Friday, May 3, 2002

A creative thinker has new ideas for restoring the Everglades.

His plans, which The Post reported this week, do not include the storage of water in expensive underground wells, which is untested science that may not work. Rather than create giant reservoirs for high-priced above-ground storage, the scientist suggests letting water flow south from Lake Okeechobee, as it once did, across lands owned by sugar growers. The state-federal team planning the $8.4 billion restoration could buy those lands and return them to their original use as sloughs, with fast-moving water and plains filled with water-cleansing grasses. Another idea is to turn the Miami-Naples section of the Tamiami Trail into a skyway and let water flow under it to Everglades National Park.

Credit Chris McVoy, former Environmental Defense Fund staff member and now an employee of the South Florida Water Management District, for the ideas. Mr. McVoy put them in an unpublished book manuscript that is generating attention within the district and generating controversy among Army Corps of Engineers scientists planning the restoration. Mr. McVoy's ideas, however, also have caught the interest of the water district's executive director, Henry Dean, who said they bear "serious investigation. I'm very intrigued by them."

Mr. McVoy did what no one else had thought of doing: homework on the history of how water flowed to the Everglades before a dike contained Lake Okeechobee and water was routed to canals. Using water district archives, old surveys and aerial photos from dirigibles, drawing on documents from the Library of Congress, explorers' field notes and documents dating to the 1830s, he put together restoration plans based on the way water once moved south from the lake without man-made canals, dikes, locks or engineering devices.

Some have welcomed his ideas; others say the Everglades is too far gone to be brought back without extensive, expensive engineering solutions. Yet Mr. McVoy's research and his ideas have made a strong and favorable impression on his colleagues and on environmental groups.

Mr. McVoy hasn't quite finished his work. Mr. Dean suggests that he do so soon, then submit it for review by other scientists. That seems reasonable, though some working on restoration have accused a team on which Mr. McVoy served of overstepping its bounds. Still, Mr. Dean is optimistic that Mr. McVoy's ideas could reveal "what should be done that's feasible to restore the system the way it's meant to operate." That prospect alone means the ideas need a hearing.