
In February of last year:
[The Everglades would get $183.4 million for restoration work this year under a spending bill unveiled today by House Democrats. Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a member of the Appropriations Committee, said the funds would ``go a long way toward fulfilling the federal government’s commitment to help restore the Everglades. These funds will also help provide construction-related jobs for Floridians at a time of real economic need.” The Everglades money is tucked into a sweeping $410-billion ``omnibus’’ spending bill released today by the committee. Wasserman Schultz’ staff said the House will consider the bill as early as Wednesday, with the Senate likely to take up its version next week. The federal government has poured millions into preliminary work in the Everglades but has yet to meet its commitment to pay half the costs for construction under a comprehensive restoration plan. The state, already paying for construction, plans to cover the other half. The House bill would provide funding for the current fiscal year ending in September. Funding for this fiscal year had been long delayed because of disagreements in Congress along party lines. Everglades proponents also hope to get restoration funding through the economic-recovery bill that Obama signed into law. The $183.4 million for the Everglades includes $123.4 million for projects carried out by the Army Corps of Engineers, including work on Picayune Strand in Collier County and the Indian River Lagoon in Martin County. It also includes $60 million through the Department of Interior for a Modified Waters Deliveries Project, which is designed to allow a more natural waterflow across the Tamiami Trail in Miami-Dade County into Everglades National Park.] Sun Sentinel |
After nearly two years of political fights and legal battles over Gov. Charlie Crist's Everglades-restoration land deal, the Florida Supreme Court now decides whether the public benefit is worth the cost to South Florida taxpayers.
Supporters and opponents of Crist's $536 million bid to buy 73,000 acres from U.S. Sugar Corp. argued their sides Wednesday morning before the Florida Supreme Court.

The battle enjoins the local Miccosukees who do not have a record at all as stewards, rather they are more content to share out winnings at Hard Rock. And they are the severest against the land deal going through as Miccosukee Attorney Dexter Lehtinen complained that the South Florida Water Management District has no specific plan for, or ability to pay for any construction of reservoirs and treatment areas proposed for the U.S. Sugar land.
Yet wildlife and environmentalist groups have steadfastly pushed to see this project go forward in conservation of our natural environment, especially the River of Grass.
"This land acquisition provides the best and last chance for significant Everglades restoration," attorney Thom Rumberger, representing Audubon of Florida, told the justices. "It's an essential part of Everglades restoration."
So why are the local Indians so against this plan for natural environmental conservatism? Here is some background by the Miccosukee:
Water Quality Issues in the Everglades
The tribe filed a lawsuit over 10 years ago challenging the water quality standards in the delicate marshland. They say they are caught in the middle. Their land is caught between protected agriculture land and Everglades National Park; the agriculture land is releasing high phosphorus-laden water into the marshland. This water is then making its way through the tribal lands creating serious problems for the Miccosukee.
"Former U.S. Attorney Dexter Lehtinen sued the state in 1988, claiming it was not adhering to its own regulations for clean water. That lawsuit was settled in 1991 in a deal which laid out a plan to clean up the Everglades by 2002. However, the state Legislature passed the Everglades Forever Act in 1994, which altered the dates of the restoration and some of the standards. It also does not provide for the elimination of pollution from the western basin, an area of the Miccosukee Reservation. The tribe claims the area would have been cleaned under the original settlement." (Testa) The tribe wants the state to comply with the original timetable to restore the Everglades.
B. What the Miccosukee want done to preserve their Land
The tribes have set up their own environmental projects to help protect and preserve the Everglades. These projects are designed "to protect the land and water systems within the Reservation while ensuring a sustainable economic and cultural future for the Tribe". (Land) In November 1989, the Seminole Tribal Council created the Seminole Water Commission to oversee the Water Resource Management Department(WRMD). "The WRMD's mission is to protect and evaluate the Tribe's land and water resources and to facilitate the wise use and conservation of these resources by other departments." (Water) The Tribal Environmental Programs include: authority to implement the Clean Water Act within the Tribe's jurisdiction, spill prevention plans for above ground storage tanks and removal programs for underground storage tank facilities, participate in task forces to restore the South Florida ecosystem. (Land)
What stands right now is an ongoing fight as to who has the natural environment best interests in value. The troubling aspect of it all is that as the legal battles endlessly circulate, the River of Grass continues to die. And this provokes a question___ why hasn't US Sugar Corporation, a company responsible for active destruction of the Everglades and profit in Florida for decades not enjoined the restoration project and contributed much more of the land in question? Humm?
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