Everglades expert: Reservoir to curb discharges won’t clean water; should SFWMD redesign?

Article Reference: Everglades expert: Reservoir to curb discharges won’t clean water; should SFWMD redesign?

, Treasure Coast Newspapers
Published 4:16 p.m. ET Aug. 14, 2019

An Everglades expert at Florida Gulf Coast University says the proposed reservoir to cut Lake Okeechobee discharges to the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers needs “dramatic redesign” or it could pollute Everglades National Park.

And noting Florida’s new governor, the new board and executive team at the South Florida Water District and President Donald Trump’s commitment to invest in Everglades restoration, William J. Mitsch, director of the school’s Everglades Wetland Research Park, said now’s the time to make the project bigger and better.

“If ever there was a time for an ecological engineering and not just civil engineering approaches to lead Everglades restoration, it is now,” Mitsch wrote in an article published July 31 in the journal Ecological Engineering.

Now is not the time to delay the Everglades Agricultural Area Storage Reservoir Project, countered Randy Smith, spokesman for the South Florida Water Management District.

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