No good has come of the Everglades Trust's six-figure TV, radio and online campaign to buy U.S. Sugar Corp. land.
If you saw the counter-attacking ad Monday released by the Associated Industries of Florida's H20 Coalition, you know what I'm talking about.
By muscling up and demanding the first and largest share of Amendment 1 cash, the Trust has created a new team sport.
Your environmental priorities against my environmental priorities. Call it a new version of tug of war.
Floridians are lining up behind the one that most affects them personally.
"What makes their rivers any needier than my springs?" asks Merri Goodall of Leon County.
"Where is the money to repair oyster beds? We have things we need, too," Lenny Clovis of Apalachicola told me.
It's unhealthy and doesn't feel right for Florida, this competition -- particularly over an issue that drew 73 percent of the voters in November.
AIF's H2O Coalition is simply reacting to the Everglades Trust, reminding lawmakers that Amendment 1 is for more than just South Florida.
Think for a minute how bad this is. Think how divisive an issue it has been already, and the Legislature hasn't been in session for more than 24 hours.
We're already looking at the start of a kind of environmental civil war. A war of words and ill feeling between regions fighting for a fairer share of the Amendment 1 pie. And suddenly the Everglades -- whose stewardship should be the responsibility of all Floridians -- could turn up as the enemy. Resented. Something just for South Florida. Something they want over what we want.
At fair market value the U.S. Sugar land now will cost $500 million for 46,800 acres. That's more than two-thirds of the first year's 33 percent doc stamp take.
But it isn't just the money. It's the University of Florida Water Institute report, commissioned in 2014 by the Florida Legislature.
If you listen to theEverglades Foundation, the report proves the sugar land buy is just the ticket:The report ... confirms much of what the Everglades Foundation has been saying for years -- more storage is needed south of Lake Okeechobee, storage south of the lake is more effective ..." says Foundation CEO Eric Eikenberg.
But, wait a minute.
In the first place, the Everglades Foundation has been saying no such thing "for years."
Taxpayers had already shelled out almost $300 million of the $800 million A-1 reservoir price tag when then-Gov. Charlie Crist -- under the Everglades Foundation's watchful eye and working with the South Florida Water Management District -- shut reservoir construction down in 2008. Had the shutdown never happened, the reservoir would have been completed in late 2010 and would have been ready to store 62 billion gallons of water -- the equivalent of more than 5 million residential swimming pools. (See the photo below of the reservoir's groundbreaking in 2006.)
Imagine how that might have helped during the disastrous deluges of spring and summer 2013. But the A-1 reservoir was dismantled -- the idea being, with the U.S. Sugar land, it would no longer be needed. Again -- not only was the Everglades Foundation on board with the dismantling, it had encouraged it.
On March 31, 2010, Federal District Court Judge Federico Moreno ordered construction to resume. That day, Sunshine State News interviewed Mike Collins, former SFWMD board member.
"You know," Collins said, "the judge's ruling makes me feel good for Chip Merriam, a Water Management District scientist who was fired -- that's right, fired -- for refusing to go along with the new baloney. All of a sudden the Everglades Foundation comes along, and after we built a plan with sound science and financial responsibility, they're making scientific decisions because a bunch of faux environmentalists gives them a lot of money ..." Read the April 1, 2010 story for yourself.
In the second place, the UF water report I see must be different from the Foundation's. If it justifies Eikenberg's plan, it certainly escaped me.
- Page 9 in the executive summary states categorically that a flowway would not be feasible.
- The top two recommendations are 1) build the projects already planned and 2) store and treat more water NORTH of the lake. There is already planned storage and treatment SOUTH of the lake in the Restoration Strategies Gov. Scott signed last year. I'm talking about another $880 million in projects that will enable more water to be sent south.
- Both Lt. Col. Tom Greco of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Bob Johnson of Everglades National Park have said publicly that even when all this is built, you plain can't -- that's cannot -- send SOUTH more than an additional 235,000 acre-feet of water total due to all the constraints listed in the Kivett report.
My point here is, Eikenberg and the Foundation-Coalition-Trust are still twisting reality like a hairstylist with a French braid. Hopefully, legislators will read the 143-page report for themselves, listen to interpretations from the authors and other scientists and engineers, then make up their own minds.
Floridians don't need to be taking sides in a cause meant to preserve our common treasures.
Reach Nancy Smith at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at 228-282-2423. Twitter: @NancyLBSmith
