Environmental Intersection by George Lindemann

Peace may finally be at hand in the decades-long Everglades dirty-water war.

Eight months after Gov. Rick Scott flew to Washington to extend a political olive branch and personally pitch Florida’s latest plan for stopping the flow of polluted farm, ranch and yard runoff into the Everglades, state and federal negotiators are on the verge of an accord expected to be hailed by both sides as a major milestone.

A settlement crafted with the goal of resolving two protracted and paralyzing federal lawsuits — one goes back almost a quarter century, the other eight years — could be soon finalized, possibly within the month, according to officials on both sides of the confidential negotiations.

The agreement would commit Florida to a significantly expanded slate of Everglades restoration projects pegged at an estimated $890 million. Still, that’s a considerably smaller price tag than a $1.5 billion plan drawn up by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that a Miami federal judge has threatened to impose.

Most key technical issues — such as the size of additional artificial marshes used to scrub dirty, nutrient-laced storm runoff that has poisoned vast swaths of the Everglades — have been largely sorted out. But both sides cautioned the deal could still be delayed as negotiators work through the nuts and bolts of rolling out, implementing and enforcing a complex and likely controversial agreement.

Environmental groups and sugar growers have heard increasingly encouraging reports from negotiators over the past few months, though they have not been briefed on key details. But they agree the new cleanup blueprint that emerges will stand as a landmark in the costly, contentious legal and political battles to revive the struggling, shrunken River of Grass.

“It would be huge for everyone,’’ said Gaston Cantens, a vice president for Florida Crystals, one of the region’s largest sugar growers. “For a business, whenever you can have stability and certainty, then you can make long-term plans with confidence.’’

Environmentalists are reserving judgment, with some bracing for a deal they fear will be a compromise that might fall short of providing the Glades the pristine fresh water it needs and will push cleanup deadlines, already repeatedly delayed, back by years.

David Guest, an attorney for EarthJustice who represents several environmental groups in a 24-year-old lawsuit brought by the federal government that first forced Florida to deal with Glades pollution, said he has heard enough about the framework of the deal to know he’ll find plenty to question.

But even Guest acknowledges, “It’s absolutely going to be progress, there is no doubt about that.”

The South Florida Water Management District, which oversees restoration projects for the state, responded to questions with a statement, saying the state plan was “scientifically sound, economically feasible and would bring about long-term protection for America’s Everglades.’’

“We’ve had productive dialogue with our federal partners and have made significant progress toward an agreed-upon approach. However, there are some outstanding issues that are important to Florida.” For both the Obama and Scott administrations, finalizing a major Everglades deal would represent a political win and a rare example of bipartisan cooperation. It would be particularly notable for the governor, a tea party-backed, anti-regulation Republican healthcare executive who infuriated environmentalists in his first year in office by slashing environmental programs and gutting much of the state’s grown management oversight.

With the state facing the threat that U.S. District Judge Alan Gold would impose the $1.5 billion EPA cleanup plan on the state, Scott last October flew to Washington to pitch Florida’s alternative plan, meeting with high-ranking White House officials, including Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson.

He has continued campaigning since, in meetings and letters, including a Feb. 1 letter to President Barack Obama discussing encouraging settlement talks and stressing a message repeated in a state court brief filed this month requesting more time for negotiations: that the state’s time and taxpayer’s money would be better spent on projects than “pointless, expensive and time-consuming litigation.’’

In an April 5 response to Scott, EPA administrator Jackson echoed the upbeat tone, noting “we share a common desire to take advantage of the opportunity in front of us for quick, historic progress towards clean water for the Everglades.’’

Though four federal agencies initially found the state’s plan inadequate, the state has made a number of tweaks and additions during negotiations, officials said, adding some 8,400 more acres of treatment marshes — still far less than the 42,000 additional acres the EPA had proposed. In addition, the state plan calls for expanded water storage in a string of new “flow equalization basins’’ intended to keep the marshes more effective by limiting flooding or damaging dry-downs.

To save money, land swaps are being considered and water managers also intend to convert a massive reservoir that water managers halted two years and $272 million into construction in 2008 would be turned into one of new, shallower basins.

The nearly $900 million in projects would add to the $1.8 billion the state has already spent to construct a 45,000 acres of existing marshes, with an additional 11,000 acres scheduled to come online later this year. But that massive network hasn’t been enough to meet the super-low standards needed to protect the sensitive Glades ecosystem from phosphorous, a common fertilizer ingredient that drains off farms and yards with every rainstorm. It fuels the spread of cat tails and other exotics that crowd out native plants.

Though Scott has earned praise from some environmentalists, Guest, the EarthJustice attorney, isn’t among them, arguing the governor didn’t lead so much as he was pushed by courtroom defeats and mounting pressure from two federal judges.

Gold, in a 2004 suit brought by the Miccosukee Tribe and the environmental group Friends of the Everglades, has issued a series of rulings blasting the state and federal agencies for “glacial delay’’ and repeatedly failing to enforce water-pollution standards tough enough to protect the Everglades. In 2010, he ordered the EPA to draw up a cleanup plan that water managers said they couldn’t afford.

U.S. District Judge Federico Moreno, who oversees the original 1988 cleanup suit by the federal government, has expressed similar frustrations and urged both sides to come up with a viable plan.

Barbara Miedema, vice president of the Belle Glade-based Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative, said she expects it will still take a while to nail down the deal. With multiple federal and state agencies, more than a half-dozen environmental groups, the Miccosukee Tribe and two federal judges involved, there are numerous legal, practical and political hurdles to clear, she said.

“We hear they are close, but we have been hearing they are close for months,’’ she said. “A lot of signs say it’s likely. I’m not betting on it.’’

BY CURTIS MORGAN

CMORGAN@MIAMIHERALD.COM

Though the previous washed-out weekend might have suggested otherwise, South Florida’s rainy season has not yet begun — at least officially.

But when it does start sometime this month, expect it to be a bit wetter than normal, forecasters and water managers said Thursday.

South Florida’s wet season, which usually begins around May 20 and runs until mid-October, typically produces about 70 percent of the regional rainfall. Those five months help keep the Everglades healthy and water supplies recharged or — if the rains don’t show — produce droughts that kill crops and lawns.

Robert Molleda, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Miami office, said a number of indicators, including the easing of the global La Niña weather pattern, point to a wetter season into June. The remaining months appear likely to be close to average.

With the region still showing lingering effects from an unusually dry fall and winter, a bit more rain would help, said Susan Sylvester, chief of water control operations for the South Florida Water Management District, which oversees the water supply for 7.7 million people from Orlando to Key West.

Above-average April rainfall, much of it delivered last weekend, helped Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties but only provided a bit of recharge for Lake Okeechobee, which serves as the region’s water barrel.

Overall, the 16-county district’s rainfall deficit since November is about 5.5 inches. Lake Okeechobee was at 11.63 feet above sea level Thursday, about two feet below its average mark for the date.

The typical wet season produces about 35 inches of rain but one tropical storm or hurricane can easily push the figure higher.

 

The deal struck by Miami-Dade County and state and federal agencies with environmentalists to proceed with the “Deep Dredge” project — instrumental for PortMiami’s growth and this area’s economic future — is a victory for Biscayne Bay’s sea life and every resident and visitor to our area.

It allows the port to keep to the dredge schedule so that it will be ready by 2014 to receive new super-sized cargo ships coming through the Panama Canal that need 50-feet deep waters to dock in Miami. How the agreement was reached was not ideal, however.

Environmentalists’ appeals were rushed within a 30-day deadline imposed by Tallahassee legislators and supported by county officials. Tropical Audobon Society, commercial fishermen and other groups concerned that the drilling blasts would destroy coral, kill sea life and muck up the bay’s pristine turquoise waters agreed to drop an administrative challenge if the county provided $2.3 million more than previously budgeted for restoration and monitoring projects that will save or restore corals, sea grass beds and other sealife.

As Laura Reynolds, executive director of the Tropical Audubon Society, noted, the deal “raised the bar” for environmental protection.

The Army Corps of Engineers, meanwhile, has experience in the bay, having successfully dredged there before. That bodes well for Biscayne Bay’s marine life, including turtles, dolphin and snook as the agreement limits the time frame of the blasts to better protect fish during times of day (dawn and dusk) when they become more active. It also bans blasting along the northern jetty of Government Cut during snook spawning season.

About eight acres of sea grass beds and seven acres of reefs (most at the entrance of the channel) will be lost to the dredge, which includes widening the port’s offshore entrance to the main channel by some 300 feet and deepening the port to 50 or 52 feet from the current 42 feet of depth.

Under the settlement reached during mediation with the state Department of Environmental Protection, the county and the Corps, two more acres of new sea grass areas will be added for mitigation, resulting in 16.6 acres. Small corals would also be moved to a new artificial reef or brought to other natural ones in the bay not affected by the blasting. Also, money will be spent to restore coastal dunes on north Virginia Key and two mangrove and wetlands projects at Oleta River State Park in North Miami.

The Miami-Dade County Commission likely will approve the settlement next week. But that still leaves one big environmental issue unresolved: an old and potentially defective sewer pipe that runs under the shipping channel and must be replaced. It carries 25 million gallons of raw sewage a day from Bal Harbour, Miami Beach and other beach towns to the county sewage treatment plant on Virginia Key.

The county is working on a fix, which will require burying a new pipe deep enough to be safe from the blasting for the dredge. There is no room for error. Residents and beach-goers’ health and safety are at stake.

With the deeper port, thousands of new good-paying jobs will result, combined with a new rail system that will move cargo directly from the port, saving time and local roadways from heavy truck traffic. Port Director Bill Johnson says the deeper channel could double the port’s container shipping business. That’s why reaching an agreement was so important to South Florida’s future.

 

The “Deep Dredge” project, a critical and controversial key to PortMiami’s ambitious $2 billion expansion plan, is back on schedule after a legal settlement announced on Wednesday.

Environmentalists, who had argued that two years of blasting and digging in the port’s main channel would leave long-lasting scars in Biscayne Bay, agreed to drop an administrative challenge that threatened to delay the work for months or longer.

In exchange, Miami-Dade County has agreed to an additional $2.3 million in restoration and monitoring projects and other tweaks, such as a narrower daily blasting window, intended to enhance protection for corals, sea grass beds and other marine life.

“This is a win-win for the entire community,” Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez said in a release. “The agreement provides additional funding for important environmental projects while at the same time allowing for the timely completion of the dredge project.”

Laura Reynolds, executive director of the Tropical Audubon Society, said the settlement didn’t address all of environmentalists’ concerns but had “raised the bar’’ on protecting the bay’s surrounding, fish-rich waters.

“What we’ve been able to do is make the permit a lot stronger,” said Reynolds, whose organization joined with Biscayne Bay Waterkeeper and local fishing captain Dan Kipnis last November in filing a legal challenge to a Florida Department of Environmental Protection permit issued for the project.

The deal, expected to be approved by the Miami-Dade County Commission on May 1, clears the way for work to begin as early as this summer.

For port managers, keeping to that schedule is important. With a truck tunnel under Government Cut in the works and a new freight rail system also coming on line, the plan was to complete the dredging in 2014, putting Miami in position to lure a new class of mega-size cargo ships at the same time an overhaul is completed at the Panama Canal. Port Director Bill Johnson has projected the deeper channel could double the seaport’s container shipping business and spawn thousands of jobs in coming years.

The work — widening the port’s offshore entrance to the main channel by some 300 feet and deepening much of the port to 52 feet by scooping out about eight feet of rock, sand and rubble — would also consume some eight acres of sea grass beds and seven acres of reefs, including about five acres of previously undisturbed reef at the channel’s mouth.

Environmentalists had argued that the DEP and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers didn’t include enough “mitigation” to offset the loss of reefs and sea grass beds or set strict enough water quality standards to minimize silting damage to surrounding areas. They also warned that blasting during the two-year-long project could harm or kill marine life from snook to dolphin.

Port managers, backed by state and federal agencies, insisted most impacts will be minimal and short-lived, pointing out a smaller dredging project a few years ago that left no lingering scars to surrounding areas.

Under the terms of the settlement, reached after three days of mediation involving environmental groups, the county, the DEP and the Corps, the seaport will transfer $1.3 million into a Miami-Dade trust fund for environmental enhancement projects.