Saving the Everglades

How Can We Save the Everglades?

In 2000, Congress passed the 30-year Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan to restore, protect and preserve 18,000 square miles over 16 Florida counties. More recently, the Everglades Foundation, along with nearly two dozen other private and public organizations, identified nine essential goals to fulfill the plan's promise.

Among these are improving and protecting water quality, providing water storage needs and restoring the historic water flow from Lake Okeechobee to the Everglades.

"We need to clean up the water, take out the fertilizer and build the kind of highly engineered marshes that are designed to clean the water as it flows south," says Dr. Tom Van Lent, senior scientist, Everglades Foundation.

Working with other concerned agencies, both public and private, the Foundation's scientists are involved in ongoing projects to clean up the water and improve water storage and flow. "Everglades restoration is like trying to assemble the world's largest, most complex eco- oriented jigsaw puzzle," says Van Lent. "Just when you think you have all the pieces, you find out you need more help in identifying another part of the puzzle that allows you to complete the picture and not miss something critically important."

A perfect example of learning about another "piece of the puzzle" is a research project that involves the red dwarf mangrove. Along with colleagues from Texas A&M and Louisiana State universities, Foundation scientists spent two years studying seasonal changes in water quality on the dwarf red mangrove in the Taylor River.

"The dwarf mangrove is in an area that's very sensitive to nutrients," explains Van Lent, "so this study will help us make sure that as we restore the Everglades, the water has the right balance of chemical properties so we don't disrupt this very sensitive ecosystem."

Joined by Florida International University, the team also evaluated seasonal effects and surface water quality on nutrients in the Taylor River mangroves. And another study, again with university colleagues, is exploring how sediment left by hurricanes affects the growth of mangroves.

"We can't control the storms," Van Lent notes. "But we want to understand how the mangroves respond to them. It's like trying to build the plane while you're flying it. How do you keep it going, even in the face of threats you can't do much about?" Such long and detailed scientific studies may seem overwhelmingly complex to the layman, but when the Everglades Foundation and its partners share the results with state and federal agencies, that knowledge contributes to everyone's goal: keeping the Everglades' native plants and animals in a healthy and sustainable balance.

Dr. Melodie Naja, the team's water quality scientist, leads the Foundation's scholarship and internship program, which each year brings students from the University of Florida, University of Miami, Florida International University and the University of Virginia to pursue restoration-related science research.

In December 2007, the South Florida Water Management District took another major step by voting to buy up to 180,000 acres of land from U.S. Sugar Corp. The land will be used to clean and store water. The current proposal to purchase this property encompasses 73,000 acres with an option to buy the rest at a later date.

In announcing the original plan, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist praised the Foundation and its allies for their ongoing commitment to save the natural wonder that is the Everglades. "Their role could not be overstated," Crist said. "It was incredibly significant and terribly important all along the way, giving me advice...I'm enormously grateful to the environmental community. Without them we wouldn't be here today." But while the U.S. Sugar Corp. plan represents a giant step forward for Everglades restoration, it is not a cure-all.

"The U.S. Sugar transaction is good news because it gets at two problems," says Van Lent. "It provides land to clean the water and to provide for the water supply. Now we can present a plan that's very straightforward and people can see how it solves their problems. It's made a solution much more understandable to people. "But it's not a solution for taking out the dams that are blocking the flow south," Van Lent warns. "There are a number of dams that inhibit water flow throughout the Everglades ecosystem south of Lake Okeechobee. We can probably safely remove these."

The Tamiami Trail, which links Miami and Tampa, is one of those dams, and steps are being taken to alleviate that problem. In December 2009, an $81 million project to replace a mile-long stretch of the Trail broke ground. The bridge, to be constructed about a mile west of Krome Avenue, will allow water to flow freely into Everglades National Park for the first time since the Trail was constructed in the 1920s. Also moving ahead is the C-111 N. Spreader Canal project, which will correct the flow of fresh water to Florida Bay.

"We need to restore the function of the Everglades, so when it gets dry, we still are able to manage water resources effectively to satisfy the needs of man and nature," says Van Lent.