Misinformation is swirling around efforts by the Legislature to update the 1994 Everglades Forever Act. Here are the facts:

• Florida has made progress during a decade to reduce pollution and restore water quality in the Everglades. Man-made pollution-filtering marshes, along with improved agricultural and urban-management practices, have cut phosphorus entering the Everglades by more than 60 percent. Completion and optimization of these ''green'' technologies are projected to reduce phosphorus by 93 percent by 2006.
   

• Updating the law won't delay Everglades cleanup. In fact, more than 90 percent of the Everglades already meet the stringent-pollution standard proposed by the Department of Environmental Protection. Proposed amendments will ensure progress toward achieving the phosphorus criterion of 10 parts per billion in the remaining 10 percent of the 2.4 million-acre marsh.

The updated law would require a long-term plan and schedule for implementation, a process to measure progress and money to ensure the work gets done. No one expects the fringe areas to attain the proposed criterion by the statutory deadline of Dec. 31, 2006. Scientists, regulators and even environmentalists agree that it will take time for 47,000 acres of treatment marshes to achieve optimum phosphorus reductions.

Even as less phosphorus enters the Everglades, phosphorus deep in the soil and built up over decades will be released, creating higher-than-normal phosphorus levels. This natural phenomenon, known as reflux, may cause levels to rise above the legal level for years, perhaps decades. Updating the law to reflect this reality is common sense. Florida shouldn't be penalized for elevated phosphorus levels that result from natural causes. Legally enforceable permits would require use of the best available phosphorus-reduction technology. Compliance would be measured by our efforts to continually reduce phosphorus entering the system.

• Proposed amendments are consistent with the 1992 federal-court settlement. Florida will continue to comply with the settlement to reduce phosphorus by 85 percent in the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge and Everglades National Park.
   

• Water-quality restoration shouldn't be confused with water-quantity restoration. Florida's plan to cleanup water flowing into the Everglades is separate from the state-federal partnership to capture nearly two billion gallons of water per day lost to the sea and reestablish a more-natural flow in the River of Grass.

Gov. Jeb Bush is committed to fulfilling Florida's obligations to both objectives.