Army Corps Alters Strategy on Everglades Restoration

Emphasis put on completing small projects to ease doubts

By William E. Gibson | Washington Bureau Chief

December 5, 2007

WASHINGTON - The Army Corps of Engineers has revised its plan for Everglades restoration to show quick results and help persuade Congress to pay for the project over several decades. By completing relatively quick-hit projects — plugging canals and building reservoirs — the Army Corps wants to show skeptics the multibillion-dollar plumbing job can work. The incremental approach is designed to overcome growing doubts about securing federal funds for the long-term revival of the Everglades.

Army Corps leaders plan to outline their revised strategy when they meet today in Miami with the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Task Force. The gathering comes at a potential turning point in the long, turbulent history of restoration plans. "We need to really go after these projects in a way that gets maximum benefits earlier. We've got to get more bang for our buck, and this is the way to do it," said Paul Grosskruger, commander of the Army Corps' Jacksonville district. "When you get some immediate benefits, it creates momentum with the public and gets people excited at the federal level."

Preliminary work, mostly funded by state and local taxpayers, is under way to clear a path for the first construction projects of an Everglades restoration plan approved by Congress in 2000. The federal government pledged to cover half the cost, with the state government and local communities paying the other half. Since that euphoric moment, the restoration cause has been bogged down by long delays in federal funding. Federal deficits, billions spent on the Iraq war and controversy over water projects in other states have slowed approval of funding for the Everglades. The tight fiscal environment and huge increases in the cost of construction and of buying land in South Florida have raised doubts about the restoration plan, now projected to cost almost $20 billion over three decades.

"We are competing for scarce dollars," said Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Miami, whose district includes much of the Everglades. "I'm not willing to scale back. But we have to get some major projects done and show results. Once we get that, I'm relatively confident that we can continue to win this battle." Congress passed a water-projects bill last month that revived enthusiasm for the restoration plan. It took more than five years of wrangling in Washington and a vote to override President Bush's veto.

But at long last, a bill was passed authorizing Congress to spend money on projects around the country, including about $1.8 billion for the first restoration construction projects in the Everglades. Now Florida members must seek yearly appropriations to actually get that money.

Looking beyond these initial hurdles, they face many years of going through the same daunting two-step process of authorizations and appropriations. Congress this month will consider the Bush administration's request to spend about $243 million for the Everglades before October 2008, mostly for preliminary work leading to construction. Bush is expected to seek a much larger amount, about $371 million, to begin construction in the 12 months after that.

The work would include plugging canals that run from Lake Okeechobee south to Miami and into the New River in Fort Lauderdale. One of the first projects would restore the Indian River Lagoon by capturing fresh water that flows out of Lake Okeechobee, creating storage areas for drinking water and spreading much of the rest into the Everglades to nurture wildlife. Another project on the western edge of the Everglades in Collier County would remove roads and plug canals to spread water across a wide area to replenish wetlands habitat. The revised Army Corps strategy would not change this concept, but would break the work down into smaller pieces. The idea is to complete the first few projects, learn from them and apply the lessons elsewhere.

Broward County officials are pushing Congress to include in its next water bill money to create a preservation area that would keep clean water from draining out of the Everglades and polluted water from entering from the neighborhoods of west Broward. The plan would include greenways where people could walk and bike through parts of the marsh.

"It's a big disappointment to us that this did not go forward" in this year's water bill, said Patti Webster, environmental project coordinator for the county. Despite the fiscal pressures and delays, all parties to the fragile restoration coalition of federal, state, local, environmental and Native American leaders remain on board.

"We've made a lot of progress over seven years, but not as much as we dreamed in 2000," said April Gromnicki, director of ecosystem restoration at Audubon. "The political will is still there, and the social imperative is there. It's still necessary to save America's Everglades."