By Jay O’Laughlin, Ph.D.
Jay O’Laughlin is professor emeritus at the University of Idaho and lives in Hobe Sound. He is a board member and writes water policy position statements for the Guardians of Martin County.
Published Jan. 31, 2018
Unless the South Florida Water Management District includes considerably more land for water quality treatment areas in its design for the EAA Reservoir south of Lake Okeechobee, the harmful and wasteful discharges of excess lake water to the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee estuaries will continue. The law mandating this project says the District cannot condemn private land but can terminate leases on state-owned lands and trade them.
Private lands, however, are unnecessary because the state already owns two wildlife management areas (WMAs) ideally situated at the southern edge of the EAA. They could be repurposed to store and treat enough water to eliminate almost all of the discharges. Construction costs would be relatively small because the Rotenberger (29,000 acres) and Holey Land (35,000 acres) WMAs are bordered by levees and abut the lands the law identifies as potential reservoir sites.
The recent Everglades Foundation (EF) proposal for the project says 240,000 acre-feet is adequate storage and the already functioning water treatment area on the 15,000 acre A1 parcel should not be used as a deep reservoir. I agree, but EF’s proposed 13,000 acres of treatment areas is not enough to do the job. Had the EF proposal been operational in 1980, it would have reduced historic discharges between then and now by 32%. Add the effects from completing all authorized Everglades restoration projects, as the District does when analyzing its own inadequate alternatives, and historic discharges would have been reduced by 55%.
The EF expects an additional 13,000 acres for the project to surface if the District worked harder to persuade private landowners to willingly trade for state land. But why try to acquire private land to do a partial job when the state owns enough land to almost entirely eliminate discharges?
Here’s what needs to happen. The Internal Improvement Trust Fund owns the two WMAs and is controlled by a Board of Trustees—the governor and cabinet officers. They could direct the Department of Environmental Protection and Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to repurpose the two WMAs. Designing these areas as flow-through marshes would be more like the original pre-1800 Everglades than today, and enhance habitat for some aquatic wildlife (bass, ducks and the endangered Everglades snail kite ), but to the detriment of deer.
Large water treatment areas would greatly improve reservoir project effectiveness. If kept full and if the Everglades Protection Area to the south can accept all water that meets standards, then the reservoir could continuously empty and refill 5 times per year, send 1.2 million acre-feet per year south where it is needed, and reduce discharges by that amount. This would have reduced historic discharges by 69%. Include discharge reductions expected from other authorized projects and nearly all (92%) of the discharges during the past 38 years would have been unnecessary.
The District should put this alternative design on the table and along with estimates of engineering and construction costs include the full range of socioeconomic benefits—public health, real estate values, and new permanent jobs (estimated 1,000). The governor and cabinet could then fulfill their “duty to hold lands in trust for the use and benefit of the people of the state” (Florida Statutes 253.001).
Strong opposition from wildlife advocates and hunters is expected. Let them convince the Board that the way these WMAs are used today is better for the people of the state than repurposing the WMAs to help move critically essential water into the Everglades and stop almost all harmful discharges permanently.
This alternative can help more than any other to restore desirable conditions to the two rivers, their estuaries, Everglades National Park and Florida Bay. Trading deer for ducks seems a small price to pay.
View the position paper here.