A chronol­o­gy from 2000 to today

Decem­ber, 2000 — Pres­i­dent Bill Clin­ton signed the first phase of an ambi­tious $ 8‑billion Ever­glades restora­tion plan, which sets into motion 68 sep­a­rate projects designed to bring the Ever­glades back to life. “This is a very hap­py day for the Ever­glades, and it is a sig­nal day for the improve­ment of the world try­ing to repair dam­aged envi­ron­men­tal ecosys­tems,” said Sen. Bob Gra­ham, D‑Fla. “There has nev­er been an effort of this scale or com­plex­i­ty that is now under way to save a dying envi­ron­men­tal sys­tem.” – St. Peters­burg Times

June, 2001 – Pres­i­dent George W. Bush vis­it­ed the Flori­da Ever­glades to high­light his com­mit­ment to the pro­posed restora­tion plan. The Pres­i­dent hiked the Anhin­ga Trail, named for a bird that inhab­its the Ever­glades. ”The pres­i­den­t’s been look­ing for an oppor­tu­ni­ty to go down there to talk about what’s in the bud­get to pro­tect the Ever­glades,” said a White House spokes­woman. — Asso­ci­at­ed Press

August, 2001 – Sig­nal­ing the impor­tance of the Ever­glades, the Nation­al Audubon Soci­ety mag­a­zine for the first time
in a decade devot­ed its entire issue to one sub­ject — the restora­tion of the Ever­glades. “One of our writ­ers com­pares the Ever­glades to Africa with­out the lions and zebras,” said Exec­u­tive Edi­tor David Sei­de­man. “It real­ly is so exot­ic. There’s noth­ing like it any­where in the world.” – Asso­ci­at­ed Press.

Decem­ber, 2001 – The U.S. Army Corps of Engi­neers released the long-await­ed rules designed to gov­ern the restora­tion of the Ever­glades but envi­ron­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions called them a recipe for fail­ure. The rules were more gen­er­al than what envi­ron­men­tal­ists had want­ed, but met the objec­tives of sug­ar farm­ers, water util­i­ties and Flori­da Gov. Jeb Bush. – Wash­ing­ton Post

May, 2002 – Flori­da Gov. Jeb Bush signed a bill autho­riz­ing the state to bor­row about $100 mil­lion to buy land to get the fed­er­al-state restora­tion under­way. While some envi­ron­men­tal groups applaud­ed oth­ers crit­i­cized it because of an attached pro­vi­sion that could make it hard­er to chal­lenge devel­op­ers accused of harm­ing the envi­ron­ment. – Asso­ci­at­ed Press

June, 2002 – A Wash­ing­ton Post series stat­ed that the Ever­glades restora­tion plan was “rid­dled with uncer­tain­ties,” forged by intense polit­i­cal pres­sure brought by com­mer­cial inter­ests and may pri­mar­i­ly ben­e­fit Flori­da home­own­ers, agribusi­ness­es and devel­op­ers. The restora­tion plan was called “a mul­ti­pur­pose plumb­ing project — com­mit­ted to expand­ing water sup­plies and ensur­ing flood con­trol for South Flori­da’s explod­ing pop­u­la­tion as well as to improv­ing water flows to the Ever­glades.” – Wash­ing­ton Post

August, 2002 — The pres­ti­gious Nation­al Acad­e­my of Sci­ences warned that the Ever­glades restora­tion project might trig­ger algae blooms and kill sea grass­es in near­by Flori­da Bay. A peer-reviewed report by a pan­el of sci­en­tists stat­ed that the Ever­glades pro­jec­t’s impact on the 1,000-square-mile bay was high­ly uncer­tain, chal­leng­ing assump­tions that the bay would become a fisherman’s par­adise. – Wash­ing­ton Post

Sep­tem­ber, 2002 – David Struhs, head of Flori­da Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion, told a U.S. Sen­ate over­sight com­mit­tee that the Ever­glades restora­tion was on sched­ule in most areas. The gov­ern­ment had acquired about three-quar­ters of the land need­ed for the first 10 engi­neer­ing and water stor­age projects. – Mia­mi Herald

Decem­ber, 2002 — The U.S. Army Corps of Engi­neers announced it had missed a dead­line for com­plet­ing the final reg­u­la­tions to guide the Ever­glades restora­tion plan. Offi­cials at the Army Corps could not say when the rules would be com­plet­ed but most con­cerned par­ties expressed cau­tion sup­port. – Palm Beach Post

April 2003 — The head of Florida’s envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion agency said that rules to enforce water qual­i­ty in the Ever­glades should be delayed by 20 years. Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Sec­re­tary David Strohs said that sci­en­tists are unlike­ly to fig­ure out how to insure that water qual­i­ty will be kept high by a Dec. 31, 2006 dead­line. — Palm Beach Post

May 2003 — Gov­er­nor Jeb Bush signed a bill that would give farm­ers and water man­agers an addi­tion­al 10 years to clean up the Ever­glades over the objec­tions of envi­ron­men­tal­ists and oth­ers. Water man­agers said they would move faster in improv­ing water qual­i­ty but it would depend how rapid­ly sci­ence issues were resolved. — Palm Beach Post

Octo­ber 2003 — Offi­cials broke ground on the first of the 68 projects being financed by the $7.8 bil­lion state and fed­er­al restora­tion of the Ever­glades. The first project was the restora­tion of 55,000 acres of an aban­doned devel­op­ment called South­ern Gold­en Gates Estates out­side of Naples, Fla.- Greenwire

November,2003 — New fed­er­al rules to guide the Ever­glades restora­tion were unveiled and imme­di­ate­ly attacked by envi­ron­men­tal­ists who said they give too much pow­er to the U.S. Army Corps of Engi­neers and turn the restora­tion into a huge water project. Gov. Jeb Bush and U.S. Inte­ri­or Sec­re­tary Gale Nor­ton praised the new rules. — Palm Beach Post

Feb­ru­ary, 2004 — A new pump­ing sta­tion that cost $197 mil­lion began oper­at­ing that is designed to fil­ter bil­lons of gal­lons water from sug­ar cane and farm fields before it reach­es the Ever­glades. The pump will send the water into a new­ly con­struct­ed wet­land where plants and algae will soak up poten­tial­ly dam­ag­ing nutri­ents. — Asso­ci­at­ed Press

July, 2004 — Costs have risen for the Ever­glades restora­tion and the first two major projects, expect­ed to cost $1.1 bil­lion, instead came in at $1.6 bil­lion. Offi­cials said that infla­tion seemed to be a pri­ma­ry rea­son for the increase. — Asso­ci­at­ed Press

Sep­tem­ber, 2004 — Some local offi­cials called for a mora­to­ri­um on devel­op­ment in the agri­cul­ture dis­trict after sug­ar grow­ers in Palm Beach Coun­ty began sig­nal­ing that they might use some of their land for pur­pos­es oth­er than farm­ing. Flori­da Crys­tals Corp., one of the state’s two biggest sug­ar grow­ers, had pro­posed devel­op­ing 14,500 acres and lur­ing the Scripps Research Insti­tute to the area. Unit­ed States Sug­ar Corp said it was plan­ning to turn 4,000 of its acres into a lime rock mine. — Palm Beach Post

Sep­tem­ber, 2004 — Four hur­ri­canes have swept across Flori­da in two months, dev­as­tat­ing Lake Okee­chobee by shred­ding plants, scar­ing off wad­ing birds and leav­ing water at dan­ger­ous­ly high lev­els. Biol­o­gists said it demon­strat­ed the fragili­ty of the lake, which is con­tained by a dike and is a water resource that is crit­i­cal to the Ever­glades — Asso­ci­at­ed Press

Octo­ber, 2004 — With fed­er­al work on the Ever­glades project lag­ging, Gov. Jeb Bush, announced a plan in which the state would bor­row anoth­er $1.5‑billion to speed up the restora­tion. — St. Peters­burg Times

Feb­ru­ary, 2005-Pres­i­dent Bush’s 2006 fis­cal year bud­get called for a nine per­cent decrease in the Army Corps’ bud­get, but it allo­cat­ed more fund­ing to the Ever­glades and land along the Louisiana Coast. The Ever­glades received $18 mil­lion more with this bud­get. “It shows the administration’s com­mit­ment to Ever­glades restora­tion. –Envi­ron­ment and Ener­gy Daily

May, 2005- A lack of fed­er­al fund­ing jeop­ar­dized plans to restore the Picayune Strand, a 55,000-acre piece of land that wildlife and devel­op­ers had aban­doned, and that could be a test for whether the Ever­glades restora­tion effort was work­ing. The goal was to con­vert this par­cel of land back into prime habi­tat for wildlife. The Army Corps of Engi­neers has con­firmed that it was tens of mil­lions of dol­lars behind sched­ule. –Envi­ron­ment and Ener­gy Publishing

Feb­ru­ary, 2006 – Over­flows from Lake Okee­chobee have caused seri­ous algae blooms in Caloosa­hatch­ee and St. Lucie Rivers, cost­ing the local fish­ing and tourist indus­tries mil­lions of dol­lars. Now as part of the Ever­glades restora­tion project the U.S. Army Corps of Engi­neers has pro­posed spend­ing $1 bil­lion to reroute the rivers and restore them to their orig­i­nal form. – St. Peters­burg Times

April 2006 – Work on the Ever­glades restora­tion has been slow and the Corps esti­mat­ed that the price tag was now $10 bil­lion because of infla­tion. Despite the delays, some work is now under­way and the state agreed to pro­vide $1.5 bil­lion on eight key projects that will be fin­ished by 2010 instead of their orig­i­nal pro­ject­ed date of 2020. –South­east Construction

Sep­tem­ber, 2006 – Envi­ron­men­tal­ists, tourism offi­cials and civic lead­ers said that they sup­port a plan to build an 11-mile bridge on the Tami­a­mi Trail in order to bring more water to Ever­glades Nation­al Park. But fed­er­al offi­cials, who are work­ing on plans for two small­er bridges, said the cost of such a bridge would be too expen­sive. – South Flori­da Sun-Sentinel

Sep­tem­ber, 2006 — A new report com­mis­sioned by Con­gress report­ed that there have been “trou­bling delays” in imple­ment­ing the Ever­glades restora­tion. While the report praised the plan­ning and sci­en­tif­ic work it found that none of 10 planned projects were com­plet­ed by their 2005 dead­line. – South Flori­da Sun-Sentinel

Novem­ber, 2006 – The state’s plan to expe­dite work on the Ever­glades rose in cost from the orig­i­nal $1.5 bil­lion to $2.7 bil­lion in just two years. State offi­cials blamed the increas­es on ris­ing con­struc­tion costs and expan­sions in the orig­i­nal plan. – Palm Beach Post

Jan­u­ary 2007 – Gov. Char­lie Crist pledged to start mov­ing for­ward with the restora­tion of the Ever­glades after years of delays. He and Sen. Bill Nel­son, D‑Fla., hope to see more sup­port from the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment in the near future. – St. Peters­burg Times

April 2007 – The Ever­glades will no longer be used as a source of water for cities along the south­east coast of Flori­da. Coun­ties with “exist­ing per­mits” will still be able to remove water, but there will be a lim­it as to how much they can take and no new per­mits will be issued. The new rules would force cities to find alter­na­tive sources of water and help with the pro­tec­tion of the envi­ron­ment. – St. Peters­burg Times

May 2007 – The U.S. Army Corps of Engi­neers reversed its deci­sion to reject the Mira­sol Project, which would allow devel­op­ers to build 800 homes and two golf cours­es on 650 acres of wet­lands. Crit­ics had expressed con­cern about whether the Corps was restor­ing the Ever­glades or help­ing to destroy. – St. Peters­burg Times

June 2007 – A reser­voir project was being planned to pro­vide more water stor­age for the south­ern region of the Ever­glades Agri­cul­tur­al Area. It would cost 400 mil­lion and pro­vide 62 bil­lion gal­lons of above­ground space for water stor­age. – South­east Construction

Sep­tem­ber 2007 – The U.S. Army Corps of Engi­neers recent­ly com­plet­ed work on a poor­ly con­struct­ed 550-acre reser­voir. The reser­voir cost $34 mil­lion and it leaks when it is only 38 per­cent filled. If it isn’t fixed, there is a risk of flood­ing for near­by res­i­dences. Repairs will cost approx­i­mate­ly $13 mil­lion. – St. Peters­burg Times

Novem­ber 2007 – Pres­i­dent Bush vetoed the 2007 Water Resources Devel­op­ment Act, a $23 bil­lion bill which would have pro­vid­ed fund­ing for sev­er­al water-relat­ed projects, includ­ing $2 bil­lion to go towards Ever­glades’ restora­tion. The veto was over­turned by Con­gress — St. Peters­burg Times

Novem­ber 2007 — Richard Har­vey, head of the U.S. Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency’s South Flori­da office and the top water qual­i­ty expert in Flori­da, was removed from the Ever­glades’ restora­tion project. He was fired from the project after voic­ing his con­cerns about the meth­ods the Army Corps of Engi­neers was using to solve the pol­lu­tion prob­lem at Lake Okee­chobee. Four oth­er experts were removed from the project before Har­vey for sim­i­lar rea­sons. – St. Peters­burg Times

March 2008 – Con­struc­tion should begin soon in a remote sec­tion of Palm Coun­ty on 22 miles of lev­ee that would con­tain the largest free-stand­ing above-ground reser­voir in the world. The $600 mil­lion project to be com­plet­ed in 2010 would grad­u­al­ly release water, which would oth­er­wise be pumped out to sea, into an adjoin­ing storm water treat­ment area. – South Flori­da Sun-Sentinel

June 2008 – Gov­er­nor Char­lie Crist announced that Flori­da would pay U.S. Sug­ar Corp. $1.75 bil­lion to acquire 187,000 acres of land below Lake Okee­chobee. Sup­port­ers hailed the plan, Florida’s largest land acqui­si­tion ever, as equiv­a­lent of the deci­sion more than a cen­tu­ry ago to cre­ate Yel­low­stone Nation­al Park. Crit­ics charged that the state was over­pay­ing and bail­ing out U.S. Sug­ar. – New York Times

July 2008 – A fed­er­al judge harsh­ly crit­i­cized the state of Florida’s deci­sion in 2003 to relax pol­lu­tion stan­dards that affect the Ever­glades and to delay enforce­ment of the stan­dards until 2016. Judge Alan S. Gold issued an order block­ing the Flori­da Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion from issu­ing per­mits that don’t meet a lim­it of 10 parts per bil­lion for phos­pho­rous in runoff into the Ever­glades from farms, cities and Lake Okee­chobee. — Palm Beach Post

Decem­ber, 2008 – South Flori­da water man­agers agreed to buy most of U.S. Sug­ar Corp.’s land for $1.34 bil­lion on one con­di­tion – that they could back out of the deal if the state’s finances wors­en. Board mem­bers of the South Flori­da Water Man­age­ment Dis­trict said that their first pri­or­i­ty remained water man­age­ment and flood con­trol as opposed to real estate trans­ac­tions nego­ti­at­ed by the gov­er­nor. — Palm Beach Post

March, 2009 — Gov­er­nor Crist announced that Flori­da has sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduced it’s $1.34 bil­lion deal to buy land from U.S. Sug­ar. The pre­vi­ous deal had Flori­da buy­ing 180,000 acres and that has been cut to a more “mod­est” deal of $530 mil­lion for 72,500 acres with an option to buy the rest by 2019. – New York Times

July 2009 – With the dis­cov­ery of an exces­sive amount of pythons roam­ing South Flori­da, efforts began to erad­i­cate the species from the Ever­glades. Many peo­ple believe that home­own­ers dumped the snakes in the Ever­glades after real­iz­ing how huge the pythons grow in full length, and now there are up to tens of thou­sands of them resid­ing in South Flori­da. First stages of the python hunt­ing could take up to three months, and they could expand from there depend­ing on the progress made. — Asso­ci­at­ed Press

Jan­u­ary 2010: The Ever­glades Coali­tion said its plan for the next ten years includes clean­ing up the water, work on restor­ing the land bought from US Sug­ar once the deal is com­plete and con­tin­ue to encour­age Congress’s involve­ment. At the con­fer­ence, experts also dis­cussed the sig­nif­i­cant progress in the Tami­a­mi Trail and Picayune Strand projects. –States News Service

Feb­ru­ary 2010: Recre­at­ing the orig­i­nal flow of water from Lake Okee­chobee has turned out to be more com­pli­cat­ed than orig­i­nal­ly thought. Sev­er­al Native Amer­i­can bur­ial grounds have been found in the areas to be flood­ed. Offi­cials said that they would have to find a way to avoid such sites. — South Flori­da Sun Sentinel

April 2010: A US dis­trict judge ruled that clean up in the Ever­glades, espe­cial­ly the low­er­ing of phos­pho­rous lev­els in the water, was mov­ing too slow­ly. He blamed the US Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency as well as the Flori­da Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion for not fol­low­ing his 2008 rul­ing and he threat­ened to fine the two gov­ern­ment agen­cies. –South Flori­da Sun Sentinel

August 2010: The Mic­co­su­kee tribe said that it was opposed to the pend­ing land deal with U.S. Sug­ar Corp. and request­ed a fed­er­al judge to stop it. The tribe believed that the mon­ey used to pur­chase the land should go to oth­er restora­tion efforts. A judge refused their request. — South Flori­da Sun Sentinel

Octo­ber 2010: US Sug­ar Corp. said that it com­plet­ed its sale of 26,800 acres, which is a fur­ther reduc­tion of the orig­i­nal land deal pro­posed by Gov. Char­lie Crist. The deal cost tax­pay­ers $197 mil­lion. While some were ecsta­t­ic about the deal, oth­ers con­tin­ued to believe that the cost was too high, espe­cial­ly when the mon­ey could have been put into restora­tion projects cur­rent­ly under­way. –South Flori­da Sun-Sentinel

April 2011 – U.S. Dis­trict Judge Alan S. Gold issued an order crit­i­ciz­ing the water qual­i­ty plans of Gov. Rick Scott and how it relat­ed to the Ever­glades. Gold also indi­cat­ed that the state was doing such a poor job that he intend­ed to turn over enforce­ment of fed­er­al water pol­lu­tion stan­dards back to the U.S. Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency. — Palm Beach Post

June 2011 – Flori­da Agri­cul­ture Com­mis­sion­er Adam Put­nam said it was urgent that repairs be made to the Her­bert Hoover dike sur­round­ing Lake Okee­chobee in order to free more water to farm­ers when droughts arrive. Because of con­cerns about the safe­ty of the dike, water lev­els on the lake are kept at a lev­el below what farm­ers pre­fer and repairs on some sec­tions of the dike have been stalled. — Palm Beach Post

Octo­ber 2011 – The U.S. Army Corps of Engi­neers unveiled a new plan designed to reduce plan­ning and pol­i­cy deci­sions regard­ing the Ever­glades restora­tion from six years down to two. “Per­fect is the ene­my of good,” said Stu Apple­baum, the Corps’ chief of pol­i­cy and plan­ning. “We need time­ly and good deci­sions, not per­fect decisions.” -
Palm Beach Post

Jan­u­ary 2012 – Gov. Rick Scott had a new plan to redi­rect the slow-mov­ing state and fed­er­al Ever­glades restora­tion plan. The new plan called on using exist­ing state land to cut costs by using a core group of reser­voirs and treat­ment areas to clean stormwa­ter and replen­ish the Ever­glades. — South Flori­da Sun-Sentinel