The Everglades is Florida's most famous natural area. On their maps, the early Spaniards called it "El Laguno del Espiritu Sanctu"--the Lake of the Holy Spirit--a worthy name for such an extraordinary place. [The Miccasukee and Seminole call it "Pa-hay-okee," or "Grassy Water" (Douglas 1988:8]

Marjorie Stoneman Douglas in her book, The Everglades: River of Grass:

There are no other Everglades in the world. They are, they have always been, one of the unique regions of the earth, remote, never wholly known. Nothing anywhere else is like them: their vast glittering openness, wider than the enormous visible round of the horizon, the racing visible round the horizon, the racing free saltness and sweetness of their massive winds, under the dazzling blue heights of space. They are unique also in the simplicity, the diversity, the related harmony of the forms of life they enclose. The miracle of the light pours over the green and brown expanse of saw grass and of water, shining and slow-moving below, the grass and water that is the meaning and the central fact of the Everglades of Florida. It is a river of grass (Douglas 1988:5).

The Everglades Basin contains many kinds of native ecosystems: rivers; lakes; open ponds; sawgrass marshes; small tree islands of bald cypresses, willows, and stash pines; large hardwood hammocks of bays and other trees; sloughs; and mangrove swamps. All are acted on by the powerful natural forces of sun, water, wind, and fire. Subtle changes in elevation create the right conditions for the various plant communities and the animals that inhabit these areas.

The River of Grass, the best-known natural feature of the Everglades, is sawgrass [a sedge called Cladium jamaicensis]. The long leaves of sawgrass, pointed with silica and as sharp as a saw blade, can grow to six feet or higher. Frequent fires hold back shrubs and favor the sawgrass and other marsh vegetation that grows around the ponds and sloughs.

The flat Everglades Basin is sometimes flooded and, at other times, completely dry. Species in the Everglades have adapted to seasonal and long-term fluctuations in water levels and, in some parts of the system, to varying salinity levels. Alligators and other species, for example, have evolved so that they engineer, their nesting areas instinctively depending on water levels. Birds fly from one area to another as their food sources shift.

This amazing region, once home to vast quantities of life and still an important biological resource, has been designated an International Biosphere Reserve, a Wetland of International Significance, and a National Wilderness Area. Everglades National Park has been called the crown jewel of the National Park system--a major treasure.

 

THE ORIGINAL EVERGLADES

The Everglades watershed once covered almost a third of Florida, beginning just south of Orlando and ending more than 200 miles farther south in Florida Bay. Upstream from Lake Okeechobee, natural drainage created the channels of the Kissimmee River, Taylor Creek, and Fisheating Creek. Lake Okeechobee was a shallow depression about halfway down the watershed that collected water and passed much of it on to the Everglades. The lake and its tributaries comprised more than 4,500 square miles of upstream watershed for the Everglades.

In the original Everglades marsh (about 3600 square miles) the slope was so gradual and water moved so slowly that no channel formed. Instead, the flow was conducted by a wide, shallow marsh about 110 miles wide at its maximum--the River of Grass. It took almost a year for Lake Okeechobee's water to flow south to Florida Bay.

The Atlantic Coastal Ridge runs parallel to, and between the east coast of southern Florida and the River of Grass. Rain on the western slope of this ridge drained west into the Everglades. The River of Grass rose and fell along the west slope of the coastal ridge, creating vast wetlands and important feeding, nesting, and migratory resting areas for millions of wading birds. On high ground, the panther roamed, as did the deer and smaller land mammals that provided its food. At breaks in the ridge, come water drained from the River of Grass to the sea. Most went south to Florida Bay.

 

A MODEL OF DESTRUCTION

More recently, the Everglades has become a classic example of widespread environmental destruction. Although in its 5,000 years of existence, the Everglades has supported an extraordinary quantity and variety of plant and animal life, we have taken less than a century to damage seriously or to alter most of it. The current superintendent of Everglades National Park calls it the most threatened park in the country, and one in a state of biological collapse.

The 1850 federal Swamp and Overflowed Lands Act gave the Everglades to Florida provided it could be drained. While private, turn-of-the-century efforts to drain large areas of the Everglades failed, soon afterwards public works succeeded. By the 1930s, 400 miles of drainage canals had been built.

Agriculture and cattle constituted the primary wave of invasion, quickly followed by rapid urban development. What was once the Everglades now contains more than 40 percent of Florida's population and produces half of all the winter vegetables sold in the United States--in addition to sugar and other crops.

 

LOSSES WEST OF THE COASTAL RIDGE

As part of the Central and Southern Florida Flood Control Project, the East Coast Protective Levee was constructed at the eastern edge of the River of Grass. The barrier stopped water from flowing east from the River of Grass and allowed the area between the levee and the ridge to drain through canals cut to the ocean. No longer subject to periodic flooding, the area became suitable for agriculture and later for urban development. It is now almost entirely urban. About 160 square miles of this severed area was Everglades marsh. With the construction, an additional tributary watershed of about 775 square miles was severed from the Everglades. Including lost marsh, almost 950 square miles of watershed were lost.

 

THE LOSS OF LAKE OKEECHOBEE'S WATERSHED

In works that began near the turn of the century, 730-square-mile Lake Okeechobee (the second largest lake entirely within the lower 48 states) and its tributary watersheds were severed from the Everglades. Water was diverted to the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico through canals--the beginning of what would become a 1,400-mile network of canals that lowered the lake and drained adjacent lands for farming. The Everglades-to-Florida-Bay route was no longer Lake Okeechobee's major outlet.

After disastrous hurricanes in 1926 and 1928 killed thousands of people, Lade Okeechobee was rimmed by a levee to prevent waves from flooding inhabited farmlands, thus removing more than 4,500 square miles from the Everglades watershed. The levee also made the lake a useful reservoir for agricultural irrigation water. Water that once would have passed through Lake Okeechobee to the Everglades is now stored for crop irrigation. When the lake goes above its regulation stage, the surplus is discharged.

 

THE CREATION OF THE EVERGLADES AGRICULTURAL AREA

Next to Lake Okeechobee, almost 1,100 square miles of swamp and marsh were enclosed by a levee. Already safe from Lake Okeechobee's overflows, the impounded land, called the Everglades Agricultural Area (AEE), was now also protected from Everglades inflows. The EAA water table is held about two feet below the soil surface so that the oxygen needed by crop roots can enter the soil. When it rains, water must be pumped out or the plants will suffer.

Seven giant pumping stations were built to drain rainwater through canals. While much of the EAA is still part of the Everglades watershed, the natural flow is gone, replaced by periodic discharges from the pumping stations. Compared with natural runoff, the discharges are rapid. And, unlike a marsh with standing water, the rainy season's water does not sustain life into the dry season because it has been pumped away. When no local rains fall, Lake Okeechobee water irrigates the Everglades Agricultural Area, and evapotranspiration carries the irrigation water to the atmosphere. Water released from the lake for irrigation seldom passes through the EAA into the Everglades.

 

THE CREATION OF THE WATER CONSERVATION AREAS

Much of the western edge of the Everglades was also bounded by levees. Dams created three shallow impoundments called Cater Conservation Areas (WCAs), which enclosed most of the remaining Everglades. The WCAs were shallow marshes with soils too poor to support agriculture. Gates now control discharges from one WCA to the next. The last impoundment discharges into Everglades National Park. Compared with the original flow-resistant marsh, canals in the WCAs speed water flow. When the Water Conservation Areas are filled to protect against drought, the water stagnates, and the unnatural hydroperiod, or wet cycle, alters and stresses native communities.

The WCAs store water for use during drought by South Dade County agriculture and the urban population of Monroe, Dade, Broward, and southern Palm Beach Counties. In addition to agricultural users, about four million people on the lower east coast draw water from the surficial Biscayne Aquifer. The aquifer is supplied by water released from the WCAs when rains fail. The drought-induced releases rapidly lower marsh water levels in the Everglades.

During severe droughts, Lake Okeechobee water is used to replenish supplies. The Water passes through the Everglades Agricultural Area, where some is removed by growers. The rest passes through the Water Conservation Areas in the canals. Because they do not overflow the canal banks, however, drought releases to the lower east coast do not nourish Everglades vegetation. Transmission through the WCAs is much like a pipeline from Lake Okeechobee to South Florida's urban and agricultural areas.

 

SEVERING NORTHEAST SHARK RIVER SLOUGH

In the natural Everglades, the River of Grass narrowed at a natural channel, Shark River Slough. When Everglades National Park was established, in a political compromise only the western portion of this waterway was included. Northeast Shark River Slough received virtually no water, drastically altering the ecology of that part of the original Everglades.

THE RAINFALL PLAN

We now know what drastic overdrainage has done to the Everglades, and we understand the detrimental effects of maintaining long periods of deep, standing water. After a severe drought during which no water was delivered to Everglades National Park, Congress mandated minimum flows to the park. Adversity was to be shared among all the park's users. Yet the minimum flows harmed the park because they were carried out without regard for ecological timing. Congress then authorized the park and the water management district to experiment with solutions and the Rainfall Plan was the last in a series of efforts to try to correct the problem.

The plan simulated the flow that would have entered the park at Shark River Slough under natural conditions. While the principle is good, existing data may not accurately represent the predrainage Everglades, resulting in lower flows to Everglades National Park. The range of fluctuations may be too low, and if water levels are high, water must be released to protect the levee's structural integrity.

 

THE EFFETS OF A SMALLER EVERGLADES

LESS WATER, FEWER HABITATS

Including the Everglades itself, the system's original watershed was more than 8,100 square miles. The remaining marsh now compromises about 2,300 square miles--of which almost three-fifths is impounded in the Water Conservation Areas. Two-thirds of the original Everglades now subsists on the rain that falls on one-third of the original watershed. On an areal basis, the current Everglades has about half the water of the original. Everglades National Park makes up less than one-fifth of the historic Everglades.

These profound changes have reduced the availability of water and altered the Everglades hydroperiod. Historically, water in the Everglades was generally deeper for a longer period. In the remnant Everglades, however, the slow, dry-season recession of a much larger quantity of flowing water no longer takes place. Instead, impounded pools that accumulated during the wet season are rapidly drawn down.

Not only has most habitat vanished as a result of these massive changes, but less water is available for the remaining wildlife. Fourteen animal species in the Everglades are now endangered. Many others are threatened or, while not formally listed, are declining.

Scientists use wading birds as a measure of a wetland ecosystem's environmental health. For ebery bird you now see in the Everglades, in the early 1900s you would have seen at least ten. In other words, at least 90 percent have vanished. A drought between 1988 and 1991 exacerbated the damage to wading birds and water animals by destroying their food base and wildlife needs. By 1989 only 5,000 wading-bird nests and 15 major colonies were counted, a very low number. In 1990, the number of nests dropped to about 1,000.

While some birds such as hawks, green herons, and anhingas are less sensitive to drought than other species, much ecologically specialized wildlife died or been forced out of the region. In Everglades National Park, the alligator population has dropped from 50,000 to 10,000 in the last two years. Everglade or snail kites (of which fewer than 500 are left) and wood storks are now seen in Central Florida because their primary Everglades habitat is gone. Since the 1960s nesting wood storks have dropped 80 percent in the Everglades. Some scientists believe the bird is an indicator species that heralds the decline of other wading birds.

 

THE SPREAD OF EXOTIC PLANTS

Still more habitat destruction in the Everglades is being caused by invasions of exotic plants. Brazilian pepper is a major problem. Far worse is the melaleuca tree, particularly east of the levees enclosing the Water Conservation Areas. Introduced in an early attempt to dry out the region, the trees consume so much water that they can dry entire swamps. Unfortunately, by the time the importance of preserving the system's natural water flows and habitats. Was recognized, the melaleuca was firmly established. It deprives native plants of habitat because it grown so densely that no other vegetation can compete, and wildlife can find little food.

Everglades National Park is still largely melaleuca-free because a buffer zone has been established around the park, and young melaleucas are removed as they appear. The park, however, is under continual biological assault. At the moment, vigilance and expensive maintenance are all that is keeping melaleuca from taking over the remnant Everglades.

 

ALTERED WATER CHEMISTRY

The Everglades is a highly oligotrophic system. That is, in their natural state, its native communities are in balance with the very low nutrient supplies provided by unpolluted rainfall. In the natural Everglades, the rate of plant growth is probably limited by phosphorus availability. Nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus added by human activities cause profound imbalances that result in eutrophication, the surfeit of organic matter that accelerates a water body's aging.

Where nutrient-rich agricultural drainage water is discharged from the Everglades Agricultural Area to the Everglades, the characteristic periphyton mats of algae and microorganisms disappear, and blue-green algae appear in their place. Dense monocultures of cattails force out native plant communities and take over marsh, wet prairie, and slough, rapidly closing off open places where birds once fed. In the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge, which occupies Water Conservation Area 1, 6,000 acres between 1978 and 1990, an area so large it can be seen from space.

Because of the plants' rapid growth rate, detritus forms an anaerobic ooze under the cattails. Dissolved oxygen in the water is nearly zero. Other than air-breathing gambusia, no fish can survive in the water.

When the Everglades Agricultural Area was drained, oxygen entered the soil, and microorganisms then completed the process of consuming it. The soil continues to oxidize, turning to a fine dust. As a result, in 60 years the soil surface of the EAA has dropped about five feet. The microbes also excrete phosphorus--which then drains off and eventually enters the Everglades. According to a recent estimate, as many as 260 metric tons of phosphorus are released from the EAA's farms each year.

Not much is known about how rapidly the effects of phosphorus contamination are spreading in the remnant Everglades. Almost 50 square miles have so far been affected. Ordinarily, vegetation forms organic soil that buries phosphorus. Where nutrient supplies are so great that other factors limit plant growth and phosphorus storage, though, the phosphorus is passed on, and the process begins again in new territory. No one knows how long the contamination will continues spreading, but it could eventually affect the entire system.

Owners of EAA lands have raised doubts about the seriousness of the contamination. Elsewhere, widespread agreement exists. The few individuals who dispute the nature, extent, and significance of Everglades degradation appear to be employed, directly or indirectly, by agribusiness, the major pollution source.

 

ADDRESSING THE PROBLEM

It is hard to find anyone who doesn't want to protect the Everglades. But we seem to be having a difficult time getting started, in part because jurisdiction over the area is shared among many state and federal agencies.

For years, neither state nor federal governments did much about the problems of the Everglades. For its part, the federal government has continued to provide agriculture with exemptions from the Clean Water Act. As a result, the industry is the country's largest remaining source of water pollution. The federal government has also provided agriculture with other federal subsides despite evidence that the destruction of the Everglades was increasing.

In addition, the state did little over the years to prevent agricultural pollution and continues to provide the industry with financial incentives, including inexpensive water. A 1991 Wilderness Society study of the South Florida Water Management District showed that although farmers use about two-thirds of the area's water supply, they pay less than two percent of the district's $227 million annual budget, which is derived from property taxes. Urban residents pay the rest. Urban dwellers in Central and South Florida pay about $26.90 per acre-foot of water. In contrast, farmers pay about 23 cents for the same amount.

Further, the district spends $18 million a year to provide agriculture with water, compared with only $7 million for urban residents. The study also shows that for each acre-foot of water, agriculture generates about $1,000 in the economy, while urban businesses produce about $85,000 to $90,000 in the form of goods, jobs, and services.

 

REDUCING POLLUTION

Although much remains to be learned, the pollution problem in the Everglades is reasonably well defined. An upper limit for phosphorus of 20 parts per billion has been set, although this amount may still be too high.

Retention and treatment are the only known ways to eliminate the pollution. Retention is a known technology that can be quickly implemented. While designing retention areas is a straightforward engineering problem, the loss of this quantity of water to the Everglades would have to be made up with another source of clean water, which would be difficult. Using water from Lake Okeechobee is a possibility, if its phosphorus levels can be reduced. By contrast, an artificial treatment requires discharging farm drainage into an artificial marsh that would store nutrients and produce clean water.

 

THE FEDERAL LITIGATION

In 1988, the U.S. Attorney for the southern district of Florida took an unprecedented action, filing a complaint on behalf of the United States against the Florida Department of Environmental Regulation and the South Florida Water Management District in an effort to protect the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge and Everglades National Park from the effects of polluted agricultural drainage water. Every major Florida and national conservation organization intervened on the side of the United States. The lawsuit was unusual because it relied on state rather than federal law and focused on the agencies' failure to administer their own state laws.

Following a change in state administration, the agencies and federal interests negotiated a cleanup plan that was made final in early 1992 by a federal consent decree. The plan describes the interim and final results for cleanup efforts. These may be modified, however, through state administrative hearings. Legal maneuvering by the sugar industry has just begun. How much will be cleaned up and who will pay are issues that have still not been decided. While the settlement of the federal lawsuit mandates a process and the state's starting position, it does not completely define the final result. A combination of on-farm management practices and man-made marshes that provide nutrient-filtering areas will be used. The cost of interim measures intended to reduce phosphorus in farm drainage from about 200 to 50 parts per billion is estimated at $300 million.

 

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Lord, Linda A., Principal Author. 1993. Guide to Florida Environmental Issues and Information. Winter Park, FL: Florida conservation Foundation. Taken in its entirety from chapter 6:69-80.

Douglas, Marjorie Stoneman. 1947. The Everglades: River of Grass. New York: Rinehart and Company.