Welcome to the sugar policy awakening of 2018! Today's vote in the House means more than just refining an old government program. Not long ago few people paid attention to this giveaway tucked inside the Farm Bill. Today, with a chance to take a closer look at the program’s impact on the economy and the Everglades, people are suddenly making the connection: we’re paying billions to fund political influence and destroy three legendary estuaries and a National Park.  This afternoon the House of Representatives has a chance to vote on the Sugar Policy Modernization Act, a set of minor adjustments to make the US Sugar Program more fair to taxpayers. It’s the kind of reform effort that flew under the radar [...]

Friends,   Your help is urgently needed today with phone calls or emails on yet another critical issue. I know I sent out a request last night asking for your help on the JPA between the county and FP&L but, the hits, they just keep on coming. “Hold the Line”, a cause that has been championed for years, to protect critical wetlands bordering the Everglades from development and preserve the off-moved Urban Development Boundary from violation, is being challenged by a proposal to construct a toll-road expansion. Twice in the past, we have spoken out and defeated the proposed expansion of the 836 Expressway out toward the Everglades and then down south to around SW 136 Street near Miami Executive [...]

It is our pleasure to invite you to the Friends of the Everglades 49th Annual Meeting Sunday, April 22th, 2018.           Annual Meeting Invitation             DATE: Sunday, April 22, 20 TIME: 2 - 4 pm Free admittance to Earth Day Festival at Pinecrest Gardens, noon to 4 pm LOCATION: Pinecrest Gardens/Historic Entrance 11000 Red Road Pinecrest, FL 33156 Senator Jose Javier Rodriguez will be our guest speaker for the event. Friends of the Everglades will be awarding 'The Marjory Stoneman Douglas Defender of the Everglades' Award to Senator Rodriguez at the meeting. He will be giving a presentation on his campaign #ActOnClimateFL addressing environmental issues affecting South Florida, followed by a brief Q&A session. Join us! José Javier Rodríguez was elected in 2016 as State [...]

So are we for the EAA reservoir, or aren’t we? This question, swirling around Everglades policy circles all winter, touched off a string of debate-club arguments that left everyone confused and divided. Which is exactly what it was supposed to do.It’s a dishonest question, asked mostly by people who don’t really care whether the reservoir delivers meaningful relief to the Everglades or the impacted fisheries. If you do care, you can’t answer yes or no without knowing what we're getting: how much clean water will go to Florida Bay, how much dirty water will be kept out of the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie? No one really knows. But if the reservoir can deliver the performance engineers at the South Florida Water Management District say it [...]

It doesn’t work. The first scientific evaluations of Florida’s EAA reservoir plan were publicly released last week, and the findings are bleak: it can’t operate at full capacity without violating pollution standards. But it wouldn’t take much to fix it.The Everglades Foundation’s science team--one of only two organizations outside the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) with the expertise and technology to model the reservoir plan--spelled it out clearly. The state’s design can’t clean enough water to cut discharges or boost flows to the Everglades. The plan unravelled when the science team took a hard look at the assumptions behind the project’s estimated phosphorus reduction--the key to meeting federal clean water standards. It turns out the estimates aren’t credible. That’s the same conclusion reached [...]

Florida’s sugar industry just posted one of the best years in its history, even as the Everglades and virtually everyone in South Florida suffered one of the worst. It’s not a coincidence. Managing water in Florida means picking winners and losers. When there’s a drought, losers go thirsty. When it rains, losers drown. In 38 years of public records, sugar has yet to lose.  The Everglades lost on both sides in 2017. Barely a trickle flowed south into Everglades National Park and Florida Bay for the first five months of the year. River mouths dried up, brackish estuaries became saltier than the ocean, seagrass meadows collapsed. Guides reported miles of lifeless, stinking water where some of the most productive shallow fisheries [...]

Do not give up on Florida’s waterways. Hundreds of the world’s top Everglades scientists, policy experts, and engineers met this weekend to trade information and build consensus on how to keep Everglades restoration moving forward.As you’d expect with the ink barely dry on SFWMD’s Everglades Agricultural Area Reservoir report to the legislature, the plan to revitalize South Florida’s estuaries dominated the discussion. Here are three telling points from the podium: It was encouraging to hear Senate President Joe Negron talk optimistically while saying in no uncertain terms that the district hasn’t used the tools lawmakers gave them to get Florida taxpayers the best possible plan, to get the most possible reduction of discharges into our rivers and the most possible [...]