US Sugar Purchase: responding to the critics

Several newspapers and columnists have responded negatively to the land purchase that the Governing Board agreed on last week. So let's take the time to debunk some of their favorite myths:

I’m afraid you don’t understand the hydrology of the Everglades, the soil subsidence in the EEA that will prevent any natural connection between Lake O and the water conservation areas, and the need for more water storage

We understand the hydrology perfectly well. We have looked at contour maps, and the north-south profiles from Lake O to WCA-3. It is clear that even with the current subsidence, the possibility of gravity driven flow begins when the lake reaches ~13+ feet, the higher the Lake, the more gravity driven flow, and energy reduction. Florida Crystals has reached the same conclusion.

Even the SFWMD admits that this is so, in the course of the River of Grass workshop considerations.

That also is why the Corps of Engineers is considering a spill-way, down roughly this north-south path around the Miami and North New River Canal. Given current conditions of the dike, and an extreme wet condition that would take the Lake up to 18+ feet, and a possible breach of the dike, it is fairly obvious which direction the water would flow.

An ill-conceived conclusion that the water would not flow came from a look at an east-west transect, which does show a bowl of sorts. However the major objective remains south flow, not east-west flow. The hype that water won't flow from south to north under the aforementioned conditions is beyond science (BS)

Of course the reservoir isn’t the final solution and nobody says it is.

The National Research Council councils against engineered solutions, as usually they carry a lot of unforeseen consequences. As the EAA reservoir would have been a four-sided dam requiring a lot of pumping, and more unforeseen consequences, same as the dike around Lake O, it needed to be taken off the table as providing too few benefits, relative to cost.

Where do you get your water storage?

Dynamic Storage and Sheet Flow, as described in CERP section 2.3.1

Everglades Scientists, Florida Crystals, and the ArtMarshall.org have all calculated that if there is enough treatment by restoration of vegetation in shallow flow-ways and STA's, there would be enough thru-put via flow to provide "dynamic storage", just as it worked in the historic Everglades.

The ArtMarshall.org is also pushing restoration of the pond apple forest as part of the solution. It appears that the pond apple forest played a major role in reducing nutrients as water flowed south.

I.e., this approach would have moved nearly 2 million acre feet south, the current estimated requirement to restore ENP and FL Bay, which would also provide relief of the estuaries.

Both the placement and acreage of the EAA Resvoir would likely have foreclosed this option.

John

B.S. Geology, UF '63, M.S. System Science, 72

John Arthur Marshall, Chairman of the Board,

Arthur R. Marshall Foundation & Florida Environmental Institute, Inc.

www.ArtMarshall.org Declaring 2010 the Year of the Everglades!

EVERGLADES RESTORATION: Our Passion! Our Mission! Our Legacy!