For those of you who don’t get the email updates, here are the comments from Audubon of Florida about the U.S. Sugar purchase and the restoration of Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades. The gist is this: buy the land south of Lake O and use it for filter marshes so we can release water to the ‘glades instead of to tide. Freshwater pulses, even at the lower post-Fay levels (as opposed to the huge releases of ’04 and ’05) have reduced the salinity in the Caloosahatchee and St Lucie estuaries to unacceptably low levels already. Buy back the land, and put it back under (sheet-flowing) water!

Oh, yeah. The press release from AoF:

Audubon last Thursday urged the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) to move ahead with the acquisition of land in the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA) under Governor Crist’s “River of Grass” initiative.

The SFWMD Governing Board met on September 10th and 11th to review the progress in the complex proposal to purchase U.S. Sugar’s 187,000 acres of land and holdings.  The SFWMD is employing consultants, appraisers and other experts to ensure that the deal is in the best interests of the taxpayers and Everglades restoration.  Audubon believes that it is imperative that a deal is reached in order to maximize the restoration efforts already underway.  Acquiring additional large tracts of land within the EAA will expedite Everglades restoration activities and the ecological benefits realized as a result of these activities.

Tropical Storm Fay’s record rainfall in August ended our drought and immediately put the SFWMD into flood control operations.  A restored Everglades ecosystem can naturally manage the cycle of wet and dry seasons, without subjecting the estuaries to the harmful effects of fresh water discharges out of Lake Okeechobee.  Acquiring vast acres of land south of Lake Okeechobee will enable the SFWMD to manage lake levels in an ecologically beneficial manner, prevent “backpumping” of polluted water into Lake Okeechobee, protect the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee estuaries, and provide clean fresh water for the southern Everglades.

These benefits are desperately needed now. Fay’s water could be moving south if we had sufficient capacity to clean it up. However, the Everglades cleanup plan is failing even with normal rainfall. The current undersized water-treatment areas must be expanded. The deal with U.S. Sugar will provide the land needed to clean water from storms such as Fay so that it can be released into the Everglades rather than to tide.

The dire need for such improvements was made even more apparent when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began discharging water to the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie estuaries.  Unfortunately, these fresh water releases damage the fragile health of the estuaries, but are necessary to ensure the integrity of the Herbert Hoover Dike, which encircles Lake Okeechobee.  Deep lake levels could compromise the dike. Audubon is advocating to prioritize dike improvements to ensure the safety of those who live just outside the lake.