Everglades restoration began in 2000 and it’s still not done. (Photo via South Florida Water Management District)
Florida is such an exciting place to live. Alligators lurk in any body of water that’s bigger than a puddle. In cold weather, iguanas fall from the trees like autumn leaves. We’ve got more sinkholes than anywhere else in the nation, more lightning strikes than anywhere else in the Western Hemisphere, and more shark bites than anywhere else in the world.
Yet our official state motto could not be more boring. Instead of something colorful like “Florida: We’ve Got Cockroaches the Size of Volkswagens,” I am sorry to report that it’s the totally unoriginal “In God We Trust.” Yawwwwwwn.
I think a more interesting and accurate slogan would be, “Fool Me Once, Shame on Me,” and not just because we were recently rated the No. 1 state for fraud.
If you need an example of why this would be appropriate, let me refer you to the multiple stories last week about how Gov. Ron DeSantis wants the state to be totally in charge of Everglades restoration — and all the billions of dollars that will pay for it.
“At a press conference in Juno Beach,” Politico reported, “the governor said Florida would ask the incoming Trump administration for more authority to help speed construction of a federal reservoir south of Lake Okeechobee.
“‘Send us the funds, give us the authority, and let us get to work,’ DeSantis said. ‘And we will get this done and move it along very, very quickly.’”
The Palm Beach Post has this quote: “Our record of getting the job done is second to none,” DeSantis said. “We will restore the Everglades more quickly and we will save money and time. We can deliver all of this.”
I watched a video of the whole thing. He blamed the federal government for taking too long in crossing every T and dotting every I. “We don’t want to be bogged down by red tape,” he said, standing behind a lectern with a sign that said, “Florida Gets It Done.” “We don’t want to be bogged down by bureaucracy.”
If the feds would just hand over control of everything to the state, he said, “Lord knows we’ll do it a hell of a lot quicker than they will do it.”
First authorized by Congress and the Legislature in 2000, the Everglades restoration project is the largest environmental restoration ever, covering an area the size of New Jersey.
It was supposed to take just 10 years. Yet this massive ecosystem restoration, which is supposed to be paid for and run 50:50 between the state and the feds, is still going on 25 years later with no end in sight. It’s been moving slower than traffic on I-75 stuck behind a Canadian snowbird traveling 20 mph.
DeSantis’ offer sure SOUNDS good, doesn’t it? If the feds will just hand over all that dang money and get out of the way, Florida will jump in and push these construction projects to completion in record time.
When we’re done, our poor. beleaguered Everglades will be running like a Swiss watch.
When I first heard about this, the first person I contacted was Estus Whitfield, who served as the top environmental adviser to five Florida governors from both parties.
“This is probably the worst idea I’ve heard in a long time,” he told me.
I agree, and I can give you four reasons why.
Let’s start with that gubernatorial quote from the Palm Beach Post: Florida’s record.
Bring on the birdies
One of the big problems, Whitfield and I agree, is that you can’t trust DeSantis and his Department of Environmental Protection to actually, you know, protect the environment.
Remember, it was just last year when DeSantis thought it was a good idea to build golf courses in a state park. The DEP, doing his bidding, tried to sneak it past the public.
That outrageously bad proposal blew up in DeSantis’ face, with people from both parties condemning this assault on one of Florida’s greatest treasures. But the governor didn’t apologize for getting it wrong. He didn’t even admit that it was a mistake. Instead, he told reporters, “It was not approved by me, I never saw that.”
We know now that that’s not true. He met with the people who wanted to build the golf courses, and his staff pushed it through DEP.
Then, instead of saying the golf course plans would never happen, DeSantis said they would be withdrawn through the end of 2024. That means they’re likely to come back this year and be just as dunderheaded as before.
Put this man in charge of Everglades restoration and we’re liable to see an 18-hole course and clubhouse pop up in the River of Grass. Instead of roaring through the Glades in airboats, you’ll be able to cross the marsh in a golf cart. Instead of lots of wading birds, we’ll have lots of birdies.
“Yes, that could likely happen,’ said Mark Perry of the Florida Oceanographic Society, co-chair of the Everglades Coalition, an alliance of 57 local, state, and national conservation and environmental organizations.
I can picture it now: DeSantis’ office will issue a press release raving about how this new course will make the Everglades more accessible to the average Floridian.
Call him ‘Developer-Santis’
If he doesn’t put a golf course in the Everglades, how about a road or two?
He’s already (with the Florida Cabinet) approved Miami-Dade County building a new road called the Kendall Parkway through part of it.
That required overturning a judge’s recommendation. Instead of protecting the environment, DeSantis sided with what the developers wanted. The governor sides with the developers so frequently that one smart aleck (OK, it was me) suggested we call him “Developer-Santis.”
He’s a big fan of new roads, too. Remember, he signed into law that developer-driven effort to build three new toll roads through rural areas, including one through the heart of Florida panther habitat. Fortunately, the citizens’ committees set up to study the three couldn’t find a need for any of them.
If he puts another road through the Glades, surely the panthers, Cape Sable seaside sparrows, and other rare critters can dodge the cars like a real-life game of Frogger. If not, hey, that’s survival of the fittest, right?
Or how about adding in a big, noisy mine? Either way, you’d be trading swamp buggies for bulldozers.
DeSantis’ South Florida Water Management District, which is the other state agency involved in Everglades restoration, just signed off on one adjacent to the Everglades Agricultural Area, according to Lisa Interlandi of the Everglades Law Center.
The Everglades Law Center went to court 15 years ago to fight off three such rock mines being dug amid the Glades. But recently a company called Southland popped up seeking permission to mine 8,000 acres next to where the state and feds are building a new reservoir. Then when they were done digging this big hole in the ground, they would turn it into a reservoir.
The Southland proposal — from a consortium that Interlandi said includes two major sugar companies — was submitted to the water district staff on Dec. 24. Instead of taking this proposal to the district board for a vote — or even showing it to Santa Claus to see if Southland was on the naughty list — the water district’s executive director sent the company a letter allowing it to move forward on Dec. 31.
“He approved it without any public input,” she told me.
Which brings us to my second reason for why putting DeSantis in charge of Everglades restoration would be disastrous: the secrecy.
The transparent agency
One of the great glories of Florida government is our Sunshine Law. It provides us taxpayers with information on how our money is being spent by our elected officials.
DeSantis clearly hates it. To name just a few examples: He held a non-public Cabinet meeting in Israel, pushed the Legislature to hide his travel records from public scrutiny, and became the first Florida governor to claim “executive privilege” to keep secret what should be public documents.
“The governor’s office is less than transparent,” said Craig Diamond, who was in charge of the state planning office for the former Florida Department of Community Affairs and now is with the national Sierra Club.
When news organizations sued DeSantis because of his overseas Cabinet shenanigan, he claimed meeting overseas was legal because “there was not a single thing that we did that was not completely public the whole time.”
Except there was at least one thing that wasn’t public.
While he was in Israel, DeSantis cut a deal to hire to an Israeli company to dump a hydrogen peroxide mixture in our waterways. The goal: Chase away our extensive toxic algae blooms without cracking down on any polluters.
Because the blooms come back, fed by the pollution that never stops, the Israelis have to keep dumping this stuff in the water over and over at a cost of millions. Did I mention that the hydrogen peroxide mix, marketed as Lake Guard Oxy, is considered hazardous to birds and insects?
Now contrast DeSantis’ destructive secrecy with how things are handled by the federal agency that’s the state’s partner on the Everglades project, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Sure, it’s ironic that the federal agency whose construction work fouled up the Glades’ plumbing system is now helping to fix it. But here’s something that sets the Corps apart from the state.
“They’re honest,” Whitfield said. “Honesty counts. If the state of Florida took it over, we would probably not know what’s going on.”
Eve Samples, executive director of the Friends of the Everglades, says she’s frustrated with the Corps right now over the way it’s handling releases of excess water from Lake Okeechobee. But she’d still rather the Corps have a hand on the steering wheel than turn over full control to the state.
“Generally,” she explained, “they’re a lot more transparent.” And unlike Florida’s state government, she said, “they’re not working for the polluting industries.”
An iguana on a cold day
Here’s my third reason: The Corps and the state are 50/50 partners on Everglades restoration because half the money comes from Congress. But it’s also because, said Gary Roderick, former DEP Southeast bureau chief, each serves as a check on the other. Diamond agreed, telling me, “It helps to have a second set of eyes on this stuff.”
“I worked side-by-side with the Corps, and they’re the greatest people to work with in the world,” Roderick said. Kicking them out and putting Florida alone in charge “is pretty much the worst idea we could possibly do.”
Perry, from the Everglades Coalition, said Florida “needs the guidance and advice of the Corps to get things right.”
Samples of Friends of the Everglades helped me craft my fourth and final argument against turning Everglades restoration over to DeSantis alone: A panel from the National Academies of Science pointed out in 2018 that one factor that needs to be considered in revising the restoration project is climate change.
You know, that thing DeSantis doesn’t want anyone to talk about.
I think our one hope of keeping Trump from turning over every aspect of the Everglades to DeSantis is that Trump’s White House chief of staff is going to be Susie Wiles. She worked for DeSantis until he very loudly fired her.
“I wasn’t just banished,” she told The New York Times recently. “He did his level best to make me unemployed. I mean it was a vicious, all-out, frontal attack.”
Ms. Wiles, when DeSantis sends in his proposal to oust the federal government from doing anything to fix the Everglades other than pay for it, I hope you’ll remember how he treated you and drop it like an iguana falling out of a tree on a c-c-cold day.
YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE.