Murky water: sink this Everglades plan.

• Author: Doherty, Brian
• Position: Citings - Brief Article

THE FEDERAL government's $7.8 billion comprehensive plan to "restore" Florida's Everglades--mostly to fix damage done by previous federal meddling in the area--is already showing signs of sinking into that mighty swamp.

The plan, the single most ambitious and expensive environmental project ever undertaken by the U.S. government, promises to simultaneously solve the Everglades' myriad problems with water flow and quality and lost or unbalanced plant and animal life. Most of these problems resulted from a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project in the late 1940s that essentially drained much of the marsh in an attempt to prevent flooding, irrigate farmland, and provide drinking water to facilitate new development.

Approximately 1.7 billion gallons of water drain from the Everglades to coastal waters each day. The feds hope to capture most of this water and store it in surface and underground storage areas so water flow can be controlled and directed.

But an August report from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) sheds light on the...