’Glades projects pitched

Advocates cite importance to water supply

Everglades advocates on Friday released a four-year, environmental to-do list for President-elect Donald Trump, aimed at reducing water pollution while boosting South Florida drinking water supplies.

At the top of the Everglades Coalition list is building a disputed $2.4 billion reservoir south of Lake Okeechobee.

Also on the list is getting the federal government to help pay for the $2 billion Central Everglades plan, which aims to move more water south to Everglades National Park. Congress approved the project last year, but hasn’t provided the money to get started.

The coalition of 62 environmental groups, meeting in Fort Myers this weekend, maintains that paying for more projects to store and clean up water needed to replenish the Everglades helps more than just alligators, eagles and Florida panthers.

Work to revive the Everglades can also bolster South Florida drinking-water supplies, improve flood control and protect waterways vital to Florida tourism.

Those should be priorities no matter whether it’s a Democrat or a Republican in the White House, according to the coalition.

“Florida is in a serious water crisis that is ongoing,” said Cara Capp, co-chair of the Everglades Coalition. “Representation of the Everglades is a bipartisan issue.”

After a year with toxic algae blooms along Florida’s coast fueled by Lake Okeechobee drainage problems, Everglades restoration can’t afford a drop-off in the support it had during President Barack Obama’s eight years in office, according to coalition member Sarah Heard.

“We all need to expect and demand that kind of inspired advocacy from the incoming administration,” said Heard, a Republican Martin County commissioner.

The Everglades suffers from decades of drainage and pollution, caused by development and farming overtaking the famed River of Grass.

A long-term state and federal Everglades restoration plan calls for spending $16 billion on reservoirs, treatment areas and other improvements aimed at cleaning pollution from rain water that drains off farms and urban areas. The goal is to send more of that water to the Everglades, instead of dumping it out sea.

Delays in state and federal funding, legal fights and other hurdles have slowed Everglades restoration efforts through the years.

The Everglades Coalition’s four-year plan unveiled Friday suggests dozens of ways for Trump and state leaders to jump-start Everglades restoration. The suggestions include: speeding up repairs to Lake Okeechobee’s shaky dike,

raising more sections of Tamiami Trail to avoid blocking water flows to Everglades National Park,

Delivering at least $400 million a year in combined federal and state funding for Everglades restoration.

The $2 billion sought for the Central Everglades plan would pay for removing portions of South Florida levees, filling in canals and increasing pumping to redirect more Lake Okeechobee water south toward Everglades National Park.

The state and federal government would share the cost.

The reservoir at the top of the Everglades Coalition’s to-do list already faces stiff opposition.

State Senate President Joe Negron has proposed building the reservoir on 60,000 acres of South Florida farmland, with the state and federal government splitting the cost.

Negron is pushing for that reservoir as a way to hold lake water now drained east and west, with damaging consequences on coastal waterways.

Pollution from that draining spawned toxic algae blooms in waterfront communities Negron represents, making waterways unsafe for fishing and swimming and scaring away tourists.

The influential sugar industry and agricultural communities south of the lake have objected to sacrificing farmland for the proposed reservoir. Critics say it won’t be able to hold enough water to avoid draining lake water east and west.

Instead of building a reservoir south of the lake, Gov. Rick Scott and the South Florida Water Management District, which leads Everglades restoration, have prioritized projects to store water north of Lake Okeechobee.

Yet adding a reservoir in the Everglades Agricultural Area, south of Lake Okeechobee, has long been envisioned by the state and federal Everglades restoration plan. The current schedule wouldn’t start planning and design work on that reservoir until 2021.

That’s too long to wait to create an alternative outlet for Lake Okeechobee’s water, said Capp, who heads the Everglades Coalition.

“It’s beyond time to get his project off the ground,” Capp said. “We have the opportunity now.”

While campaigning in South Florida, Trump told voters he supported protecting the Everglades and fixing Lake Okeechobee’s aging dike.

Everglades Coalition leaders on Friday said their Everglades funding sales pitch to Trump’s administration will emphasize the economic benefits of building reservoirs and other infrastructure.

That help for the environment also creates construction jobs and protecting waterways vital to businesses tied to tourism.

“We have got to think about who we are talking to,” said Debbie Weatherly, who works in Washington, D.C., for the Everglades Trust.