The 1994 Everglades Forever Act (EFA)
Unprecedented progress in Phase I of Everglades restoration has
been achieved since the Florida Legislature passed the Everglades
Forever Act (EFA) in 1994. U.S. Sugar Corp. supported the EFA and
is an active participant in programs to restore the Everglades.
What the Everglades Forever Act Does
Requires farmers to pay 100 percent of the cost of cleaning
the water leaving their farms - more than $232 million.
Taxpayers do not pay to clean farm runoff.
Takes 40,000 acres of farmland – about
the size of the cities of Miami and Fort Lauderdale combined — for
the construction of filtering marshes to treat runoff from both
farm and urban communities.
Splits the $720 million cost in a way that reflects
the impact of population growth, development, and agriculture on
the Everglades.
Imposes on sugar farmers the most rigorous agricultural
environmental regulations in the United States.
Establishes a water quality
standard for farm runoff that is twice as clean
as rain.
Increases the water flow to the Everglades by
28 percent, returning water to the Everglades that the South Florida
Water Management District is dumping into the Atlantic Ocean to
prevent urban flooding.
Establishes procedures to treat runoff from urban
shopping malls, residential streets, commercial parking lots and
businesses, which has four times the phosphorus concentrations
of farm runoff and
has been pouring, untreated, into the Everglades.
Requires farmers to spend millions of dollars of their
own money to implement special farming techniques to reduce the
phosphorus leaving their farms.
Declares that the quantity, timing and distribution
of fresh water to the Everglades and Florida Bay is as important
as the quality of the water.
Commits the Florida Legislature to preserve both
the Everglades and the 40,000 jobs created by agriculture in South
Florida.
Achievements since EFA was enacted
In July of 2001, the South Florida Water Management
District reported a 73 percent reduction in phosphorus discharged from
the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA).
This was the largest reduction in nutrients
since passage of the EFA and is nearly three times the reduction required
by the act.
These reductions, which contribute significantly
to Everglades restoration by delivering cleaner water each year to
Everglades marshes, are the result of Best Management Practices (BMP)
developed by sugar farmers in the EAA.
These water management practices, paid for
by the farmers, result in the nutrients from the soil being cleaned
from farm water before it drains into canals that go south to the Everglades.
In addition to the BMP program, farmers are
contributing more than $232 million to construct 40,000 acres of artificial
marshes called Stormwater Treatment Areas (STAs) that are further cleaning
farm water and water from cities near the Everglades.
Six STAs have been completed and
are in operation.
Additional land has been designated for STA expansion.
On July 8, 2003 the Environmental Regulation Commission
approved a total phosphorus (TP) crtierion of 10 parts per billion
(ppb). The TP criterion rule was subsequently upheld in its entirety
in a final order from an Administrative Law Judage on June 17, 2004,
and awaits approval by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
