The CERP and What it Does 02 — EATING THE EVERGLADES

          If skeptics need evidence that the CERP is far less than an environmental restoration tool all they have to do is take a look at its most controversial improvement, a $1 billion plus plan to convert several humongous limestone quarries at the western edge of Miami into water storage reservoirs. Taking a page from the playbooks of master propagandists, Miami-Dade County and the State have dubbed it the Lake Belt Plan instead of the Wetlands Destruction Plan or the Ugly-Assed Rock Pit Plan in order to disguise the resulting environmental devastation. Is it any surprise that plain-speaking and truth-telling are not on their list of capabilities? Double-speak is alive and well and is the language of choice among politicians and spin-meisters hired by south Florida powerbrokers.

          Rock for construction has been mined in southwestern Miami-Dade County since the early 1950s. Problem is, groundwater is so close to the surface in south Florida that even shallow excavations fill with water almost immediately, forming man-made basins. And that’s how the so-called Lake Belt got its name. Approximately 5,000 acres of those quarries/basins/pits, ranging from small to very large, are presently in western Miami-Dade. The mined materials are an economically important commodity for the State, or so it’s argued by the self-serving mining industry, and are used in a wide range of construction applications. If any of my Gentle Readers have flown into Miami International Airport from the west perhaps you may have noticed what appear to be numerous rectilinear lakes with adjacent piles of rock-ruble west of the Airport. That’s exactly what we’re talking about. The Ugly-Assed Rock Pits, AKA the Lake Belt, that are so beloved by local politicians and their greed obsessed powerbroker lords and masters that they would cheerfully and without hesitation sacrifice what’s left of the Everglades to keep growing fatter and fatter.

          The entire Lake Belt consists of approximately 57,515 acres, or 90 square miles, of Everglades wetlands west of the Airport and adjacent to and east of Everglades National Park. The Belt was given legal existence by the Florida Legislature in 1997 to implement the Miami-Dade County Lake Belt Plan, which will allow mining firms[1] to rip apart and destroy another 21,000 acres, or 33 square miles, of Everglades wetlands to dig monster quarries 60 to 80 feet deep and remove the limestone and associated rock for construction projects. All accomplished with the Corps’s tacit approval, since its only legislated responsibility in that situation is to issue or deny applications for Clean Water Act permits. Which, in this specific case, issue they did. Despite the irreversible and horrific environment consequences of the mining and despite tremendous scientific uncertainty as to whether the pits will ever do the task they are assigned in the CERP. Actually, in this case none of those concerns is directly under the jurisdiction of the Corps. The State and the County have those responsibilities and everyone knows how dedicated they are to exercising environmental stewardship. But hey, they’re not alone. Even the mining companies claim to be good environmentalists. Let’s read their own words as expressed on the web sire posted by Rinker Materials.

Initiating safety and environmental improvements in our business is who we are. From restoring mining sites to constructing safe and environmentally friendly facilities, Rinker Materials Corporation is the leader in our industry’s environmental initiatives.[2]

     
          I don't know whether to label that statement blatant hypocrisy or a bold-face lie of monumental proportions. Or both simultaneously. But once you read it, don't you feel so much better about the mining firms and their intentions toward the environment? Of course you do and that's why they wrote it: to confuse citizens and smoke-screen harsh reality.

          Another big unknown is whether the stored water in those artificial reservoirs will infiltrate the aquifers and thereby foul Miami’s drinking water with potentially dangerous bacteria, especially giardia[3] cryptosporidium,[4] and, coliform.[5] And now we have to worry about bird flu viruses. As an aside, it may be of passing interest for Readers to learn that mining allowed in the Lake Belt Plan will destroy more wetlands in the historic Everglades than the Corps permitted to be destroyed nationwide in 2001. In fact, the Corps continues to approve more wetland development permits in Florida than in any other State. Between 1999 and 2003 it approved more than 12,000 permits to wipe out wetlands and rejected only one. Hey, in a very twisted way that makes absolute sense, especially if we're talking about an environmental restoration plan crafted by engineers. But only if the CERP's primary goal is to keep the powerbrokers fat and the politicians awash in campaign contributions.

          A technical study by the South Florida Water Management District brought up the disturbing possibility that those rock quarries/pits may cause even more water to seep out of the Everglades into the nearby urban areas that have lower water tables. Water has a distressing tendency to flow downhill, remember? The engineering solution to that not so minor problem? Spend $280 million or more in subterranean "seepage barriers" designed to stop water from escaping the Everglades via sub-surface routes.

          So, you might ask, not being a geotechnical engineer on steroids, what in the world are "seepage barriers"? The list includes slurry walls, sheet pile curtain walls, grout curtains, parallel levees, step-down impoundments, and even a Dr. Strangelovian technique that the Corps claims would freeze underground water into thick, vertical ice curtains to prevent water in large quantities from migrating horizontally away from the pits. Sounds like that idea would work in perfect economic harmony in south Florida's year-round Arctic-like temperatures. But wait. Do any of those techniques sound like cutting-edge environmental restoration? Another difficult question that requires reflection.

          The question is, will those techniques work in the real world? Honest answer. No one knows. Seriously. Neither the Corps nor the high-powered university hydrologists and hydro-geologists who are members of the National Academy of Sciences. But the Corps is moving forward with their plan despite the universal scientific uncertainty.

          Over the next eight or ten years, as south Florida mining companies continue ripping out millions of tons of limestone from lands that only a decade or so ago were part of the Everglades, the Corps and SFWMD engineers have promised to test various solutions to see if they can find something that will work. Meaning, at this time they have no idea if any of those so-called "solutions" will actually be successful. None whatsoever. And even those pilot/test projects are now under critical congressional scrutiny owing to budget-tightening measures.

          But the lime rock mining goes on and on. As do the hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the people who own and run the mining firms. Just think, without politicians willing to listen to the plight of poor, struggling foreign-owned mining companies[6] just trying to make an honest couple million bucks profit annually, we might actually be able to save the Everglades. What a terrific example of our democratic process in action. Makes me want to run right out and vote for those easy-virtue politicians who have gotten fat by cramming the mining companies' contributions deep into their re-election campaign coffers. Absolutely.

          Many well-informed citizen activists and environmental groups believe, with good reason it turns out, that the south Florida limestone mining firms are much too powerful to stop. Mining firms, you ask incredulously. And what could possibly be the source of that remarkable power? Simple. They have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to political campaign committees for candidates running for State offices.[7] Hell, in their eagerness to demonstrate their gratitude for that largess, the Florida Legislature fell all over itself and specifically exempted mining firms from State laws that had previously protected Florida wetlands. Big surprise. And you thought I was being overly subjective when I wrote that all too many Florida legislatures are anti-environment and highly greed-motivated. Use your nose to follow the money trail. It’s the stink of easy virtue and corruption that’s in the air around Tallahassee. Grease, my boy, grease is what America was built on and grease is what keeps America rolling.

          Here are a few specific details for skeptical Readers. According to public campaign finance records, from 1998 through 2002 mining companies and their executives contributed more than $800,000 to State and federal political candidates and organizations. The major recipients included U.S. Senator Bob Graham (D-Florida), originator of the meretricious America’s Everglades slogan; State Senator J. Alex Villalobos (R-Miami); and State Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, (R-Miami), co-sponsored of legislation that governed mining in Miami-Dade; and Florida Insurance Commissioner Tom Gallagher, whose agency regulates blasting. The executives and political action committee of Rinker Materials Corp., then a subsidiary of an Australian company, was the largest contributor to those campaigns, giving $446,256 to Florida and U.S. candidates and parties over the past five years.[8]

          But hey, ain't that the American way? As a matter of fact it is. American politics as practiced is readily acknowledged as a dirty, nasty, morally reprehensible, money-based business intentionally set up and run to reward the fat powerbrokers and to shove aside weak and disorganized citizens. As two astute observers of Florida’s political scene put it in wonderful historical context: ". . . by 1912 political power [in Florida] had fallen into the hands of spokesmen for developers and corporate interests."[9] There that power has stayed and will continue to stay until ordinary voters wake up and smell the manure that has been spread about and determine to do something about it.

          It's historical fact that the south Florida limestone mining industry provided and continues to provide the literal foundations of Florida’s development-driven economy. The industry has helped build roads, highways, railroads, ports, airports, water and sewer plants, bridges, retaining walls, drainage canals, pumping stations, retail/office structures, regional malls, strip centers, parking garages, parking lots, and even subdivision communities. Not to mention all those essential entertainment-theme parks in Orlando or the launch pads at the Kennedy Space Center. Every day, rain or shine, the Ugly-Assed Rock Belt mines generate more than three thousand trucks and four hundred rail cars of crushed stone. That's a whooping 40 percent of all the aggregate produced by concrete manufacturers and used in the State of Florida.

          The only minor problem is that in order to produce that limestone south Florida has resorted to eating itself to provide infrastructure for urban development. But hey, it’s only a lousy wetland. Who really gives a wood rat’s ass? Just keep them 'dozers rolling and the cash flow positive. Nothing else matters. Fuck the Everglades is the unexpressed but dominant theme of the people, companies, and government agencies that have promoted and profit from the Lake Belt Plan.

          Here's one of the most valid and most critical scientific and intellectual objections to what the Lake Belt Plan and the CERP proposes.

Every technology-intensive approach assumes the existence of sufficient data to produce clear conclusions BEFORE decisions are made.

       
         I'm tempted to beat that point to death but that would be a grave insult to the intelligence of my Readers. Surely, you might ask, that critical objection has occurred to the people in charge of the CERP. Just ignore that rude chortling you might hear in the background. I never was properly socialized. Allow me to answer that question directly. Sure it did but that realization made no difference whatsoever. Even the Corps freely admits that many of the technological solutions relied on in the CERP are new, untried, untested, and unproven and will remain that way for only God knows how long. Those half-baked ideas are what scientists love to classify as Scientific Wild Ass Guesses or SWAGs. No more, no less. And why should the American public be enthusiastic about spending $13.5 billion on a whole slew of SWAGs? A better question would be:

Is the Corps out of their minds?

          Short answer: no. They simply don't care. And why should they? They do what Congress tells them to do. No more, no less. Critical thinking doesn't enter into the picture other than in devising rational appearing justifications for putting the hurt to whatever environments and ecosystems are under Congress's gun. They're just good soldiers, their bayonets firmly fixed, blinders in place, doing the bidding of their Lords and Masters. It simply doesn't matter to the Corps that it is destroying forever the Everglades or any particular environment. Hey, Corps engineers were told to move water, so they're moving water. What's the problem, Clyde? Just get the hell out of the way and let them get to work.[10]

          Oh-oh. I feel the creative urge swelling up within me and can't resist sharing a verse. Brace yourself. It's SOB's twisted history revisited as The Charge of the Corps Brigade.[11]

"Forward, the Corps!” shouted Congress.

Was there a man dismay’d?

Not tho’ the engineers cared

Someone had blunder’d.

Theirs not to make reply,

Theirs not to reason why,

Theirs but to do and lie.

Into the River of Grass

Drove the six hundred.

---

[1] Rinker Florida, now a subsidiary of the Mexican firm, CEMEX, and then a subsidiary of an Australian mining company, headed up a coalition of limestone mining companies that worked with the Florida legislature to develop and pass the Lake Belt Plan legislation.

[2] Online source: Rinker Materials Corporation, Community Involvement, Environmental Initiatives, http://www.rinkermaterials.com/co_initiatives.htm

[3] A tear-drop shaped protozoan that lives in the small intestine and is transmitted primarily through ingestion of water contaminated by infected animals.

[4] Small parasites living in the intestinal tracts of fishes, reptiles, birds and mammals. Cryptosporidium infections have been reported from a variety of wild and domesticated animals and from the mid-1990s literally hundreds of human infections have been reported, including epidemics in several major urban areas in the United States. And now we have to worry about bird flu viruses.

[5] McPherson, B. F.; 1996. “The south Florida environment: a region under stress,” U. S. Geological Survey, Circular #1134, Denver, Colorado: USGS.

[6] It may be of some interest that the two largest mining companies in south Florida are Tarmac Florida, which is owned by a Greek multinational cement corporation, and CSR Rinker, which is part of the Mexican building materials conglomerate, CEMEX. It just so happens that the Everglades are being destroyed at least in part to pump money into the pockets of foreign-owned companies.

[7] From 1997 to 2001, Rinker Materials parent company donated more than $130,000 to candidates in state races, including more than $44,000 to the State GOP and $13,000 to Florida’s Democratic Party. Spread the wealth and lubricate both parties. Makes twisted sense.

[8] Source: David Fleshler, “Mining Industry Targets Everglades,” South Florida Sun-Sentinel, August 5 2002.

[9] David R. Colburn and Lance deHaven-Smith, Government in the Sunshine State, University Press of Florida; Gainesville, Florida, 1999, p. 16.

[10] Here’s a specific example: . . . “an independent scientific and technical review board, the Committee on the Restoration of the Greater Everglades Ecosystem (CROGEE) working under the auspices of the National Research Council and National Academy of Sciences, was created to provide scientific guidance to agencies tasked with the implementation of CERP. In late 2000, CROGEE reviewed the implementation strategy for the three ASR pilot projects and the ASR regional study to address uncertainties associated with the full-scale ASR implementation as proposed in the CERP. In their report that was distributed in February 2001, CROGEE concluded that, “...the pilot projects provide a valuable means for acquiring detailed information on ASR performance at a few specific sites. However, even if all the sites tested prove successful, they will not by themselves demonstrate the feasibility of ASR implementation regionally at the scale of 1.7 billion gallons per day (6.3 million m³/day).’ ” [Emphasis is in the original] Source: USACE; Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan — Aquifer Storage and Recovery Program; available on the internet at: www.evergladesplan.org/docs/asr_whitepaper

[11] My apologies to Alfred Tennyson for parodying his marvelous, Charge of the Light Brigade.