By The Miami Herald Editorial
HeraldEd@MiamiHerald.com
As the Florida Legislature prepares to grapple with another tight budget year, and leaders vow to continue to build an appealing pro-business environment that reduces costs for businesses to generate more jobs, there’s one jobs creator being virtually ignored that stretches from Kissimmee near Walt Disney World to the Florida Keys: the Everglades.
Cleaning up Florida’s fabled River of Grass after decades of abuse from polluted rainwater runoff draining from area farms, homes and businesses into the ’Glades ecosystem is not only necessary but economically desirable. The 27th annual Everglades Coalition conference underway this week appropriately titled its meeting: “Everglades Restoration: Worth Every Penny.”
The numbers tell why.
Just in the past three years, in the midst of a recession, Everglades restoration projects — whether they redirect canals or elevate roadways or make other needed environmental fixes — have generated 10,500 jobs. Add to that the spin-off of tourism, recreational fishing and other ventures and as many as 442,000 jobs will materialize in the next decades, according to the coalition.
Building the bridge on the Tamiami Trail, which will help restore water flows to the river, is putting 1,212 people to work.
Even as Florida struggles to balance its budget for the coming year, Gov. Rick Scott and the Legislature have to see why the Everglades is not only a water source for agriculture and drinking water for one in three Floridians — the major water source, in fact, for South Florida residents — but also a boon for business.
This is, after all, an international treasure, a rare river that’s more grass than water to the eye, 100 miles long and 60 miles wide, where tourists near and far come to watch flocking birds and gator brawls.
The Everglades ecosystem isn’t some isolated sore spot. It runs from central Florida’s Kissimmee Chain of Lakes into Lake Okeechobee (our water supply) and through the River of Grass, out to Florida Bay and the Keys. Hundreds of thousands of jobs already depend on it.
Visitors to Everglades National Park spend about $165 million a year. And the jobs created by restoration projects pay well, too. Hydrologists, engineers, geologists, surveyors — those are the kinds of jobs Florida should want to keep.