last year.
But the bill is not a sure thing. What it needs now is a timely and powerful legislative push to get it through an uncertain House of Representatives and onto the president's desk before Washington is overwhelmed by the election campaign. To leave the bill until next year would be to commit it to the uncertain hands of a new Congress and, quite possibly, a new administration far less interested in conservation generally and the Everglades specifically than this one.
Congress owes the Everglades restitution. More than 50 years ago, after back-to-back hurricanes that put much of South Florida under water, Congress ordered the Army Corps to drain a half-million acres south of Lake Okeechobee with a web of levees, canals and pumping stations. The result was to keep Florida's booming east coast free from floods and safe for development, and to create conditions under which the sugar cane industry could flourish. But it robbed the Everglades and Florida Bay of their traditional sources of fresh water, and nearly killed both.
The Clinton administration, with the Senate's help, wants to set things right by recapturing and rerouting most of the 1.7 billion gallons of water that are wastefully flushed out to sea every day in the name of flood control. The bill specifically authorizes over $1 billion for the first 10 of 68 planned projects. Much of this money would be used to construct massive reservoirs to store Florida's copious rainwater that, at least in theory, will be delivered to the natural system through a redesigned network of canals and levees.
The bill needs clarification. From the beginning, the state and the administration have quarreled over who should get most of the newly captured water -- the natural system, Florida's exploding cities, or agriculture. The administration has argued that nature, having been shortchanged for half a century, deserves top billing -- otherwise, why embark on this project at all? Florida, where the developers, the water utilities and sugar interests have great political power, has insisted on doing what it wants to.
The bill says at one point that restoration is its "overarching purpose." Elsewhere, however, it gives urban and agricultural needs equal weight. This is first and foremost a restoration bill, not a water supply bill for the cities and farms, and any ambiguities on this point must be cleared up. The bill should also provide a greater oversight role over the life of the project for the Interior Department, which manages about half the land to be restored.
While making these fixes, the bill's supporters must also focus on building political momentum in the House, where opponents will try to create mischief. One person who could help move things forward is Jeb Bush, Florida's governor. He has promised $200 million, Florida's share of the project's first-year costs. But he has not shown the enthusiasm of his predecessor, Lawton Chiles, who courageously blocked efforts by the agricultural interests to exercise line-by-line veto power over the project through their friends in the state legislature. A more vigorous public commitment on his part would be welcome and might have real influence in the House. At risk is an irreplaceable natural asset that happens to be dying.

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