Sister to Sister: Everglades reservoir what Dad fought for
The Everglades continues to need champions right now, not bad politics as usual or irrelevant distractions.
It appears that Big Sugar and its highly paid public-relations firm are conducting business as usual by trying to distract and capitalize on family dynamics rather than address the issue of greater importance, which is, and always has been, the restoration of the Everglades.
I am the youngest daughter of George McKim Barley, and I am writing this in response to a guest column written by my sister Catherine Barley Albertini, in which she states that our father would be opposed to the restoration plan that has been worked on diligently by people who were chosen because they were like-minded to my fathers’ vision (“Everglades leaders straying far from her late father’s dream,” Orlando Sentinel, Sunday).
My stepmother, Mary Barley, has devoted her life to this cause after my father’s passing and regardless of anything that goes on in families, I am confident that she, along with Paul Tudor Jones and many others, have maintained his original vision and have even made it bigger and stronger, never wavering.
The column suggested my father “would never support” the reservoir south of Lake Okeechobee that has been proposed by Senate President Joe Negron. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, this reservoir is exactly what my father worked for, and it’s one that I fully support.
The column published in the Orlando Sentinel, which has since been circulated by the sugar industry’s British-owned public-relations firm, parroted the talking points of the very industry that polluted the Everglades and is now opposing the reservoir – just as it has fought virtually every effort to clean up its own mess. This latest stunt is just more smoke and mirrors and more stalling.
The fact that two-thirds of the fresh water that once flowed into Florida Bay had been siphoned off, killing seagrass and the wonderful species of sport fish that spawned and fed on it, was heartbreaking to my father. He believed the discharges of excess, polluted storm water into our coastal waterways was a crime against nature.
Those new to Florida might be tempted to think these discharges and the algae outbreaks they cause along both of Florida’s central coasts are a new thing, but sadly, they are not.
For decades, the Army Corps of Engineers has been forced to discharge billions of gallons of polluted Lake Okeechobee water into the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie rivers and estuaries. This has tremendously upset the delicate balance of saltwater and fresh water, causing the recent and tragic outbreaks of algae that are toxic to wildlife and humans alike.
My father fought with every ounce of his formidable energy to end this wasteful and destructive practice. He knew the health of the Everglades and his beloved Florida Bay depended on restoring the natural southerly flow of clean fresh water. The practice of channeling water and flushing the excess out to sea to accommodate Big Sugar has to stop and the Everglades Agricultural Area reservoir is critical to replace this reckless and damaging practice.
At the time of my father’s premature and untimely death, he was working both in Washington and Tallahassee to ensure passage of the legislation that ultimately became known as the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan. Due in large part to my father’s own efforts, the second project identified in CERP legislation – out of 68 projects – was the very southern reservoir that the Florida Legislature is now about to approve.
The legislation my dad worked so hard to pass envisioned massive increases in water storage on all sides of Lake Okeechobee, primarily in the South. The sustainability and preservation of the water supply for 8 million people in South Florida can be accomplished through this, as well as the restoration of the Everglades and Florida Bay.
To the south of the reservoir, the plan projected the construction of man-made wetlands that would clean the water before being released into the Everglades and Florida Bay.
Today, those wetlands are nearing completion, and I know my father would be so happy to see that this is being accomplished.
This is only phase one, though. It is now imperative that we proceed with the reservoir that will make this a reality. The southern reservoir in the EAA will be the completion of the journey that my father so voraciously and courageously fought for. And he fought so hard for it because he knew it was the right plan.
I did not pen this opinion for my stepmother and the Everglades Foundation or against my sister, but because I know it’s what my dad would have wanted.