I asked Sen. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland, what she thought of Thursday’s unanimous vote. “I’m disappointed but not surprised,” she said. “I’m a great supporter of Everglades restoration, somebody who sponsored Everglades Forever. But this is the wrong land, wrong time, wrong price.
We should never have switched from building projects, from a reservoir that was nearly built that we had already put $300 million into, to buying land that brings us to a halt.
Most of the nay-sayers of the purchase parrot the EAA reservoir as if it would be the savior of the Everglades. In fact it was the second-worst component of a deficient plan, second on to the proposal for 330 Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR) wells in what was the historic Everglades.
ASR has faded into the background; the EAA reservoir is in need of the same course of action, with the realization that low-cost, low-risk, low tech approaches, such as a flow-way provide significantly greater benefit to cost, than high-tech, high-risk, high-cost applications that require pumping and concrete.
Operations and maintenance costs, for either of these components would have broken the bank, and both have significant water-quality problems with more expense to address, rather than the needed water treatment provided by restoring flow, re-vegetating, and restoring peat, fundamental processes's needed to restore the Everglades.
In the case of the EAA reservoir, the construction cost was ballooning from the $400 Million estimate to something approaching a billion dollars. The Title of Smith's article - U.S. Sugar deal diverts money from concrete solutions - does hold some truth. There would have been a lot of concrete plowed into this project, and of course there was no concrete or deep water storage in the historic Everglades.
Not only would the EAA Reservoir provide negative water quality attributes, but would provide little relief to the estuaries, because when bone-dry the EAA reservoir would lower Lake Okeechobee less than a foot. Few reservoir advocates have taken a look at the future scenario, with the reservoir being a source for back-pumping polluted farm water.
In a really wet storm event the reservoir would fill up same as Lake O; this would lead to no other option but to dump dirty water south, same as dumping dirty water east at west to the estuaries.
In fact the EAA reservoir would have displaced spatial extent of natural area needed for treatment and conveyance of clean water, as in a lose-lose-lose BIG-time loser situation.
The reservoir was an alternative solution owing to the lack of a willing seller of the lands needed to convey and treat water when the plan was formulated back in 1999 (The ArtMarshall.org was there protesting for more natural flow then, same as now)
All should be grateful that Governing Board Member Estenoz addressed the reservoir issue in the discussion of what to do, April 12.
Granted we all would like to have seen more land bought in the August 12 deal. However the Art Marshall view is that the SFWMD has reached the right reasons for suspending the reservoir and considering win-win options, with the option to purchase more land in the future, for the natural solution.
Whatever configuration is chosen to restore the missing link to revitalize the river of grass, the ArtMarshall.org has calculated economic benefits of 90 Billion dollars over the 40 year life-cycle of the plan.
The best of six solutions - with the most economic benefit - turned out to be the one with no deep water storage reservoirs. Wonder of all wonders, it was the Florida Crystals Corporation solution.
We would be happy to provide the basis for that calculation as well, for people willing to listen to serious analysis, rather than shoot from the hip.
Art Marshall, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, and Johnny Jones, Everglades restoration luminaries past, had it right all along. For the Art Marshall approach, Semper Fi,
Respectfully submitted,
John Arthur Marshall, Chairman of the Board,
Arthur R. Marshall Foundation & Florida Environmental Institute, Inc.
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