Life Support

Is the Everglades restoration dying? Funding issues have long delayed federal efforts and now may affect state projects.

By Debra Wood

Seven years after federal and state officials promised a $7.8 billion Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, the project’s overall progress has stalled because of an ongoing lack of federal funding and new state budget woes that could hinder the program further.

The state of Florida has completed a few small projects and has one large reservoir under way, as part of the South Florida Water Management District’s Acceler8 Program, but a state budget deficit and potential major cuts in property tax revenues may limit borrowing capabilities and delay even more projects.

Meanwhile, the lack of congressional funding has curtailed any federal restoration work.

“Initially, it was to supposed to be a 50/50 partnership for doing CERP, but that 50/50 (state/federal) partnership has been lacking,” says Mark Perry, state co-chair of the Everglades Coalition, an alliance of 45 conservation and environmental organizations. “The federal government has not done anything.”

Nearly 60 years ago as part of a flood control program, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began building miles of canals reaching from the headwaters in the center of the state to South Florida and a dike around Lake Okeechobee. However, that program altered the natural environment, damaged marsh vegetation and estuarine areas, and decreased the natural water storage capacity, according to a 2005 Army Corps of Engineers report to Congress.

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“The overall goal for the restoration program is to restore more natural water-level fluctuations, water quality and distribution of water so it’s delivered in a more natural way,” says Tommy Strowd, assistant deputy executive director of Everglades restoration for SFWMD.

CERP also would add storage capabilities to eliminate dumping into the Atlantic Ocean or Gulf of Mexico an estimated 1.7 billion gallons of fresh water daily that could be used to quench the state’s drinking water, irrigation and industrial needs.

“The plan is still viable but more expensive,” says April Gromnicki, director of Everglades restoration for the National Audubon Society in Washington. “It’s not going to get any cheaper or easier the longer we wait.”

The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, estimates CERP costs had increased to $10.1 billion in 2006 and restoring the South Florida Ecosystem would cost $19.7 billion. The GAO expected those numbers to increase, because final designs are not complete and land costs may increase.

Federal delays

While acknowledging that no components of the program had been completed, John Paul Woodley Jr., assistant secretary of the Army (Civil Works), said in the 2005 report to Congress that satisfactory progress was being made toward achieving the goals envisioned by CERP, which was authorized by Congress in the Water Resources Development Act of 2000 and signed into law by President Bill Clinton.

Gromnicki says that two water resource acts that should have been enacted since then never were, and that created a barrier to progress on the Everglades restoration. An act was pending in Congress in September, which if passed and signed into law would authorize three CERP projects: the $1.3 billion Indian River Lagoon South in Martin and St. Lucie County, the $375.3 million Picayune Strand in Collier County and the $80.8 million Site 1 Reservoir restoration on the Palm Beach-Broward county line.

However, it provides no funding for the projects. That has to wait for a budget bill. The soonest money might become available is fiscal year 2009, Gromnicki says.

“The budgets have been tight, so it’s been tough to get new-starts authorizations,” says Stu Appelbaum, restoration program manager for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Jacksonville.

The GAO report issued earlier this year criticized the corps’ lack of sequencing and scheduling criteria. It recommended a comprehensive reassessment of those decisions.

In addition, the National Academy of Science issued a report last year recommending resequencing the projects to accelerate smaller jobs that would secure environmental benefits.

“We’ve taken that recommendation seriously,” Appelbaum says. “We’re trying to marry the concepts that both GAO and NAS recommended and to produce restoration benefits quicker.”

Florida projects

Florida launched its $1.5 billion Acceler8 Program in 2004 to speed up design and construction of state CERP projects. SFWMD relied on bond financing to fund the work and set a goal of completing the projects by 2010.

Now with the state facing a budget deficit and voters set to decide on additional property tax cuts at the end of January, SFWMD is holding off awarding new contracts until it learns what the electorate wants. Not only could the measure limit revenues, it also could affect the district’s borrowing capabilities, which are limited to 20% of revenues.

“We are concerned about the property tax referendum and how it will impact SFWMD,” says Jacquie Cohen, Everglades policy associate for Audubon of Florida in Miami. “That’s why there’s a stalled situation.”

SFWMD’s Strowd says the district has spent $312 million toward what is now a $1.8 billion Acceler8 program.

The biggest project moving forward is the $400 million Everglades Agricultural Areas A-1 Storage Reservoir. A joint venture between Barnard Construction Co. of Bozeman, Mont., and Parsons Water & Infrastructure of Pasadena, Calif., began work in summer 2006 on the project located in western Palm Beach County. The 190,000-acre-ft, aboveground, 12.5-ft-deep reservoir will collect agricultural runoff, which will be cleaned up in a stormwater treatment area before it is delivered to the Everglades.

The team received the first three of seven contracts to dig seepage canals outside of the planned reservoir’s footprint, to remove muck and to set up water control systems, says Jeff Higgins, vice president of Barnard.

“During the first phase with the dry weather, not only did we finish that section of the work three months earlier than projected, but also we are projecting about a $7 million savings,” says Jeff Kivett, department director of the Everglades restoration engineering department of SFWMD. “We did not have to do as much dewatering or have as much down time due to rain.”

In August, crews were setting up crushing equipment to produce 5 million tons of cement-stabilized aggregate for the project, which will be used for filters and drains. The contractor has 150 pieces of heavy equipment and 250 people working onsite. Work under contract totals $250 million, and the company was negotiating with the state on the fourth contract for embankment work. Pumping equipment and grading will be let under future contracts.

SFWMD has completed many smaller projects, including the first phase of road removal and home demolition at Picayune Strand; backfilling the Prairie Canal; three Stormwater Treatment Area expansions; and canal work on ACME Basin B.

Sitework, which began about a year ago on the $273 million, 50,600-acre-ft, 15-ft-deep, aboveground C-44 St. Lucie Canal Reservoir, has been completed. The district is waiting on the tax referendum vote before letting further contracts to actually construct the reservoir.

The $338 million, 70,000-acre-ft C-43 Caloosahatchee River West Storage Reservoir remains in design. The $40 million C-111 Spreader Canal to restore a natural slough is being redesigned to incorporate suggestions from area residents.

SFWMD expects to seek bids this year on the first $24.8 million phase of the Biscayne Bay Coastal Wetlands project, aimed at improving water quality in the bay. Future phases for a pump station and flow way should go to bid next year. The district also expects to put out to bid work on additional stormwater treatment areas and pumping stations.

“We’ve accomplished a lot,” Strowd says. But “what we’ve done pales in comparison to what we have left to do.”

Useful Sources:

Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan
http://www.evergladesplan.org

Acceler8
https://my.sfwmd.gov/portal/page?_pageid=1855,2830547,1855_2831083&_
dad=portal&_ schema=PORTAL&navpage=home