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Editorial: Critical year to keep Everglades projects moving forward

Editorial Board
Naples Daily News
A birds-eye view of construction along the Caloosahatchee River near the West Basin Storage Reservoir Tuesday, May 9, 2017.

2018 is a critical year to keep agreed-on Everglades restoration moving forward.

The clock is ticking. As it does, questions are arising whether the concept for a reservoir south of Lake Okeechobee approved last year by the Legislature will provide adequate treatment or whether more land will be needed to filter stored water.

The reservoir on state land south of the lake is intended to provide storage and marsh filtration to cleanse water before it is released south into the Everglades. Another desirable benefit is reducing the amount of tainted water that's discharged from the lake down the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie rivers.

The agreement reached last session in Senate Bill 10, signed by Gov. Rick Scott, calls for spending $1.7 billion for the reservoir on 60,000 acres to create 240,000 to 360,000 acre-feet of water storage.

SB 10 called for the South Florida Water Management District to deliver a report on designs for the reservoir to the Legislature by the first day of its 2018 session, Jan. 9. The district did, sparking debate over whether the designs are adequate.

We recall how SB 10’s approval by the Legislature creating a reservoir south of the lake wasn’t even a certainty a year ago. Water district officials were challenging its necessity, as were agricultural interests. Consensus then emerged, and remains, that the south reservoir itself isn’t an end-all solution, but rather part of a complex puzzle involving additional projects north, west and east of the lake.

Time to rethink it?

Is it time to rethink whether what SB 10 delivered is adequate? Maybe. Is it worth a full-court press to determine whether any landowners have property to swap or if other state-leased tracts are available to utilize for a bigger marsh? Certainly.

But a companion concern must be the cost of expanding the reservoir footprint and who would pay. We’ve yet to see the federal government live up to its Everglades restoration financial commitments. As costs escalate, don’t be surprised if the volume increases on the old mantra of “let’s see what the projects underway accomplish before we commit to additional ones.”

Questions that have arisen about the district’s designs can’t delay the urgency of forward movement on the reservoir. The next major target date is Oct. 1, when the water district and Army Corps of Engineers are to submit their plan to Congress.

In late 2018, Florida’s political landscape will begin to significantly change. The reservoir’s and SB 10’s champion, east coast Sen. Joe Negron, will end his two-year term to influence the restoration initiative as Senate president. Florida will be weeks away from electing a new governor; whoever replaces Scott has appointment powers over water district members and its executive director.

Florida House and U.S. House seats in the state are up for election this year, as is half the state Senate and a U.S. Senate seat in Florida.

Can a changeover in key elected leadership make a significant difference? It’s easy to answer “yes.” Remember the deal the state once had in place to acquire U.S. Sugar lands south of the lake and how that agreement was allowed to expire?

Also upcoming in the weeks ahead before the legislative session ends March 9 is a Florida budget that will commit where state money will be spent through June 30, 2019.

Our editorial board has long maintained that a reservoir south of the lake is part of the Everglades restoration answer. Given the risks of the political landscape changing, the urgency remains to keep this reservoir project collaboratively moving forward.