Progress on Everglades plan starts to yield results

This month, Floridians mark 20 years since Congress approved a federal-state framework to guide our efforts to restore the Everglades, a framework known as the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, or CERP.

Unfortunately, in the early years, each CERP project required congressional approval, which meant initial progresswas slow. As a result, headlines like the 2008 Sun Sentinel story “Red tape, lack of money stall Everglade swork” regularly appeared on our doorsteps.

That changed in 2016, aftermy good friend and then-chairman of the Senate Committee on Environmental and Public Works, Sen. James Inhofe (R- OK), became a proponent of Everglades restoration. In an op-ed supporting a package of CERP projects called the Central Everglades Planning Project (CEPP), Inhofe wrote, “[m]y opposition to this important project has since changed, largely in part tomy friend and colleague Sen. Marco Rubio.”

Securing passage of CEPP greenlit new projects in support of restoration goals and allowed us to make real progress over the past several years. Once complete, these components will be critical tools for directing more clean water south to the central Everglades, Everglades National Park, and ultimately, Florida Bay, where it’s desperately needed.

Of course, there are no permanent victories in Washington. Every year, we must fight for continued support and funding for these critical projects.

In 2018, Congress improved the CEPP and approved construction of the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA) Storage Reservoir. Not only will the reservoir assist with the distribution of clean water to Everglades National Park, it will also minimize the threat that harmful discharges from Lake Okeechobee pose to our coastal communities.

Breakthroughs have also extended to the Tamiami Trail project, where we have succeeded in raising miles of road to allow water to flow freely, reducing disruption to the ecosystem. This is a project 30 years in the making, and it is finally coming to fruition. We are making serious progress in Picayune Strand State Forest, where an ill-fated 1950s development project destroyed the natural ecosystem by filling in wetlands, logging upland forest, digging ditches, and placing down a patchwork of roads. The project is expected to be finished by 2024, reviving the area’s wetlands, and restoring estuarine conditions to the Ten Thousand Islands National Wildlife Refuge.

Beyond CERP’s formal scope, there’s much reason for optimism when it comes to environmental clean-up in the Everglades and in our coastal communities.

In 2017 and 2018, I worked to expedite and secure full funding for the Herbert Hoover Dike renovation, which is on track to be completed in 2022. Reinforcing the dike will provide additional flexibility towater managers, and help prevent harmful discharges to the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie rivers.

And the Kissimmee River Restoration Project is nearly complete. This project is designed to restore the flow of the river along its natural path and replenish nearly 20,000 acres of wetlands along the river’s floodplain to remove excess nutrients before waters empty into Lake Okeechobee. This will greatly help in healing the greater Everglades system.

Ifwe can continue this momentum, we will realize our long-sought goal of restoring, preserving and protecting south Florida’s singular ecosystem while equitably and effectively managing our region’s water resources. However, we’re not there yet.

The Florida congressional delegation secured a record $250 million for South Florida ecosystem restoration this year, andwe will need to fight for additional funds each and every year as new projects come online.

Congress also needs to pass a new Water Resources Development Act to authorize the Loxahatchee River Watershed Restoration Project, allowthe completion of the Caloosahatchee Storage Reservoir, support progress on the South Dade project, and fight the threat of invasive species.

We also need this bill to correct the errors made by the Army Corps of Engineers, which decided the EAA Reservoir project must pass through additional bureaucratic obstacles before construction can commence. As this year ends, I am fighting to reiterate Congress’ intent for this critical project and allow construction to begin without delay.

The tasks ahead are substantial, but the goal is too important to stop fighting. Make no mistake: After decades of delay, Everglades restoration is starting to yield real results.

ByMarco Rubio