Fill out this form to email this article to a friend
Glades water flow project gets $60-million boost
Associated Press
Published November 23, 2005
MIAMI - A long-delayed project to restore natural water flow in a section of the lower Everglades will get a $60-million jump-start under a spending bill signed into law by President Bush.
The project, first proposed in 1989 and delayed by lawsuits and bureaucratic battles, will allow the Army Corps of Engineers to finish buyouts of flood-prone land in western Miami-Dade County and build a levee to protect remaining homes.
The money also will allow the corps to begin the final major piece of the project: constructing bridges to allow water to pass under the Tamiami Trail, which now acts as essentially an asphalt dam that blocks water from flowing south.
The corps wants to build two bridges along the roadway that runs across the Everglades from Miami to Naples. Environmental groups favor an 11-mile skyway that would cost twice as much.
Completion of the lower Everglades work is critical to the overall success of the $8-billion federal-state plan to restore the entire Everglades.
Col. Robert Carpenter, commander of the corps' Jacksonville district, called the project a "linchpin" that will reduce high water in the Everglades and Lake Okeechobee.
"When we can move more water south, we'll give lifesaving relief to the lake and our estuaries," Carpenter said.
[Last modified November 23, 2005, 00:44:19]
Share your thoughts on this story
|
News
Fifty years ago, they were screwed-up kids sent to the Florida School for Boys to be straightened out. But now they are screwed-up men, scarred by the whippings they endured. Read the story and see a video and portrait gallery.
Print
Email story
Comment
Email editor
