Report: Everglades in decline as restoration lags A multibillion-dollar effort to restore Florida's Everglades has made little progress amid funding shortfalls, bureaucratic red tape and disagreements, according to a congressionally mandated report that warns the vast wetland is in peril. The National Research Council, in findings Monday, warned that degradation of the Everglades could become irreversible if action isn't taken quickly. "The Everglades ecosystem is continuing to decline. It's our estimate that we're losing the battle to save this thing," said William Graf, the report's committee chairman and head of the department of geography at the University of South Carolina at Columbia. The South Florida Water Management District, which oversees restoration for the state, said in a statement that it agrees with the report's findings "that restoration progress is hampered by limited federal funding and a complex and lengthy federal planning process."....