Thesis: Restoring the natural habitat of the Everglades is becoming increasingly important with the loss of biodiversity and the continual onslaught of pollution that plagues southern Florida.
Outline: Everglades Everlasting
I. Introduction
II. Definition of the Everglades
A. Landscape
B. Flora and Fauna
III. History of Ecological Change
A. Indians
B. Europeans
C. The Army Corps of Engineers
A. The Biscayne Bay Aquifer
B. Florida Bay Estuaries
C. Endangered and Fleeing Species
V. Restoration
A.The Debates
1. The Florida Sugar Industry
2. Ecologists vs. Engineers
VI. Everglades and Beyond: Setting a Restorative Precedent
A. Ethical Accountability
B. Future of Our Wild Lands
VII. Works Cited
Maintaining ecological diversity is necessary for the survival of a biological community. In the United States, American citizens are on the verge of irrevocably damaging one of the country's most unique and diverse treasures - the Florida Everglades. This national park is now the only remaining patch of a river that used to span 120 miles from Lake Okeechobee to the Florida Bay. Dikes and levees created by the Army Corps of Engineers in the late 1940's drained this river to reduce flooding and increase useable water for the development of the region. This major diversion of water lead to a trickle down effect causing the continual decline of the environmental state of the Everglades. Since then, debates over the Everglades' future have silently raged on for years about how, why, and when the restoration will begin. This ongoing, but virtually unproductive effort has cost taxpayers a great deal without any apparent benefits. Recently, this debate has been amplified by the voices of the sugar industry in Florida, which was attacked for its major contribution to pollution of the Everglades. Now debates rage on with a new effort called the Restudy. Backed by the Army Corps of Engineers, this effort would change the flow of the Everglades, potentially restoring it into the viable community of life that it used to be. The question now is, will this latest attempt to restore the Everglades ever be realized (thus ending the cyclic Everglades debate) or will it simply add up to one more notch on the bedpost of inadequate and failed attempts to save this national treasure. The world is watching to see how the United States will handle this unprecedented cleanup.
"Here are no lofty peaks seeking the sky, no mighty glaciers or rushing streamsÖ Here is a land, tranquil in its quiet beauty, serving not as the source of water but as a receiver of it." Harry S. Truman / Address At Dedication of Everglades National Park (Carr, 1981)
Nearly as large as the state of New Jersey, the Everglades used to measure about 6,000 square miles (Bucks, 1998). The Everglades was a complex wetland consisting of a mosaic of ecosystems. The heart of the Everglades was a slow moving body of water with a span of one hundred twenty miles long and forty miles wide with an average depth of six inches to two feet of water (Lauber,1973). This broad shallow, often called the "river of grass," was covered in a blanket of saw grass (not actually a grass but a sedge) that slowly drained the water from its main source, Lake Okeechobee, all the way to the southernmost tip of the state and into the Florida Bay. Shaped much like a saucer, when full Lake Okeechobee would send its overflow spilling into the shallows of the Everglades river. This natural filling process, along with the wet season's rains, is what fed the flow of the Everglades and the underlying aquifers for centuries.
The grass in the Everglades was very important to the evolution of the land and the water. It rooted itself in the soft limestone that arose from the ocean bottom from an accumulating deposition of seashells. The saw grass prospered and went through the seasonal death and rebirth, covering the limestone with its decaying leaves. A spongy mass of peat then arose from the decay soaking up the rains in the wet season and slowly distributing the water into the porous limestone and the underlying aquifers. The Biscayne Bay aquifer, the area's main source of fresh water, was continually being recharged by the action of water slowly seeping through the peat. Without this system of peat and limestone the water would have run off creating floods never allowing the water table to be adequately refilled. Solution holes in the limestone were created through these processes. They served to provide shelter for fish, insect larva and small mollusks in both the wet and dry seasons. A myraid of wading birds feasted on these fish and animals in the river, relying on the seasonal changes for nesting and survival.
While the Everglades is mostly known for its once massive river, it is actually home to many different ecosystems with 61% of the vegetation being tropical (Levin, 1998). Each one of these systems contains a plethora of flora and fauna subject to the areas two seasons: wet and dry. Black, red, and white mangroves border the coast of southern Florida, growing where salt and fresh water mix. The swamp system that they form is essential to the survival of many plants and animals. For instance, they provide a canopy for rare epiphytes such as orchids and bromeliads while they offer protection for many young marine animals (,McCally 1999). Other ecosystems such as the hardwood hammocks and the pine forest provide the habitat for Black bears and the endangered Florida panther. In addition, the custard apple swamps, cypress swamps, Miami rocklands and coastal prairies also provided a wealth of biodiversity in both plant and animal species (McCally, 1999).
Indians occupied south Florida before the Everglades came into existence (McCally 1999). They evolved with the land, taking into account its changing landscape and environmental conditions. Even through adaptation to the land, life in southern Florida for humans was not easy and did not begin to accumulate the mass of people that the fifteenth and sixteenth century saw (McCally 1999). With the arrival of the Spanish explorers in the early sixteenth century, the Everglades was found to be the home of many small tribes of Indians. Among these Indians were the Calusa, who were the most abundant and prosperous Indians to settle around the river (Mcally 1999). Soon they succumbed to the diseases brought by the Europeans and survivors, left to wander as nomads. The land, pulled back and forth between the Spanish and the English, eventually became part of the United States while any remaining Indians in this battle were forced to move west or down into the depths of the Everglades. The Europeans moved in and began to call Florida home. At the start, European settlers did not find this river of grass to be very welcoming. But it did not take long for the setters to see the potential for economic gain. With the boom of farming in the east and ranch farming in the west, the Everglades' rich, virtually treeless, landscape and tropical temperature seemed ideal for agriculture.
After a short time of farming in the dry season, the wet season brought flooding that made agriculture virtually impossible. It did not take long before draining the river became an option. So the story of changing the everglades began. This process fell into three phases: drainage (1904-1928), flood control (1928-1948), and comprehensive water management (1948 to the present) (McCally, 1999). After undergoing a series of mostly unsuccessful drainage attempts the Army Corps of Engineers were finally elected to organize a comprehensive water control plan in year of 1948. This project, now known as the Central and Southern Florida Flood Control Project (CSFFC), drained a great portion of the Everglades south of Lake Okeechobee (McCally, 1999). The Corps accepted two missions: to control flooding and to supply fresh water to the state's growing population (Helmuth, 1999). Looking at the economic and population growth in that region today, they were very successful.
Ecologically speaking, the water that used to be naturally stored in the Everglades is now being drained off the land to prevent flooding and diverted during dry periods to meet surrounding human water supply needs (Regaldo, 1999). This is what is slowly killing off this diverse and unique ecosystem. Now what is called the "Everglades" is about one-sixth the size of the original system and is lacking the original water flow; this small remainder has been preserved as the Everglades National Park (Helmuth, 1999). Today, a great deal of the historic Everglades can now be found planted with the growth of our economy in housing developments, amusement parks, and sugar cane fields (Helmuth, 1999) What is visible today, is however, only a skeleton of its past glory.
This plan, constructed to increase agriculturally viable lands and water for the public, has backfired. Soil erosion is rife, the water table is dropping, flooding is frequent, and rural and urban runoff have polluted local waters, and habitat loss threatens bio-diversity.
Land that has been drained to use for agriculture, namely for the sugar industry, has contributed to the pollution of the river. Phosphates are often the limiting nutrients for a plant's growth. So farmers have traditionally added this to fertilizers to increase the output of their crops. Often added in large amounts, this nutrient and other additives wash away with the rain and flow into the Everglades (Lauber, 1973). This is a problem because the algae also need phosphate which is not normally so available, but once it is they grow like wildfire. These algal blooms increase the oxygen in the water while decreasing the amount of light that reaches beneath the water. The increased oxygen encourages aerobic bacteria to take over. Both of these changes hurt the surrounding plants by limiting the photosynthesis in the water and the fish by eventually decreasing the amount of oxygen (Lauber, 1973). This cycle eventually reaches to the wading birds who are dependent upon the fish and small animals who eat the plants which are no longer synthesizing because of the lack of sunlight. Another problem within the "river of grass" is the invasion of non-native species. The common cattail has begun to invade parts of the everglades because of the increased phosphates decreasing the native species that have traditionally supported the surrounding plants and animals (Helmuth, 1999). This is just one instance where a monoculture is reducing biodiversity that is vital for the survival of the Everglades.
Wildlife in the Everglades depends on the seasonal cycle of wet and dry. One ecologists notes that the hundreds of water-control structures in and around the Everglades has disrupted the levels, timing, and flow of fresh water (Helmuth, 1999). As a result the wading bird population in the Everglades has decreased by at least 90 percent in the past fifty years (Helmuth, 1999). Water cycle disruptions ruin crucial feeding and nesting conditions especially when there is too little water. During the nesting season, the wading birds depend on shallow concentrated pools of water where fish are abundant (Helmuth, 1999). When there is too much drainage off the Everglades in the dry season, both the fish and the birds suffer. White ibis, marsh killfish, sailfin molly and the rainwater killfish are some of the wading birds that have declined due to the impact of the drainage (Levin, 1998).
Another factor impacted by the decreased water flow is the surrounding water systems. The Florida Bay used to be the main discharge site for the river but today it has been routed out to three new sites: two on the east coast and one on the west coast. This has affected the salinity of the water at the discharge points. With the influx of fresh water the salinity on the coastal points of discharge has significantly decreased thus upsetting the surrounding ecosystem. Oyster beds and sea grasses along these sites have begun to disappear due to the inhospitable conditions (Helmuth, 1999). The reverse is happening at the coastal regions bordering the Florida bay. With the diversion of the river further north of the bay there is now a notably decreased amount of fresh water at the mouth of the Everglades. Before the diversion, this body of water was a prosperous estuary (an incredibly rich ecosystem where fresh and saltwater mix), now it is home to predominately salt-loving species that are encroaching closer to the bay eliminating the native populations that once thrived there (McCally 1999).
With the influx of people in the last forty years water usage has increased immensely. The Biscayne Bay aquifer is the area's main source of fresh water but it is in danger of drying out (Lauber, 1973). It is rechargeable but not at the rate that it is being used. Another problem with the aquifer is that it is close to the ocean and the porous limestone is beginning to fill up with saltwater near the coast. The original Everglades have shrunk by half while the human population has soared from 2 million to 6 million. This number will continue to rise to an estimated 15 million by the year 2050 thereby depleting the area's aquifer and leading to possible shortages in the near future (Regaldo, 1999).
It has become apparent that the original plan of the Corps is no longer applicable. For years ecologists have argued that something must be done to save the Everglades but it was never as obvious as it is today.
Recently the government, ecologists and citizens of Florida have agreed that something needs to be done about the state of the Everglades. But restoration will not be easy. Restoring a clean flow means taking thousands of acres out of sugar, clearing immense fields of cattails and other invading species and stopping cane burn (Wasserman, 1996).
Controversy arose when fingers were pointed at Florida's booming sugar industry in November 1996. Attempts were made to hold this major contributor of the pollution primarily responsible for the clean up. But the sugar industry fought harder-spending 22.7 million dollars to defeat (largely through the use of dirty politics) the statewide referendum that sought to issue a penny per pound tax on raw Florida sugar (Beard and Santaniello, 1996). Monies gained from this would have raised an estimated 900 million dollars for the restoration of the Everglades (Richey, 1997). Then amendment 5 and 6 were proposed and accepted. Amendment 5 served to hold the main contributors to the pollution of the Everglades "primarily responsible," while amendment 6 set up a fund for the money collected from the former (Hallifax, 1997). So now the sugar farmers are being held accountable and they will have to contribute 232 million over the next twenty years cleanup(Richey, 1997). This was a major breakthrough for the funding of the Everglades cleanup.
While this debate raged on, a related battle was being fought to restore this ecosystem to its natural state. This plan mainly has taken the form of creating a new drainage system that would increase the flow of water, south of Lake Okeechobee, back into the Everglades. This effort is being achieved largely under the direction of the Army Corps of Engineers who will revamp the drainage system that they created fifty years ago. This plan that intends to restore the natural flow of the Everglades is being called the Restudy. Complete with its own WebPages, the Restudy is calling for a 7.8 billion-dollar overhaul that will take approximately 20 years to complete (Enserink, 1997). Setting a precedent for the amount of money to be spent, the state of Florida and the Federal government plan to split the cost. On July 1, 1999, the Restudy was submitted to congress by Al Gore and is presently being reviewed (Enserink, 1997). Besides the monstrous sum of money needed to restore the glades, the plan has a few glitches.
The plan has three major areas of restoration. The first intends to store much of the water that is drained off to the ocean through the Corps original plan. This would then be stored in the Florida aquifer and used when needed-essentially a parking garage for south Florida's fresh water (Helmuth, 1999). The second part involves the allowing the Kissimmee River to snake back into its original form since its straightening in the late 1940's (Helmuth, 1999). Engineers are hoping this will allow some of the wildlife in that area to bounce back. Last of all the Corps hope to allow some of the natural flow to be reestablished through the increase in water they plan to release back into the "river of grass"(Helmuth, 1999). To accomplish this project, engineers would remove some 400 kilometers of canals and levees (Enserink, 1997). For flood prevention during the wet season, the Corps would turn two limestone quarries near Miami into reservoirs and create 16 more reservoirs elsewhere. In an unprecedented engineering feat, over 300 wells would be drilled around Lake Okeechobee to pump up to 6 billion liters of freshwater per day several hundred meters underground into the Florida aquifer (Enserink, 1997). Lastly, to give the river of grass unfettered access to the Florida Bay, state and federal agencies would buy 24,000 hectares of farmland and build bridges to elevate 30 kilometers of U.S.41, the Tamiami Trail, which connects the Florida coasts (Enserink, 1997).
Leading ecologists have written to the US Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt that this plan is severely flawed. One such group claims, "There are deep systematic problems, unlikely to be overcome by tinkering with the existing alternative," (Reichardt, 1999). The National Park Service and the US Geological Survey scientists have encouraged the Corps to explore natural solutions to managing the region's water rather than technological fixes that have not been given sufficient consideration. David Guggenheim, chair of the Everglades Coalition, believes that this is only a minority opinion. He states that mainstream environmentalists "all feel that this has been a good scientific process,"(Reichardt, 1999). Nevertheless, other ecologists ranging from the University of Florida to Stanford also agree that there needs to be an independent research effort to counterbalance the plan being drafted by the Corps (Reichardt, 1997).
"The world is watching to see if we will seize the opportunity to recover the Everglades and work toward mutually sustainable ecological and social systems or if we will continue to build our societal system at the expense of our natural resources. ~ Mark Harwell /Leader of an independent study at the Rosenstiel School and being funded by the U.S. State Department Man and the Biosphere Program (Myers, 1994).
What are the ethical implications to this problem? Only a few years ago did we begin to start taking care of the Everglades after almost a century of egotistical destruction. This is not just a problem for Florida but for the entire population of the United States. We are a country of consumers. We buy more than we need, and we waste it when we realize we have more than necessary. How many more ecosystems will be pushed to near extinction because of a growing greed to gain more material wealth? It is important that this wrong is repaired but how far are we willing to go? How far can we go without affecting the world we have created on this system of consumerism? We need to look at the origin of this destruction. The best way to not run into this problem in the future is to head off the problem at its origin.
Recently the world just hit the 6 billion-population mark. We are growing rapidly as a species. Living in an era of excellent medical technologies and surpluses of food that are giving us longer, supposedly richer lives. Are they richer? We have become so disconnected with our surroundings that we try to bring the outdoors in through house plants, flowered wallpaper, "fresh outdoor" scented cleaners and so on. I do not think that we need to get rid of our technologies and start living outdoors like a hunter-gatherer society but internal changes need to be made to prevent situations like the Everglades from occurring in the future.
One way I see that we could be held more accountable is to include in the cost of our products the full environmental impact that they are creating at the moment. Today we tend to think of the cost of a product, like sugar, as the amount of money it takes the farmer to grow the crop. This would account for the time in planting, maintaining and harvesting the crop. The consumer then pays for the packaging and the additional cost that will allow the seller to gain a profit in the sunken costs of manufacturing the product. This seems like a lot but it does not take into account the cost of the phosphate run-off that pollutes the Everglades. The state of Florida, the federal government, and the sugar industries are now paying for this cost in the sum of 7.8 million dollars. If we were made to pay the cost of polluting the river each time we bought sugar we might think twice about how much we consume or we might even switch to an organic brand. Either way we have begun to take some collaborative responsibility for our actions. The problem with internalizing these externalities, such as pollution, is that they would tend to reduce our consumerism and that would not benefit the growth of the economy. This is where most people are not willing to head off the problem at its start.
This restoration is setting a precedent for us in the United States. I think that it is illustrating the limits of how much we can withdrawal from the land before we destroy it. I believe that we need to, in a future with increasing numbers of people, be more careful with our resources and treat them with respect. The Restudy is on the table and restoration efforts are in the process. I think that we still have a long way to go with respect to our attitude about the environment but we are on the right path.
"This is a test case for the entire country. How well we resolve this will set a precedent for all our remaining environmental crises," ~Stuart Strahl, the National Audubon Society's Everglades director (Padgett,1999).
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