Regarding the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) there is virtually unanimous consensus in the conservation community and many gov’t scientists that the June 24, 2008 initiative to restore the missing link and revitalize the River of Grass, was finally a way to make the C in CERP comprehensive.
The CERP issued in 1999 (CERP 1999) was fatally flawed by failure to provide natural flow from Lake Okeechobee to the Everglades and restore its historic River of Grass in the metaphor of Marjory Stoneman Douglas. Moreover, restoring natural flow was a major premise on page 1 of CERP 1999, and throughout the 4033 page tome.
A group of scientists, gov't and non-gov't, took the fatal-flaw issue to the same governing board member circa 2000-2001, who was then chair of the governing board. The chair promised that the flow-way debate would be put back on the table in a workshop. Then he reversed his position, as apparently the discussion of the primary characteristic that was needed to fully restore the Everglades was too hot a potato to put on the table at that time.
Getting the CERP 1999 needs fully discussed based on restoration science at this stage would have saved a lot of time and money, including avoiding $300 million going into a project with more negative externalities than benefits.
The A-1 Reservoir was an implementation in reaction to the fatal flaw in absence of the needed cure. The reservoir result would be a smaller Lake - like structure, requiring expensive dikes and subsequent huge maintenance and replacement costs down stream. It would have increased the need for water quality treatment while taking up space for needed water quality treatment, a double whammy, given the intent to restore dynamic storage and sheet flow as described in CERP 1999 Section 2.3.1, while blocking the flow
path to do so.Long story short: Most what has been claimed in the July 30 letter defies scientists’ calls to restore sheet flow dating back to the 1970’s, also called the Marshall Plan, through the latest CERP 1999 peer review by the National Research Council (2010 Biennial Report).
In January 2008, CERP scientists revealed a second deficiency: That they had found through modeling and analysis, that the Everglades was a much wetter ecosystem than previously modeled in CERP 1999, requiring a return to the drawing board to get the water right and restore natural flow postulated on page 1 of CERP 1999 and elsewhere in the 4033 page tome. Per CERP protocol, this requires an execution of “adaptive management” when new data dictates a significant need for a modification of CERP 1999.
All this was summarized in Governing Board meetings as debriefs of what was going on in River of Grass workshops being conducted at the SFWMD, so it does beg a question as to why this was not heard as a matter of fiduciary responsibility.
In terms of CERP science, per the verb “to restore” and adaptive management, the initiative to restore “the missing link to revitalize the River of Grass” was/is right on target. This provides the means to flow water south to meet the true water needs of the historic Everglades, as well as all the other users, and avoids trashing the estuaries by moving water south more than east and west.
Call the total ecosystem revitalization CERP(+). Consider CERP(+) progress in three regions:
1. There is progress north of Lake O per the Northern Everglades Ecosystem legislation/plan and the proposed Everglades Headwaters National Wildlife Refuge.
3. There is progress in the southern Everglades with the bridging of Tamiami Trail and related projects.
2. Until the River of Grass initiative, there was inadequate action for connecting the northern part of the ecosystem with the southern part of the ecosystem, due to CERP 1999 deficiencies. Absent this link, the Everglades would have to remain on expensive engineered life-support, and not much life with that.
In May, 2010 the River of grass (ROG) workshops were postponed until further notice, owing to the need to address land purchase needed. Admittedly the economy makes the current paltry land purchase look like a bad deal, but it does provide options to restore the integrity of the Everglades ecosystem in a more robust way.
Meanwhile the astute Chairman of the Governing Board posed salient questions: Wouldn’t we have to go through this ROG exercise anyway, even if we didn’t buy the land? And what about the benefits relative to the costs?
Preliminary analysis based on data coming out of the ROG workshops indicate that sheet flow configurations with the most benefit would cost about half of the $14 Billion cost claimed in the July 30 letter, produce benefits greater that ten times the cost, and cost much less than the $500 million per year in operations. It would be interesting to know the basis of the bigger costs claimed, and the fact that benefits were not part of the discussion.
Analysis presented to the Governing Board on Sept 12, 2007 also indicated potential benefits in the form of cost avoidance of over $5 billion dollars by restoring natural gravity flow to the extent feasible in lieu of pumping costs.
Additional calculations based on the 2011 drought/water shortage management indicate it likely will be less costly in the long run to restore the River of Grass, than inaction and the need for water management that results in the adverse economic impacts of droughts that are more frequent, longer in duration, and of extreme/exceptional category.
The approach referenced in the July 30 letter lacks a CERP(+) vision and de facto praises the reduction of State resources for adaptive action to get the water right and lessen the economic impacts of drought/water shortage. This leaves the Everglades and CERP 1999 on a fast track to undermine the Florida economy.
Further, the CERP 1999 approach proposed in the July 30 letter would leave Everglades Restoration a fragmented farce, and undermine revitalization of south Florida’s natural water supply at billions of expense to Florida Citizens.
Not to mention that scientists are proposing that the CERP(+) approach is the best antidote to sea level rise, salt water intrusion, and diminishing the need for expensive water supply alternatives.
Why a former governing board member does not see this is left to the judgment of the reader.
John Arthur Marshall, Chairman of the Board
Arthur R. Marshall Foundation & Florida Environmental Institute, Inc.
1028 North Federal Highway, Lake Worth, FL 33460; 233-9004
561-233-9004
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