Everglades Restoration: A $5 Billion Reality?
Posted February 02, 2015 08:25 am
MIAMI, FL – Conservation groups are celebrating some progress in the longstanding battle to restore the Florida Everglades.
In November, 75 percent of the voters who went to the polls in Florida approved a constitutional amendment allocating one-third of the state's excise taxes to acquire sensitive lands for land and water conservation.
Everglades Foundation CEO Eric Eikenberg calls it a
major victory for restoration efforts in the famed River
of Grass.
"That investment now over the next number of years, over
the next 20 years - if abided by, if implemented - we
will be able to look back and say Amendment 1 enabled
the Everglades to be restored forever, and it's an
exciting time," he stresses.
With the funds now guaranteed in the state Constitution,
as part of the Florida's upcoming fiscal year budget,
Gov. Rick Scott has set aside an initial $150 million
and has promised a total of $5 billion for Glades
restoration over the next 20 years.
After lawsuits dating back more than a decade had
accused the state and federal government of not doing
enough to protect water in the Everglades, the governor
says he's committed to seeing the long-stalled projects
come to fruition.
"What I want to do as governor, is do everything I can
to continue to improve the environment," Scott says.
"That's why we put all the effort in to get the
Everglades litigation settled. We're very focused on
finishing projects with regard to the Everglades."
Eikenberg hopes lawmakers will follow through on their
pledge to use the newly-mandated funds properly.
"With this pot of money sitting there, we need to ensure
that conservation is protected in Florida that those
dollars go to those programs - they're not spent on
other things that should be dealt with in the general
budget," he stresses.
Eikenberg maintains some of those dollars should be used
to purchase land south of Lake Okeechobee. He says
buying back those parcels, now used mostly for farming,
would help restore the natural flow of water through the
Everglades and the area's fragile ecosystems.
Photos/graphics and links added by the Observer | Photo: Yann Arthus Bertrand
This piece was reprinted by the Columbia County Observer with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.