I have been involved in Lake Okeechobee and Everglades issues for more than 20 years. As part of the Governor's Commission for a Sustainable South Florida, I have worked with most of the stakeholders involved in the ongoing restoration efforts. My message here is based on an extensive and in-depth understanding of Florida's restoration issues.

To date, environmental restoration is succeeding for the most part because we demanded that science and technical information, rather than hearsay and accusation, drive the decision-making process. Understanding the technical details of the ecosystem and how it works has been the key to building consensus and making progress.

In the process, those of us involved learned to move past the finger-pointing and instead focus on the facts. Credible science and detailed technical data were critical to designing, building and implementing the highly successful restoration projects in the Everglades Forever Act. As part of that effort, farmers implemented best management practices to reduce phosphorus in the water leaving the farms, and six storm-water treatment areas were built to further clean farm, urban and Lake Okeechobee water.

As a result, we now have clean water containing less than 40 parts per billion of phosphorus flowing south from the farms and filter marshes into the Everglades. The current Lake Okeechobee standard is 40 ppb of phosphorus.

Perhaps if there had been as much focus on Lake Okeechobee as there was on sugar farming and the Everglades, we would have placed the same type of cleanup program north of the lake. I believe that if we had, the current problems with the lake and the estuaries might have been resolved by now.

THE PROBLEM'S NORTH OF 'LAKE O'

Instead, there is now strong public outcry over nutrient-laden fresh water flowing from the top of the system into the lake and then out to the estuaries. Unfortunately, technical data and factual information have been missing or blatantly ignored in much of the public's discussion of Lake Okeechobee and the coastal estuaries.

As a result, people still believe that you can solve the river and estuary problems by concentrating efforts south of the lake. I can assure you that storing water in the Everglades Agricultural Area will not solve the problems with Lake Okeechobee or prevent massive discharges to the estuaries during wet years.

Technical data from the South Florida Water Management District clearly indicates that 97 percent of the water flow (and the resultant phosphorus loading) comes from the northern half of the Lake Okeechobee watershed.

Put another way, less than 3 percent of the water and the phosphorus in the lake come from farming communities south of the lake. Data also shows that, historically, less than 9 percent of the water flow and phosphorus in the lake came from the south.

The lake and estuary problems are not caused south of the lake and cannot be fixed by merely relocating polluted Lake Okeechobee water there. Water flowing south eventually reaches the Everglades, and the phosphorus-laden lake water would destroy all the restoration progress we have made and would doom any hope of returning phosphorus to natural levels.

IT'S TIME TO TAKE ACTION

Years have been wasted dwelling on storing water in the agricultural area. Studies show that more than 60,000 acres of storage south of the lake would start to create more environmental problems than it would help.

Currently there are 40,000 acres of treatment areas and 60,000 acres slated for reservoirs and additional treatment in the EAA. I support this. All of the modeling and technical data used by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the South Florida Water Management District (based on both wet and dry cycles) shows that additional storage in the farming area makes no sense in the system we have today.

Rather than just continuing to study, the state also is taking action. In response to damaging lake releases that had to be made to the estuaries over the last two hurricane and rain-soaked years, the state of Florida launched a series of projects to accelerate restoration.

Gov. Jeb Bush committed the state to begin building more than $1 billion worth of projects, igniting the state's half of the state-federal Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan partnership. The SFWMD already has broken ground on many of these "Acceler8" projects, which place additional storage north, south, east and west.

In addition, the Lake Okeechobee and Estuary Recovery Plan will focus on storing and cleaning water north of the lake.

Together these initiatives will continue to improve the system, from top to bottom.

As a member of the Governing Board of the South Florida Water Management District and an executive of a major South Florida business, I fully support these efforts. We cannot afford to waste more time, effort and money on litigation and confrontation.

If we are going to fix these problems, we need to get out there, roll up our shirt sleeves and start moving earth and building projects that will get the job done.

Wade, a Clewiston resident and senior vice president of U.S. Sugar Corp., has been employed by the company for more than 23 years and on its senior management team for almost 15. He has been involved in developing and overseeing the company's environmental responsibilities for more than 20 years.