Susan D. Jewell, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Anhinga

I had just returned to the Everglades after a three-month absence and had nearly forgotten how the blooming melaleuca trees advertise their presence. It was an unwelcome reminder of a tree that shouldn't be there or anywhere in this hemisphere, of the things that were killing this wetland ecosystem, and the huge obstacles facing restoration of what was once a vast, species-rich wilderness. We had left the headquarters boat ramp at Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge about 20 minutes earlier and were nearing the end of our four-mile trip through a sea of vegetation. For most of the way, we had followed the telltale trail of flipped-over water-lily pads left by the airboat on its previous run. We were wrapped in the familiar cocoon of airboat sensations, as the noise of the boat's airplane engine was muffled by our earplugs and headphones and hot, humid air washed over us.

On countless trips like this, I had often recalled the litany of lost land, diverted water, polluted runoff, decimated wildlife, and exotic plants and animals that had brought this formerly pristine world to its present state. But today the focus is on solutions. As we docked at the refuge research station, I reflected on how the work at this site was a small but important piece of a huge restoration jigsaw puzzle.

The research team here is helping to answer important questions about the levels of phosphorus tolerated by the Everglades ecosystem. It is part of the massive

Scientist conducting research in the field.

federal, state, and tribal initiative aimed at saving and restoring the Kissimmee-Okeechobee-Everglades watershed - the nation's most endangered subtropical wetland system and the major source of fresh water for south Florida.

Debate and controversy swirl around the details of how to accomplish this enormous restoration project. But even the bitterest conflict doesn't weaken the conviction that south Florida, as a society and economy dependent on its watery heartland, is not sustainable on its present course. The status quo is not an option. Despite its uncertainties, the restoration initiative is the key to the region's future.

In the Beginning...

Major restoration work in the Everglades, including the research site's phosphorus studies, got rolling after the U.S. Government settled the 1988 Everglades Water Quality Lawsuit against the State of Florida. The litigation, conducted on behalf of Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge and Everglades National Park, argued that the state had allowed water polluted by agricultural runoff to flow onto refuge and park lands in violation of state water quality standards. The settlement was solidified in 1994 by Florida's Everglades Forever Act, and the result was an $825 million Everglades Construction Project to improve the quality of that water. It is the largest environmental restoration project in the world. (See Everglades Construction Project - also in this issue.)

But that was just the tip of the alligator's tail. Swelling public concern about the overall deterioration of the Everglades and the looming crisis for regional water supplies has since led to a comprehensive proposal for restoring the River of Grass. The Army Corps of Engineers' blueprint, known as The Everglades Restudy, estimates that at least $7.8 billion will be needed over the next 20 years to restore portions of the historic flow of fresh water to the Everglades and Florida Bay and to boost south Florida's public water supplies to meet the region's current and future needs. Half the money would come from Florida and half from the Federal Government under the proposal. Submitted to Congress on July 1, the plan is the most ambitious proposal for ecological restoration ever attempted in the United States. Unprecedented in scale, the proposal is also the most complicated and expensive landscape rescue any nation has ever undertaken. (See The Everglades Restudy - also in this issue.)

The magnitude of the task reflects the extent of the damage that has been done to this unique world. A century ago, the Everglades covered about 4,500 square miles and consisted of a continuous shallow river of grass-like plants bordering expanses of cypress swamp and mangrove forests, tropical hardwood hammocks, and deep water sloughs. Several Native American communities inhabited the Everglades, which was part of the larger watershed extending from present-day Orlando to Florida Bay, roughly two-thirds the length of the Florida peninsula. (See Living in the Everglades: The Native Americans - also in this issue.) The Kissimmee River meandered through a region of lakes in a two-mile-wide flood plain south to Lake Okeechobee, a shallow water body of 470,000 acres. When the lake was full, water overflowed its southern rim into the northern Everglades.

In normal rainfall years, most of the land in the Everglades was inundated during the rainy season, and during years of heavy rainfall, all but the highest tree islands were flooded. Numerous species of wetland birds and aquatic wildlife inhabited the area. The Everglades sky was once filled with herons, egrets, ibises, wood storks, roseate spoonbills, and limpkins that gently landed

Brown pelican

in the shallow water to probe for crayfish, shrimp, frogs, turtles, or snakes. The Everglades was also home to river otters, minks, round-tailed muskrats, and alligators. A sheetflow of water slowly moved south to Florida Bay and west to the Gulf of Mexico, supporting highly productive coastal wetlands. During the dry season, water levels were generally near land surface, but in some years, extreme droughts lowered water levels below the land surface.

Today, nearly half of the Everglades' original extent has been lost to agricultural and urban development. The flow of water from the lake has been divided into minimally connected pools and diverted for flood control, urban water supply along south Florida's two coasts, and agricultural use. Channeling, draining, and diking, which had begun in the 1880s, was expanded in the 1930s following hurricane-caused flooding in the previous decade. Water control efforts intensified after back-to-back hurricanes in the late 1940s put much of the region under water.

In 1948 Congress authorized $200 million under the Central and South Florida Flood Control Project and directed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to make the area safe for agriculture and urban development. The 1,700-mile web of levees, canals, sluice gates, and pumping stations that emerged from these projects kept Florida's booming east coast largely free from floods and available for development, and provided rich soil and ample water for Florida's hugely profitable sugar cane industry. But this latticework also starved the Everglades of water.

As a result of these water control works, less than half as much water flows through the ecosystem today as did a century ago, leaving the Everglades dry when the rainy season ends. Moreover, urban and agricultural runoff have degraded the quality of that water. The discharge of nutrient-rich effluent has covered some canal waters with algae and choked others with aquatic weeds. Ground water in the urbanized Atlantic Coastal Ridge is vulnerable to contamination from surface sources because the permeable Biscayne aquifer allows rapid infiltration of surface waters.

Water pumped into canals from farm and cattle lands carrying high concentrations of nutrients, insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides entered Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades, increasing phosphorus and mercury concentrations and stressing native plants and animals. Health advisories warn consumers against consuming fish from the Everglades because of mercury contamination. Altered water deliveries and water quality, including flows with high concentrations of nutrients, also affect coastal waters in Florida Bay, where large areas of seagrass have died, algae blooms have increased, and the bay's world-famous fisheries have declined. (See USGS Research Aids South Florida Restoration - also in this issue.)

Kim Haag, a USGS hydrologist, is with the South Florida National Water Quality Assessment Program. See USGS Research Aids in South Florida Resotration.

Sixty-eight animal and plant species in the Everglades have received federal designation as endangered or threatened. Populations of wood storks and other wading birds south of Lake Okeechobee have decreased by more than 90 percent from 1870 to 1973, a direct result of hydrologic alterations. Drainage and land clearing also increased opportunities for exotic plants, such as melaleuca, to become established in dense stands that exclude native species.

The fresh water that is flushed out to sea during the wet season for flood control - an average of 1.7 billion gallons a day - presents a major challenge to the booming region's water supply. When it was designed, the current water control system was intended to accommodate a regional population of about two million by the year 2000. But south Florida now has more than six million people and that number is expected to double in the next 50 years. In 1992, when Congress authorized the Everglades Restudy, it questioned whether this ill-conceived system was not only causing environmental deterioration but also jeopardizing the region's freshwater supply. The Congressional initiative was based on the conviction that new ideas and technologies could significantly improve the natural system while fulfilling the federal and state governments' obligations for water supply and flood protection for Florida residents.

Mimicking Nature

The Corps' proposal, developed in concert with the State of Florida, Interior, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, tribal councils, and community groups, calls for replumbing the Everglades so that more natural conditions can be reestablished or at least mimicked. It would remove as many artificial structures as possible from the remaining natural area to improve the flow of water. An estimated 240 miles of levees and canals would be removed as well as some pumps and water storage areas. The Tamiami Trail, which runs westward from Miami across the peninsula, separating Everglades National Park from the rest of the natural system to the north, would be rebuilt along a 20-mile stretch by adding causeways, bridges, and sluice gates to allow more southward-flowing water to move under it.

Susan Jewell, monitoring alligator nesting in Everglades National Park, is a biologist with the Division of Endangered Species of the Fish and Wildlife Service in Washington, DC. She was formerly a biologist at A.R.M. Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge and Everglades National Park and served on the Restudy Team and numerous Everglades restoration committees dealing with water quality, STA design, exotic plants, and endangered species.

The new system would recapture most of the fresh water diverted for flood control, store this recaptured water in reservoirs, including limestone quarries and aquifers, and redistribute 80 percent of it, as needed, to the Ever-glades through pumps, pipelines, and canals. The remainder would go to farms and the municipalities. The intent is to deliver the right amount of clean water to the Everglades at the right place and time in as natural a manner as possible. (See Freshwater Future - also in this issue.)

Computer models suggest that the plan would provide about 90 percent of the historic volume of sheetflow in the southern part of Shark River Slough, the heart of Everglades National Park. That should be enough to ensure recovery, according to Dick Ring, superintendent of the 1.5 million-acre unit at the

Dick Ring

southwestern end of the watershed. Established in 1947, the park is responsible for preserving the bulk of the remaining Everglades ecosystem.

In reviewing the Corps' initial proposal, park scientists and many environmentalists had strongly protested that the draft plan would not provide sufficient water to restore the Everglades. "There are going to have to be some very hard choices made to pull this off," said Ring. "But we are talking about saving a nationally and internationally important natural area. And we're talking about ensuring the future of the whole of south Florida." The Corps reworked the plan to improve and accelerate its performance for natural system needs. (See No Park is an Island - also in this issue.)

Taylor Slough, above, traditionally a major source of fresh water for Florida Bay would regain that function under the Corps' replumbing proposal for the Everglades. Restructuring the C-111 Canal - the last link between south Florida's 1,400-mile canal system and Florida Bay - will help restore Taylor Slough's delivery of fresh water to the bay. The project will require the construction or modification of nine canals, building a tie back levee and five new pumping stations, and removing fill material from the southern end of the canal. Half of the 11,188 acres of land needed for the work has been acquired. The project will take five years and cost an estimated $156.4 million.

About $1.2 billion of federal funds and $2.3 billion of state funds have already been spent on the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Project since the effort began in 1993. The money has been used to purchase land, manage natural resources and federally owned facilities, and build levees and other infrastructure projects. A major milestone occurred in March when Interior officials and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush signed the final agreement for the Talisman land exchange. The exchange involves property owned by six sugar producing companies and is located in the heart of the agricultural land south of Lake Okeechobee. The purchase will allow the construction of much needed water storage and treatment areas on more than 51,000 acres of former Everglades. Bill Leary, senior counsel to Interior's assistant secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks, helped to negotiate the deal. However, it could not have been accomplished without the cooperation of the landowners and the South Florida Water Management District, Secretary Babbitt, who established the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Task Force to help coordinate such projects, stresses cooperation: "Step by step, acquisition by acquisition, we are seeing a living illustration of the power of partnerships forged with the common goal of restoring the magnificence of south Florida's Everglades."

Another land deal will hopefully bring needed water storage and buffer zones to the Everglades. In the 1950s, a 100-mile levee was built to demarcate the eastern boundary of the existing Everglades. Since then, development has been pressing closer and closer to the levee from the original settlements along the Atlantic Coastal Ridge. In many places, only a thin line separates the Everglades from urbanization, literally, in the form of a 300-foot swath of levee and right-of-way.

To prevent this from occurring along the undeveloped parts of the levee, a multi-agency effort to establish Water Preserve Areas and Buffer Zones along the levee is now in a detailed planning phase, and many tracts have already been purchased. More detailed hydrologic modeling, facility design, and operational details are being determined under an accelerated schedule this year. The Fish and Wildlife Service is leading a multi-agency team in assessing the current wetland conditions in the Water Preserve Areas. The establishment of a buffer between the Water Conservation Areas and the urban areas is an important component for the success of the Corps' proposed plan.

A key element of the south Florida initiative is recovering threatened and endangered species and restoring the biodiversity of native plants and animals. The recently adopted South Florida Multi-Species Recovery Plan, developed by the Fish and Wildlife Service, offers a comprehensive, ecosystem-wide recovery strategy to help fulfill those goals. As part of the overall strategy, all restoration projects address exotic plants to some degree, although most of the research and control is occurring independently. (See Multi-Species Recovery Plan - also in this issue.)

Florida state biologists David Kieckbusch and Lisa Borgia conduct a study on wading birds in the Everglades.

In 1997, for example, the Department of Agriculture released the first biological control for melaleuca - a weevil (Oxyops vitiosa) from Australia, the homeland of the offensive tree. The melaleuca, Melaleuca quinquenervia, was introduced to Miami in 1906 to drain the swamp and provide a wetland tree for logging. Though ecologists were understandably nervous about releasing an exotic insect intentionally, the USDA gave ample proof that the weevil is the most extensively studied biocontrol in history. The weevil has its environmental limitations, however, such as its inability to reproduce over flooded land and its incapacity to kill the trees (only weaken them). Nevertheless, it has been showing promise in the areas where it's been released. Now, all the USDA has to do is to find biocontrols for Brazilian pepper, Australian pine, Old World climbing fern, tropical soda apple, carrotwood, skunkvine, air potato . . . After that, we'll tackle the exotic animals.

From species to sheet flow, saw grass to sluice gates, flood levees to filtering marshes, the complexity of these restoration initiatives can be daunting. But the significance of the efforts and the boldness of the overall plan inspire

Crowded urban development along Floridas southeast coast, typified by the city of Miami which surrounds the Miami River up to its banks, presents a serious challenge to restoring the Kissimmee-Okeechobee-Everglades watershed.

people. "The South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Project is a once in a generation opportunity," says Patricia Beneke, Interior's assistant secretary for Water and Science and the chair of the South Florida Restoration Ecosystem Task Force. "We must make the most of it." (See Cooperation is Critical - also in this issue.)

Secretary Babbitt, who has made the initiative one of the Department's top priorities, reflects on the effort's historic significance: "Restoring the Everglades ecosystem will be a lasting legacy to future Americans, the largest and most ambitious environmental restoration task ever attempted. I'm proud of the role this Administration, particularly Vice President Gore, has played in working with our state and private partners to bring this about."

Map showing the everglades protection area and surrounding areas.

Under the 1948 Central and South Florida Flood Control Project, the water- management plan included Lake Okeechobee and three water conservation areas (WCAs) that provided flood protection and water supply through a complex series of canals, levees, pumps, and control structures. On the basis of soil thickness and geologic formations, most of the northern Everglades was identified as an area suitable for agricultural development. About 800,000 acres, designated the Everglades Agricultural Area, was drained and farmed. The WCAs were constructed in the central Everglades and consisted of levees and canals that enclosed about 900,000 acres. Completed by 1962, the areas provided flood protection in the wet season by storing water and discharging excess water to the ocean. In the dry season, they supplied water for irrigation and municipal uses. Parts of the Everglades were also set aside for federal preservation and wildlife protection. Everglades National Park, established in 1947 on marshland south of the WCAs, encompasses about 1.5 million acres. The park depends on seasonal flows of good quality fresh water from outside its boundaries. The Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge, established in 1951, covers 147,000 acres, including WCA-1. The park, refuge, and other WCAs contain most of the remaining natural Everglades.