$300M plan to send polluted water underground unwise

South Florida’s most important public agency may make a big mistake on South Florida’s most important public issue.

That would be water quality. Ironically, the agency is the South Florida Water Management District, which is responsible for flood control and water supply over the southern third of the state. Two weeks ago, the district’s governing board approved what could be a $10 million down payment on a $300-400 million boondoggle.

Lake Okeechobee’s algae crisis has become national news and a key issue in the races for U.S. Senate and governor. Discharges of polluted water have created separate crises – only the most recent – on the southeast and southwest coasts.

As I wrote last week, the priority should be creating a reservoir south of the lake to prevent many of those discharges. The reservoir would clean the water, which then would be sent farther south to help the parched Everglades. The science behind this approach is sound. Federal money toward the project is in next year’s budget.

Yet the district is backing an untested plan to pump water more than half a mile into the ground north, east and west of the lake. Supposedly, these injection wells, which could take 15 million gallons per day, would hold enough water to reduce the harmful discharges.

The $10 million approved this month would pay for two test wells. The district could drill as many as 60. That would mean at least a $300 million program and possibly more.

Everglades Foundation CEO Erik Eikenberg said the district is “chasing a unicorn.” The science is untested. No one knows what will happen to underground rock formations when that much water is pumped down.

Then there’s the cost. “The district is broke,” Eikenberg said. Successive tax cuts under Gov. Rick Scott have drained its finances. This $10 million would come from reserves. Most likely, so would the $300 million.

Yet last May, an inspector general’s report said the district lacked money even for basic maintenance of the flood control system that allows places such as Weston to exist. When a previous executive director warned that the district needed to raise taxes, Scott forced him out.

Last year, Hurricane Harvey camped off the Texas coast and inundated Houston. Florence did the same to the coastal Carolinas. Northeast Florida suffered severe flooding during Matthew in 2016 and Irma last year. Why would the water management district ignore its basic mission for a “unicorn?”

The original Everglades restoration plan depended on drilling 300 wells south of the lake to store and retrieve water. It became apparently quickly that the technology wouldn’t work. A district spokesman said no changes in the $10 million allocation were anticipated during last night’s final budget hearing.

I’m told that the idea for this new well program came from the sugar cane industry, one of Scott’s biggest donors. Scott has appointed all the governing board members. Eleven months ago, they told the staff to develop a plan for these Emergency Estuary Protection Wells.

Though science favors the southern reservoir, sugar growers oppose it because they would lose land. Yet the federal government would pay half the cost. There will be no federal money for the wells.

“If (the district) would just stay focused, we could be diverting water south in a reasonable amount of time,” Eikenberg said. The well program could take between seven and 10 years. So much for an algae emergency.

Eikenberg noted another irony. On the board’s Sept. 13 meeting agenda, the item before the wells dealt with water supply. Near-drought conditions had prevailed before last spring’s drenchings.

Drought will come again. Yet the district wants to pump billions of gallons of water where it won’t benefit the public or the Everglades.

But this is the recurring story of the water management district under climate change-denier Rick Scott. He has misused it for political reasons and diminished an agency where many talented people still believe in the mission.

Scott’s successor will appoint five of the nine board members in his first two years. The sugar industry lost its big bet on Adam Putnam, so the next governor could choose a majority free of industry influence.

Right until the Legislature approved that southern reservoir, the water management district opposed it. Through their appointments, DeSantis or Gillum can stop this boondoggle before the damage is done.