In terms of the Everglades and all things environmental, it should surprise no one that that "Save Us from Ourselves" sentiment carried the day. Especially with politicians who were running scared. From the large-scale and complex nature of the problem it was obvious that the many local political jurisdictions and even State agencies were completely out of their depths (no pun intended). Naturally, the State looked around for the deep-pocket solution and called on the U.S. Congress to step in and make their problems go away. But, given that specific situation, anyone with even a partially functioning brain knew what had to happen to the Everglades . For the vastly profitable farming community around Lake Okeechobee to thrive, the continuously inundated wetlands had to go. It was that simple, no matter what lies the Corps tells today.
Recognizing the complex challenge as the enormous pork-barrel plum that it was, in 1948 Congress created the Central and Southern Florida Project, known to both proponents and opponents alike as the C&SF Project. Or simply, the Project. Geographically, the Project included the upper St. Johns River, the Kissimmee River Basin , Lake Okeechobee, the Caloosahatchee River , and the Everglades-Big Cypress Basin Florida
However, the Flood Control Act of 1948, 80th Congress, Second Session, as published in House Document No. 643, contains a critical sentence that reveals its underlying motivation: “The inherent fertility of the area [the Everglades] and its resources made its development and use inevitable.” Allow me to rephrase that sentence so its meaning is crystal clear. So much money can be made by farming the fertile Everglades that there’s no possible way we can control our greed and not exploit the land. Which can be said in yet another more revealing way:
Let's all get fat eating the Everglades !
Like the faithful lap-dog it has been from the moment of its conception, the Corps of Engineers rubbed its collective hands together and leaped to do the bidding of its Washington Everglades destroyed so political campaign contributors could get fat from growing crops or subdivisions, the Corps engineers would gladly see to it. Just get out of their way.
Construction was started on the massive water management project in 1950.[1] By the 1970s it was in large part completed. The scale of the Project was staggering, including more than 1,500 miles of levees and canals (which today has grown to about 1,800 miles ), 150 gates and water control structures, and 16 major low-level pumping stations, some of which were at that time the world’s largest.[2] In addition, the Project created three large so-called water “conservation” areas that were used to impound excess water for flood control and later re-distribution.[3] It also provided a protective levee west of the natural bedrock ridge on the East Coast extending from around Homestead north to the eastern shore of Lake Okeechobee near the St. Lucie Canal. That levee severed the eastern 16 percent of the Everglades from its interior and totally blocked overland sheetflows so that property farther east would be protected from direct Everglades flooding. That “eastern perimeter levee” was originally designed and built to protect and promote the development of urbanized areas along the coast. Ironically, in the past three decades it has been transformed into the only effective barrier that has been able to prevent the extensive urban development on the Coast from marching inland across the Everglades . What had been strenuously opposed by environmental groups as environmentally destructive is now regarded by the same organizations as a critical physical barrier in holding back the enormous pressure of population growth and housing demand. What delicious irony.
However, the pulsating heart of the drainage “improvements” and the most critical C&SF Project element was the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA). Over 700,000 acres of the Everglades, featuring what were among the most fertile soils in America, were enclosed by levees and drained by canals to become home to sugarcane, winter vegetables, sod farms, rice fields, and cattle grazing. The Flood Control Act of 1948 mandated that that area would be managed for agriculture and so it has been. Prior to the 1950s, only a small portion of land near the Lake had been developed, even though the extremely rich organic soils made the region very attractive for farming. The problem was too much water. And that certainly was a problem the Corps could fix. Yes, siree, the Corps can move water. Therefore, the new water table in the EAA was designed to be maintained about two feet below the soil surface to protect crops. Aren’t civil engineers grand? They can’t recognize environmental destruction in front of their very eyes but they can sure manage the hell out of water.
Even people relatively unfamiliar with the inner workings of the Corps may know that its projects, by Federal law, must be justified by a positive benefit-cost ratio. Meaning that after all the money is spent on drainage improvements and canal/pumping station operations, the net result has to be activities that have positive annual financial value. Well, at least on paper using shell-game numbers created by the Corps’s economists (more on that fascinating topic later). It shouldn’t surprise anyone to learn that the major economic justification of the C&SF Project was the EAA.
During the period from 1906 to 1927, approximately 80 square miles of land south of Lake Okeechobee were farmed. After the Project was started in the 1950s agricultural production soared. Of course, the rapidly rising national demand (previously pent up as an effect of WWII) for food crops helped a great deal. By the mid-1970s, more than 125 sugar cane farms covered 330 square miles, producing over 800,000 tons of sugar annually.
Today, more than 50 percent of the sugar produced nationally is harvested in the EAA on approximately 900 square miles that are exclusively devoted to sugar cane production.[4] The water management needs of the EAA are served by 15 canals and 25 control structures. After construction, the Corps turned that system and all of the C&SF Project over to their bosom buddies, the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD), which became responsible for day-to-day operations and maintenance. Today, throughout south Florida Florida Bay
[1] Cited at The Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP), Development of the Central and Southern Florida (C&SF) Project.: http://www.evergladesplan.org/about/restudy_csf_devel.cfm
[2] I’ve always found that term to be most instructive. By its own description, the Corps was simply managing water. It had no concern for habitat, wildlife, ecosystems, food webs, or anything remotely related to the environment. As long as it moved water in the right amounts it was doing its job. And there, in a nutshell, is their mind-set and the problem south Florida
[3] All told, the Project consisted of 862,800 acres, or more than half of the remaining Everglades .
[4] The EAA totals about 1,200 square miles.
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