EVERGLADES PRESERVATION/RESTRUCTURING

Zuerst ein Wort an alle Freunde der Natur u. Umwelt - ich bin KEIN Mitglied bei den Gruenen oder Greenpeace - aber ich bin an der Umwelt interessiert und es erfuellt mich mit Angst wieviel Tiere vom Aussterben bedroht sind durch Menschenhand, wieviele Corallen Rif's es noch gibt (m.E. nur noch EINES!) in Sued-Florida, wie die Everglades immer mehr zerstoert werden (die US Regierung hat Notiz genommen aber unternimmt WENIG) - ich habe dort gelebt und werde wieder dort leben! Ich moechte aber nicht nur aus dem Grunde etwas tun!!Mich wuerde es auch traurig machen wenn ich nie dort wohnen wuerde!! Florida ist so schoen, wie das Paradies. Die Everglades aber sind ein Teil wo die Tiere ungestoert leben koennen ohne von uns Monstern "belaestigt" zu werden. Ausserdem sind sie ein wichtiges Werkzeug in der Balance des Florida Wildlife und des Lebens der Menschen dort. Ich sehe es als meine "Heimat" an - permanent.
Ob und was man tun kann weiss ich nicht - aber ich werde anfangen Geld zu sammeln - und sei es nur um daraus "Mahnungen" und kleinere Erfolge zu erzielen - speziell wenn es aus Deutschland kommt duerfte es einiges an Aufsehen erregen!!
Bitte helft mit - auch wenn es nur wenig ist (Die Regierung v. Florida ist nicht gut betucht und muss grosse Teile der Finanzierung uebernehmen!). In absehbarer Zeit wird hier eine Konto Nr. veroeffentlicht!!!

English Text:
I am not a member of Greenpeace or any other Organization but I am interested in this World and its Wildlife and it frightens me to see what might become of it and how many species are on the extinct list or to be added daily!!..how many coral reefs are left in the world (to my knowledge ONE! in South Florida) and how the Evergaldes get destroyed in the name of mankind and with lots of excuses HOW necessary it is!! The US Government took notice but is doing not much to support the preservation of the Everglades before it is too late. I lived there, and I will live there again - it is my home. But even if it was not my home, I would make me sad and concerned! Florida is a paradise, and the Everglades are part of it where animals can live undisturbed by us barbarians - "humans"! Well sofar it was - not now! Further it is a vital tool in balancing the wildlife and human living conditions there! And not only that of sugar farmers or others. I see it as my home permanently.
If and how one can do something I don't know, but I want to collect money to try to help the cause - even if it is only enough for faxes or emails to officials or Government institutions to get noticed and warn! Since the intitiative would come from Germany (or Germans) first in this case, it might bring quite a bit of attention to it! Maybe the media over here could be involved? We'll see.
Soon I will publish an account no. here for contributions, even if they are small! (As you know the State of Florida is not wealthy and has to bear part of these costs!)

By JAN HOLLINGSWORTH of The Tampa Tribune

EVERGLADES NATIONAL PARK - The uncertain future of the most ambitious environmental restoration ever attempted rests with Congress.
It is a river like no other in the world.
Sixty miles wide, seldom more than 2 feet deep, it flows with glacial speed through the wet prairies, tree islands and mangroves of South Florida.
It once could take a full year for a drop of rain to make the 240-mile journey through the Everglades watershed, which begins in Central Florida's Kissimmee chain of lakes. For millennia, water would meander south along the lazy curves of the Kissimmee River until it reached Lake Okeechobee. There, it would spill over a low earthen lip into the River of Grass. The broad sheet of water was cleansed as it filtered through the saw grass marsh.

Some seeped through the porous limestone into the aquifer that now supplies South Florida with drinking water. The rest nourished a thriving ecosystem as it continued south to Florida Bay.

That was before the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers erected 1,400 miles of dikes, dams, levees and canals in the name of water supply and flood control.

FIFTY YEARS later, the Everglades is considered one of the most endangered ecosystems on the planet.
That does not bode well for some 6 million Floridians who depend on the water it supplies to irrigate lawns, farms and golf courses, and to quench an ever- growing thirst for industry and residential development.
"Without the Everglades, this is the next Nevada," said Bob Johnson, an environmental scientist for the South Florida Water Management District. The prospect of a Florida desert has prompted state and federal water managers to conceive the most ambitious environmental restoration ever.

The price: $8 billion.
The status: controversial.
The alternatives: apparently none.
On July 1, the corps presented to Congress its plan to rehabilitate the ailing marsh that dominates the South Florida landscape.
The plan calls for, among other things:
The removal of canals, roads and other man-made barriers to restore some of the natural, historic flow of water through the Everglades.

The creation of water storage areas to capture nearly 1.8 billion gallons of water now being diverted each day to the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie rivers and flushed out to sea.

The construction of man-made wetlands to filter and cleanse urban and agricultural runoff before it is discharged into the Everglades.

The state and federal governments are expected to share the cost of the massive 20-year replumbing project. Although some components of restoration already are under way - such as returning the Kissimmee River to its original path and establishing filter marshes to capture farm runoff - not everyone agrees with the proposal before Congress.

Despite unprecedented cooperation among stakeholders, the plan also has been bogged down in disagreements among environmentalists, farmers, state and federal agencies, the Miccosukee Indian tribe and homeowners living near the national park. "This is the Everglades, the biggest political ballgame on Earth,"Johnson said. "There's billions of dollars at risk." And more. Much more.

THE EVERGLADES is home to more than 60 threatened or endangered species. The rare ecosystem also serves as the foundation of a $20 billion tourist industry. But perhaps its most controversial role is supplying water to agriculture and the burgeoning South Florida populace, which is expected to reach 8 million in the next decade and up to 15 million by 2050.

Critics of the plan say it is geared more toward ensuring future water supplies to cities and farms than rehabilitating the ravaged River of Grass. "The corps says they're simply providing water for expected growth. We're saying it's inappropriate for a federally funded plan to be spending money to fuel urban growth," said Frank Jackalone, Florida representative for the Sierra Club. The National Audubon Society also has concerns about the plan's priorities.

"We think it's important to have some strong assurance language so it's real clear that the environment is an equal user of water with everyone else," said Mark Krause, conservation director for Audubon's Everglades office.
The corps has tweaked the plan in recent months to address some of these concerns, and a wide-ranging cast of interests - including the sugar industry, Audubon, Sierra Club and most of the environmental community - support the conceptual framework, if not every detail.

"Let's face it - nobody's going to fund it through Congress to save some alligators and saw grass," said Ron Jones, a Florida International University researcher who is addressing water quality questions in the Everglades. Among them: How much phosphorus-based fertilizer flowing from nearby sugar fields can the fragile system withstand?
The saw grass of the famed River of Grass has adapted to a lack of nutrients and can tolerate little phosphorus. "This is a plant that has been there for 10,000 years and survived the worst possible environment," said Johnson, the South Florida Water Management District biologist, who also is trying to determine the Everglades' phosphorus threshold. Too much of the nutrient, and marsh-strangling cattails take over, disrupting water flow and destroying habitat for birds and other wildlife.

A 1994 state law gives the Florida Environmental Regulation Commission until 2003 to set a phosphorus standard for the Everglades.

The Miccosukees in May persuaded the U.S. Environmental Protection agency to set a federal standard of 10 parts per billion for polluted water flowing onto their reservation in Everglades National Park. The tribe plans to use the new standard as a legal hammer that would force polluters to clean up and would set the pace for the state's Department of Environmental Protection, which has yet to adopt a rule restricting phosphorus in other parts of the Everglades.
Ten parts per billion is the equivalent of 600 drops of water in an Olympic-size swimming pool. Sugar growers, who are responsible for cleaning up the water flowing from their farms, say the number is unreasonably low.

The water currently flowing onto Miccosukee land carries seven to 15 times more phosphorus than that.
Jones, the Florida International biologist, agrees with the 10 parts per billion and is working on technology to meet the standard "so people will stop arguing whether it's reasonable or not," he said. PHOSPHORUS ISN'T the only unresolved water quality issue. Urban storm water, containing nitrogen, pesticides and other chemicals, may be added to the research mix as well. "I don't think anyone has taken a really long, hard look at urban runoff," the Audubon Society's Krause said.

Another matter of controversy is a proposal to divert water that is now being flushed to sea into more than 300 underground aquifer storage recovery units for future use. The underground storage chambers have been used on a limited basis in some Florida municipalities but never on such a massive scale. "We're talking about pumping 1.8 billion gallons of water per day into Floridan Aquifer," said Jackalone, the Sierra Club representative. "There are serious questions as to whether it will become polluted, whether it's already polluted and whether the total pressure of that water will blow the aquifer."

Audubon is concerned the corps has not come up with a contingency plan should the aquifer storage proposal not work as expected in stockpiling retrievable, drinkable water. One major issue is the chambers' proximity to existing wells in which treated sewage, industrial waste water and storm water are injected deep into the aquifer.
"We might be trying to store safe drinking water and finding more connection than we originally thought" between the storage chambers and the contaminated deep injection wells, Krause said. Perhaps the biggest controversy surrounds the status of the so-called 8 1/2-Square-Mile Area where some 1,600 landowners have settled on the swamp side of the dike that stands between Miami and the River of Grass.

The water management district in November decided to buy them out to create a buffer zone, a move opposed by some unwilling sellers as well as the Miccosukees, who sued the district on their behalf.
In June, the water district's newly appointed board canceled the buyout to settle the lawsuit.
Critics of the settlement fear the failure to acquire the land will hurt restoration efforts and lead to more development at the edge of the fragile marsh near Everglades National Park.
Residents of the area have long been calling for flood control, roads and other infrastructure - a scenario that could trigger zoning changes that would allow subdivisions to blossom in the swamp, said Brad Sewell, an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

U.S. Sens. Bob Graham, D-Miami Lakes, and Connie Mack, R- Fort Myers, have long supported acquisition of the area. The alternative, providing flood control for residents, involves "questionable engineering ... and it's going to be fairly expensive," Graham said this month. Water managers say they have not entirely abandoned pursuing a full buyout.
On one issue virtually all sides agree: "Although the [plan] is not perfect, it's a good place to start - and we need to start immediately," Sewell said.


Staff writer Jackie Soteropoulos contributed to this story. Jan Hollingsworth covers the environment and can be reached at (813) 259-7607 ormailto:Jan Hollingsworth

BITTE SCHREIBT ALLE AN DIE TAMPA TRIB - ICH MOECHTE EINE FAX BOMBE in GANG SETZEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sie sollen helfen das das Thema endlich richtig behandelt wird - und voran getrieben wird vom Staat!!!

Please write to the Tampa Tribune if you care about this , so we can make our voices heard and get something going - public interest, congress interest etc. Thanks!

Read more about environmental issues on The Tampa Tribune's Web site at Tampa Tribune


Vielen Dank fuer Euer Interesse! - Thank you for your interest!
In Kuerze werde ich eine Kontonummer hier posten - wo ich Geld sammeln werde fuer den Zweck - "Erhaltung der Everglades" - shortly I will try to post an account number here to collect money for the "restoration and preservation of the Everglades".