CONSERVATIONISTS and scientists working to restore the Everglades were stunned and delighted in June 2008 when Florida鈥檚 governor Charlie Crist announced that the state had negotiated a deal to buy 75,000 hectares of farmland from United States Sugar. The land, which sits between Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades national park, was drained and filled for farming in the early 20th century, partially blocking the natural flow of fresh water that is crucial to the . At the time, Crist compared the deal to the creation of Yellowstone.
The Everglades has been in long-term decline due to agricultural pollution and the blockage of water flow by development. The $1.75 billion deal offered realistic hope of reversing the degradation.
The euphoria was short-lived, however, and today the deal hangs by a thread. Florida was in a budget crunch before the economic meltdown made money even tighter. By April 2009, the deal had shrunk to $536 million for 30,000 hectares. Now the state has given itself just six more months to arrange financing, but money for the deal is far from certain. Recent press reports 鈥� notably in 鈥� have raised serious doubts about the value of the deal for Everglades restoration.
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Even if the shrunken deal goes through, the restoration plan may require a major overhaul. No one has yet studied how the smaller purchase would affect water flow. Until those details are settled, Florida has put other, related projects on hold 鈥� including the construction of a massive underground storage reservoir intended for flow restoration.
鈥淓ven if the shrunken deal goes through, the restoration plan may require a major overhaul鈥�
鈥淐onfusion is the watchword,鈥� says Will Graf, a geographer at the University of South Carolina in Columbia who has been working on Everglades issues for a decade.
Graf remains optimistic that progress is being made even as Everglades degradation continues. Let鈥檚 hope his attitude is justified. If the US cannot get its act together to save a unique ecosystem like the Everglades, what hope do we have of solving similar, and even bigger, environmental problems along the Louisiana coast and in the Sacramento-San Joaquin river delta in central California?
