Key West The Newspaper

Identifies Step-by-Step Measures for Next President, Federal and State Legislators

STUART, Fla.— The Everglades Foundation today unveiled “It’s Now or Neverglades,” a step-by-step roadmap for state and federal officials to move forward with the 16-year-old plan to alleviate toxic discharges into the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie rivers and increase water flows into the Everglades and Florida Bay.

The 12-page booklet, which is available for download (http://www.evergladesfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Booklet-The-Everglades-Foundation-Web.pdf) provides an overview of the water crisis that has enveloped both Florida coasts with toxic blue-green algae and worsening drought conditions in South Florida and America’s Everglades.

“Nearly two-thirds of the freshwater that once flowed into Florida Bay is now, instead, dammed and drained off into irrigation canals, with much of it now being discharged to the east and west before it ever gets beyond Lake Okeechobee,” reads the report. The unfolding crisis is “jeopardizing our quality of life, our jobs, even the water we drink.”

“We know the solution to this crisis,” the report notes. “Hundreds of scientists and water experts have for decades all prescribed greater water storage to hold the excess lake water so it can be cleansed and gradually sent south.”

At the state level, the report recommends approval of a proposal to be introduced by incoming Senate President Joe Negron (R-Stuart) to acquire approximately 60,000 acres in the Everglades Agricultural Area south of Lake Okeechobee for construction of a water storage reservoir.

The EAA reservoir was identified 16 years ago in the bipartisan Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, the joint federal-state masterplan to revive the world’s most famous wetland and alleviate the need for freshwater discharges. Of the 68 projects outlined in the Plan, the EAA reservoir was identified as one of the two most critical to the overall success. In bipartisan legislation signed by President Bill Clinton in 2000, the federal government is committed to paying 50 percent of the cost.

Nevertheless, as the report notes, “the project is at a standstill” and the South Florida Water Management District has actually deferred planning for the reservoir until 2021. The Foundation’s Agenda recommends expediting the process: “five more years of inaction is not acceptable,” it says.

“We are in the midst of an ongoing environmental disaster marked by toxic algae outbreaks during the wet season and worsening droughts in the dry months,” said Eric Eikenberg, the Foundation’s CEO. “Scientists have known the solution for decades, and, thanks to the voters’ overwhelming support for the Florida Land and Water Conservation Amendment in 2014, ample funds are available to implement it.”

“All that is lacking is the political will and a specific roadmap for policymakers to bring the solution to life. Our #NowOrNeverglades Bus Tour will help provide the political will, and this Agenda gives decisionmakers and policymakers the roadmap.”