A recent article in the Keynoter described the opposition of a number of environmental organizations, led by Islamorada environmentalist Mary Barley, to a proposed Everglades bill. The opposition is certainly real. The reasons and justifications for that opposition are not.

The original Everglades Forever Act mandated the South Florida Water Management District to design and construct a series of cleanup marshes by 2006, and meet a 10-parts-per-billion standard for phosphorous, or whatever standard the Environmental Regulatory Commission sets. It also orders the district to produce a conceptual plan by this Dec. 31.

The proposed legislation captures that plan in statute. It calls for the continuation of the one-tenth of a mill tax that funds the cleanup effort. It also captures in law the peer-reviewed recommendation of the scientists and engineers working on the project that eight to 10 years be spent improving and maximizing the benefits of the 44,000 acres of stormwater treatment areas we are building. Twenty-thousand acres are constructed; the rest are under construction.

Those stormwater treatment areas were predicted to reach 50 parts per billion for phosphorous. They have been achieving more than that, with the ones that are operational reaching an average of 40 ppb. Two of them are achieving 15 to 20ppb. Currently, 80 percent of the phosphorous reduction takes place in the first 20 percent of the marsh.

All the above suggests we redesign and optimize the extremely successful effort we have started.

I predict that the state Senate will produce a version of the bill out of committee that clarifies and improves on the House version, and I believe that version will prevail.

Nothing in the legislation changes the oversight of the original federal lawsuit settlement that started all this. The state will still have to convince U.S. District Court Judge William Hoeveler that we are doing everything possible to clean up the Everglades. Nothing in the legislation changes the ability of the Environmental Regulatory Commission to set the 10-parts-per-billion standard supported by the Bush administration.

The accusation that an agency that has been more efficient than mandated – that has spent $500,000,000 on the effort, that has dedicated an additional $450,000,000 to the next phase, that has produced a specific plan to get the rest of the way needs to be under an artificially created deadline – is just not true.

So why the uproar? A month and a half ago, at a meeting to discuss district issues, Mrs. Barley demanded that I support an effort to force the district to condemn 40,000 more acres of land in the Everglades Agricultural Area. When I replied that I would be willing to look at science to justify the need, she replied that she needed no justification, the taxpayers she represented demanded it.

Sorry Mrs. Barley, that’s not how it works in America. There are only two places in American jurisprudence where you are guaranteed a jury trial. One is a capital case that could result in the death penalty. The other is when the government tries to take your land.

The farmers are adamant that the nearly 100,000 acres the state has acquired from them for cleanup and storage is all they are willing to sell until we finish all construction, and someone can prove it is not enough. That means science, not demands.

The accusation that the sugar industry developed and supports the legislation is true. It was also true of the original Everglades Forever Act and all state and federal legislation in support of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan.

The Agriculture Privilege Tax in the Everglades Forever Act has collected about $120 million from the farmers, less than originally predicted, only because the on-farm cleanup mandated at 25 percent reduction is achieving 50 percent reduction. The original legislation provides a tax break for overachieving.

With regard to the prediction that Congress will pull the funding for Everglades restoration, this is a curious attempt at self-fulfilling prophecy. The only people requesting that Congress do this are the people opposing this bill ... a group of people who, collectively opposed the original Everglades Forever Act ... I predict they will fail.