Letter to the Editor, PB Post: Everglades Back on Track ? Really?

The July 16 letter to the editor of questionable title puts political science over restoration science by demeaning a total system approach initiated by a previous administration.

The Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan 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. Restoring natural flow was a major premise on page 1 of CERP 1999, and throughout the 4033 page tome.

Long story short: This was also due to political science, defying 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 need for a modification of CERP 1999.

In terms of CERP science, per the verb “to restore” and adaptive management, emerged the initiative to restore “the missing link to revitalize the River of Grass”. 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 workshops were postponed until further notice, owing to the need to address land purchase needed. Admittedly the economy makes this paltry land purchase look like a bad deal. However better economic analysis indicates CERP(+) return on investment is at least $10:$1, with Florida Crystals analysis producing an even higher ROI: 26:1, based on restoring flow aforementioned.

Additional calculations indicate it will be less costly in the long run to restore the River of Grass, than inaction and water management that results in the adverse economic impacts of droughts that are more frequent, longer in duration, and of extreme/exceptional category.

The “streamlined approach” referenced in the July 16 letter lacks a CERP(+) vision and reduces 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 track undermining the Florida economy.

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

Article in the Palm Beach Daily News

This appeared in Local Voices section of the Sunday edition...

Global climate change, sea-
level rise and the current drought beg for a plan and swift implementation. Call the counter-measure the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan.

Both the drought and sea-level rise pose imminent threats to the water supply in South Florida by saltwater intrusion into drinking water sources.

An assessment of the cause and effect of the current drought will to some unknown extent counter the consequences of global warming and sea-level rise. (Per Palm Beach Daily News, June 25, 2011: Planning and Zoning board looks for inspiration on climate change measures.)

Much has been reported regarding the current water shortage and blaming the “extreme drought” on global climatic conditions, such as La Niña, the Bermuda High and the North Atlantic Oscillation.

No doubt these conditions are having their effects to produce the current scenario of extreme/exceptional drought. However, in all the reporting, there is not one word about a significant cause of water shortages in South Florida and its links to the global scenarios.

The late Arthur R. Marshall called this scenario a man-made drought, and sought to address the cause and cure back in 1981. (Search for “Anatomy of a man-made drought” online.) The main water-shortage cause is the removal and draining of wetlands for development and agriculture, and the reduction of natural water flow from Lake Okeechobee to the Everglades.

The Everglades wetlands, also known as the River of Grass, provided natural water retention, recharged the aquifers from which much water is drawn in Florida and filtered the water as it moved south. Moving water south (also southeast and southwest) will be a significant counter to sea-level rise.

A major volume of water that went south to the Everglades now is flushed to tide. One big result is decreased evapo-transpiration over what used to be the River of Grass, with surface water and plants sending water vapor into the atmosphere, unabated.

When moisture-heavy sea breezes combined with evapo-transpiration, South Florida was subject to rainfall deluges. Art Marshall dubbed this the “rain machine.”

The water supply in all of Florida, especially South Florida, depends on a rainfall-driven system. What is less touted in the science of the Florida water cycle, is that evapo-transpiration drives rainfall. The water cycle is also known as the hydrologic cycle. This is Geology 101 and visually described in a recently published poster by the South Florida Water Management District.

As Art Marshall declared in June 1981: “Water is the major concern of our coalition. If Lake O fails periodically to be adequate for all needs, what is to be done?”

Art Marshall also postulated that there was more dynamic water storage in the atmosphere over Florida than water storage in Lake Okeechobee.

The question persists today. As Art Marshall noted 30 years ago:

“Knowing that rainfall and its retention are the only satisfactory sources of water in the Everglades system, we support the re-establishment of sheet flow in the basin to the greatest possible extent. We cannot ignore the efficiency of the pristine system which often extended the wet period in the Everglades for four months or more beyond the four or five months of the rainy season.

“Dr. Patrick Gannon, meteorologist, has written of the positive effects of wetlands on rainfall in South Florida. Waters evaporated from the basin return to the basin in a form of natural recycling. In addition to this in-basin recycling, the most air rising from the basin can trigger additional rain to fall from water-laden oceanic air masses as they blow inland over South Florida.”

Conservation measures may help alleviate drought situations — such as xeriscaping, drip irrigation, cisterns and rain barrels, low-flow shower heads, doing away with unnecessary irrigation of medians, creating codes that don’t require thirsty green lawns. However, projected population increases, more rooftops and unmitigated destruction of wetlands will only make for more frequent extreme/exceptional droughts, and increased water supply costs, when they can be met.

There is a counter to the man-made drought and a counter to sea-level rise: Restore the river of grass to the maximum extent possible, thus restoring evapo-transpiration, and the rain machine in South Florida.

As Mr. Marshall also pointed out, rainfall always exceeds evapo-transpiration in Florida. If this were not true, Florida would be a desert.

We are way overdue — by 30 years — to address the cause. Now we need action on the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan and its robust implementation to restore the River of Grass. This will provide South Florida with plenty of low-cost water and avoid costly droughts.

How much is the man-made drought costing the people of Florida? That next.

Letter to Commisioner Putnam

Dear Commissioner Putnam;

Concur with your comments in the Palm Beach Post that repair of Lake Okeechobee is of critical importance.

However there are more significant causes of the current extreme/severe drought: Namely the continued loss of wetlands and the insufficient implementation of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) to restore lost wetlands.

South Florida depends on a robust approach to CERP to minimize the frequency, duration and extent of droughts in the future. CERP is also viewed by leading scientists as the best cure for global warming and sea level rise.

My late uncle, Arthur R. Marshall, addressed the issue of continued severe droughts back in the early 1980's, and proposed an earlier CERP. There was a reminder of this in the PB Post recently; See: HERE.

The cause and effect of the current drought is more fully laid out in Anatomy of a Man-Made Drought, in a March, 1982 Article.

Thanks for pushing CERP implementation as a cure for our current water resources problems.

For the Art Marshall approach,

Semper Fi,

John

John Arthur Marshall, Chairman of the Board,

Arthur R. Marshall Foundation & Florida Environmental Institute

Letter to the Editor: Blame Loss of the Everglades for South Florida's Drought

Here is my letter to the Palm Beach post--originally printed on June 28:

(followed by some required reading!)

Much has been reported regarding the current water shortage and blaming the "extreme drought" on global climatic conditions, such as La Niña, the Bermuda High, and the North Atlantic Oscillation (Palm Beach Post, June 13).

However, those are not the main causes of water shortages in South Florida. The late Arthur R. Marshall called this scenario a man-made drought, and sought to address it back in 1981. The main water shortage cause is the removal and draining of wetlands for development and agriculture, and the reduction of natural water flow from Lake Okeechobee to the Everglades.

A major volume of water that went south to the Everglades now is flushed to tide. One big result is decreased evapotranspiration (ET for short) over what used to be the river of grass, with surface water and plants sending water vapor into the atmosphere, unabated.

When moisture-heavy sea breezes combined with ET, South Florida was subject to rainfall deluges. Art Marshall dubbed this the "rain machine."

The water supply in all of Florida depends on a rainfall-driven system, and ET drives rainfall.

As Art Marshall declared in June 1981: Water is the major concern of our coalition. If Lake O fails periodically to be adequate for all needs, what is to be done? The question persists today.

Knowing that rainfall and its retention are the only satisfactory sources of water in the Everglades system, we support the reestablishment of sheet flow in the basin to the greatest possible extent.

Conservation measures may help alleviate drought situations . However projected population increases, more rooftops and unmitigated destruction of wetlands will only make for more frequent, extreme/exceptional droughts, and increased water supply costs.

JOHN ARTHUR MARSHALL

you can find a link to the letter: here!

To continue our drought discussion, please click and read this article The Anatomy of a Man-Made Drought originally printed in 1982!

Somebody did something about the weather in Florida; now a looming disaster demands that it be undone

Over the past few weeks, a growing number of Floridians have been jolted by a warning from Arthur Marshall, a 63-year-old ecologist who is widely regarded as having the keenest insights into that state's multiple environmental problems. Marshall's dismaying thesis is this: Drought conditions in Kissimmee Valley, which suffered a "once in every 700 years drought" last year, are going to get worse. Marshall asserts that last year was not in fact a meteorological aberration, but a predictable consequence of the land development and the drainage of wetlands in the Everglades and the Kissimmee River basin that have disrupted the normal rain cycle…

[click for the rest of the article]

Letter to the Editor--from Martha Musgrove

Published in the Palm Beach Post on June 26, 2011, from Arthur R. Marshall Foundation Advisory Board member, Martha Musgrove...

Would You Trade Water for a Pizza? Our Governor Did.

Disregard the insensitivity Gov. Scott displayed in booking his traveling tax-cut stage show into the headquarters of the South Florida Water Management District where state employees are sweating layoffs. This is a pol who has pined for a month that nobody noticed when he first signed the bill that cedes control of Florida's five water management districts to the Legislature and undermines the districts' capacities to operate by imposing new limits on taxing authority. For this, the man wants cheers.

Just do the math in this drought to understand public skepticism. Spread across 16 South Florida counties, the West Palm Beach-based South Florida Water Management District admittedly has a big tax base. It raised $399 million this year levying 0.624 mills (62.4 cents per $1,000 taxable value) in the "Okeechobee Basin" and 0.4814 (48.14 cents per $1,000) in the two counties of the "Big Cypress Basin." On a house with a taxable value (after exemptions) of $200,000 that's $124.80 per year in Palm Beach County or $10.40 per month. With that I can buy a pizza, but I might not get a free glass of water to go with it in West Palm Beach because that city's water reservoir is nearly dry.

In Naples, Gov. Scott's alleged Florida "hometown," taxpayers aren't asked to freight the cost of operating and maintaining Southeast Florida's drainage system, so the tax burden on the same house would be $96.28 or $8 a month. That's not enough to buy a pizza, but maybe the governor can buy a glass of cheap Scotch at his club.

Of course by next year, it might rain - hard and several times a day for, say, five or six months. If so, we'll all be asking why the South Florida Water Management District hasn't refurbished the drainage system and found more and better places to store water than in our driveways, patios and kitchens.

In fact, before the Legislature convened to face this freshman governor, the district had a plan and a mandate to do just that and more. The plan was adopted unanimously by the 2000 Legislature, with the support of then-Gov. Jeb Bush. It calls for reconstructing Southeast Florida's aging, inadequate drainage system that dumps 1.7 billion gallons of fresh water a day to sea - even when it's desperately needed. It proposes reservoirs and vast water-storing marshes that can filter agriculture and urban runoff so it can be returned to the historical Everglades, revitalizing an ecosystem in sharp decline and recharging the Biscayne Aquifer. The plan is named the "Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan."

Not everyone believes it to be a perfect plan, but it lays out a vision big enough to capture the public imagination. It's worth pursuing- in good economic times and bad - because it provides water for people, agriculture, commerce and the environment.

Just as floods follow droughts, Florida's is, and always has been, a boom-bust economy. It's imperative to maintain the capacity to respond quickly and timely to both challenges. Politically, there's really no defense for an elected official in Florida to be so ignorant of water, the state's defining and most vital natural resource, as to take dead aim on the response capacity of agencies charged with allocating, conserving and protecting water, or - for lack of experience having blundered into the swamp - to be so guileless as to expect to be cheered.

Martha Musgrove is a retired journalist, member of the science advisory committee of the Arthur R. Marshall Foundation and a director of the Florida Wildlife Federation.

Find the article here