FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 10th, 2018
PALMETTO BAY, Fla. – Eric Eikenberg, CEO of The Everglades Foundation, has issued the following statement in response to the White House Office of Management and Budget reporting favorably on the Everglades Reservoir:
“After 18 years of unnecessary delay, Florida is finally poised to move forward with the solution that scientists and policymakers alike have long known is indispensable to significantly reducing the scourge of algae-causing discharges of Lake Okeechobee water and vital to sending water south to the Florida Keys: a massive water storage reservoir and treatment facility south of the Lake.
“Now that the White House Office of Management and Budget has reported favorably on the Everglades Reservoir, the Senate is expected to include the project in its version of the 2018 Water Resources Development Act; by a near-unanimous vote, the House has already approved its version of the legislation, containing a placeholder for the Everglades Reservoir.
“We thank President Trump and OMB Director Mick Mulvaney for this report, and especially Florida Governor Rick Scott, Senator Marco Rubio and U.S. Representatives Ron DeSantis, Brian Mast and Francis Rooney, who were tireless and persistent in moving the process along.
“Mostly, however, we want to thank the people of Florida. By the tens of thousands, they made their feelings heard in the corridors of power in both Tallahassee and Washington, D.C., demanding that the Everglades Reservoir project be expedited. At long last, help is finally on its way – and it is happening only because the people made it so.
“We now join all Floridians and lovers of the Everglades and Florida Bay everywhere in urging the Senate to follow the House of Representatives lead in including the Everglades Reservoir in the 2018 Water Resources Development Act, and we urge the President to sign the measure into law.”
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