Join us for the Summer Solstice party

30th Anniversary of the Marshall Plan

Below is the Public Comment I gave to the South Florida Water Management District Governing Board on June 9, 2011:

This is a follow-up to my public comment of May 12, 2011, and yesterday’s electronic public comment to the Governing Board regarding CERP Baselines.

Today I am here as the spokesman for the Arthur R. Marshall Foundation, including our 2011 Summer Interns, commemorating the 30^th anniversary of the presentation of the Marshall Plan to the Governing Board, June 12, 1981, in Marathon, FL.

A hard copy of the written presentation was provided in the blue folder as part of public comment last month.

We also celebrated another anniversary this week, June 6, 1944. On D-Day, Art Marshall was in the second wave hitting Omaha Beach. We commemorate his survival, and the subsequent legacy he left for all of us. We have to wonder what he might have been thinking when he made his presentation close to the D-Day anniversary back in 1981.

Independent of getting some points across in 3 minutes, in the tradition of Art Marshall and invitations of the 1980’s governing board, it is appropriate that these comments be sequenced.

The Marshall Plan to Repair the Everglades was introduced in what Art called a “shirt-sleeve symposium held in November 1980, and was background for the 1981 presentation which we now commemorate.

In both instances he provided the case for Everglades Restoration in six pages, outlining what needed to be done for the govt and public, as only Art Marshall could do.

His basic premise for repair was easy to understand: Effective repair of the Everglades requires the restoration of sheet flow to the maximum extent practical from the Kissimmee Basin to FL Bay.

Art was about restoring processes that can be summarized by his three R’s of restoration.

Restore Flow; Re-vegetate; Restore peat; Re-Peat.

We are making some progress in this direction. We need to make more progress, so that on the 40^th anniversary of the Marshall Plan, we can celebrate rather than just commemorate.

I leave the rest of the story to a short read of copies of the six pages provided to the Governing Board back in June 12, 1981, which I have again provided by hard copy and electronic copy, and copies for the public.

Thanks for your consideration, and thanks to Art Marshall for leading us in this direction.

Respectfully submitted,

John Arthur Marshall,

Chairman of the Board.

Interns Have Arrived!

The Arthur R. Marshall Foundation is pleased to welcome our newest class of Summer Interns--(from left to right )Vanessa Appricio, David Diaz, Judy Hartshorn & Rob Hill.

May 17th Public Comments to CISRERP

Arthur R. Marshall Foundation & FL Environmental Institute, Inc.
Public Comment [paraphrased+] May 17, 2011 at the 23rd Meeting of the
Committee on Independent Scientific Review of
Everglades Restoration Progress (CISRERP)

This public comment should well be called: What’s the real BASELINE to which restoration, preservation, protection, enhancement should be applied and assessed [measured]?

Here are three baselines that have a lot in common. Let me challenge the audience by stating that: Adaptive management is mission impossible without a baseline. [It’s hard to tell where you have been if you don’t know where you started!]

BASELINE 1: Key elements of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan = CERP [1999], vis-à-vis, CERP Sections 2, 5, 7, especially 2.3.1 dynamic storage and sheet flow.

BASELINE 2: Hit the streets 5/4/2011: Landscapes and Hydrology of the Predrainage Everglades by McVoy, VanArman, et al. This is the long-awaited expanded picture of the historic Everglades as outline in CERP 1999, Section 2.

BASELINE 3: The Marshall Plan, 1981, for repairing the Everglades, if you are an Art Marshall disciple. [The ArtMarhall.org is happy to see Arthur R. Marshall’s work again referenced in baseline 2, pages 310, 335. For additional information, same as referenced on page 310, in Predrainage Everglades, see: http://everglades.fiu.edu/marshall/index.htm .

All three BASELINES have the common element of restoring natural flow on a vast scale. [As Art Marshall put it in the Marshall Plan: Effect repair requires restoration of sheet flow to the greatest possible extent from the Kissimmee Lakes to Florida Bay.]

So with the near simultaneous events of a new SFWMD Governing Board and the McVoy Report, we have reissued [are reissuing] our condensed version of CERP 1999 and the Marshall Plan to get everybody on the same page.

For the uninitiated the 4033 Page CERP has been reduced to 11 pages for an E-Z read. This also provides a BASELINE for our 10th Annual Summer Intern Program, whereby we are training your replacements. Hard copy for the record and e-copy of CERP 11 page excerpt to Stephanie for distribution to the Committee.

Since there has been a lot of talk about technologies for attaining water quality phosphorous (P) standards of P = 10 ppb, let me close with an anecdote. There is an apparent error of omission in all these presentations by not considering the nutrient uptake of the pond apple forest south of Lake Okeechobee. We go with the Committee regarding avoiding high-cost engineering solutions, when there are low-cost, low-tech, low-risk natural solutions available. The pond apple forest is not a cure-all but it is one aspect that needs further consideration. Thanks for considering the trees. FOOTNOTE: LILA (Lox Impoundment Landscape Assessment) findings indicate this is even a better idea. More on that later.

Respectfully submitted,
John
John Arthur Marshall, Chairman of the Board,
Arthur R. Marshall Foundation & Florida Environmental Institute, Inc.

Spring 2011 Tree Plantings

Thank you to all of the volunteers who helped us this spring!

Upcoming Tree Planting

Deadline for Summer Interns is March 31st!