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Who's hurting the Everglades
By Horace Cooper
October 23, 2003

Sometimes the answers to questions are right in front of you.

Consider the news accounts of "environmental activists" in Florida protesting against the South Florida Water Management District over the progress it's making in protecting the Florida Everglades.

Over the past four years, scores of agencies and organizations have been involved in a very deliberate process to formulate a plan to restore the ecosystem and meet south Florida's water needs for the next 50 years. This plan is the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Project -- and it is working.

It is innovative and relies on "green" technology that promotes environmental sustainability and supports nearby agricultural communities. Last year the prestigious American Society of Civil Engineers named the South Florida Water Management District one of only six national recipients of its Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement award.

Others are joining the effort. The sugarcane industry has begun taking aggressive steps to promote ecological sustainability in the Everglades. The industry's use of rice as a cover crop is one such positive practice. Rice is planted on sugarcane fields every 4 to 5 years and is grown under flooded conditions. The rice crop absorbs excess phosphorus, and flooding the fields halts subsidence, controls pests and provides a wetland habitat for native animal species.

Industry has worked to dramatically decrease its release of phosphorus into surrounding ecosystems through decreased fertilizer use, chemical treatment of outflow, and the creation of 16,000 ha of filtering marshes to act as a wetland treatment and buffer zone. Working with University of Florida scientists, farmers have invested tens of millions of dollars in techniques to reduce the impact of farming on the Everglades using so-called "best environmental practices."

This $8 billion federal-state partnership has been remarkably successful; for instance, water with 200 parts per billion of phosphorous has been dramatically reduced to less than 20 parts per billion. The Cattails (plants that thrive on excess phosphorous) which eliminate native plants and degrade the habitats of more than 1500 animal and plant species have seen their growth in the area dramatically reduced.

Wading birds, down to 9,000 pairs in 1994, have reached nearly 70,000 nesting pairs for the first time since 1946. Crocodile nests have doubled over 20 years. Florida panther births are now three times as numerous as panther deaths.

So what's the problem?

Self-identified environmental activists are attacking the plan and the South Florida Water Management District as insufficiently "pro-environment." Here's where the moral preening begins.

It seems that since the plan is only 4 years old, it hasn't already solved the problem. To add insult to injury, the activists are also upset because the Florida State Legislature recently extended the time for the agency to reach its goals.

But that criticism fails to acknowledge that the challenge of the Everglades clean-up is not easy. Nowhere else in the world is any agency attempting to reduce phosphorous to similar target levels. Plus the plan adopted by the agency recognizes real world realities and costs and as a result balances conservation against the necessities of development.

Sadly, to the clerics masquerading as conservationists, the recent decision by the state to extend from 2006 to 2016 the target date to reach 10 parts per billion - versus pre-cleanup phosphorus levels of as much as 200 parts per billion - is tantamount to throwing in the towel.

They're unleashing their wrath and fury. They're threatening to use lawsuits and political pressure to dissolve the federal-state partnership even if it would forfeit billions in taxpayer dollars committed to protecting the Everglades.

None of this will actually aid conservation. It won't increase the number of wading birds or panther births. It will only reveal the contrast between those who work to solve problems versus those who love to complain about problems. Like the folly a few years earlier behind their losing effort on Amendment 4 (a proposal to raise sales taxes on sugar), the rigidity of the environmental evangelists will cause them to be at odds with the public once again.

With their latest protests, the public is beginning to see that the real problem might be that the whiners fear once the problem is solved, the whiners will lose their platform.

The criticism diverts time and energy that should be spent on tackling the ongoing problems of the Everglades. Finger-pointing and moral perfectionism will only slow things down.

Today there is an unprecedented level of cooperation among farmers, the state and federal government, and a vast network of stakeholders concerned about the future health of the Florida Everglades. A lot has been accomplished. But it's not finished, and major steps remain to be taken. If this process is not interfered with, all the signals indicate that the steady and careful commitment of all the parties involved will mean even greater progress is possible.

But this prospect can't escape the sad fact that if true environmental mettle was measured by the results, rather than how loud and vitriolic the complainers are, we'd all be better off.

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Horace Cooper, who writes regularly for United Press International and GOPUSA.COM, was praised as a key Republican strategist in Elizabeth Drew's New York Times bestseller "Showdown: The Struggle Between the Gingrich Congress and the Clinton White House" and extolled as a "poster conservative" by Michele Mitchell in "A New Kind of Party Animal."