"Hurricane Sandy keeps Lake Okeechobee rising" @sunsentinel

Hurricane Sandy's weekend nudge to Lake Okeechobee's rising water levels add to flood control concerns with a month of storm season still to go.

Flooding threats from the fast-rising lake in September prompted the Army Corps of Engineers to start draining billions of gallons of lake water out to sea to ease the strain on its 70-year-old dike — considered one of the country's most at risk of failing. But lake water levels have actually gone up nearly one foot since the draining started Sept. 19. That's because South Florida's vast drainage system of canals, pumps and levees fills up the lake faster than it can lower it.

The Army Corps tries to keep the lake between 12.5 and 15.5 feet above sea level. On Monday, the lake was 15.91 above sea level.

"The storm didn't give us that much of a bump [but] the Corps is nervous," said Paul Gray, an Audubon of Florida scientist who monitors Lake Okeechobee. "We are kind of in a risky spot right now."

The lake draining stopped briefly as Sandy passed and then resumed over the weekend with the Army Corps now attempting to dump nearly 3 billion gallons of water per day from the lake.

Dumping lake water out to sea lessens the pressure on the lake's earthen dike, but it wastes water relied on to back up South Florida supplies during the typically dry winter and spring.

The deluge of water from the lake also delivers damaging environmental consequences to delicate coastal estuaries, fouling water quality in east and west coast fishing grounds.

Lakeside residents, who have seen the Herbert Hoover Dike weather decades of storms, don't worry about lake water levels until they top 16 feet, Pahokee Mayor J.P. Sasser said.

"They can open those gates and shotgun that water straight to the ocean," Sasser said. "It's like feast or famine."

Tropical Storm Isaac's soaking at the end of August started lake levels climbing. The steady rains of September and October that followed, capped by Sandy's showers, kept the lake water rising even as the draining continued.

Sandy dropped as much as 3 inches of rainfall in parts of South Florida, according to the South Florida Water Management District.

Gray said Lake Okeechobee didn't receive that much, but with the region already saturated any rainfall adds to the stormwater runoff flowing into the lake.

"We continue to receive a lot of water into the lake, and the discharges are important so we can continue to maintain storage capacity for the remaining five weeks of hurricane season," said Lt. Col. Tom Greco, the Army Corps' Deputy District Commander for South Florida.

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Lake Okeechobee water once naturally overlapped its southern shores and flowed south to replenish the Everglades.

But decades of draining and pumping to make way for South Florida agriculture and development corralled the lake water; allowing the Army Corps to dump lake water west into the Caloosahatchee River and east into the St. Lucie River to drain it out to sea when water levels rises too high for the dike.

The infusion of lake water brings pollution and throws off the delicate balance of salt and fresh water in the estuaries. Dumping lake water since September already has fish leaving, oyster beds dying and fishermen staying away from the St. Lucie River, said Leon Abood, president of the Rivers Coalition.

"It's extremely frustrating," Abood said. "It is a problem that has been plaguing this area for decades."

Elevated lake water levels can also have damaging environmental consequences, drowning the aquatic plants vital to lake fishing grounds.

The Amy Corps is in the midst of a decades-long, multibillion-dollar effort to strengthen the lake's dike.

The Corps in October completed the initial 21-mile stretch of a reinforcing wall being built through the middle of the dike to help stop erosion. That took five years and more than $360 million and now the corps is working on a study, expected to last until 2014, aimed at determining how to proceed with upgrading the rest of the 143-mile-long dike.

Beyond fixing the dike, environmental advocates contend that jumpstarting the reservoirs and water treatment areas envisioned for state and federal Everglades restoration efforts would help the lake and protect the estuaries.

"We have got to find a permanent solution," Abood said. "Move the water south the way Mother Nature intended."

-By By Andy Reid, Sun Sentinel

"State formally approves Glades clean-up plan" @MiamiHerald

State formally approves Glades clean-up plan

Florida formally signed off on an $880-million slate of Everglades cleanup projects on Tuesday.

Gov. Rick Scott announced the state had signed water quality permits and a consent order negotiated with the federal government to expand efforts to stem the flow of polluted farm, ranch and yard runoff into the Everglades.

Scott, in a news release, called the plan he had championed during nine months of negotiations with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency “a historic step for Everglades restoration.’’

The plan commits the state to $880 million in new projects that will expand on an existing network of manmade marshes designed to reduce the flow of the damaging nutrient phosphorus into the Everglades. The state, under pressure from federal judges to speed up the pace of cleanup, has already spent some $1.8 billion to construct 45,000 acres of treatment marshes. The new plan calls for adding another 6,500 acres of marshes, along with large shallow water storage basins and other improvements.

Though most environmental groups have applauded the plan, the Miccosukee Tribe and Friends of the Everglades have been critical, arguing it will push back cleanup deadlines to 2025 — almost two decades beyond an original 2006 target — and questioning whether the state has a firm plan to pay for the work.

Scott, in the release, said the deal would be paid for with a combination of revenues from the state and South Florida Water Management District “without raising or creating new costs for Floridians.’’

By CURTIS MORGAN The Miami Herald

"A way to protect Florida’s treasures" in @miamiherald

OUR OPINION: A proposed constitutional amendment would keep environmental dollars where they should be

By The Miami Herald Editorial

HeraldEd@MiamiHerald.com

Tough economic times and a penchant in Tallahassee for “easy solutions” to close budget gaps have left the state’s environmental treasures and wildlife programs in the dumps. What these recreation and conservation lands need is a stable, dedicated source of funding.

Enter the Florida Water and Land Legacy Campaign, a coalition that includes the Trust for Public Land, Audubon Florida, the Florida Wildlife Federation, the Sierra Club, the Nature Conservancy, 1000 Friends of Florida, Defenders of Wildlife and other groups that want to preserve Florida’s natural beauty — and its clean water — for generations to come.

The campaign will be gathering signatures of registered voters — it will need at minimum 676,811 certified signatures — to put the issue on the ballot in 2014. If voters agree, and there are many reasons they should, the program would raise about $10 billion over 20 years — without any new tax or a tax increase.

It would simply require the Florida Legislature to keep its paws out of the trust funds meant for environmental and parks programs — guaranteeing at the very least that one-third of the revenues from the existing excise tax on documents during the sale of property goes toward designated environmental programs. That tax is now collected, but it’s not being used for its intended purpose.

Once approved by voters, the amendment would take effect July 1, 2015, and the money would be dedicated to the Land Acquisition Trust Fund until 2035 to clean up Florida’s River of Grass, the Everglades, and to protect drinking water sources, support fish and wildlife programs and revive the state’s commitment to buying and protecting ecologically fragile land and habitats through the Florida Forever program.

Florida desperately needs a stable program to protect its most precious resources.

In the past three years, the Legislature earmarked only $23 million for Florida Forever — the state used to spend 10 times as much on land preservation. This year, legislators approved only $8.5 million for water protection and land conservation in a $60-billion budget.

As this new coalition points out, that pittance is less than two-hundredths of one cent that will go toward conservation from every dollar spent in the state budget — less than $1 for each Floridian.

“When it comes to dedicating funding to protect Florida’s environment, the Great Recession has led to a complete depression. State funding to protect our most precious natural resources has slowed to a trickle,” Manley Fuller, president of the Florida Wildlife Federation, said in a press release Tuesday announcing the grassroots amendment effort. “This amendment is not a tax increase. It is the dedication of an existing funding source back to its historic purpose. Passing this amendment will ensure Florida’s long-term traditional conservation values are secure and protected from short-term political pressures.”

For sure, this amendment is not a tree-hugging exercise in futility. It would protect the land and water that Florida needs for its economy to grow. And Florida has a long, nonpartisan tradition in environmental protection. No one wants to go to a beach, river or lake where the water is toxic, and protecting the Everglades will be critical to the state’s ability to ensure safe and clean drinking water for South Florida.

If you’re interested in helping with this campaign, sign up at FloridaWaterLandLegacy.org, or call 850-629-4656.

It’s past time to protect Florida from the political winds.

"DEP pushes consistency in water-use permitting statewide"

Bruce Ritchie, 08/06/2012 - 03:15 PM
Florida's five water management districts have different names for some of their water-use permits, and they apply to different quantities of water use.

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection on Tuesday begins holding a series of rule development workshops in 10 cities to improve water-use permitting consistency among the districts including choosing the same names for permits.

A drought across north Florida late last spring and a proposed water-use permit near Silver Springs has focused environmentalists' attention on water use and water planning. Meanwhile, DEP under Gov. Rick Scott has been focused on streamlined permitting and reducing inconsistency among the districts.

The goal of the DEP rule development is to make consumptive-use permitting less confusing, make environmental protection consistent statewide, provide incentives for water conservation, and streamline the process without reducing protection of the environment and other water users, said Janet Llewellyn, policy administrator office in DEP's Office of Water Policy.

Some rules are different among districts because of the differences in natural resources they were written to protect, Llewellyn said. Other rules are different, she said, only because they were developed separately among the districts.

"Those are the ones we are trying to identify, make consistent and improve so it is not only consistent but is the most efficient process we think we can apply to that permit review," Llewellyn said.

DEP is proposing to establish a general permit by rule that receives automatic approval if standard conditions are met, she said. To qualify, the withdrawal must be for less than 100,000 gallons per day. A more stringent threshold may be required in sensitive resource areas.

All other applications will require individual permits. Each district board still can determine which size or type of individual permits will be issued by staff and which will be issued by the board.

The department found that many water-use permits across the state are for less than 100,000 gallons per day. But the total water use was small compared to the fewer permits for millions of gallons of daily water use, Llewellyn said.

Audubon Florida says a revised state rule should include specific requirements for water efficiency in all permits for more than 1 million gallons per day. Those permits should allow for public notice, a 15-day comment period and approval at district board meetings.

Improving consistency can improve environmental protection if more attention is paid to larger water users rather than to smaller users who don't pose an environmental threat, said Eric Draper, executive director of Audubon Florida.

"If it is just streamlining for the sake of streamlining -- less government -- then that's not a good thing," he said. "For the purpose … of focusing government attention on the bigger problems, that is a good thing."

The workshop Tuesday will be held at 9 a.m. at the Suwannee River Water Management District, 9225 County Road 49 in Live Oak.

"Audubon challenge targets farm water pollution" in @SunSentinel

sun-sentinel.com/news/palm-beach/fl-audubon-farmers-fight-20120727,0,7985152.story

South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com

Audubon challenge targets farm water pollution

Environmental group wants farmers to clean up water headed to Everglades

By Andy Reid, Sun Sentinel

7:51 PM EDT, July 27, 2012

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Big Sugar should do more to clean up polluted water headed to the Everglades, according to permit challenges filed by the Florida Audubon Society Friday.

Audubon is fighting three permits that allow growers south of Lake Okeechobee to pump phosphorus-laden water toward the Everglades.

The environmental group wants the South Florida Water Management District to require sugar cane and other farmers to clean up more pollutants before it washes off agricultural fields.

Audubon argues that a new $880 million state and federal Everglades cleanup plan fails to put enough anti-pollution requirements on agriculture.

"Everglades water quality goals can be met more quickly and at less cost to the public if the district adhered to state law and required operators of the dirtiest farms to implement additional cleanup measures to reduce the amount of phosphorus leaving their farms," said Eric Draper, president of the Florida Audubon Society.

The South Florida Water Management District contends that existing pollution cleanup requirements on farmland are significantly reducing the amount of phosphorous that would otherwise end up in the Everglades.

The new Everglades cleanup plan does include stepped up "source controls" targeting pollution efforts where phosphorus levels have been historically higher.

Phosphorus, found in fertilizer, animal waste and the natural decay of soil, washes off agricultural land and urban areas and drains into the Everglades.

Elevated levels of phosphorus fuel the growth of cattails that crowd out sawgrass and other vital natural habitat in areas already suffering from decades of draining to make way for farming and development.

Farms are supposed to grow crops and manage stormwater discharges in ways that limit phosphorous discharges, but environmental advocates contend they aren't required to do enough to clean up pollution.

Florida has constructed more than 40,000 acres of filter marshes - called stormwater treatment areas - that remove some of the phosphorus from water that flows off the farms, before it gets to the Everglades.

But the cleanup efforts have yet to meet the ultimate goal of reducing phosphorous levels in the water headed to the Everglades down to 10 parts per billion.

abreid@tribune.com, 561-228-5504 or Twitter@abreidnews

Copyright © 2012, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

via sun-sentinel.com

"Despite progress, White House worried about “U-turn’’ in #Everglades" - in @miamiherald

Posted on Wed, Jul. 18, 2012

By CURTIS MORGAN
Cmorgan@MiamiHerald.com

U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar is aboard an airboat in the Everglades on trip to tout the Obama administration's progress on Everglades clean up.
Curtis Morgan / Miami Herald Staff - U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar is aboard an airboat in the Everglades on trip to tout the Obama administration's progress on Everglades clean up.
From a helicopter over Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge on Wednesday, U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar took in some of the daunting challenges of restoring the Everglades.

Down below, suburbs abut the refuge’s last cypress stands. Vast sugar farms loom to the north. Cattails, fueled by nutrient pollution, choke out native plants around its border. Massive man-made marshes filter dirty water flowing in, but not well enough. Giant pumps replicate a natural flow now blocked by canals and levees.

The visit to the western Palm Beach County refuge was intended to highlight Everglades restoration progress by the Obama administration, which has kick-started stalled projects with $1.5 billion in federal support over the last 3 1/2 years and struck an important pollution clean-up settlement last month with Florida.

But partisan election-year overtones buzzed almost as loudly as the cicadas. In what sounded an awful lot like Obama campaign talking points, Salazar ticked off a string of successes while also issuing a caution about the amount of work ahead and uncertain future state and federal support.

“Frankly, a great fear I have is there will be a U-turn,’’ Salazar told reporters after a chopper and airboat tour.

He questioned the long-term support of Republican Gov. Rick Scott for the deal, which will cost the state some $880 million to expand manmade marshes that reduce the flow of the damaging nutrient phosphorus.

“There has to be a continued commitment on the part of the state of Florida to get this thing done,’’ Salazar said. Scott, who had personally championed a settlement, released a statement saying his office has worked closely with federal agencies and environmentalists to secure the agreement.

“I would be shocked if Secretary Salazar said that, knowing how hard we’ve worked on our historic agreement to restore water quality and water flow to the Everglades,’’ he said. “I, along with all Floridians, care deeply about the Everglades and recognize it as an international treasure.’’

But notably absent from Salazar’s visit were representatives of the South Florida Water Management District, which is in charge of Everglades restoration for the state and headquartered a half-hour drive from the refuge. The district — which last week tentatively agreed to trim $100 million from its budget, money environmentalists argue should be put toward clean-up costs — referred questions to the governor’s office

Salazar, whose agency oversees federal parks and refuges, also warned that a budget drafted by Republicans in Congress would amount to a “death knell’’ for programs that fund conservation projects – not just Everglades restoration but nationwide.

“It’s not the kind of conservation agenda that Teddy Roosevelt or Barack Obama or I would support,’’ he said. “I will do everything I can to fight that, as will the president.’’

Salazar’s visit followed one last week to Orlando by four high-ranking administration aides to announce an $80 million purchase of “conservation easements’’ that will preserve 23,000 acres of rural wetlands in the Northern Everglades. Vice President Joe Biden and U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, a fellow Democrat facing a tough election battle this year, made a similar Glades-as-a-backdrop stop in Miami-Dade County in April.

Matt Connelly, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, accused the White House of using the Everglades to distract from more pressing national problems.

“It’s clearly a political move that highlights how desperate the president is to talk about anything besides his failed economic policies and political cronyism for campaign donors,” Connelly said.

Salazar insisted restoring the River of Grass had been his and the president’s top environmental priority from day one, Salazar said. He acknowledged there were decades of work ahead but argued “we have been able to move more the last 3 1/2 years than we have, I think, in the last 20 years."

The administration calculates that the $1.5 billion it has put into restoration in the president’s first term nearly matches the previous eight years under President George W. Bush — an uptick in federal funding that helped break ground on a number of long-stalled projects, including the bridging of Tamiami Trail. The White House banned the importation of the Burmese python that had invaded the Glades – an effort championed by Salazar – and after 18 months of intense negotiations cut a pollution clean-up deal with the state intended to resolve two long-running federal lawsuits.

How much Everglades support will resonate with typical Florida voters is uncertain but environmentalists heaped praise on the efforts by the administration. Historically, candidates from both parties have pledged to save the Everglades but so far Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney hasn’t taken a public position on continuing support for the $12.5 billion state and federal restoration project, said Eric Draper, executive director of Audubon of Florida.

“It looks like Romney has ceded the Everglades to the president,’’ Draper said. “The message that Romney sends out about smaller government and less taxes is antithetical to Everglades restoration.’’

Miami Herald Staff Writer Marc Caputo contributed to the story.

via miamiherald.com

 

"Feds and judge give Florida’s #Everglades a boost" - @MiamiHerald

Environmentalists are applauding a pledge from the Obama administration and a Glades cleanup ruling by a federal judge.

By CURTIS MORGAN
cmorgan@MiamiHerald.com

Everglades restoration got a double boost this week — first from a Miami federal judge who approved a landmark $880 million pollution cleanup plan and then from the Obama administration, which announced an $80 million expansion of a program that already has preserved nearly 100,000 acres of rural wetlands in the Northern Everglades.

U.S. District Judge Alan Gold on Wednesday issued an order clearing the path for resolving long-running legal battles over reducing the flow of damaging nutrients from farm, ranches and yards into the struggling River of Grass.

The administration followed up Friday with an announcement that it will pay farmers and ranchers $80 million to place “conservation easements” on some 23,000 acres in the Northern Everglades, including a key parcel in Glades County that biologists consider critical to saving the endangered Florida panther. The 1,278-acre American Prime tract, named for a company that once wanted to develop it, provides a corridor for the big cats to cross the Caloosahatchee River and allow a population concentrated in Southwest Florida to expand northward.

The news conference in Kissimmee, featuring four top White House aides overseeing Glades issues, included the release of a report touting some $1.5 billion in Everglades funding over the past three years — a major increase over the previous four years under President George W. Bush.

“With the president’s leadership, we are making real and measurable progress in Everglades restoration,’’ said Nancy Sutley, the chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, in a news release.

Charles Lee, a longtime activist for Audubon of Florida, acknowledged the announcement was aimed at burnishing the president’s image in a swing state important to his reelection hopes but also called that typical election-year politics.

“From our point of view, $80 million and 23,000 acres is nothing to sneeze at,’’ said Lee, who attended the announcement at the Disney Wilderness Preserve. “That’s more than the entire state program has done in the last two or three years.’’

Among other projects, the report cited continuing work to restore 3,000 acres of historic floodplain along the Kissimmee River, construction of a new bridge along Tamiami Trail and plans to establish the 150,000-acre Everglades Headwaters National Wildlife Refuge and Conservation Area north of Lake Okeechobee.

The conservation easement program, funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has emerged over the past three years as a promising new restoration strategy. Since 2009, the administration has spent $373 million, far more than any other state, to purchase similar easements on some 95,000 acres of wild lands mostly west and north of Lake Okeechobee.

The easements come much cheaper than outright land purchases. And they allow farmers and ranchers to continue using land while blocking development, preserving habitat and helping store and clean up damaging nutrients from water flowing south toward the greater Everglades. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the administration’s Everglades efforts also have created nearly 7,000 jobs.

Cary Lightsey, a Lake Wales rancher whose family has participated in the program, told the Tampa Bay Times that future residents will appreciate the conservation program more than voters today.

“If we didn’t do anything, then most of this land would become houses,” he said.

The decision from Gold, who over the past few years has issued a series of rulings blasting state and federal agencies for “glacial delay” and repeatedly failing to enforce water-pollution standards tough enough to protect the Everglades, cleared the way for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to issue the state permits for a slate of new projects.

They’re part of a plan worked out between the EPA and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection with the goal of settling two lawsuits over Everglades pollution, one going back to 1988. Gold, who handled a lawsuit filed in 2004 by the Miccosukee Tribe and the environmental group Friends of the Everglades, had pressured both sides to draft a new plan.

It calls for the state to expand an existing network of 45,000 acres of artificial marshes that absorb damaging nutrients from farm and suburban storm runoff that damages native plants and the Everglades food chain.

Though most environmental groups have applauded the plan, the tribe and Friends of the Everglades have been lukewarm. They filed briefs calling it a step in the right direction but arguing it will push back cleanup deadlines to 2025 — almost two decades beyond an original 2006 target — and questioning whether the state has a firm plan to pay for the work.

 

via miamiherald.com

 

"BP oil-spill fines could boost #Everglades restoration"

Environmentalists eye billions to shore up Florida ecology

By William E. Gibson, Washington Bureau

10:24 a.m. EDT, July 8, 2012

WASHINGTON -- Everglades restoration backers are aiming to get a big piece of the billions of dollars of fines that oil giant BP is expected to pay for polluting the Gulf of Mexico and disrupting Florida's delicate ecology during the Deepwater Horizon spill of 2010.

BP's fines are expected to range from $5 billion to $21 billion, and most of the money would go toward restoring the marshes, fishing industry and oil-damaged businesses and resources along the Gulf Coast. But environmental leaders estimate that hundreds of millions of dollars could be devoted to ecological projects all the way down to South Florida.

They're not just dreaming.

Last month, Congress passed a bill that will steer 80 percent of any fine money to Florida and other Gulf Coast states. And while the Florida Legislature passed a law last year that says 75 percent of the state's share must be devoted to the oil-damaged counties along its northwest coast, the rest can be spent on ecological restoration elsewhere.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Task Force last month that the BP money would provide significant funding for conservation and that he considers the Everglades "a great example for the work that we do for conservation and for jobs."

Salazar's encouraging words and the tantalizing prospect of a giant pot of restoration money prompted environmentalists to start drawing up proposals designed to buffer the coast from future oil spills and to clean and store water that now rushes out to sea. These proposals will focus on Florida's west coast but affect the entire Everglades watershed and potentially free up other federal and state money for projects in South and Central Florida.

The pie is potentially so huge that even a small slice would make a major impact on the re-plumbing work in the 'Glades.

"This is really the largest source of funding for ecological restoration in the history of the world," said David White of St. Petersburg, director of the Gulf restoration campaign for the National Wildlife Federation. "This is a big deal for the ecology for the Gulf of Mexico and by extension the Everglades system, which is part of that ecology."

BP and its contractors are trying to settle a federal court case in New Orleans accusing them of violating the Oil Pollution Act – which is guided by standards set by the Clean Water Act – when the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded in April 2010 and spewed nearly 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf.

Fines under the law would amount to $1,300 per barrel if the companies are guilty of simple negligence -- or $4,300 per barrel if they are guilty of gross negligence.

Environmentalists say a national commission co-chaired by former Florida U.S. Sen. and Gov. Bob Graham that investigated the disaster essentially established gross negligence, prompting them to think the total fines will reach as high as $21 billion.

A sweeping transportation bill passed by Congress on June 29 included legislation known as The Restore Act, which says 80 percent of BP's eventual fine payments must go to the five Gulf states – Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas – most affected by the spill.

The Restore Act also established a formula for distributing the money:

Pot One: 35 percent – as much as $7.35 billion -- to be divided equally among the Gulf states, or 7 percent (nearly $1.5 billion) for each. The 2011 Florida law says 75 percent of the state's share of this pot -- $1.1 billion -- must go to eight hard-hit Gulf counties, and 25 percent can go to the rest. The still works out to $367 million.

Pot Two: 30 percent – up to $6.3 billion -- to be distributed by a federal-state ecosystem restoration council comprised of six federal members and five state members.

Pot Three: 30 percent to pay for state proposals for environmental restoration and economic recovery work. These plans must be approved by the federal-state council.

Pot Four: 5 percent -- just over $1 billion -- to ecosystem monitoring and fisheries work administered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and scientific Centers of Excellence in each Gulf state.

Money for South or Central Florida projects potentially could come from any of these pots. The council is expected to give priority to plans that promise lasting protection for the Gulf and the coastline against future spills.

These could be new proposals, but "shovel-ready projects" already designed and studied for their environmental impact – including much of the work surrounding the Everglades – could have an advantage.

Audubon of Florida, which pushed hard for passage of the Restore Act, is considering making proposals that would clean polluted water now channeled into the Gulf and store and release it when needed to nurture the Everglades.

"That would put one less stress on Lake Okeechobee, which helps everybody in South Florida," said Julie Hill-Gabriel, director of Everglades policy at Audubon of Florida.

Southeast Florida is tied to the Gulf by the Loop Current, which brings water – and potentially an oil slick -- around the Florida Keys and up to the shores of Broward and Palm Beach counties. The Everglades watershed is also interrelated, so that work along the west coast indirectly affects water projects closer to the east coast.

Using oil money in the western Everglades might allow more federal and state restoration funding to be devoted to the central and eastern Everglades.

The money could eclipse any one year's federal appropriation for Everglades restoration, usually less than $200 million. The oil money would come at no expense to taxpayers, and it would not need to be matched by the state.

"This thing has statewide impact," said Jay Liles, policy consultant for the Florida Wildlife Federation in Tallahassee. "It mostly affects the west coast, but nobody needs to exclude any of these ideas. It just has to have a nexus to the Gulf."

"Friends of the #Everglades raises issues in federal court with new restoration plan" in The Florida Current

A new Everglades restoration plan proposed by Gov. Rick Scott will delay restoration and will be unenforceable, according to the group Friends of the Everglades.

U.S. District Judge Alan S. Gold has scheduled a July 18 hearing in Miami on a framework agreement for restoration proposed by Scott in 2011. The $880 million, 12-year agreement was approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on June 13.

While Audubon Florida and the Everglades Foundation supported the proposal, Friends of the Everglades only had issued a short statement last month raising concerns.

Friends of the Everglades and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians sued the federal agency in 2004 for failure to clean up sugar industry pollution flowing into the Everglades. Gold sided with the plaintiffs in 2008 and EPA issued an amended determination in 2010 ordering Florida and the South Florida Water Management District to construct additional stormwater treatment areas to treat phosphorus-rich water.

The new plan proposed by Florida calls for construction of 6,500 acres of additional stormwater treatment areas and water storage areas capable of holding 32 billion gallons, according to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Gold set the July 18 hearing date and required all of the parties in the case to file briefs in response this week.

In its filing, Friends of the Everglades said the proposed new timetable for restoration extends through 2025, five years longer than EPA had directed the state in 2010. The group also has concerns about technical shortcomings in the plan, its lack of interim standards and its enforceability.

In an opinion column submitted to news media, Friends of the Everglades President Alan Farago quoted President Ronald Reagan's approach to nuclear arms negotiations: "Trust, but verify."

"So far, what the state and EPA propose is a step in the right direction but lacks the iron-clad commitments that (Friends founder) Marjory Stoneman Douglas fought for and that our organization is determined to achieve for Florida and the nation’s interest in the Everglades," Farago wrote.

Spokespersons for the DEP and the EPA were invited to comment on Tuesday but had not provided responses by deadline.

DEP's federal court filing said the plan complies with a 2010 court order, EPA's amended determination and the federal Clean Water Act. DEP said no further discussions with EPA are necessary because the matters raised in previous court orders have been resolved.

The EPA said the timetable is based on estimates provided by the South Florida Water Management District for reliably financing and constructing the restoration projects. Assuming a consent order is approved in a timely fashion, all of the issues raised by the court will have been resolved, the federal agency said.

Related Research: Access pleadings and other documents filed in the Friends of the Everglades federal court case.

Reporter Bruce Ritchie can be reached at britchie@thefloridacurrent.com.

 

 

via thefloridacurrent.com

"Florida unveils new #Everglades restoration plan" in @sunsentinel

$1.5 billion proposal aims to clean up water pollution
 

June 5, 2012|By Andy Reid, Sun Sentinel

A new Everglades restoration deal disclosed Monday proposes to clean up water pollution and resolve decades of federal legal fights, with a more than $1.5 billion public price tag.

The plan that the Florida Department of Environmental Protection on Monday forwarded to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency seeks to correct Florida's failure to meet water-quality standards in stormwater that flows to the Everglades.

Building new water storage and treatment areas along with other improvements over more than a decade could cost about $880 million, according to the South Florida Water Management District, which leads Everglades restoration for the state. 

The full cost also includes about $700 million the district already spent on farmland and unfinished reservoirs from past sidetracked Everglades restoration projects.

If endorsed by the federal government and the courts, the deal could resolve more than 20 years of legal fights and revamp stymied Everglades restoration efforts.

"This is a very solid plan. It is scientifically based and it's affordable," said Joe Collins, chairman of the water management district board. "We certainly are committed to protecting the Everglades."

The proposal includes stricter discharge limits for water treatment areas that send water to the Everglades, with plans by 2025 to meet overdue federal water quality standards that were supposed to take effect in 2006.

Audubon of Florida and the Everglades Foundation on Monday praised the proposal as a welcome sign of progress that could benefit the environment, tourism and drinking water supplies.

"The plan is clearly a major step forward," said Eric Draper, Audubon of Florida's executive director. "We are all going to benefit (from) this."

How to pay for the new plan remains a hurdle.

Florida has already invested about $1.8 billion building 57,000 acres of stormwater treatment areas to filter polluting phosphorous from water that flows off agricultural land and into the Everglades.

Big Sugar should be paying for more of the pollution clean up costs, not taxpayers, according to the environmental group Friends of the Everglades.

"We are skeptical," group representative Albert Slap said about the terms of the proposal disclosed Monday. "We consider it a step in the right direction (but) the problem is enforceability and funding."

The proposed deal is the result of months of negotiations started by Gov. Rick Scott, who in October flew to Washington, D.C., to push for a new restoration plan.

Without a deal, Florida faces the possibility of having to enact a plan proposed by the EPA and prompted by a federal judge that calls for adding more than 40,000 acres of additional stormwater treatment areas along with other enhancements the state estimates would cost $1.5 billion.

The new state proposal

includes more than 7,000 acres of expanded stormwater treatment areas — man-made marshes intended to filter phosphorus from stormwater that flows to the Everglades.

The deal calls for building a series of reservoirs near water treatment areas to hold onto more water that is now drained away for flood control and to better regulate its flow, so that the filter marshes can be effective.

The state's plan also calls for targeting pollution "hot spots," which would mean more pollution control requirements on pockets of farmland where fertilizer runoff and other agricultural practices boost phosphorus levels.

The plan would put to use some of the 26,800 acres the district in 2010 acquired from U.S. Sugar Corp. for $197 million. Old citrus groves in Hendry County would be turned into Everglades habitat, according to the proposal.

The new water storage areas in the plan would include making use of an unfinished 16,700-acre reservoir in southwestern Palm Beach County. That stalled project already cost taxpayers about $280 million before the project was shelved while the district pursued the U.S. Sugar land deal.

Similarly, the proposal calls for redirecting the water in a $217 million rock-mine-turned-reservoir west of Royal Palm Beach to help improve Everglades water quality standards. That water was intended to go north for restoration efforts, but the district has yet to build the $60 million pumps needed to deliver the water to the Loxahatchee River.

The $880 million in new costs could come from $220 million the district has in reserves, $290 million projected from property tax revenue from expected new growth as well as money from the Legislature, according to the district.

The EPA has about a month to review the state's proposed permit changes for water quality standards. State officials face upcoming court hearings June 25 and July 2, where they are supposed to show progress in restoration efforts.

More details are needed to justify the potential cost, said Barbara Miedema, vice president of the Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida.

"How much more money are we going to spend to get how much more benefit?" Miedema asked.

abreid@tribune.com, 561-228-5504 or Twitter@abreidnews.com