Restoring the greater Florida Everglades, once and for all

Abstract

The dilemma and ultimate solutions to recent ecological and economic disasters of polluted farm runoff being discharged in the Florida estuaries, described by some as much more severe than anything that happened to Florida's coastline during the 2010 BP oil spill on the Gulf of Mexico, is presented. Two particularly notable episodes have occurred in the last few years. In 2013, 746 million m3/yr of water from Lake Okeechobee was discharged to the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean estuaries, much of it in the summer wet season, with significant ecological disruption on both coasts. In February 2016, an unusually high amount of precipitation in the dry season (>30 cm in January 2015) led to 326 million m3 of polluted Lake Okeechobee water being discharged to the sea over a 2-week period in early February. The obvious solution to this estuarine pollution is to allow water from the lake to flow to south as it historically did before water management was imposed on the lake and watershed. But that would cause polluted water to flow to the oligotrophic and much treasured Florida Everglades. We estimate that the water quality issue could be solved by creating an additional 40,000 Ha of stormwater treatment wetlands. Those would complement the 23,000 Ha of stormwater treatment wetlands that have already been created. Creating a deepwater reservoir to store the excess water is not a sustainable option.