SAFER

(First in a series of position papers defining SAFER’s stance on issues of concern in the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan)

SAFER and Everglades National Park

SAFER is extremely concerned regarding the restoration requirements of Everglades National Park (ENP) under the auspices of the Modified Water Delivery to Everglades National Park Plan. The issue of most concern for us right now, is ENP’s insistence on that part of MOD Waters which proposes the backfilling of more than half of the L-67C Canal in Water Conservation Area 3. In tandem with the L-67A Canal, this canal constitutes one of the finest bass fisheries in the state of Florida. Filling in any portion of these canals, given the size and draft of modern bass boats, would, for all intents and purposes, close the WCA off to recreational fisherman. We feel very positively, that our needs (maintaining the canals open to boat traffic for their entire length), are not inimical to the overall scope of Everglades Restoration, and that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and recreational fishermen can work together for the benefit of all concerned. I wish we could say the same for the other Federal agencies involved in the Restoration process. We have found, in past dealings with ENP, the National Park Service, and the Department of the Interior, that they view the restoration of ENP as the end all and be all, of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Project. And damn everything and everyone else. We have reviewed the Water Resources Development Act of 2000 (WRDA), and quite frankly, we don’t understand how ENP ended up with so much power, so much say, over the CERP process.

When Congress approved the Water Resources Development Act of 2000, it authorized the Secretary of the Army to “modify the Central and Southern Florida Project to restore, preserve and protect the South Florida ecosystem.” The Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan defines the “South Florida ecosystem as those “lands and waters within the boundary, existing on July 1, 1999, of the South Florida Water Management District, including the Everglades ecosystem, the Florida Keys, Biscayne Bay, Florida Bay, and other contiguous near-shore coastal waters of South Florida.” Everglades National Park, though part of the “natural system,” is not even mentioned by name. It merely takes its place alongside Biscayne National Park, Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, Big Cypress National Preserve, Ten Thousand Islands National Wildlife Refuge, and Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge, as one of the beneficiaries of the many components of CERP.

No one disputes the fact that Everglades National Park is a park whose habitat is in major decline, and that much of the blame can be placed on the levees and canals that were dug as part of the Central and South Florida Project (C&SFP). The unnatural alterations to the land produced results that were to prove disastrous to ENP. By the late 1980’s, it was apparent to everyone that ENP needed help. To that end, legislation was authorized, and the Modified Waters Delivery to Everglades National Park bill was passed into law in 1992. Theoretically, MOD Waters was intended to restore the historic sheetflow of the Everglades, by reconnecting the Water Conservation Areas north of the Tamiami Trail, to North Shark River Slough, which lies to the south of the roadway. A series of proposals by the Corps of Engineers provided increased water flow to the slough and then down into Everglades National Park. It quickly became bogged down in all kinds of controversies, including a heated debate over the most expensive of the proposals, the construction of an elevated, 11-mile bridge, costing over $130 million, which was clearly outside the budgetary parameters of MOD Waters. And yet, the idea refused to die. “Scientist from various agencies,” said Frank Jackalone, director of the Florida Sierra Club, “have told the Corps that Everglades restoration will not take place without raising the road.” (Miami Herald, 6/23/01). ENP swallowed this hook, line and sinker. “I think it’s the pivotal piece for restoration in South Florida,” said David Sikkema, a hydrologist for the Park. And because ENP was picking up a good portion of the financial cost of the work to be done under MOD Waters, it became gospel. As did the theory that in order to restore the Everglades, we had to return the Glades to their pre-C&SFP days, that is, degrade the levees, and back-fill the canals. “At a recent meeting,” writes Kim Taplin, project director for the South Florida components of CERP, “Everglades National Park staff seem to view the back-filling as not just a way to dispose of the levee material, but as a necessary component of Everglades restoration.”

But more than the park’s habitat was in decline during this time period, for the park’s infrastructure was also in a state of decay. “Environmentalists tend to ignore it,” wrote Curtis Morgan, a reporter for the Miami Herald, who has been reporting on developments in the ongoing saga of Everglades Restoration for the past year, “but tourist numbers have plunged since 1972, flattening out over the last decade at about 1 million annually….Park surveys also show about half those people barely pass through, spending less than four hours; about the time it takes to drive to the closest attraction, the Anhinga Trail, stroll the half-mile boardwalk, snap some pictures, buy some postcards and drive out.” (Miami Herald, 1/1/02). Only 1 out of 5 visitors to the park returns for a second visit, and of these only a handful are residents of Florida. It is a classic example of you’ve seen it once, you’ve seen it all. “It’s beautiful,” said visitor Brian Grayson, “We’ve seen the sawgrass and the alligators and that’s about I, right?” That’s about it, agrees Jesse Kennon, the owner of the Coopertown airboat rides on the Tamiami Trail.  “So many people go there and find there’s not much to do,” he says. “It’s along boring ride down an asphalt road to Flamingo.” At the end of the road is a decrepit old hotel built in the 1950’s, constantly plagued by water and electrical problems, and the source of most of the park’s complaints. Even the park’s superintendent, Maureen Finnerty agrees, stating, “It basically needs an entire overhaul. Flamingo is very shabby. It’s almost past the point where you can do much about it.” The National Park Service, and Everglades National Park, would like to have you believe that the declining attendance is tied to the decline in the health of the Everglades habitat within the park’s borders. That, they claim, is more than enough reason to ram through the park’s vision of Everglade’s restoration.