| State earmarks Glades money;
Controversy eclipses the fact that lawmakers funded the Everglades
(Note: The Sierra Club whines a little, so the public will think that the megamillions in bonds to rewild the Everglades and implement The Wildlands Project are 'killing' the Everglades -- all the while chortling gleefully in private at just that much more taxpayer money with which to squander. Pitiful, the arrogance and twisting of facts...) June 22, 2003 By Victor Hull Sarasota Herald-Tribune To submit a Letter to the Editor: editor.letters@heraldtribune.com If Florida lawmakers approve more than $1 billion for the Everglades this year and no one reports it, did it really happen? Well, yes. But state officials are still frustrated by the spare news coverage given to what they see as good news about the Everglades this year. The state budgeted $225 million for cleaning up the Everglades in the coming year. And in a special session earlier this month, lawmakers and Gov. Jeb Bush authorized the sale of $800 million in bonds for restoration work in coming years. Some of the money will be used on cutting-edge technology that could accelerate the River of Grass cleanup. Normally, that would be big news. Trouble is, the Everglades funding story has been buried by the controversy over the state's decision to amend the revered Everglades Forever Act. The amendment, and the way the state rammed it through, has jeopardized lots more money -- perhaps billions of dollars in federal funding for the Everglades. The changes, pushed by the sugar industry and supported overwhelmingly by state lawmakers and Bush, could move back the deadline for cleaning up the Everglades by a decade. They have been harshly criticized by environmentalists, a federal judge and members of Congress. Still, officials in Jeb Bush's administration insist there's plenty of progress in the Everglades. Ernie Barnett, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection's ecosystem program director, said the agency suffered a "big disconnect" in communicating that message to the public. Given the state's tight budget because of a slumping economy, the Everglades money should make people sit up and take notice, he said. "The funding really is amazing, from our perspective," he said. Environmentalists, who have characterized the Legislature's and Bush's actions this spring as an attack on the Everglades, aren't impressed. Some say it's the state's own fault for changing the Everglades Forever Act when an amendment wasn't required. And others contend that the funding is a belated effort by the Legislature and Bush to save face. Jonathan Ullman, the Sierra Club's South Florida Everglades expert, said the state had agreed three years ago to spend the money when it signed a pact with the federal government to share the cost of the Glades restoration. The bonds, he said, were a formality. "They're trying to look good," Ullman said. "At the same time, they're supporting bills that are killing the Everglades. That is a big problem." More money, flexibility During the regular legislative session that ended May 2, Florida lawmakers adopted changes to the long-term plan, laid out in the Everglades Forever Act nearly a decade ago, for cleaning up the River of Grass. The Everglades is choking on cattails, fed by phosphorous, a nutrient from sugar cane fields, urban runoff and dairy farms. The cattails crowd out the native sawgrass that provides habitat for wading birds, alligators and other wildlife. The original plan called for the state to reduce the phosphorus in water flowing into the Everglades by the end of 2006. At the time, phosphorus levels exceeded 200 parts per billion, a massive amount. Unless the state adopted a different limit based on scientific research, the law called for the maximum amount of phosphorus flowing into the Everglades to be 10 parts per billion. State lawmakers changed the plan to say the state had to meet the threshold to the "maximum extent practicable," and "at the earliest practicable date." That, environmentalists and congressional leaders said, left the law with no teeth. To assuage those concerns, lawmakers took out the language -- nicknamed "weasel words -- in a special session that ended earlier this month. However, the law still gives the state latitude to push the deadline for meeting the phosphorus limits back by a decade, critics say. At the same time, though, lawmakers in the special session authorized the sale of $800 million in bonds backed by the state's documentary stamp tax on real estate transactions. That money will be used, in combination with federal funds, to restore more natural flows to the Everglades under an $8 billion project. Currently, water that used to flow slowly across the Everglades is shunted rapidly through canals into the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. The legislation, signed by Bush earlier this month, also extended a $25 per acre tax on sugar growers in the Everglades. That will give the state more money for cleanup work over the next three years. In addition, the changes to the law authorize the agency to use property taxes on all landowners in the Lake Okeechobee basin on a broader variety of cleanup strategies. The original law was more restrictive, Barnett said. The new law will allow the state to spend the tax money on an innovative plan to use algae to reduce phosphorous levels in the Everglades. Looking for commitment But when Bush signed the changes into law, few in the media reported the financial and technical aspects of the bill. Instead, the state's major newspaper and wire reports focused on the bickering between state and federal officials, backed by environmentalists. They also zeroed in on a federal court rebuff of the sugar industry's effort to have a judge kicked off a long-running Everglades case. "The controversy took on a life of its own," Barnett said. He insisted the state is making dramatic progress in reducing phosphorus levels in the Everglades. Four giant wetland filters have been created and two more will be finished soon. The wetlands, called storm-water treatment areas, cover about 40,000 acres. Cattails and other marsh vegetation soak up phosphorus captured in the wetlands before the water is gradually released to the Everglades. The cleansed water has a phosphorus level of 50 to 60 parts per billion in most areas, and in some cases as little as 30 parts per billion, Barnett said. With the money allocated this year, the state will use limestone in one of the storm-water treatment areas to grow periphyton, an alga that absorbs phosphorus. Officials also plan to slow down the flow of water through the storm-water treatment areas, allowing more of the phosphorus to filter out. In combination, the steps should help the state achieve the 10 parts per billion phosphorus limit, Barnett said. The treatment areas, and changes to sugar cane farming operations, have kept hundreds of tons of phosphorus from flowing into the Everglades. "We've been given wonderful tools to work with," Barnett said. But environmentalists, who estimate that two to nine acres of natural Everglades land per day is lost due to pollution from sugar cane farming, contend that the state has always had the tools. What state officials lack, they said, is the tenacity to withstand lobbying from sugar interests trying to avoid paying for the environmental cleanup. "It's more than committing money -- it's committing to protect the Everglades," the Sierra Club's Ullman said. "If they don't protect the Everglades, all this money will be moving around dirty water. This just shows the administration is more committed to backing polluters than it is to restoration." 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