We’re all linked by water — and the Everglades is a perfect example of why

Eric Eikenberg, CEO of the Everglades Foundation, joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s going on at the foundation.

What exactly does the Everglades Foundation do?

Eikenberg said, “The foundation has great roots down in the keys. We were founded back in 1993 out of Islamorada due to an algae bloom that was occurring in Florida Bay back in the early 1990s and the effort back then was to identify the cause and the challenges that we were facing and find solutions to it. Let’s roll up our sleeves and figure out how best to solve these water quality concerns. We now have 40 employees. We have a tremendous science team, experts within the science of the Everglades. Certainly, this is the largest re-plumbing project in the history of the world and you have to work government angles. You have to work government relationships. You need to be in Washington and in Tallahassee. We do that well, and then lastly, we’re going to meet the restoration goals and then it’s perpetual protection. That’s why the Monroe County and the schools throughout Monroe County, as well as 30 other school districts, are teaching our children about the importance of preserving this ecosystem. So we’re at a great opportunity, a great, great moment here in the history of Everglades restoration, and the foundation is proud to be at the forefront.”

The Everglades and the Florida Bay are so critical to so many aspects of life in the Keys.

Eikenberg said, “We did a survey a couple years ago, and 90% of the respondents from Broward, Dade and Monroe counties were unaware of the fact that the Everglades was the source of drinking water. So whether you’re residing in Key Largo down to Key West. I mean, when you turn on the tap here this morning and you’re getting your day underway, that water through the aqueduct is fueled by the Everglades and as we’re as we’re reading and watching of what’s happening out in in California due to the lack of water or the lack of being able to fight these wildfires, we receive an abundant amount of fresh water through rainfall each year. The challenge is, in the past, we were not able to store that water. We weren’t able to hold that water on the peninsula and Everglades restoration is enabling water to be stored, not wasting it to the east or west coast, but instead sending it through the Everglades, and it permeates into that porous limestone, down to the aquifer, which then supplies through the aqueduct and gives water to Monroe County and to the businesses and the tourism industry that makes the Keys so great. So we’re all linked by water. This is this is a water issue, and we need to ensure that we have it and it’s sustainable.”

Governor DeSantis has been a supportive partner of the Everglades Foundation.

Eikenberg said, “He not only has been a supportive partner, but he’s been a tremendous leader in this space, in this area. The announcement last week in Juneau Beach was another $803 million he’s asking the legislature to put towards the environment, and a lot of that money will go directly to Everglades restoration. As we’ve discussed these projects, this is a $3 billion price tag. This is a massive undertaking, and the only way we’re going to have it built in a period of time here that we’re going to benefit from is to have the money flow from Washington, from Tallahassee, the governor asking for this amount just continues the six year run that we’ve had in Tallahassee, where we’re seeing $600, $650 million being appropriate. And this is tax dollars. So again, these are our resources that we pay on our property tax bill that’s now coming back to the Everglades, and these projects are critically important.”

Will the Donald Trump administration change anything for the Everglades?

Eikenberg said, “We have been through now this will be the sixth administration over the last 25 years. So we have gone between Democrat and Republican, Republican to Democrat. So we’re used to these moments where you have a transitional period. The interesting issue that we’re facing at the moment is you have a Trump administration coming back in where President Trump, back in 2017 led an effort at the federal level to ensure that the Army Corps of Engineers rehabilitated the Herbert Hoover dike around Lake Okeechobee, and over a billion dollars was spent to harden that dike, and this is in the wake of Katrina and high water levels within the lake and worrying about a break in the dam. But by doing that, by hardening that dike, you’re now able to hold more water in Lake Okeechobee so that you’re avoiding the harmful discharging going to the St Lucie and to the Caloosahatchee. So the president has a record here. He also signed legislation in 2018 that authorized the construction of the reservoir south of the lake in the middle of the sugarcane fields. So we are imploring, and working with the administration. The president likes to build things. There’s great benefit to having this reservoir happen during or at least a chunk of it, that the bulk of the reservoir being built during these next four years, and both Democrat and Republican unified behind a $725 million ask of the administration and we’re hopeful that when the president issues his budget recommendations to Congress in a few months that we see a big number for the Everglades.”

Why is it such a huge task to try to bring back the health of the Everglades?

Eikenberg said, “You can go back to the 1840s, you can go to the turn of that century, around 1900. I like to tell folks that a candidate running for governor in the early 1900s Napoleon Bonaparte Broward, namesake of Broward County, he ran for governor of Florida and the enemy was not his political opponent, but it was water. It was this effort to drain the Everglades to allow for more development. I mean, we’re 21 million strong here in the state of Florida, and we’re now the third largest state. A lot of us now live along the coast, both East Coast, West Coast, up through the Panhandle and two thirds of the original Everglades has been lost. So we have a very small portion of it remaining and it is so critical not just to our livelihood when we talk about water, but it is the life blood of the Florida economy as we continue to move along. This is a state, and this is an economy that runs on tourism, 120 million, I believe it was that came to Florida last year. So we rely upon tourists from around the country, around the world, coming to Florida to recreate and to fish and to boat. Certainly the Keys knows that. But, but back to the history of this. I mean, the building of the dike around Lake Okeechobee after the hurricane of 1928, that was Herbert Hoover that declared that we needed to cut off that natural flow because that water overflowed naturally on the southern boundary of the lake down into the river of grass, as Marjory Stoneman Douglas wrote about in 1948 and then Tampa to Miami, the construction of the Tamiami Trail. That road that is now being raised, we have bridges, but that road back in the 1920s it decapitated the flow of water into what would soon become Everglades National Park and Florida Bay. So there was a lot of decisions by Congress in the 1940s to build canals and drain, it was getting the water off the peninsula, to dump it out to the Atlantic Ocean. Now we’ve realized that we need that water for our aquifer, for our way of life, for our economy. Everglades restoration, it’s in its 25th year, 25 years since Bill Clinton signed the historic Everglades restoration plan and here we are now moving that program. I’m very optimistic that our generation, we will be the generation that gets to that restoration goal, and then it’s perpetual protection.”

There has also been a call to expedite the construction project even more.

Eikenberg said, “The sooner that project is fully operational, it’s beneficial for both coasts, east and west, as well as Florida Bay. We are urging the Army Corps of Engineers, we’re urging the Congress, I mean, this really comes down to the money, because they have issued, now a contract for $3 billion to build what they call the embankment of this reservoir, 38 foot walls of a reservoir holding some 25 to 28 feet of water. It’ll be 75 to 80 billion gallons that will be filling up, and then that polluted water from Lake Okeechobee will then flow into man wetlands, the plant life in these stormwater treatment areas, these wetlands, I like to call them the kidneys, just south of all that sugar cane operation there, those wetlands will remove the phosphorus and nitrogen from the water in the reservoir, and then send clean water through the Everglades, under the bridges of Tamiami Trail, all those three and a half miles of bridges allow water now for the first time in 100 years, moving into Everglades National Park and the beneficiary of that reservoir all the way up again, in that agricultural area, in the middle of those sugar cane fields, the beneficiary of that reservoir is Florida Bay. The sooner we get that thing built and operational and water flowing in the right direction, to the south. It’s important. I might point back to President Trump. By building this reservoir, you avoid the discharges into the Lake Worth lagoon, which is in West Palm Beach and Mar a Lago sits directly east of the Lake Worth lagoon. Back in 2018 we had blue green algae in the Lake Worth lagoon. You had red tide in the Atlantic Ocean. So that’s another reason, certainly a personal one, for folks here in Florida to get that thing built to avoid discharges it hurts the fishing industry, the tourism industry, and get that water down the Florida Bay. That’s why that project is so critical.”

Is water runoff a continuing problem for the Everglades?

Eikenberg confirmed, “It is. It continues to be a major crisis. In particular, the amount that flows into Lake Okeechobee on an annual basis. We’re supposed to meet a total maximum loading. It’s a formula of phosphorus coming from the north into Lake Okeechobee. It’s roughly 150 metric tons, those that follow this type of a topic, but there’s a limit of how much phosphorus nutrient can flow into the lake, and we’ve never met it. We’ve never come close to meeting that number. So Lake Okeechobee is a very sick body of water. Come June, July, August, 90% of the lake has the blue green algae that they can see from space. It’s a mess. I understand that the great bass fishing, that’s taking a hit from the pollution. There’s so many analogies that you can think of. But if you have a gaping hole in your roof and it’s raining, you want to plug that hole in the roof. You want to stop the water from pouring into the home and as we address water quality issues, as we address the cyanobacteria and the algae and the impact that has, we have to deal with issues north of Lake Okeechobee, and it’s not toilets being flushed in Orlando. A lot of people like to say it’s all the toilets being flushed in Orlando. There are septic tanks near the lake. We have to work to get communities off septic tanks, but we really need to do a better job of that point source nutrient pollution that’s entering Okeechobee and I’m hopeful, there’s a lot of talk, but I’m hopeful that the leadership of the Florida Senate will take steps to curb that pollution, because, again, we have to address that issue. These are mainstream issues. These are issues that need to be addressed. And again, I’m very optimistic that we’re going to see great progress as we move forward. But we need people to engage on this. I mean, those that are listening to this conversation across the keys to step up and join the cause. There’s a lot of organizations that are pushing for conservation, but we need to get the water right. I encourage folks to go to our website and help us. Join this journey. Because, again, it’s so vital to our future.”

For more information, click here:  https://www.evergladesfoundation.org/