To be fair to the Glades, they haven’t looked their best for nearly 50 years, when the Feds started re-engineering them. Vice President Al Gore promised last week to restore at least some of the area’s ecological integrity. Standing alongside Browner in the tall grass, Gore announced a $1.5 billion plan to rescue the shattered natural water system, with the federal government picking up half the cost. The project aims to reverse a half century of government policy that drained water off the Everglades to fuel coastal development and the sugar-cane industry. The new effort, Gore said, will save the water supply–and the tourist economy–of south Florida. “It is an investment in Florida’s future,” he said. “And an investment in America’s future.”
The plan would require the sugar-cane industry to sell 100,000 acres–one fifth of its land–and pay a penny-a-pound tax, roughly $245 million. Most of the land abuts the Everglades National Park. Scientists think that letting the acres go wild will cause an adequate water flow to return to the area, replenishing both the marshes and the underground aquifer that supports Dade and Broward counties.
The announcement annoyed “Big Sugar,” the agribusiness companies that produce 1.7 million tons of Everglades sugar each year. Long sheltered from foreign competition by U.S. price supports, the industry may be losing some of its clout, but none of its combativeness. The sugar companies will fight in Washington, much as they have in Tallahassee. But they are no longer undefeated. Two years ago, growers reluctantly agreed to pay $11 million a year to help reduce water pollution. And they are beset by enemies. State environmentalists want to impose a 2-cents-a-pound tax on Everglades sugar.
The Everglades’ potential reversal of fortune is not simply a matter of shifting political winds. Scientists have been reassessing just what the Everglades are. Fifty years ago, government planners considered them little more than a swamp that suffered bouts of temperamental flooding. So they spent $1 billion to build canals, dikes and levees to drain half of the area’s 4,000 square miles, sending fresh water to the east and west coasts. The population boomed, the sugar industry was born and the Everglades started dying. Eventually, scientists discovered that the Everglades are really an enormous river that flows gently southward toward the end of the mainland at Florida Bay. “It was not until 20 years ago,” says Col. Terrence (Rock) Salt of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, “that people realized something was dreadfully wrong here.”
The symptoms are harder to miss today. Herons, egrets, wood storks and a dozen other species of birds have been badly hurt. Florida panthers have become so scarce that wildlife officials track the few dozen remaining ones with electronic collars. Florida Bay and the waters off the Keys, home to a $250 million commercial and recreational fishing industry, have been hit by algae blooms that threaten a coral reef and choke off feeding grounds for lobster and shrimp.
Washington seems ready to do something about the Glades. Clinton’s plan is the high-water mark of reform. Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole and Florida’s two senators have a more modest plan to spend $200 million of taxpayer funds–not sugar money–to buy some of the sugar-cane land for a water-restoration project.
In the end, the problem is a simple one. Water now draining into the ocean should be seeping into the underground aquifer. No wonder Floridians are Everglades fans. Keeping south Florida from drying up seems enough to ask of one ecosystem. You want panoramic vistas, go to the Grand Canyon.
