In the Everglades, Environmental War Endures

[pmbryant]

From the NY Times: Nov 4 2003

In the Everglades, Environmental War Endures
By ABBY GOODNOUGH

(snip)

The background is simple enough. For thousands of years, water from 730-square-mile Lake Okeechobee, just north of the Everglades, spilled south in lazy sheets toward the ocean. That constant, slow coursing created marshy rivers and saw-grass prairies that nurtured myriad species of birds, snakes and fish, plus deer, panthers, alligators, bears and manatees.

But the fate of this soggy habitat changed significantly in the boom years after World War II, when homeowners in new subdivisions demanded drinking water and flood protection. At the same time, Florida's growing sugar industry started taking over what had been the Northern Everglades (now formally designated the Everglades Agricultural Area) and craving water for farming. So engineers constructed a maze of canals to divert much of the lake overflow toward the cane fields and away from newly populated areas. During seasons of heavy rain, like the unusually wet summer that just passed, the canals also keep the sugar fields from flooding.

As a result of all this, the Everglades — which comprise some two-thirds more land than the 1.5 million acres within Everglades National Park — have been shrinking for decades. They are now about a fifth of their original size, and much of the shrinkage has occurred in the last 50 years.

A great deal of the water that still reaches the Everglades is polluted with phosphates from agricultural and household runoff, spawning cattails that choke the marshes and crowd out native plants and animals. The wading-bird population is only 10 percent of what it was in the late 1800's. Many species are disappearing, including the Florida panther, the wood stork and the Cape Sable sparrow.

Other than scientists and environmentalists, it is hard to tell who cares. The drawn-out, convoluted Everglades drama seems to have captured few imaginations in South Florida, whose state of mind is far more attuned to sun and surf than to buggy marsh. "Most people think it is a yucky, mucky place," said Lyle Thomas, president of Loxahatchee Everglades Tours, which he started as a "responsible" alternative to the sometimes reckless airboat operators along Highway 41.

(snip)

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/04/national/04EVER.html

[mike_c]

1. stories like this make it hard to have any hope...

...for responsible human stewardship of land. On a rellated note, I'm giving a fire ecology talk on Thursday morning, and in the wake of the SoCal fires-- and their impacts on human habitation in the rural and suburban interface zone-- no one listens to ecologists who call for a restoration of ecosystem balance and function. Everyone wants to see their own piece of the pie prosper, and the result is that entire ecosystems collapse, and it's always someone else's fault. Damn, my cynicism is showing today.

[ramapo]

2. An amazing mess

Amazing what 50 years of "progress" can do. Everyone wants to live on the beach, in the desert, or the like. The more fragile the ecosystem, the more attractive.

The financial cost of building in these locations, long-term, will be staggering. Las Vegas is a prime example in stupidity. No water. Tons of air conditioning required. Everyone needs a swimming pool and green lawn. A giant energy waste.

Housing on barrier islands. When the ocean decides to reclaim them, the government has to pony up millions (or billions) to pump sand and rebuild. Here in New Jersey beach replenishment is ongoing.

The Everglades are a disaster. What else can you say?

It all comes down to population growth. If you like what you've seen so far then just wait 50 to 100 years. How does 500 Million sound?