Restoring the Florida
Everglades
Chris Minor
Introduction to the Watershed
History
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Until late 1800s a large chain of wetland
Covered 8.9 million acres
4 million acres “River of Grass”
High diversity of flora and fauna
Water moved slowly through the system,
extending flows from season to season.
History Cont.
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Late 1880s efforts began to drain south
Florida
Considered necessary for safety and
commerce
Today
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1000 miles of canals
720 miles of levees
Controlled by 16
pump stations
200 gates/other water
control structures
Today Cont.
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½ of Everglades lost to agribusiness and
urban development
100 mi. long Kissimmee River has been
converted into a 50 mile long canal
Flow to the Everglades reduced by 70%.
An average of 1.7 billion gallons of water is
discharged to the ocean every day.
The littoral marsh in Lake Okeechobee
suffers from high water being backed to
meet the high demand.
Today Cont.
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1 million acres posted with health advisory
due to contamination
Florida Bay suffers from a lack of
freshwater causing hypersaline conditions,
a sever decline of seagrasses and algal
blooms
All estuaries have suffered impacts to their
ecological structure
What’s causing the problem?
Water Management Issues
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Top threat to the Everglades ecosystem
Quality- Primarily agricultural runoff
Quantity and Timing- Wet and dry seasons
altered
Distribution- Decrease in number of
acreage inundated
2/3 of the area depends on the rain
received by 1/3 of the original watershed
Introduction of Invasive/Exotic
Species
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Hydrilla
(Hydrilla verticillata)
Water Hyacinth
(Echlornia crassipies)
Agriculture
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EAA-505,000 acres dedicated to agriculture
The most productive area in the state
80% in sugarcane and 20% vegetables, rice and
sod
Provides 40% of the nations winter vegetable
and 25% of the nations sugar
Largest single source of phosphorus to the
everglades providing 47% of the historical load
Each year 1.8 million tons of fertilizer applied
costing $250 million for $3 billion worth of crops
So what!
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High levels of phosphorus causes a shift
in algae species
Sawgrass to cattails
Decline in wading birds
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Human Population Increase
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Currently 6 million people in South Florida
7 of 10 fastest growing metropolitan areas
in the country
Daily population increase of 900 residents
20-25 years expected to reach 12 million
So what!
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For 900 people 200,000 gallons of water
are needed
Added square miles of building and paving
reduce rainwater penetration into aquifers
Obviously- it alters the land, changes the
water flow and creates more runoff
Review
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High demands for water from agriculture
and human population increase
Economic value of agriculture
Scope of exotic species
Now what?
The Comprehensive Everglades
Restoration Plan (CERP)
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Army Corp of Engineers in 1999
Endeavors to restore, protect, and preserve the South Florida
ecosystem
Principles that guide the plan include:
-Meeting restoration, preservation, and protection requirements
while providing for the region's other water-related needs;
-Incorporating best-available science and independent scientific
review;
-Openly including and engaging stakeholders; Ensuring full
partnership with federal, tribal, state and local agencies and taking
their views into full consideration; and
-Creating a flexible plan that is based on adaptive assessment and
recognizing that modifications will be made in the future based on
new information.
Land Acquisition
The South Florida Water
management District, as
the Non-Federal Sponsor
of the Comprehensive
Everglades Restoration
Plan (CERP), is charged
with the responsibility of
acquiring the real estate
needed for the
construction, monitoring
and operation of the CERP
projects. The CERP
projects are estimated to
cost $7.8 billion of which
$2.2 billion is allocated to
the acquisition of lands (in
October 1999 dollars).
CERP Concept
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To capture and store freshwater currently discharged to
the ocean and use it during the dry season to replicate
natural flow
This goal is to be achieved through the removal of 240
miles of levees and canals, and the building a network of
reservoirs, underground storage wells, and pumping
stations that capture water for redistribution.
Responsibilities for implementing CERP are shared
between the Army Corps of Engineers and the South
Florida Water Management District.
CERP
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First cost estimate is $7.8
billion.
Annual operation and
maintenance cost,
including monitoring and
management is estimated
at $182 million
Implementation continued
through 2038, the half
way point is 2010
CERP
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Realize complete recover is not
possible
1.
There have been substantial and
irreversible reductions in the spatial
extent of the wetlands system
(including an approximate 50 percent
reduction in the Everglades) and in the
total water storage, timing, and flow
capacities of the systems, as well as
well as permanent impacts from rising
sea levels, establishment of exotic
plants and animals, subsidence, and
losses of organic soils.
There is a significant lack of predrainage quantitative, qualitative, and
ecological data available to contrast
and compare efforts.
2.
CERP
Overall objective is to create a
“new” Everglades, one that will
be different from previous
systems and will be substantially
healthier than the current system.
The restoration effort aims to
restore a sustainable ecosystem
that preserves the properties of
South Florida’s systems and
supports agriculture, fishery,
tourist-based economics and a
Highly quality of urban life.
Goals of CERP
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Enhance ecologic values through improving the total
spatial extent of natural areas; improving habitat and
functional quality; and improving native plant and animal
species abundance and diversity.
Enhance economic values and social well being through
increasing availability of fresh water
(agricultural/municipal and industrial); reducing flood
damage (agricultural/urban); providing recreational and
navigation opportunities; and protecting cultural and
archeological resources and values.
Projects of the CERP
Restoration
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A daunting task
18,000 square miles
The most ambitious
ecological restoration
ever attempted
55 federal, state and
county agencies as well
as two Native American
tribal councils
Restore Natural Flow
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Somewhat unknown after all still need to provide
water for agriculture and residents
Perhaps a system of aquifer storage and
recovery (ASR) the aquifer storage and recovery plan proposes drilling more than 300
wells in South Florida that would funnel up to 1.7
billion gallons of a day into underground aquifers
to be stored and pumped out as needed.
Will it work?
Restore Natural Flow Cont.
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Sawgrass ridges running parallel and
open-water sloughs, dotted with higher
tree islands were landform the contributed
directly to the historical flow.
Degradation of these areas in association
with canals, levees and roads seem
irreversible
Improving Water Quality
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Everglades Forever Act of 1994 significantly changed
business in the EAA
The Act ensures $320 million will go from the sugar
industry to restoration of lands by 2014
Water flow to the Everglades will be increased by 28%
through re-routing of rivers and release of stored water
40,000 acres of EAA lands will be converted into an
artificial filtering marsh to help cleans the water before it
leaves the area
By 2006 water runoff will be 10 times as pure as
rainwater
Improving Water Quality - BMP
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Everglade Best Management Program (BMP)
Requires the EAA to achieve a 25% reduction in total
phosphorus discharge to the everglades.
BMPs include covering crops to reduce wind and water
erosion, spread soil removed from canals to fields, laser
level fields, modify pump practices, vegetation along
banks, minimize fertilizer application, crop rotation,
growing rice during the summer allowing higher water
tables, use vegetable drainage water in sugarcane fields
and retention of drainage on-farm
BMP Continued
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Financial incentives are provided to
grower who exceed the 25% minimum.
Improving Water Quality - Storm Water
Treatment Areas
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Advanced treatment technologies consisting of
47,250 acres of synthetic wetlands built to
remove phosphorus
These areas will receive on average 1.4 million
acre-feet year of stormwater runoff from the EAA
The natural system was nutrient poor with less
than 10ppb concentrations of phosphorus so
several strategies have been developed to
increase the phosphorus uptake (Direct filter,
membrane filters, dissolved air filtration,
neutralizing chemicals
Improving Water Quality - Aquifer
Storage and Recovery
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Will allow for storage of water during the
wet season to be used in the dry season
which will decrease the loss of flow to the
ocean and reducing water loss to the
everglades
Restoration Program in the Kissimee
River Basin
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Revitalize habitat for 320 wildlife species
Federal and state government cost
sharing $379,000 million, 15 year project
to recharge the river and restore the
meandering bend that were channelized in
the 1960’s
Restoration Program in the Florida Bay
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Nearly $6 million supported over 70
research projects designed to assist
restoration efforts
Thorough study will provide knowledge
necessary to help restore the estuary
Restoration in the East Everglades
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The Everglades Protection and Expansion
Act added 107,600 acres of critical habitat
in Shark Slough added to Everglades
national park.
Directed the ACE to modify water
management structures to allow for sheet
flow of water.
Then and Now
Achieving Progress
The ultimate success of CERP will be a reflection of its implementation over
more than 30 years. Successful implementation will require a well-coordinated
strategy that recognizes, first and foremost, that ecosystem restoration is the
overarching objective. CERP will begin to reverse, in a relatively short time,
the pattern of ecological degradation that has been occurring in the natural
system for many decades.
Implementation also will be guided by a set of principles:
•Utilization of interdisciplinary and interagency teams
•Incorporation of outreach and public involvement
•Maintenance of regional system focus
•Integration with ongoing and future projects
•Integrated contingency planning
•Consideration of water quality needs
•Plan evaluation through adaptive assessment
•Addressing of uncertainties
•Assurances to water users
•Development and refinement of models and tools
Future
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The Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan will revitalize the
ecosystem, while providing future fresh water supplies for the
people and farms of the region, too. It is considered the world's
largest such project.
But its success is up to all of us: citizens across the nation and
state from the public, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the
Department of Interior, the South Florida Water Management
District and other agencies. Both input and support will be
required over the coming decades as we construct this ambitious
ecological restoration effort.
Twenty years from now, today's children should have the
opportunity as adults to visit this majestic and captivating
ecosystem and see its expansive sawgrass marshes and towering
blue skies. The Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan will
ensure the River of Grass will be a healthier place than it is today,
and one which will remain strong and vital in the future. We hope
the information presented in this web site will help explain the
problems of the Everglades and what we are doing to restore this
national treasure.