Will Washington keep its word on Everglades restoration plan?

South Florida has had record recent rainfall. Lake Okeechobee is rising. The Army Corps of Engineers is releasing water. Trouble could be coming for estuaries on both coasts and the Everglades.

Worse, there’s trouble with the plan to prevent this regular environmental and economic damage.

Last year, the Legislature approved a reservoir south of the lake. It would receive and store water that now goes east and west, into the St. Lucie River and farther into the Indian River Lagoon on this coast.

Discharges last pounded the estuary in 2016, but it’s happened regularly for two decades. Canals turn green. A brown plume spews from the St. Lucie Inlet into the ocean. Current conditions don’t match 2016, so luck may hold.

For years, conservation groups had urged creation of a southern reservoir to mimic the historic flow of water. Yet it took a Florida Senate president from the Treasure Coast — Joe Negron — to get the reservoir through the Legislature. Sugar growers opposed it and got the size reduced.

Still, the South Florida Water Management District was moving ahead. The state would pay half of the reservoir’s $1.4 billion cost and the federal government would pay the other half. That 50-50 split — the state buys land, the feds build projects — has been the arrangement since Congress approved the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan in 2000.

Then on May 30 the district got a letter from Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works R.D. James. The Corps of Engineers had reviewed the reservoir, James said, and concluded that the project is “feasible.” James added, “I. . .recognize the importance of this project to the restoration of the Everglades system.”

In its review, however, the Corps expressed “significant concerns” about cost, safety and water quality. The review noted “a high risk” that the benefits of the reservoir “might not be achieved.”

Two days later, the district’s board chairman and executive director responded. In a letter to James, Federico Fernandez and Ernie Marks said, “With the trained eye of restoration veterans — who live in the communities directly affected by Lake Okeechobee discharges and South Florida restoration efforts — the assessment by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers staff that accompanies the feasibility determination seemingly undermines the project.”

The Corps even questions the science behind the reservoir. “It is unclear,” the review said, “that the additional flows of water diverted from the Northern Everglades are essential to restoration of the Central Everglades.” The reservoir is part of the Central Everglades Planning Project.

Though South Florida gets a lot of rain, the Everglades has been starved of fresh water for decades. Accommodating farms disrupts the natural flow. The reservoir would enable the Everglades to get more water and get it at the right time.

Meanwhile, discharges to the east and west would decline and perhaps end. Martin County businesses that depend on clean water would not suffer. Sportfishing in Florida Bay, at the end of the Everglades system, would get even better.

Fernandez and Marks made this point to James. “Water wasted to tide in the Northern Everglades,” they wrote, “is THE water needed to restore the quantity, quality, timing and distribution of water within the Everglades system.” Fernandez and Mark fear that the Corps wants to “walk away from 18 years of congressional commitment to restore America’s Everglades.”

The water management district may have contributed to this potential problem. Under Marks’ predecessor, the district opposed the reservoir and regularly issued news releases supporting the sugar industry’s resistance and slamming conservation groups.

Fortunately, that attitude has shifted. Perhaps, though, damage lingers. The review notes that the reservoir wasn’t in the original Central Everglades plan. Or perhaps the Corps of Engineers just doesn’t want to continue its commitment.

Whatever the reason, the review is a warning. The district board meets this week. The report has gone from James’ office to the Office of Management and Budget. A district spokesman said OMB would decide whether to include the reservoir in this year’s Water Resources Development Act of 2018 for congressional consideration.

Failure to include the reservoir in that legislation could delay the project for two years. Since OMB is part of the White House, Gov. Rick Scott should lobby his “friend” President Trump and seek support from the state’s congressional delegation. Science supports the reservoir. So should Washington.

Email Randy Schultz: randy@bocamag.com