George Wedgworth's column "Southern 'flowway' not the right answer" contains myriad misstatements carefully constructed to baffle the public. The gist of the matter is the sugar industry does not want a storm-water conveyance and treatment system connecting Lake Okeechobee to the Everglades. Rather than dealing with the issues on scientific merit, the sugar interest has consistently blocked even a modest study, falsely insisting it has already been thoroughly examined and dismissed.
Dismissed, yes, by Sugar's political allies. Studied? No. Not studied, modeled, nor even examined as an alternative to 330 aquifer storage and recovery wells, should that most tarnished of Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan's silver bullets fail to meet its promises. The Army Corps' Plan 6 flowway, proposed in its 1994 Reconnaissance Report to "maximize planning objectives" never made it past the concept stage. Subsequent attempts to study similar options have been killed by the South Florida Water Management District before they got started.
Mr. Wedgworth proudly reports farmers will contribute more than $200 Million to Everglades cleanup. He forgets to mention that taxpayers are paying for the rest of the $2 billion cost estimated in the SFWMD 2006 annual report. The rest of us are paying 90 percent of the capital cost to clean up the Everglades Agricultural Area's dirty drainage water while the farmers who benefit pay 10 percent. What a deal.
The 43,000 acres of storm-water treatment areas constructed between the EAA and Everglades were originally designed to treat 250,000 acre-feet of Lake O water per year for delivery to the Everglades. In actuality, SFWMD advised the Army Corps in 2006 there was no treatment capacity left, the EAA had used it all and the water quality standards were not being met for the Everglades, so don't send any lake water south. Send it to the coastal estuaries instead.
Experience since 1995 shows the storm-water treatment areas are not large enough to treat EAA drainage to the required water quality standards, so we are now paying to build more treatment marshes. But none for Lake O conveyance south, it's all dedicated to EAA drainage.
What about the fact that a "flowway" would not flow? Nothing in the EAA flows now unless it is pumped, so why should a conveyance and treatment area connecting Everglades to Lake O be any different? Massive pumps are already in place at the south end of the EAA.
We pay to pump EAA farmers' drainage into the Everglades now. In fact, WCA 3 is often too full not due to rain, but due to pumping EAA drainage into it regardless of how full it is. EAA farmers have a lot more pumping capacity than SFWMD, so they can force "flood control" levels into the main canals and SFWMD has "no choice" but to pump it south — or even north and south at the same time, backpumping into Lake O.
As for the argument that STAs are net water users, why is it OK to treat EAA drainage with treatment marshes but not excess Lake Okeechobee waters? If more of the EAA were dedicated to environmental restoration, irrigation demand would be reduced accordingly. There should be a net increase in clean water for the Everglades, not a net loss, and better timing of water deliveries than the current on-demand EAA drainage system provides.
Mr. Wedgworth likes the status quo, it works great for Sugar. Perfect water supply and perfect drainage. Too bad for the rest of us, Lake O and the coastal estuaries are condemned to die and we cannot even get a decent study of the flowway options from the agencies in charge of restoring the South Florida ecosystem.
Henderson is president of Evergreen Engineering in Stuart and a member of the board of the St. Lucie River Initiative.
