Environmental Problems, Their Causes, and Sustainability 1

GULF OFMEXICOAgricultural areaTreatment marshWaterconservation areaCanalArea ofdetailFLORIDAFLORIDAFort MyersNaplesKissimmeeRiverChannelized( )Unchannelized( )LakeOkeechobeeEvergladesNationalParkFlorida Bay0 200 20 40WestPalmBeachFortLauderdaleMiamiATLANTICOCEANKey Largo40 60miles60 kilometersFigure 13-11 The world’s largest ecological restoration project is an attemptto undo and redo an engineering project that has been destroying Florida’sEverglades and threatening water supplies for south Florida’s growing population.Florida and the 6 million more people projected to beliving there by 2050.After more than 20 years of political haggling, in1990 Florida’s state government and the federal governmentagreed on the world’s largest ecologicalrestoration project. It is to be carried out by the U.S.Army Corps of Engineers between 2000 and 2038, withFlorida and the federal government sharing its projected$7.8 billion cost.The project has several ambitious goals. First, restorethe curving flow of more than half of the KissimmeeRiver. Second, remove 400 kilometers (250 miles) ofcanals and levees blocking water flow south of LakeOkeechobee. Third, buy 240 square kilometers (93square miles) of farmland and allow it to flood to createartificial marshes to filter agricultural runoff before itreaches Everglades National Park. Fourth, create a networkof artificial marshes. Fifth, create 18 large reservoirsto ensure an adequate water supply for southFlorida’s current and projected populationand the lower Everglades. Sixth, build newcanals, reservoirs, and huge pumping systemsto capture 80% of the water currently flowingout to sea and return it to the Everglades.Will this huge ecological restoration projectwork? It depends not only on the abilitiesof scientists and engineers but also on prolongedpolitical and economic support fromcitizens, Florida’s politically powerful sugarcaneand agricultural industries, and electedstate and federal officials.Bad news. The carefully negotiated plan isunraveling. In 2003, sugarcane growers persuadedthe Florida legislature to increase theamount of phosphorus they could dischargeand extend the deadline for doing this from2006 to 2016.According to critics, the main goal of theEverglades restoration plan is to provide waterfor urban and agricultural developmentwith ecological restoration as a secondarygoal. Also, the plan does not specify howmuch of the water rerouted toward south andcentral Florida will go to the parched park insteadof to increased industrial, agricultural,and urban development. In 2002, a NationalAcademy of Sciences panel said that the planwould probably not clear up Florida Bay’s nutrientenrichment problems.The need to make expensive and politicallycontroversial efforts to undo some of thedamage to the Everglades caused by 120 yearsof agricultural and urban development is anotherexample of failure to heed two fundamentallessons from nature: Prevention is thecheapest and best way to go and there are almostalways unintended consequences becausewe can never do one thing when we intervenein nature.13-6 PROTECTING, SUSTAINING,AND RESTORING LAKES AND RIVERSCase Study: Can the Great Lakes SurviveRepeated Invasions by Alien Species? TheyKeep ComingInvasions by nonnative species have upset theecological functioning of the Great Lakes for decades,and more invaders keep arriving.Invasions by nonnative species is a major threat to thebiodiversity and ecological functioning of lakes, as illustratedby what has happened to the Great Lakes.Collectively, the Great Lakes are the world’slargest body of fresh water. Since the 1920s, they havehttp://biology.brookscole.com/miller14267