Everglades warning senselessly silenced

Except for the implications to what has been described as an international biosphere, Richard Harvey could be just another name on the list of scientists the Bush administration has silenced. But Harvey has been removed as an outspoken voice in the Everglades cleanup, and Floridians deserve more than a bureaucratic shoulder shrug.

Records obtained by Times reporter Craig Pittman are not in dispute. Harvey, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's leading water quality expert in South Florida, was removed from the $10-billion Everglades cleanup project because he was skeptical and blunt. Most notably, he spoke his mind in a conference call last year that he didn't know was joined by a newspaper reporter.

In that call, Harvey said of a plan to pipe dirty Lake Okeechobee water into canals that flow into Biscayne National Park: "Once again we're routing dirty water. We are extremely concerned because the track record when the district and the corps move dirty water around is some resource gets trashed."

In January, Harvey's boss responded by removing him from the project with an e-mailed explanation: "I believe that your remarks compromise our ability to have an effective voice on critically important matters with regard to Everglades restoration."

As Pittman has reported, Harvey is not the first scientist to be fired or removed from the project for offering unwanted opinions. At least four other state scientists have met with such a fate. But given that Harvey works for EPA and Congress has just appropriated $2-billion in federal money to speed up the stalled Everglades restoration, the Florida congressional delegation needs some answers.

The Everglades is a complex ecosystem that was mangled by wholesale attempts to redirect water for farming and development and is now choking from an unnatural flow, and a tainted quality, of water. Harvey has spent seven years assessing the water-quality issues, and he has seen the algae blooms and the crippling spread of cattails. His warning about the piping plan may have been worded abruptly, but its scientific basis remains unchallenged.

The scale and type of this ecosystem restoration is without precedent in the United States, which means that well-meaning scientists may disagree along the way. Some of them may even disagree with passion. But that's all the more reason to make sure that all scientific points of view are heard, and that none is silenced.

The decline of the Everglades, unfortunately, is owed in part to historical decisions to ditch and dike and manipulate natural water flow in southern Florida. Those decisions, we now understand, lacked foresight and sufficient scientific analysis. The cleanup, if it is to work, will require a commitment to all credible scientific viewpoints. If the Bush administration doesn't want to listen, then Congress needs to ask why.

[Last modified November 26, 2007, 21:53:30]