Good news for Everglades: Interior gives Army $1 million for restoration

December 12, 10:56 PMMiami Travel ExaminerGeorge Leposky

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Sawgrass prairie and a
cypress head in the midst
of the Everglade © George Leposky

People who care about Everglades National Park, a major South Florida tourist attraction, received some good news on Friday, December 12, as one federal agency gave another $1 million to help restore the Everglades.

 Lynn Scarlett, deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior, presented the money on behalf of the National Park Service to  Col. Paul Grosskruger, commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Jacksonville District, during a ceremony at the Shark Valley entrance to the park.

The Corps will use these funds to jumpstart planning for a bridge intended to increase the flow of water to Everglades National Park by elevating a portion of the Tamiami Trail (U.S. Highway 41).

The Tamiami Trail is a historic road that for more than eight decades has blocked the natural flow of water southward from Lake Okeechobee to Florida Bay. It keeps water levels unnaturally high in water conservation areas north of the highway, while Shark River Slough – south of the highway inside the park – suffers from insufficient water for much of the year.

Restoration of the Everglades, Scarlett said, involves “not one but many endeavors. The key to this effort is bringing more clean water to Everglades National Park and reconnecting it to the conservation areas to the north.”

Lynn Scarlett, deputy secretary
of the U.S. Department of the
Interior © George Leposky

Several bridge proposals

Several proposals are pending to build a long bridge that would allow more water to flow under the road. The Corps was preparing to issue bids in November for a proposed one-mile, $225-million bridge, but on November 15 U.S. District Judge Ursula Ungaro issued an injunction preventing such action.

Ruling in a lawsuit filed by the Miccosukee Tribe, she agreed that the one-mile bridge alone wouldn’t alleviate the problem, and that the Corps had not properly analyzed alternatives. The funds from the Interior Department will enable the Corps to carry out such an analysis.

Environmentalists have advocated a far more costly 11-mile “skyway” similar to the bridge across the Atchafalaya Basin in the Mississippi Delta region of Louisiana.

Another speaker at the ceremony,  Audubon of Florida Executive Director David Anderson, cited key indicators of a declining Everglades ecosystem, including a 90 percent decrease in wading bird populations, a decline in wood stork nests at Corkscrew Swamp from 6,000 a decade ago to just 600 today, and the worst roseate spoonbill nesting results in Florida Bay since 1966.

David Anderson, Audubon of
Florida’s executive director
© George Leposky

Anderson called for prioritizing key restoration projects and bundling other interdependent projects in the southern Everglades. “Multi-project planning can streamline Everglades restoration,” he said.

“As the National Research Council found, to do nothing is to do harm. That is simply unacceptable. We need to prioritize and act quickly to avoid a major ecological collapse.”

To express this concern, Audubon of Florida has issued a report. Tipping Point for the Everglades: Bold Restoration Action Needed

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