Water managers blast federal Everglades cleanup plan

Water managers on Thursday roundly criticized a court-ordered federal plan to speed up and expand the sluggish, repeatedly delayed effort to stem the flow of pollution into the Everglades. In letters to the U.S. Environment Protection Agency and during a news conference, South Florida Water Management District executives ran down a broad list of objections to a federal call to nearly double the vast expanse of marshes used to absorb the troubling nutrient phosphorous. They said the plan unjustly infringed on state rights to set water quality law, set an unrealistically ambitious time frame for massive construction projects (nine years), and would unreasonably saddle South Florida taxpayers with the bill (at least $1.5 billion). They also said the plan was drafted on a tight deadline without public or state review of data, and would bust a district budget declining along with the economy and property tax revenues. Tax revenues for 2011 are projected to be down 12 percent, or $61 million. ``The time frames are an impossibility with our current funding stream, and even with some order or direction from the court to increase our funding stream,'' Ken Ammon, the district's deputy executive director for Everglades restoration, said, raising the specter of a property tax hike mandated by a federal judge. The response from the Water Management District was the latest, and strongest, salvo in a legal battle over Everglades cleanup...more


Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/11/05/1909496/water-managers-blast-federal-everglades.html#ixzz14UgILxli