26 Jul Prime time to revive PBC environmental promises?

Old CERP projects could bolster new Lake O plans

By Kimberly Miller
Palm Beach Post USA TODAY NETWORK

When a plan was inked more than 20 years ago to undo the damage inflicted on South Florida’s prodigious ecosystem, Palm Beach County shared prominently in the environmental largesse.

The Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, or CERP, included hundreds of millions of dollars to store fresh water in wells and reservoirs and treatment areas countywide to recharge groundwater and keep saltwater intrusion at bay.

There were measures to reduce water being flushed away forever into the Lake Worth Lagoon, which doesn’t want most of it anyway, and a plan that held a water reserve for the saline-choked Loxahatchee River and West Palm Beach’s dry season needs.

But some of those projects, more than $870 million of them in 1999 dollars, have fallen out of favor, been retooled, or simply linger in the abyss of the 22,000-page “yellow book” — literally a sunflower-colored blueprint for the 68 projects meant to restore the River of Grass.

Now that a preliminary scheme for Lake Okeechobee management has been chosen, some officials are noting the unkept CERP promises that would work in concert with the new lake plan to get water to the right places at the right time.

There is also renewed momentum under Gov. Ron DeSantis, who just days into office made the Everglades a priority. The Trump administration dedicated

$200 million and then $250 million for restoration efforts. President Joe Biden topped that this year with a request for $350 million.

“The tough part for me is when I look at the list of projects for Palm Beach County and none of them are happening,” said Palm Beach County Water Resources Manager Jeremy McBryan in an April meeting of the Water Resources Task force.

“It’s not anyone’s fault, per se. I don’t think there have been enough people who have pushed hard enough on some of these projects. Maybe there’s a chance for us now to change that and get things moving.”

South Florida Water Management District officials acknowledged in a CERP workshop earlier this year that project priority is often driven by public interest and engagement. Items can move around in the project queue each fall when CERP is reevaluated by the Corps through a public process overseen by the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Task Force.

The district has some sway in what projects move forward if they are in areas suffering a steep ecological decline.

“The problem is, all the areas continue to decline until we implement more projects and get them into operation,” said Jennifer Reynolds, the district’s director of ecosystem restoration.

After two years of work, the Army Corps this month chose a tentative plan on how to manage Lake Okeechobee called the Lake Okeechobee System Operating Manual, or LOSOM. While tweaking will stretch intoOctober, the plan generally dictates how and when water will flow south to the thirsty Everglades and Florida Bay, or be pushed east and west in harmful discharges to the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee estuaries.

The Lake Worth Lagoon, which under the current plan adopted in 2008 is considered more of a flood control outlet than a valuable ecosystem, had its status elevated to “estuary,” a gain that is expected to reduce damaging muck-laced gushes out of the C-51 Canal.

Environmentalists are mostly pleased with the Corps’ decision, although have said changes are needed to reduce harmful high water levels in Lake Okeechobee and discharges to the Caloosahatchee estuary.

Some water users — farms, municipalities, and utilities — are less enthusiastic about the choice, arguing their water supplies could be pinched during severe droughts.

That’s where CERP projects are supposed to play a role so that there isn’t as much reliance on the lake for water supply.

Scott Wagner, a governing board member for the South Florida Water Management District, said managing Lake Okeechobee water flow without CERP projects in place is like trying to solve a “defective Rubik’s cube.”

“CERP is critically important,” Wagner said.

Water storage and treatment is largely the focus of the shelved or incomplete projects in Palm Beach County.

Those include:

h A $415 million reservoir with 48,000 acre-feet of storage that was to supply water to West Palm Beach and the Loxahatchee River, while reducing discharges

to the Lake Worth Lagoon. The estimated completion date was 2014, but the project was repurposed and not completed.

h Two stormwater treatment areas totaling $53 million would have stored and cleaned water normally sent to the lagoon untreated. They were estimated to be done in 2008, but haven’t been started.

h A $124 million agricultural reserve reservoir with 20,000 acre-feet of storage for water supply and improved water quality. Its completion date was set for 2013, but has yet to break ground.

h A $140 million wetland area with wells and a reserve of 15,000 acre-feet of water along the Hillsborough Canal was to keep untreated water out of the Intracoastal, recharge groundwater and reduce demands on the Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge. It was to be completed by 2014. A first phase is done, but the water management district and the Corps have asked for the second phase to be canceled because it’s no longer cost-effective.

“It’s important that we take a look at these projects and find out what happened and where they stand,” said Scott Kelly, former West Palm Beach assistant city administrator. “The concern is they are on a list somewhere but there’s no action being taken.”

For the city of West Palm Beach, a change in the CERP lineup left it without a reservoir that could have supplemented its water supply and fed fresh water to the struggling Loxahatchee River. Instead, the city continues to rely on Lake Okeechobee water during the dry season, which proved calamitous this year when the lake water was infected with the blue-green algae toxin microcystin.

The city was forced to shut off its feed from Lake Okeechobee. That left Grassy Waters Preserve — the main drinking water supply for West Palm Beach, Palm Beach and South Palm Beach — to dry down, causing a chain reaction that spurred the bloom of another bluegreen algae toxin that got into the city’s drinking water.

The originally planned reservoir was built, but it serves as a feeder pool to stormwater treatment areas — freshwater marshes that remove phosphorus from water before sending it to the Everglades.

Army Corps spokeswoman Erica Skolte said most projects slated for Palm Beach County are still under consideration but “pending.”

In 2016, a Loxahatchee River restoration project was moved from pending into “planning,” and was approved in the most recent Water Resources Development Act.

But getting approval doesn’t mean getting funding. Projects can wait for years before a construction budget is passed and may need some public or political push to get moving.

The Everglades Agricultural Area reservoir under construction in southwestern Palm Beach County, which will reduce lake discharges to the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee, was an original CERP project that got jumpstarted by former Senate President Joe Negron in 2017. U.S. Rep. Brian Mast, R-Palm City, continued the push.

“They are leaving some of the projects languishing for years and years and years with the taxpayers’ money sitting there and no benefit,” said water district board member Charlette Roman. “I think it’s totally wasteful.”

CERP’s estimated cost now stands at $21 billion. Last year, it was estimated that $7.4 billion would be needed over the next decade to keep projects on track.

Several projects are finished nearing completion, including water storage reservoirs east and west of Lake Okeechobee, a control structure west of Miami that will double the amount of water that can flow south, and raising or removing parts of the Tamiami Trail that block water from reaching Everglades National Park.

The schedule for CERP projects will next be discussed beginning with public meetings of the Everglades Restoration Task Force on Aug. 5 and 19. A new schedule is expected to be released at the end of October.

“It’s time to take another look at the projects in Palm Beach County based on today’s conditions and see what can be done to move restoration forward for this part of the system,” said Everglades Law Center Executive Director Lisa Interlandi.

“Whether it’s the current projects, or some combination, has yet to be determined.”