Is there hope for South Florida’s water?

The annual Everglades Coalition meeting came away with some hopeful ideas after facing up to some grim realities.

▪ Florida Bay hasn’t fully recovered from the 1990’s crash where sea grass died and the bay turned to pea soup. The bonefish are gone. Scientists say it’s about to happen again. The effect on the Florida Keys and everyone who lives and works there is immeasurable. No one benefits from a dead Florida Bay.

The solution: Send more water south from Lake Okeechobee.

▪ Sea level is rising. The Biscayne Aquifer — the source of all of South Florida’s fresh water — is suffering from salt intrusion. Not having drinking water for millions of people is a more immediate and serious threat than Miami Beach going underwater.

The solution: Send more water south from Lake Okeechobee.

▪ Last spring Everglades National Park was in extreme drought while a 30,000-acre wildfire was burning in Big Cypress. Lake Okeechobee was too full and was being dumped on the coastal estuaries.

The solution: Send more water south from Lake Okeechobee.

▪ The Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie estuaries are “in imminent danger of collapse” from Lake O discharges. Those are the words of the Corps of Engineers, not some wild-eyed environmentalist.

The solution: send more water south.

No amount of water storage north or east or west of the lake can send more water south. What needs to be done can only happen when we have new conveyance and dam removal — along with storage and treatment — in the agricultural area south of the lake.

Throughout 2015 there was absolute refusal of state politicians at all levels to consider buying land south of the lake.

They insisted we didn’t need to buy any more land anywhere in the state. They raided Amendment 1 revenues and canceled the option to buy land for a reservoir south of the lake.

The battle over the U.S. Sugar option is over. The only way out now is to bring the players together to decide how and where to construct the missing link south of the lake.

▪ If anyone can find a scientifically defensible way to save Florida Bay, the Everglades, Dade’s water supply, and the coastal estuaries, we need to keep an open mind. We’re not starting from scratch. Existing plans call for storage south of Lake O. If there is a new practical idea to send water south, let’s look at it and model it. We know that without sending water south, Everglades restoration won’t work.

▪ If sending water south from the lake is the only way we can restore South Florida’s hydrology for both people and critters, then we need to find the right storage place and the right plan and we need to start doing that now. The Corps and the Water Management District need to work together to update plans and better define the key features.

▪ If we want to save South Florida, we need to commit to the initiative to use $300 million a year of Amendment 1 revenues to buy environmental lands. We can’t demand money for the Everglades and ignore the springs and rivers and beautiful wild places outside the Everglades ecosystem. Some 75 percent of Florida voters said to use Amendment 1 money to buy land. We need to get the legislature to listen to them.

How do we make that happen? It needs to come from the grass roots of every community in South Florida by getting everyone to call their state representatives and by getting every city and county to invite their legislative delegation to discuss using Amendment 1 revenues to buy land in the rest of Florida as well as the Everglades.

Together we can turn around our state politicians and find workable solutions.

And if we can’t, it’s an election year. We can get new state politicians.

This story was originally published January 28, 2016 at 8:13 PM with the headline "Is there hope for South Florida’s water?."