THE CASE FOR BUYING THE EVERGLADES AGRICULTURAL AREA

By Juanita Greene
June, 1999

Until the drained-dry heart of the Everglades south of Lake Okeechobee is reflooded, there can be no effective
restoration of South Floridas vast wetland system. This altered area of about 700,00 acres acts as a huge dam in
the River of Grass. It blocks the life-sustaining sheet flow of water that begins north of Lake Okeechobee and
ends at Florida Bay 100 miles to the south.

Today most of the land is in agriculture, predominantly sugar cane, which is creating other problems besides the
blockage. But the future portends even worse problems because the soil is disappearing. In time, if the
Everglades Agricultural Area is not reflooded, urban development will replace the cane and vegetable fields.
And the chance of restoring the Everglades will be doomed. Suburbs already are pressing against EAA
boundaries. A city could arise in he very heart of the Everglade, imperiling the whole natural system that
sustains South Florida.

The land in the EAA has been disappearing slowly ever since it was drained, and even the deepest part will all
be gone or too shallow to plant in about 70 years. (1) In most places there will be nothing left but the bare
limestone. Some areas already have been taken out of production because the soil is too thin. An appraisal report
on a 30,422 acre tract in the EAA recently purchased by the government made frequent reference to the
shallowness of the soil, which on this tract had an average depth of 16 inches. The fate of this soil for
continued agricultural production is uncertain, said the appraiser.

Few people have much to say about the vanishing soil because the only solution is to put the water back on the
land, an alternative ignored in the restoration plans. Scientists agree that the drained peat and muck land is
disappearing, in a process called subsidence. The South Florida Water Management District, a leader in the
restoration, last ordered a study on subsidence in 1993. (2) It predicted that at least 80,600 acres and maybe up
to 252,000 acres in the EAA will leave production by 2013 because of subsidence problems. The higher figure
represents about half the land under cultivation in the EAA. The authors of this report commented, Questions
regarding whether agricultural production in the EAA can be sustained in the future may restrict new investment
in agriculture facilities. A later study, by the University of Florida in 1997, (3) reported the subsidence rate in
the northern part of the EAA, where the soil is deepest, at a little more than half an inch (.56) a year.

Some experts say higher water tables and better management practices have slowed down the subsidence. But
all agree the decline will continue unless water is put back on the land. Average depth of the soil in the northern
area measured 37 inches about three years ago. (4) When the soil depth is less than 24 inches, canals must be
deepened and other work done that considerably increases production costs. When it is down to six inches, the
soil depth cant be farmed. The Army Corps of Engineers has reported that Rapid subsidence combined with
limited soil depth (to bedrock) has raised concerns about the sustainability of agriculture in the EAA. (5) At the
Everglades Research and Education Center in Belle Glade stands a post that was erected in 1924. The ground
around it has eroded more than five and a half feet . (6)

Despite the knowledge about subsidence and predictions of vanishing agriculture, government is preparing to
spend more than a billion dollars to clean up the polluted water from EAA farms as part of its program to restore
the Everglades. The restoration plan devotes scant attention to the consequences of subsidence.

Most of the land in the EAA was drained by the Army Corps of Engineers in a project that began in the early
1950s. Approved after deluges in 1947 left most of South Florida under water, the project was publicized as
flood control. But its purpose turned out mainly to be land reclamation, especially in the area south of Lake
Okeechobee, where the saw grass once grew tallest, the peat and muck was thickest, and the water levels among
the highest in the Everglades. It was here that Lake Okeechobee periodically overflowed its banks and added
water to the slow moving River of Grass. Today about 550,000 acres are under cultivation, 90 percent in sugar
cane. Most of the remaining 150,000 acres are in wildlife refuges.

Because of the EAA location and condition, government would have reason enough to buy all of it for
Evergladess restoration. But there are other reason also. First there is pollution, a problem which triggered the
whole restoration attempt. Phosphorus-laden water from the EAA is contaminating the Everglades to the south
and Lake Okeechobee to the north. Forced by lawsuits to deal with this pollution, government proposes to spend
billions to clean it up through systems not guaranteed to work and which may not be needed after farming
eventually disappears because of subsidence.

Withdrawing agriculture from the EAA and allowing nature to take charge would save a tremendous amount of
water. Supply is becoming a problem on the populated east coast while billions of gallons of fresh water are
wasted to sea every year to keep the EAA dry.

Taxpayers would get relief if farming ceased in the EAA. Millions of dollars in public funds are spent every
year to pump water on or off the fields and otherwise service the EAA. Government bought some of the largest
pumps in the world to do the job. The most comprehensive study of the public contribution to agriculture was
made in 1990 for the Wilderness Society. (8). It found that in a typical year, agriculture paid only $1.61 million
in water district taxes, while urban properties paid $94.78 million. Agriculture consumed 67 percent of the water
but paid only 1.7 percent of the cost of managing it.

The taxpayer is burdened in other ways. The Florida sugar industry, centered in the Everglades, offers a classic
example of corporate welfare. One study reports that the industry enjoys an average of about $238 million a year
in public assistance. (9) Some sources believe that without public subsidies the EAA sugar industry would
collapse.

Experts studying the states economic benefit from the EAA find it is but a tiny blip on the South Florida screen.
EAA production represents less than two percent of South Floridas annual economic output. (10) It amounts to
less than six tenths of one percent of the gross state product. (11)

Suggestions for restoring all or part of the EAA to its natural condition have been made by many sources over
many years:

The Corps final plan it self calls for water storage in the EAA. It would convert about 60,000 acres into
reservoirs up to six feet deep.

The national Audubon Societys Everglades Restoration Task Force has urged that a portion of the huge
amount of water drained from the EAA and wasted to tide be held in preserves within the EAA. Audubon
called for additional land purchases of about 75,000 acres. It urged that government recognize that current
EAA land uses are essentially transitional factors in South Floridas long-term economic picture due to soil
subsidence and loss of yield in the long term. The Society declared that Such marginal uses, occupying
such a large spatial area of South Florida, will not be long sustainable in the face of growing urban and
commercial land use pressures and the need for ecosystem restoration. (12)

In listing options for improving water flow and storage, the Corps of Engineer in 1994 (13)
included one that called for carving a 22-mile flowway, from 7 to 13 miles wide, through the EAA.
This would help reconnect Lake Okeechobee to the remaining Everglades. The Flowway also
would, said the Corps, recreate natural storage systems, help capture water now wasted to tide,
reestablish natural hydropatterns, increase spatial extent, provide more critically needed short
 hydroperiod wetlands, improve water supply to the lower east coast and act as a buffer between the
Everglades and urban areas. But this option met fierce opposition from the sugar industry and
quickly disappeared, despite its strong support from environmental organizations.

A group of distinguished scientists assigned to comment on restoration plans declared:

The lifespan of agriculture in the EAA is finite because of the present advanced state of soil
subsidence. This, coupled with the disruption to the entire hydrological system and region-wide
ecology of South Florida caused by maintenance of a drained area in the middle of the water
shed, suggests that every effort should be taken for public acquisition of property in the EAA as
various parcels are abandoned by agriculture. It is critical to long-term ecological restoration of
South Florida to eventually recover or reconstitute the natural hydrologic function of the area.
(14)

Yet as the soil continues to disappear, the bulk of the EAA is destined to remain in private hands even when it no
longer can be farmed. Asked to speculate on the future, the CEO of the largest sugar grower in the everglades,
declared. When we cant grow sugar cane, we will grow condominiums and golf courses. (15)

If this happens, any chance of restoring the Everglades is gone.

On the other hand, returning the water to the EAA would give the Everglades, with a little help from it friends, the
boost it needs to heal itself.

(1) Shih University of Florida technical bulletin 902, Dec., 1997, and SFWMD Contract Completion report No. C-
4157, Aug. 1993 and National Audubon Society, EAA Lands, Nov. 1997.
(2) SFWMD Contract No. C-4157, P.4-30
(3) Shih
(4) Ibid.
(5) Comprehensive Review Study, P, E-61
(6) Personal conversation with George Synder, March, 1999
(7) National Audubon Society, EAA lands
(8) Joint Center for Urban Studies, Florida Atlantic University, for the Wilderness Society, 1990
(9) Ibid.
(10) Audubon EAA Lands
(11) Joint Center
(12) Audubon, EAA Lands
(13) Comprehensive Review Study, Reconnaissance Report, P. 143.
(14) Science Sub Group Report: Federal Objectives for The South Florida Restoration by the Science Sub-Group of
the South Florida Management and Coordination Working Group, November 15, 1993
(15) Miami Herald, Sept. 21, 1993

End