Late Astronaut's Daughter Will Lobby Governor, Legislators for Everglades Reservoir

Former West Palm Beach Commissioner Kimberly Mitchell, daughter of late Apollo astronaut Edgar Mitchell and former Palm Beach County GOP chief Anita Mitchell, has been appointed executive director of the Everglades Trust.

The appointment was a strategic move that employs Mitchell's Republican creds, according to a story Friday in the Palm Beach Post: 

"The nonprofit’s goal: to change opinions of Florida’s governor and lawmakers, to get them behind investing in a reservoir, whose water can be cleaned of pollution and redistributed to the Everglades, an expanse so thirsty it’s in danger of ecological collapse," the Post reporter wrote.

Despite money already spent, pledged or voted in on Everglades restoration in the past two years,  the Everglades Trust still wants a reservoir in the heart of Big Sugar-owned property.

“That Everglades Agricultural Area reservoir is the one, single thing you can do that has the most benefit moving forward,” Tom Van Lent, an engineer who is director of science and policy for The Everglades Foundation, told a meeting of the South End Neighborhood Association in West Palm Beach on Thursday.