Environmentalists say 2000 Key Vear for Everglades Restoration

TALLAHASSEE - The coming spring will be a pivotal season for the Florida Everglades, environmentalists warned Thursday as they urged lawmakers and Gov. Jeb Bush to stop talking about saving the River of Grass and actually do something.

Florida could lose a $4 billion commitment from the federal government, fail to convert 60,000 acres of sugar-cane fields into a water filtration marsh, even miss its own deadlines set in 1994's Everglades Forever Act if leaders don't take concrete steps in coming months, said Charles Lee, senior vice president of the Florida Audubon Society.

"This is a make or break year," Lee said.

Everglades activists want:

Bush and the legislature to find a $200 million-a-year source for Florida's share of the so-called "restudy" project to re-plumb South Florida's water system to restore the Everglades and Florida Bay. At stake is $200 million a year in federal matching money.
The South Florida Water Management District to begin canceling farm leases on the Talisman tract so that the land 0- acquired by taxpayers early this year - can be used to filter water entering the Everglades by the year 2005.
A water quality standard of 10 parts per billion for phosphorus in water entering the Everglades Protection Area by the end of this year.
Restoration of fresh-water flow to Everglades National Park and Florida Bay.
A 40 ppb phosphorus limit for water entering Lake Okeechobee, as well as for the lake to be treated as a lake, not a reservoir to satisfy agricultural interests and prevent urban flooding.
Legislative action on the "Polluter Pays" constitutional amendment of 1996, which conservationists read as meaning farmers, not general taxpayers, ought to pay for cleanup of the pollutants they put into the water.

"They (the legislature) didn't do it in 1997, they didn't do it in 1998, and they didn't do it in 1999," said Mary Barley, the Orlando architect of the constitutional amendment drive.

Edie Ousley, spokeswoman for Senate President Toni Jennings, said the Senate has over the years already devoted $2.3 billion for restoration and protection of the Everglades, and that commitment would continue in the spring 2000 legislative session.

By Shirish Date - shirish_date@pbpost.com
The Palm Beach Post, October 1, 1999.