Everglades Reporter

Friends of the Everglades

March, 2001

ANNUAL MEETING

This is your official invitation to attend Friends of the Everglades’ annual meeting at Fairchild Tropical Gardens on Sunday, April 22, 2001, at 1 p.m.   Admittance to the Garden will be free to all Friends members. Please bring this newsletter for use as a ticket.

If ever there was a time the Everglades needed help it is now.  That in part explains why you haven’t heard from us lately. We’ve been busy fighting to see that the restoration plan is real and not just a scheme to assure more water for more growth.

There is much to do.  If ever there was a time Friends needed help it is now.

There definitely is something you can do. First, you can pay your dues.  They are only $10.  But if you can afford more please send more, to 7800 Red Road, Suite 215K, South Miami, Fl. 33143. Please include your e-mail address. As for what else you can do, please check the volunteer list at the end of this letter. We’re not talking about just stuffing envelopes.

We will elect a new board of directors that will include four new members. Nominees for the 16 seats are Connie Washburn, Frank Peterman, Polly Edwards, Terry Sabbag, John Cunningham, Susan Wilson, Juanita Greene, Jim Wellington, Nancy Brown, Joe Browder, Theo Long, Pat Lee, all incumbents, and newcomers Tom Sadler, Dave Reiner, Priscilla Perry and Jim Martin.

Nominees for officers are Juanita Greene, president; Frank Peterman, first vice president; Polly Edwards, second vice president, for Young Friends; John Cunningham, third vice president, for conservation; Susan Wilson, secretary, and Jim Martin, treasurer.

MONEY BEGINS TO FLOW

This is the year government starts spending money on what is called the CERP (Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan). And there will be plenty to spend, about 8 billion dollars over 30 to 40 years.  This year there is about $400 million in the pockets of the state and federal restoration agencies. And what will they do first? They will experiment with an iffy plan of storing water underground, not in the parched, pinched natural areas inhabited by many living things.   A panel of scientists has raised questions about what the water will do and where it will go when it is jetted into the mysterious world below.

Even where water is stored above ground, most of it will not be able to resume its natural flow because it will be confined in reservoirs. Not much help there for the River of Grass, which is drying up.

The big issues in Everglades restoration is where water will go and how clean it will be.

We need more storage because we are sending to sea more water than we use. We do this to keep the sugar cane fields and the western suburbs dry.  Obviously this huge waste can’t continue. Moreover, almost all the water in the Everglades is polluted, most of it by runoff from the cane fields.

So we have to capture the water and clean it up. Then where do we put it? Friends believes it should go back into the River of Grass, which historically served as the Everglades storage area. The Everglades should get water when, where and in amounts needed. We are not at all sure this will happen under the CERP because it does not give priority to the natural system.  Government will not be buying much land to restore drained Everglades areas. But storing the water underground and in confined reservoirs will keep the public utilities and the developers happy.

Friends will closely monitor the CERP and report back to you.

In the battle for clean water we are taking direct action. We are suing. We have three cases going, against backpumping urban and ag pollution into the Everglades in Broward County, against the EPA for backing down on Federal Clean Water Act rules in the Everglades, against the Water Management District for planning to send insufficiently treated water into a public preserve south of the sugar fields that is designated an Outstanding Florida Water area. In addition, we have given notice of intent to sue the District for breaching a levy to allow polluted water into the only remaining pristine area of the Everglades outside Everglades National Park, as well as into the park.

We are fortunate to have an attorney who is an expert on the Federal Clean Water Act and has won notable victories in other states. He is John Childe of Hershey, Pa. He came to  South Florida in 1988 at the invitation of Fishermen Against the Destruction of the Environment, a Lake Okeechobee group.  In 1993 he was recruited by Friends.

One of our most popular programs is Young Friends of the Everglades, which sends a representative into fourth grade classrooms in county public schools to tell about the Everglades and teach environmental awareness and water conservation. A second outreach educator will join Jim McMaster in the program this year. It is funded by a grant from the county’s  Environmental Protection, Water and Sewer and  Solid Waste departments.

Young Friends of the Everglades was founded in 1994 as an adjunct of Friends by two board members who are elementary school teachers.  Thousands of students have participated in the hour-long sessions. 

How would you like to drive along an elevated causeway through eleven miles of Everglades, where you could view the green vastness and the many living things residing therein? It could happen. The causeway would be a stretch of the Tamiami Trail beginning at the eastern boundary of the Everglades---near Krome Avenue---and running west. This is no pipe dream. It has the support of some of the most reputable Everglades scientists, plus Friends, Sierra, the National Parks and Conservation Assn. and other groups.

Purpose would be to allow the River of Grass to flow unimpeded out of the water conservation areas north of the Trail into Everglades National Park south of the Trail. And, of course, it would be a great tourist attraction, similar to the Interstate 10 causeway over the Atchafalaya Swamp in Louisiana.

A marina at the mouth of the Miami River not only would detour manatees into a danger zone on their frequent trips between river and bay, but would violate hard-won and long-enforced Biscayne Bay Aquatic Preserve regulations. But that did not deter Brickell Key developers from going  before the Governor and Cabinet to ask permission to build one. Thanks to hard work by enviros, the Cabinet turned it down.  Only members voting for the marina were Education Commissioner Charlie Crist and Comptroller Robert Milligan.

The rich and powerful residents of Key Biscayne are still trying to reach into adjacent Bill Baggs State recreation area to take for themselves 30 acres for Village ball fields. The Village Council has voted to send lobbyists to win Cabinet approval of the land grab, which would set a dangerous precedent for all publicly-owned parks.  Call Jeb at 850-488-5152.

Outgoing President Michael Chenoweth was honored by the Legal Environmental Assistance Foundation for his and Friends’ environmental endeavors, including opposition to underground injection of sewage.  Conservation Chair Juanita Greene received the John Kabler grass roots award from the Everglades Coalition at its annual meeting in January.

They can do almost anything they want to do, as long as it helps the Everglades.  If you have any suggestions for activities in which you would like to be involved, please let us know. Send an e mail to eglades@bellsouth.net or call 305-669-0858, or fax at 305-669-4108 or write at 7800 Red Road, Suite 215K, South Miami, Fl. 33143.

In the meantime, we are looking for people to: