"Water district considers tapping rock mining money for Everglades restoration" @abreidnews @sunsentinel

By Andy Reid, Sun Sentinel
August 10, 2012

Rock mining money could pay for transforming farmland into wetlands under a new proposal to finally make use of costly land bought for Everglades restoration.

The South Florida Water Management District is working on a new plan to restore more than half of the 26,800 acres that in 2010 cost taxpayers $197 million in a deal with U.S. Sugar Corp.

How to pay for this plan is raising concerns with some environmental advocates, worried that the district's proposal would siphon money away from other restoration commitments.

The district proposes turning almost 15,000 acres of citrus groves north of Everglades National Park into a "mitigation" project. Rock miners would pay to restore the farm land in compensation for the environmental damage they cause by digging and blasting stone two counties away in Miami-Dade County.

That could be worth more than $150 million — recouping taxpayers' investment in that portion of the U.S. Sugar land purchase, paying for restoration of that property and potentially supplementing other district restoration efforts.

 

"It's a very good use [of the land]," said Ernie Barnett, the district's director of Everglades policy. "Putting it back to the way it was."

While environmental groups support the restoration of the former U.S. Sugar land, some object to using the rock mining money to do it.

Redirecting rock mining mitigation money to restore the former U.S. Sugar land in Hendry County would fail to compensate for the environmental damage from mining dozens of miles away in Miami-Dade, according to the National Parks Conservation Association.

"It seems to fly in the face of keeping mitigation local," John Adornato, regional director for the environmental group, said about the funding proposal. "It seems like a stretch."

On Aug. 29, the proposal goes before a state board that oversees Lake Belt-area rock mining in Miami-Dade. If that board gives its blessing, restoration work could begin on the Hendry County citrus land in 2014, according to the district.

The mitigation project approach would raise "a significant amount of money" for the budget-strained district and deliver real environmental improvements, according to district Executive Director Melissa Meeker.

The restoration work would remove citrus trees, drainage ditches and levees and turn the land back into a mix of wetland prairies and tree islands to become a new extension of the Everglades, according to the proposal.

 

"Take what is now a citrus grove and turn it into native habitat," Meeker said.

The land comes from a watered-down version of then-Gov. Charlie Crist's $1.75 billion bid in 2008 to buy all of U.S. Sugar's 180,000 acres and use the land to store and treat stormwater needed to replenish the Everglades.

The national economic downturn and other hurdles whittled the deal down to $197 million for 26,800 acres, as well as a 10-year option to buy the rest of U.S. Sugar's land.

The land acquired in 2010 included 8,900 acres in Palm Beach County, east of Lake Okeechobee, and 17,900 acres of citrus land in Hendry County, northeast of Everglades National Park.

 

So far, that land has yet to be put to use for Everglades restoration, and is being leased back to U.S. Sugar for continued farming.

New Everglades restoration plans call for trying to trade the Palm Beach County portion of the former U.S. Sugar land for property in other areas targeted for Everglades restoration. Those plans also include building a shallow reservoir and other water storage on about 3,000 acres of the citrus land acquired in the U.S. Sugar deal.

Tapping into the rock mining mitigation money would enable the district to pay for its new plan to turn the rest of the Hendry County property back into wetlands and other vital habitat — prime for panthers, black bears and migratory birds.

While the district would get money for restoration, the rock mining industry would earn the mitigation "credits" it needs to keep mining.

Rock mining mitigation money needs to be spent on environmental efforts such as protecting water flows to Biscayne Bay, not cleaning up Everglades pollution problems created by farming, Adornato said.

The Sierra Club was still reviewing the district's new mitigation proposal, but group representative Jon Ullman said that relying on mitigation to compensate for environmental damage typically "is not an equitable solution."

"Mitigation has shown to be a net loss of wetlands," Ullman said.

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

"#Everglades report points finger at agriculture for cleanup costs" @FloridaCurrent #eco #water

The Everglades Foundation on Monday released a report showing that 76 percent of phosphorous pollution entering the Everglades comes from agricultural operations while that sector pays 24 percent of the cost.

The group says it hopes the findings help Gov. Rick Scott as he negotiates a new Everglades restoration plan with federal agencies. The information also could be used by the Legislature to shift the cost burden more to agricultural interests, Everglades Foundation officials said.

The Everglades ecosystem extends from south of Orlando south to Lake Okeechobee, Everglades National Park and Florida Bay. Excess nitrogen and phosphorus from a variety of sources has contributed to some areas of the national park having become choked with cattails.

Sixty-eight percent of Florida voters in 1996 approved a state constitutional amendment requiring that those who cause pollution in the Everglades to be "primarily responsible" for the cost of cleanup. The Everglades Foundation says its report, produced by RTI International, uses public data to help identify who is causing the pollution and who has been paying for the cleanup.

While 24 percent of the money for nutrient removal comes from agricultural sources, 39 percent comes from property taxes collected by the South Florida Water Management District, which operates 45,000 acres of stormwater treatment areas. State and federal governments pay 27 percent and wastewater customers pay 10 percent of the cost.

"I think it's hard to fathom how any honest person could suggest that the big sugar and agricultural interests are complying with the constitutional amendment by picking up only 24 percent of the cost right now," Everglades Foundation Executive Director Kirk Fordham said.

In response, U. S. Sugar Corp., Florida Crystals Corp. and the Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida issued a statement condemning the Everglades Foundation for producing studies "resulting in hocus pocus economic conclusions."

"The Everglades Foundation’s report is riddled with so many erroneous assumptions, then hedges the conclusions with an equal number of caveats and uncertainties, that it serves no purpose except to throw mud on productive restoration efforts," the statement said.

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection in response issued a statement that did not address the cost issues raised in the report. The statement said the report noted progress made on Everglades cleanup and agriculture's role in that effort.

Some sugar industry representatives have said the state should focus more attention on reducing phosphorus and nitrogen pollution in the northern Everglades north of Orlando. But Fordham noted that his group's report says that only about 13 percent of the phosphorus reaching the stormwater treatment areas is coming from Lake Okeechobee.

The Everglades Foundation decided in the fall of 2010 to do the study, so its release after the 2012 legislative session while the governor is negotiating with federal agencies is coincidental, Fordham said.

"I think it really is up to the Legislature to determine how to shift the cost," Fordham said. "If that doesn't take place, then I think taxpayers ought to take a look at whether or not there are other means to guarantee it is enforced."

He added, "Certainly if the question is, is the Everglades Foundation looking to file a lawsuit right now -- the answer is no."

Read key findings of the report at http://www.evergladesfoundation.org/pages/1708.  Download the 107-page Everglades Foundation report by clicking here.

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

 

 

via thefloridacurrent.com

Not surprise here..."Farmers not paying fair share of Glades clean-up, environmentalists say" - @MiamiHerald #eco #water

Back in 1996, Florida voters approved a “polluter pays” amendment that environmentalists hoped would force the agricultural industry — particularly sugar growers — to bankroll the hefty expense of stemming the damaging flow of nutrients into the Everglades.

It hasn’t worked out quite that way.

According to a study released Monday by the Everglades Foundation, the agricultural industry produces three-quarters of Glades pollution but pays only a quarter of the costs of cleaning it up. The public, the study found, pays the rest of an annual $106 million treatment tab through property taxes, utility bills and state and federal taxes.

“I’m quite certain that most Floridians would find it rather outrageous that they are picking up the bill for giant agricultural operations,’’ said Kirk Fordham, chief executive officer of the foundation, a group that championed the 16-year-old amendment that the Legislature has never enacted.

Fordham said he hoped the study would persuade state and federal negotiators trying to resolve decades of lawsuits over Florida’s oft-delayed clean plans to shift the burden — and bills that could run hundreds of millions of dollars or more — to farmers, ranchers and nurseries responsible for the bulk of nutrient pollution that has poisoned vast swathes of the Glades, killing off and crowding out native plants.

South Florida’s sugar farmers immediately bashed the study, which the foundation commissioned for $185,000 from researchers at North Carolina-based RTI International.

In a joint statement, the U.S. Sugar Corp., Florida Crystals Corp. and Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida defended their efforts and their record of reducing phosphorus use, saying the study was based on “grossly flawed assumptions, resulting in hocus pocus economic conclusions.’’

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection issued a statement claiming “significant progress’’ in reducing nutrients but acknowledging “that there is more to be done.’’ The statement also sent an upbeat signal about settling long-running federal lawsuits over the slow pace of clean-up, adding that “because of the leadership of Gov. (Rick) Scott, Florida is on the verge of a momentous step forward in Everglades restoration.’’

The state, which first agreed to reduce the flow of phosphorus into the Everglades to settle a federal lawsuit in 1988, has been under mounting pressure from federal judges frustrated by the decades of delay. Florida has spent more than $1.3 billion to construct a 45,000-acre network of artificial marshes to scrub phosphorus flowing from farms into the Glades but it hasn’t been enough to meet the super-low standards required to protect the sensitive marsh.

Phosphorous, a common fertilizer ingredient that drains off farms and yards with every rain storm, can trigger fish-killing algae blooms in lakes and coastal waters. But its impact can be catastrophic even at minute concentrations in the Everglades, said foundation senior scientist Tom Van Lent. As concentrations rise, it can kill off an important algae at the base of the Everglades food chain and fuel the spread of cat tails, a plant that a scientist once dubbed “the grave markers of the Everglades.’’

via miamiherald.com