Essentials of Ecology

268 CHAPTER 11 Sustaining Aquatic Biodiversity

Agricultural area

Water conservation area

Canal

Miami

Canal

Channelized river bed

0

020

20

40

40

60

60

kilometers

miles

FLORIDA

Area of

detail

Miami

Key Largo

Fort Meyers

Naples

Gulf of Mexico

Lake

Okeechobee

Kissimmee RiverKissimmee RiverKissimmee River

Caloosahatchee RiverCaloosahatchee RiverCaloosahatchee River

Florida Bay

Atlantic

Ocean

Fort

Lauderdale

West

Palm

Beach

FLORIDA

Everglades

National

Park

Lake KissimmeeLake KissimmeeLake Kissimmee

Lake IstokpogaLake IstokpogaLake Istokpoga

Figure 11-14 The world’s largest ecological restoration project is an attempt to undo
and redo an engineering project that has been destroying Florida’s Everglades (USA)
and threatening water supplies for south Florida’s rapidly growing population.

flowed through the park into Florida Bay have been di-

verted for crops and cities, causing the bay to become

saltier and warmer. This, along with increased nutri-

ent input from crop fields and cities, has stimulated the

growth of large algal blooms that sometimes cover 40%

of the bay. This has threatened the coral reefs and the

diving, fishing, and tourism industries of the bay and

the Florida Keys—another example of harmful unin-

tended consequences.

By the 1970s, state and federal officials recognized

that this huge plumbing project was reducing wildlife

populations—a major source of tourism income for

Florida—and cutting the water supply for the 6 million

residents of south Florida. After more than 20 years of

political haggling, in 1990, Florida’s state government

and the federal government agreed on the world’s larg-

est ecological restoration project, known as the Com-

prehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP). The

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is supposed to carry out

this joint federal and state plan to partially restore the

Everglades.

The project has several ambitious goals. First, restore

the curving flow of more than half of the Kissimmee

River. Second, remove 400 kilometers (250 miles) of

canals and levees blocking water flow south of Lake

Okeechobee. Third, buy 240 square kilometers (93

square miles) of farmland and allow it to be flooded to

create artificial marshes that will filter agricultural run-

off before it reaches Everglades National Park. Fourth,

create 18 large reservoirs and underground water stor-

age areas to ensure an adequate water supply for south

Florida’s current and projected population and for the

lower Everglades. Fifth, build new canals, reservoirs,

and huge pumping systems to capture 80% of the wa-

ter currently flowing out to sea and return it to the

Everglades.

Will this huge ecological restoration project work?

It depends not only on the abilities of scientists and en-

gineers but also on prolonged political and economic

support from citizens, the state’s powerful sugarcane

and agricultural industries, and elected state and fed-

eral officials.

The carefully negotiated plan has begun to unravel.

In 2003, sugarcane growers persuaded the Florida legis-

lature to increase the amount of phosphorus they could

discharge and to extend the deadline for reducing such

discharges from 2006 to 2016. The project had originally

been estimated to cost $7.8 billion and to take 30 years.

By 2007, the price tag had risen to $10.5 billion and

was expected to go much higher, mostly because of an

almost tenfold increase in land prices in South Florida

between 2000 and 2007. Overall, funding for the proj-

ect, especially federal funding, has fallen short of the

projected needs, and federal and state agencies are far

behind on almost every component of the project. Now

the project could take 50 years to complete, or it could

be abandoned because of a lack of funding.

According to critics, the main goal of the Everglades

restoration plan is to provide water for urban and ag-

ricultural development with ecological restoration as

a secondary goal. Also, the plan does not specify how

much of the water rerouted toward south and cen-

tral Florida will go to the parched park instead of to

increased industrial, agricultural, and urban develop-

ment. And a National Academy of Sciences panel has

found that the plan would probably not clear up Flor-

ida Bay’s nutrient enrichment problems.

The need to make expensive and politically contro-

versial efforts to undo some of the ecological damage

done to the Everglades, caused by 120 years of agricul-

tural and urban development, is another example of

failure to heed two fundamental lessons from nature:

prevention is the cheapest and best way to go; and

when we intervene in nature, unintended and often

harmful consequences always occur.

THINKING ABOUT

Everglades Restoration

Do you support carrying out the proposed plan for partially

restoring the Florida Everglades, including having the federal

government provide half of the funding? Explain.