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Effort to Save Everglades Falters as Funds Dwindle
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| Contributor | ArmyDem |
| Last Edited | ArmyDem Nov 01, 2007 09:45pm |
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| Category | News |
| Media | Newspaper - New York Times |
| News Date | Saturday, November 3, 2007 03:45:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | By ABBY GOODNOUGH
Published: November 2, 2007
MIAMI, Oct. 31 — The rescue of the Florida Everglades, the largest and most expensive environmental restoration project on the planet, is faltering.
Seven years into what was supposed to be a four-decade, $8 billion effort to reverse generations of destruction, federal financing has slowed to a trickle. Projects are already years behind schedule. Thousands of acres of wetlands and wildlife habitat continue to disappear, paved by developers or blasted by rock miners to feed the hungry construction industry.
The idea that the federal government could summon the will and money to restore the subtle, sodden grandeur of the so-called River of Grass is disappearing, too.
Supporters say the effort would get sorely needed momentum from a long-delayed federal bill authorizing $23 billion in water infrastructure projects, including almost $2 billion for the Everglades.
But President Bush is expected to veto the bill, possibly on Friday. And even if Congress overrides the veto, which is likely, grave uncertainties will remain.
The product of a striking bipartisan agreement just before the 2000 presidential election, the plan aims to restore the gentle, shallow flow of water from Lake Okeechobee, in south-central Florida, into the Everglades, a vast subtropical marshland at the state’s southern tip.
That constant, slow coursing nurtured myriad species of birds, fish and other animals across the low-lying Everglades, half of which have been lost to agriculture and development over the last century. |
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