PART 2 (PART 1)
By LIA MARTIN
Gov. Rick Scott signed the $77 billion state budget, vetoing only $69 million and making this year a standout in monies awarded.
As part of this budget, $259 million was earmarked to protect Florida’s Everglades, its rivers and estuaries and the water used by 8 million residents and millions more tourists annually.
The Central Everglades Planning Project map shows the areas of Florida where improvements were to be made in the Everglades reconstruction. CEPP did not receive final approval by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers this year in time to be added for state budget consideration, so funding has been delayed for at least one year until Florida lawmakers are able to vote on the project. Photo contributed by the South Florida Water Management Agency.
It will give funding for the Everglades/Lake Okeechobee/Indian River Lagoon project ($259.6 million), Lake Okeechobee cleanup ($19 million), water quality restoration ($32 million), C-44 spreader canal ($40 million), C-111 spreader canal ($5 million), C-43 spreader canal ($18 million), Tamiami Trail Bridge expansion ($90 million), Picayune Strand ($2 million), Kissimmee River ($5 million), Lake Worth Lagoon ($2.08 million), Northern Everglades BMPs ($3 million), Indian River Lagoon (IRL) dredging ($10 million), IRL resource recovery pilot ($1 million), water quality monitoring ($4 million), Alligator Alley tolls to South Florida Water Management District support ($8.6 million), SFWMD support ($2.7 million), dispersed water shortage ($13 million), and the Loxahatchee/St. Lucie Initiative ($4.15 million).
The Central Everglades Planning Project, or CEPP, which is central to water issues in the state, was not in the budget. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers did not approve the CEPP, saying it needed more time.
The CEPP was created to study the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, or CERP, created by Congress in 2000, to make sure it was on track to restore the Everglades. The CEPP draft was presented to the state in March by the Army Corps of Engineers.
President Barack Obama, Gov.Scott, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell and other members of Congress expressed dismay at the unwillingness of the Corps of Engineers to approve the Central Everglades Planning Project so it could be placed on the budget.
As a prelude to the disappointment, Scott urged the Corps of Engineers this past April to adopt CEPP. The plan had already been approved by SFWMD, one of the CEPP partners, as is the Corps of Engineers, Jacksonville district.
Col. Alan Dodd, the Corps of Engineers district commander, said they were committed to CEPP and fully committed to the plan but that it needed more time to examine the 8,000-page document before approving it.
“There are still several required steps that must happen before CEPP can become a reality,” Dodd said in April. “First, the Corps must address any comments made during the state and agency review. The Corps must then prepare a ‘Chief of Engineers’ report to present to the commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for approval and signature. The report is then forwarded to Congress for information and to the Department of the Army and the Administration for review. Once the Administration clears the report, it is sent to Congress for possible authorization and funding. These steps are required by law, and must be accomplished sequentially and cannot be done concurrently.”
On May 23, Dodd reported the Corps had accepted the plan and it would be moving forward for approval by state and agency review as early as this summer.
On one side, you can see the Corps’ position. In The Observer News June 5 article, “The Everglades: River of Interests,” the role the Corps of Engineers played in the destruction of the Everglades’ ecosystem and the Corps’ acknowledgement of that role through the “River of Interests” government document they commissioned, it is understandable that they are conservative in their progression of the CEPP.
Unfortunately, it means it may be years before the CEPP acquires the funding needed now to proceed in bringing back the ecosystem of the Everglades to what it used to be, as well as to harness the groundwater to serve the needs of Florida. Some 1.7 billion gallons of ground water flow out to the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic Ocean annually, according to Melissa Meeker, former head of SFWMD.