Eric Eikenberg, CEO of the Everglades Foundation, joined Good Morning Keys on Keys Talk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about water.
The EAA reservoir has seen some funding recently.
Eikenberg said, “Monday, I was privileged to be out at the reservoir construction site where the Army Corps of Engineers, the state of Florida, the governor was present, and they announced that over $2 billion has now been secured in Jacksonville by the Army Corps of Engineers to build this reservoir, this critical link that will direct Lake Okeechobee water down to Florida Bay. That project now is scheduled to be completed by 2029, and this slug of money was critical to meet that deadline. The timeline has been agreed upon by the Army Corps of Engineers, the South Florida Water Management District. But more importantly, the contractor, the company out of North Carolina, was awarded this contract. And when the desire was to accelerate the timeline of building it, they had to come to the table and realistically demonstrate that they could pull this off. So there was a number of months of negotiations. I had the privilege of meeting the CEO out at the site on Monday, and he told me that at the height of this, they’re going to have about 1,100 employees on site building the largest reservoir in the history of the Army Corps. I think this is a major achievement. Again, this is a project that had been discussed 25 years ago, having a storage reservoir south of the lake. And it was started, it was stopped. There was an effort to buy one of the sugar companies years ago, but there has never been the backing away from the need for a large storage reservoir to hold water. We’ve talked about it, the damaging discharges, algae going east, west, lack of fresh water going down the Florida Bay. Of all the projects in this comprehensive Everglades restoration plan, this is the one that gets the biggest bang for the buck, literally, and to have it built by the end of this decade, 2029, we know that’s three years away. It’s here. We can grab it. We now just have to make sure that it remains on track as we move towards that time frame.”
President Trump has been involved with this as well.
Eikenberg said, “The first term when he came into office, we were challenged by a weakened Herbert Hoover dike around Lake Okeechobee, there was concern that the dike would fail. The Army Corps was not able to hold water in the lake, hence they were dumping it to the east and west. So the president came in in 2017, 2018 committed over a billion dollars to finish the Herbert Hoover dike hardening process, which is a key feature in overall water management. And then, more importantly, the president the first term, doubled the request of funding from the Congress. We went from 100 million under the Obama era to 200 million. And during the first Trump term, it finished at 250. President Biden went to as high as 400 and now President Trump is back. We’re looking at $450 million going to the Everglades. So the point there is, we’ve had five presidents and four governors over the last 25 years, and each one has put their fingerprints on this project. I’ll be with Governor Bush this morning in Fort Myers talking about Everglades restoration. And he was certainly critical, 25 years ago, getting this thing started. I’ve been out there maybe three or four times over the last year or so. And each time I go out there, there’s a whole new level of activity and to the point where the amount of truck traffic, and this is in the middle of all sugar cane farming, the amount of truck traffic on this site, they’ve put up four way stop signs. The logistics of doing, this is a mammoth undertaking. It’s impressive to see. Again, this is the largest reservoir that the core will build. You could stick the island of Manhattan in this footprint. So it’s huge. It’s going to be a large reservoir. There’s been so much effort from so many people, which started 10 years ago in Islamorada, with the Now or Neverglades campaign. We were delighted that the Chamber of Commerce of Islamorada and the village council, they went to see the construction site a month ago, and the folks in the Keys, were able to step on that construction site and understand that the water that will flow from that reservoir ultimately will make its way down the Florida Bay. And that’s critically important for Monroe County.”
The Everglades economy round table was held recently.
Eikenberg said, “We’ve loved this statewide tour. It wrapped up in Islamorada last week. But we’ve been all over Florida with these economic roundtables and the theme has been that Everglades restoration, it’s working, and it’s worth it. And as it relates to its working, we’re able to demonstrate tangible results from restoration, whether it’s the Kissimmee River being restored, the flow of additional water under the Tamiami Trail bridges. Salinity levels are low in Florida Bay, there’s a variety of metrics that demonstrate that the restoration work is paying off, and then you pivot to it’s worth it, and that theme has been received well in Washington and Tallahassee, the billions of dollars that are going into these projects, the return on that is huge for the state of Florida, whether it’s protecting our real estate industry, our fishing industry, boating, outdoor recreation, tourism, all that benefits from investing in Everglades restoration. So the business community of Islamorada, we were then in Key Largo the next day, you all understand that Everglades restoration is vital, but it is working, and it certainly is worth it. We’re heartened by what’s happening in classrooms up and down the Keys from Key Largo to Key West, teachers that are embracing our education curriculum, teaching children of Monroe County the importance of our environment, of our Everglades of Florida Bay, the importance of our species that are in the water and on the ground. So we’re in the present, but we’re also looking to the future, and we need to be investing in the next generation of champions. And this is a topic now that is fully mainstream. This is not a bunch of tree hugging environmentalists. This is about the economic viability of Monroe County and the State of Florida, and it’s great to be a part of. This is America’s Everglades. It’s right here in our backyard, and we will be the generation that restores it and then passes it on to our kids and grandchildren.”
For more information, click here: https://www.evergladesfoundation.org/