The model for the $4-6 billion "Great Lakes restoration" legislation introduced in Congress the last two sessions is a similar-sized package of goodies Congress approved for the Florida Everglades in 2000. Observers say we Lakes backers suffer from "Everglades envy." Judging by this news report, it should be Everglades pity. One clear lesson: don't put the Army Corps of Engineers in charge of Great Lakes restoration.
Glades Project in Disarray, Feds Say
By Curtis Morgan
The Miami Herald
A top federal official is worried that construction delays, a ballooning
budget and a skeptical Congress could hurt Everglades restoration.
After five years, the federal agency in charge of restoring the
Everglades is behind schedule, over budget and at serious risk of losing
congressional support.
That withering assessment doesn't come from outsiders who have long
criticized the $8.4 billion-and-rising effort - but from inside the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers itself.
Gary Hardesty, the top Everglades manager for the Corps in Washington,
D.C., laid it out in a blunt internal memo leaked to the Public Employees
for Environmental Responsibility, which released it Monday.
He warns of questions about lagging science studies, a projected budget
that has ballooned by almost $1 billion for the first handful of projects
alone and a perception in Congress that the ambitious original vision of
restoring the River of Grass "is dead."
"We haven't built a single project during the first five years,"
Hardesty wrote in the March 7 memo. "We've missed almost every milestone."
While largely echoing concerns raised for years by environmental groups,
the Miccosukee Tribe and others, the memo powerfully underscores that a
project launched in 2000 with great fanfare may be foundering at what
Hardesty calls "a critical juncture" as the federal budget tightens and
political priorities shift.
Corps spokesman Dave Hewitt said the memo wasn't intended as a policy
statement, but only as an internal "caution" to an interagency team
preparing a five-year report to Congress.
It will be the first comprehensive report lawmakers will see on the
Everglades project.
There is little optimism in the three-page document.