So why, then, aren't the Everglades saved? by gimleteye

My dinner companion asked me the question last night. He has lived his entire fifty plus years in South Florida. Loves to fish. As a contractor, he understands how pieces fit together. So why, then, haven't the Everglades been saved?

He knows that finally earth is moving in a few places. But he also knows that it has been a long time since the newspapers printed and the politicians cried that the Everglades are worth saving and that we are going to save them. He knows that the water management district and the US Army Corps of Engineers are responsible for the flood control system, that also irrigates vast tracts of sugar and vegetable farms, and for protecting the Everglades.

So who is responsible, he wants to know, if we passed the laws and appropriated the moneys and the Everglades still aren't fixed?It would have taken me a few hours to answer that question. But here is what I said, in the short form: a week from today, those questions are front and center in a long delayed hearing in the Miami courtroom of federal district Judge Alan Gold. The small organization of which I am conservation chair, Friends of the Everglades, has waited five years and nearly three years since a judgement in our favor: that the U.S. EPA must have a plan, including enforcement and financing, for the State of Florida to stop permitting the pollution of the Everglades through excessive amounts of phosphorous; mainly the result of fertilizing sugar farms.

Who is the culprit in this multi-dimensional drama that is playing out over 16 counties in South Florida, where taxpayers pay for the operation of the South Florida Water Management District? The bottom line: the governor and the Florida legislature. In 1996, Florida voters approved an amendment to the Florida Constitution requiring the polluters to pay all the costs of cleaning up its pollution of the Everglades. Sugar filed 38 lawsuits. The Florida Supreme Court ruled that the Florida legislature was required to pass new legislation to enact the constitutional amendment. No governor nor legislature since that moment as whispered or lifted a finger to do that. (Ted Levin wrote a good summary in 2003, the fateful year under Governor Jeb Bush when the Florida legislature set out to destroy the Everglades Forever Act; the battle that underlies next week's drama in federal court-- seven years later.)

I don't know what else to say to my dinner companion. The polluters and the legislators and the lobbyists know that peoples' attention is focused elsewhere. There is no accountability. Only confusion. Jobs, jobs, jobs. Governor Elect Rick Scott is convinced he doesn't have to reveal anything to the public, through the mainstream media, and that his recent election proves the point. Governor Charlie Crist, on his way out of public service, considers the purchase of US Sugar lands in the Everglades Agricultural Area to be the keystone achievement of his term, and yet he didn't make the case during his campaign that he had done something-- in taking land out of sugar production and angering the powerful Fanjul billionaires-- that no one in Florida had ever done before.

During the building boom, Florida couldn't protect the Everglades because it was too important to give an economic boost to powerful campaign contributors from the Growth Machine. During the economic crash, Florida can't protect the Everglades because those same powerful campaign contributors need more help to get back into the green, before the environment. We can't save the Everglades when the sun is shining. Or when it is raining. Not in the daytime and not at night. But at least one federal judge believes that federal law says, otherwise.

And more than a few environmentalists believe the statement by a former director of Friends of the Everglades along these lines: saving the Everglades is a test; if we pass, we may get to keep the planet.


PS. You can join Friends of the Everglades, today, by clicking here....