Florida Everglades Meeting in D.C. Chugs On, Despite Shutdown

Officials from 16 South Florida counties disregarded the closed-for-business sign on Washington, D.C., Wednesday, meeting in the nation's capital with the Congressional Everglades Caucus to encourage water projects they believe will relieve pollution-assaulted waterways on both sides of Lake Okeechobee.

Included at the meeting were representatives of the counties within the South Florida Water Management District, including district officials themselves.

Mostly what they wanted was money, and a lot of it. This was their list of priorities:

-- Recurring money to re-gird the Herbert Hoover Dike around Lake Okeechobee.

-- Recurring money to restore the flow of the Kissimmee River.

-- Money to finish the C-44 reservoir and stormwater treatment area.

-- Authorization from Congress for the C-43 project on Florida's west coast.

-- Passage of the Water Resources Development Act.

Sen. Bill Nelson promised the 16-county coalition that the issue has "broad, bipartisan support" in Washington, but given the ongoing dysfuntion surrounding the government shutdown and talk of budget-cutting, the group was given little reason to hope its priorities would make it into the budget.

To make the coalition's priorities happen -- including the flow of Lake Okeechobee discharges moving south instead of east and west -- the Army Corps first would have to include the Central Everglades Project in the Water Resources Development Act. But that report is due to Congress by Dec. 31, making timing particularly tight.

Rep. Patrick Murphy, D-Jupiter, had arranged for the most important federal officials to meet with the coalition Thursday -- for example Jo-Ellen Darcy, assistant secretary of the Army Corps of Engineers' civil works and officials from the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Interior -- but, according to Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers, because of the shutdown, the Florida group was told they are unlikely to attend.

During the 50-minute meeting, the Congressional Everglades Caucus listening to the group included Nelson and Reps. Murphy, Lois Frankel, D-West Palm Beach, Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Miami, Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton and Joe Garcia, D-Miami. Sen. Marco Rubio did not attend.