Progress Toward Restoring the Everglades The Third Biennial Review - 2010 (2010) / Chapter Skim
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2 The Restoration Plan in Context
2 The Restoration Plan in Context
Pages 23-61
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From page 23... ...
Important changes in the context for restoration, now 10 years after the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) was launched, are discussed with a specific focus on endangered species trends, water quality, and the human system.
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From page 24... ...
Prior to economic development and the creation of artificial drainage systems, water flowed from a series of small lakes at the northern end of this system through the Kissimmee River into Lake Okeechobee. During rainy periods, the lake spilled water southward over its low perimeter and into the Everglades, moving as a broad shallow sheet of water until it became more concentrated and flowed to tidewater through Shark River, Taylor, and Loxahatchee sloughs as well as through coastal rivers.
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From page 25... ...
The Restoration Plan in Context 25 FIGURE 2-2 Pre-drainage water flows in the Kissimmee-Lake Okeechobee-Everglades Figure 2-2.eps watershed. bitmap SOURCE: McPherson and Halley (1996)
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From page 26... ...
During these over bank flow events, the flood plains stored considerable amounts of water, and they were directly connected in a hydrologic sense to the channel. Eventually, flows from the Kissimmee River Basin passed downstream into Lake Okeechobee and thence to the Everglades, so that even though the river was distant from the Everglades, it was an integral part of Everglades hydrology.
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From page 27... ...
Farmers found that during drought periods the lack of water crippled production, and in wet years floods were a major hazard. In response to major floods in 1903, the state created four canals to conduct excess water from Lake Okeechobee to the Atlantic Ocean, allowing managers to control water levels in the lake.
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From page 28... ...
. Understanding the flow of water in the Lake Okeechobee sub-basin is essential to understanding the movement and storage of nutrients in the sub basin and the tremendous water quality challenges in Lake Okeechobee, as explored more fully in Chapter 5 and in NRC (2008)
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From page 29... ...
Lake Okeechobee could also be managed to supply water in dry periods and accept excess water in wet periods. All of the EAA was designed for agricultural production, except for two fairly small wildlife management areas (WMAs)
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From page 30... ...
. Phosphorus from agricultural runoff has impaired water quality in large portions of the Everglades and has been particularly problematic in Lake Okeechobee (Flaig and Reddy, 1995)
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From page 31... ...
, is "restoration, preservation, and protection of the South Florida Ecosystem while providing for other water-related needs of the region, including water supply and flood protection." The Programmatic Regulations (33 CFR 385.3) that guide implementation of the CERP further clarify this goal by defining restoration as "the recovery and protection of the South Florida ecosystem so that it once again achieves and sustains the essential hydrological and biologic characteristics that defined the undisturbed South Florida ecosystem." These defining characteristics include a large-areal extent of interconnected wetlands, extremely low concentrations of nutrients in freshwater wetlands, sheet flow, healthy and productive estuaries, resilient plant communities, and an abundance of native wetland animals (DOI and USACE, 2005)
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From page 32... ...
. The water quality goals are outlined by the existing legal and regulatory framework (described in more detail in Chapter 5)
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From page 33... ...
Barriers to eastward seepage of water so that higher water levels can be maintained in parts of the Everglades ecosystem without compromising the current levels of flood protection of developed areas as required by the CERP; 4. Methods for securing water quality conditions compatible with restoration goals for a natural system that was inherently extremely nutrient poor, particularly with respect to phosphorus; and 5.
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From page 34... ...
In the following section, a brief overview of the CERP and some of the major non-CERP activities are provided. Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan WRDA 2000 authorized the CERP as the framework for modifying the C&SF Project.
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The Restoration Plan in Context 35 FIGURE 2-3 Major project components of the CERP. Figure 2-3.eps bitmap SOURCE: Courtesy of Laura Mahoney, USACE.
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From page 36... ...
• Removing barriers to sheet flow, including 240 miles of levees and canals, will reestablish shallow sheet flow of water through the Everglades ecosystem. • Rainfall-driven water management will be created through operational changes in the water delivery schedules to the WCAs and Everglades National Park to mimic more natural patterns of water delivery and flow through the system.
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From page 37... ...
In fact, the effectiveness of the CERP was predicated upon the completion of many of these projects. These projects include Modified Water Deliveries to Everglades National Park (Mod Waters)
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From page 38... ...
RECOVER's mission is accomplished through three kinds of activities: • Evaluation -- working with project development teams to evaluate and maximize the contribution made by each project to the systemwide performance of CERP; • Assessment -- measuring and interpreting actual responses in the natural and human systems as CERP projects are brought on line; and • Planning and Integration -- identifying potential improvements in the design and operation of the CERP, consistent with plan objectives, and striving for consensus among agencies regarding scientific and technical aspects of the restoration plan. Specific tasks to be carried out by RECOVER include recommendation of interim goals and targets for the plan, development of performance measures, evaluations of systemwide impacts attributable to specific projects, evaluation and integration of new scientific information, and development and implementation of a monitoring plan.
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From page 39... ...
, and Everglades National Park. These STAs are part of the state's long-term plan for achieving water quality goals, including the total phosphorus criterion for the Everglades Protection Area of 10 parts per billion (ppb)
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From page 40... ...
Examples of the Critical Projects include the Florida Keys Carrying Capacity Study, Lake Okeechobee Water Retention and Phos phorus Removal, Seminole Big Cypress Reservation Water Conservation Plan, Tamiami Trail Culverts, Ten Mile Creek Water Preserve Area, and the Lake Trafford Restoration (DOI and USACE, 2005) .c See also Appendix C
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than the estimate used by CERP planners to project future water demand in these counties (SFWMD, 2000, 2006b)
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From page 42... ...
Despite the economic downturn, recreational use of the Everglades con tinues to be high and is apparently outpacing regional population growth. The number of visitors entering Everglades National Park through visitor gates has hovered around 1 million annually, but recreational boater use in the park has increased 2.5 times since the mid-1970s (Ault et al., 2008)
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From page 43... ...
In terms of rainfall, more extreme droughts were recorded in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1980s, but the most recent droughts were accompanied by the worst water shortages in the region's history, as evidenced by record low water levels in Lake Okeechobee (Figure 2-5)
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From page 44... ...
Trends in Exotic Species South Florida ecosystems have been extensively invaded by exotic (non native) plants and animals that pose a significant challenge and add costs and uncertainty to Everglades restoration.
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From page 45... ...
that are known to cause significant ecological impacts in South Florida.5 Some of these species have increased in extent to conditions that threaten native wetland species and communities, alter fire regimes, and impair infrastructure such as stormwater treatment areas and water conveyance systems. Since 1980 state and federal agencies have spent more than $300 million to control invasive plants in Florida, especially South Florida (Schmitz, 2007; Rodgers et al., 2010)
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, FWS, and NPS in 2003, it has coordinated the management of invasive species. Its publications describe the development of biological controls of various invasive plant species as well as descriptions of invasive animals.
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; SFWMD. bitmap Threatened and Endangered Species In 1998 the FWS published a programmatic biological opinion covering 18 federally listed species that could potentially be impacted by the CERP.
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stands around Lake Okeechobee, is declining (USFWS, 2009d)
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, but there is little indication of recovery. Population size has been stable, fluctuating between 3,000 and 4,000 birds in Everglades National Park (J.
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. Although regional droughts contributed to the decrease in kite numbers in some recent years, lack of reproduction by kites primarily in WCA-3A and secondarily in Lake Okeechobee has played a major role (Cattau et al., 2008, 2009; Martin et al., FIGURE 2-9 Annual estimates of snail kite population size in Florida and 95 percent confi Figure 2-9.eps dence intervals.
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From page 51... ...
. The decline in kite use and nesting success in WCA-3A during the past decade coincides with changes in the regulation schedule in this wetland that were made to improve conditions in Everglades National Park for Cape Sable seaside sparrows (see Chapter 4)
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From page 52... ...
. High values of this metric indicate a landscape that strongly exhibits the general characteristics of ridge and slough landscapes.
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From page 53... ...
. Tree island declines in northern WCA-3A have generally been associated with lowered water levels, peat subsidence, and fires, while declines in southern WCA-3A have been more associated with persistent high water levels (see also Chapter 4)
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From page 54... ...
High values indicate a landscape that strongly exhibits the general characteristics of ridge and slough landscapes. Plot N5 is in central WCA-3B, adjacent to the L-67 levees; G3, lies in the southern portion of WCA-3; and I1 is located in the north central part of WCA-3A, north of Alligator Alley.
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This section highlights data from two areas as examples of water quality trends over the past decade: Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades Protection Area (see Box 1-1)
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56 Progress Toward Restoring the Everglades FIGURE 2-13 Changes in the areal extent of tree islands between 1995 and 2004. Yellow Figure 2-13.eps areas show where the islands have expanded, red areas show where they have lost their vegetation, and green areas are unchanged.
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. FIGURE 2-15 Inflow and average Lake Okeechobee total phosphorus concentrations, calculated from the Lake Okeechobee phosphorus budget, with five-year moving average trend lines.
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Park FIGURE 2-16 Annual average flow-weighted mean total phosphorus concentrations (in ppb) for inflow to the water conservation areas and Everglades National Park.
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, Figure 2-17.eps WCA-2, WCA-3, and Everglades National Park (ENP) from WY1978-WY2009.
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From page 60... ...
The scien tific and administrative capacity for implementing the CERP has grown stronger through time, and has benefited from truly excellent scientists in all aspects of Everglades science, both within CERP partner agencies and the scientific community at large. These scientists are continually working to advance the understanding of the condition and functioning of the South Florida ecosystem to further improve the restoration plan as it moves forward (see also Chapter 6)
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From page 61... ...
Managing water quality and providing the required storage for the restoration continue to be challenging. This committee reaffirms its predecessor's conclusions (NRC, 2008)
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