Federal Everglades reservoir assessment is a ‘Trojan horse’

The federal government recently endorsed the South Florida Water Management District’s plan to build the Everglades Agricultural Area Storage Reservoir, a project promised to Floridians by state law.

While the assistant secretary of the Army for Civil Works (ASA) determined that the project was feasible, contained within the almost 90-page assessment is contradictory language that calls for an end to federal funding of Everglades restoration projects. This assessment is a modern-day Trojan horse.

Hiding in plain sight within the assessment’s text, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) lays the groundwork to bail out on nearly two decades of restoration partnership with the state: “Finally, due to previous direction from the ASA office and USACE policy guidance, USACE was directed not to cost share on any water quality projects or features associated with restoration/ water resource projects for Lake Okeechobee. Since the water for this project’s reservoir is coming from Lake Okeechobee, cost sharing for water quality functions/ features under current guidance is prohibited.”

Therein lies the rub. The actual federal review assessment was conducted by members of the Corps headquarters team in Washington. In their comment section, attached separately from the ASA’s letter, paragraphs like this go into painstaking detail to lay the foundation for not funding this project or future Everglades restoration projects. The assessment is crafted artfully to look like an endorsement to further Florida’s EAA Storage Reservoir project but, in reality, it seeks to set up a flawed precedent for allowing the Corps to back out of funding its share of the reservoir’s costs.

Sadly, despite Congress’ willingness to share the costs of other restoration projects with the state in the past as evidenced by nearly 20 years of cost-sharing on the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, Corps officials appear to be walking away from that commitment. Disturbingly, the Corps even questions the need to divert flows of water from the northern estuaries south to the Everglades apparently content with destroying our northern estuaries with continual flood releases.

We have done our part and will continue to do our part. It is now the job of the federal government and every member of the U.S. Congress to do their part and commit to sharing the cost of this reservoir.

JIM MORAN, WEST PALM BEACH Editor’s note: Jim Moran is a Governing Board member of the South Florida Water Management District.