Crucial funding could be on the way to restore the Everglades and control water releases from Lake Okeechobee — but not necessarily to flood sugar-cane fields — U.S. Rep. Mark Foley said Saturday.
But until that happens, the West Palm Beach Republican said local lawmakers and activists should stop threatening legal action and pointing fingers in the ongoing dispute.
The debate over freshwater releases — which many say threaten tourism, wildlife and water conditions in Southwest Florida — reached a head this month, as Sanibel's city council asked residents to vote on whether the city should sue the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the South Florida Water Management District, which manage the lake's water flow. "I think litigation ends in wasting money," Foley said at the Ortona Locks, east of LaBelle. "I think if people will be a little patient ... All the people in Washington and Tallahassee have heard the problems with contaminated waters."
Lee County commissioners also discussed lawsuits to stop releases. Commissioners, however, recently approved limited releases into the Caloosahatchee estuary to lower saltwater levels that threaten seagrasses, a food source for manatees and other migratory sea life. Commissioner Ray Judah has suggested flooding sugar-cane fields near the lake to cut down on water flows to the Caloosahatchee River. That raised concerns in Moore Haven and its surroundings areas, where agriculture dominates the economy.
Foley dismissed the idea, which commissioners are still considering proposing.
"It's easy to point fingers and pick fights," Foley said. "But there are very viable plans in place." Fort Myers resident Liz Donley, grants and contracts manager for the Charlotte Harbor National Estuary Program, agreed the issue has become divisive. She said citizens and lawmakers need a greater understanding of the issues at stake and the difficulties they pose.
"It's hard to explain to someone that when it rains in Orlando, it affects us here," she said.
"You have to make some choices, and some of them are going to be hard." In 2000, Congress approved legislation that helped fund the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan.
That plan includes several initiatives, including saving the Indian River Lagoon and a canal and levee system under Tamiami Trail in Collier and Broward counties designed to restore water flows to the Everglades and away from the Caloosahatchee River. Now Foley and other Florida lawmakers are pushing Senate leaders to restore the funding, which dried up after 2000.
At a conference this week, the head of the Army Corps said President Bush will request $164 million for Everglades restoration in his 2007 budget.
John Paul Woodley Jr., assistant secretary of the Army for civil works, said a 15 percent increase in funding would help bolster the Tamiami Trail project as well as a plan to restore the Kissimmee River.
Accompanying Foley Saturday, Woodley predicted the Senate would shore up federal funds, despite shortfalls caused by the war on terrorism and homeland security costs.