Bush details Everglades finance plan

The governor envisions Florida's share of the cost coming from state and local funds.

By CRAIG PITTMAN and JULIE HAUSERMAN

© St. Petersburg Times, published January 19, 2000

TALLAHASSEE -- In an announcement that won plaudits from environmental groups and sugar farmers, Gov. Jeb Bush outlined a plan Tuesday for paying the state's $4-billion share of the effort to restore the Everglades and provide water for South Florida's booming population over the next 20 years.

The governor has lined up support among Republican legislative leaders for passing his plan during the session that begins in March.

If Congress comes through with the federal government's share this summer, Bush -- a Miami developer who did not campaign on environmental issues -- could preside over the launching of the largest environmental restoration project in history.

"If not me, who?" Bush asked. "I think I have a certain expertise that I can bring to bear here: how to structure deals and how to make them work. . . . This is the year to make this happen."

However, some South Florida officials questioned why his plan says their counties, cities and water district board have to come up with half the state's share of the money.

"I don't know how the local governments are going to do that without raising taxes," said Mitchell Berger, a member of the South Florida Water Management District governing board.

Bush said he has told his appointees on the water district board "as politely as possible" that he doesn't want them to raise property taxes.

Senate Majority Leader Jack Latvala, R-Palm Harbor, said South Florida's local governments need to pay because they will reap the benefits of a water supply to accommodate their growth.

"It's not a restoration -- it's a water supply project," Latvala said. "This is largely a water supply issue."

Bush's plan drew strong support from Florida's sugar farmers. Praise from environmental groups ranged from cautious optimism from the Florida Sierra Club to an outright rave from National Audubon Society president John Flicker, who called it a "good plan for birds and people."

But Mary Barley of Save Our Everglades pointed out that Bush's plan fails to make the sugar farms -- which are blamed for polluting the Everglades -- pay a dime to fix it. In 1996 voters approved adding the Polluter Pays amendment to the state Constitution, but the Legislature has yet to enact the measure.

Bush said he was unaware the Polluter Pays amendment required any legislative action but contended that it does not apply to the Everglades plan.

"Where that will come into play is on a separate corollary issue of great importance, and that is water quality," Bush said. "The restoration plan, by and large, relates to water capacity issues."

Bush's chief environmental aide, Allison DeFoor, questioned why Barley would raise the Polluter Pays issue at a time when Bush was giving environmental groups what they said they wanted.

"Some people are insatiable," DeFoor said. "Even the more radical environmentalists were inclined to take the money first and then criticize us later."

Under Bush's funding plan, the state's share of the Everglades bill, which totals $200-million a year over the next two decades, would come from a mix of general revenue, the state's environmental land-buying program, accrued interest earnings and the contributions of local governments. The federal government, meanwhile, would contribute another $4-billion, though the sources have not been identified.

In the future, Bush said, the state may explore "interesting financial arrangements" with private corporations. A Texas company has proposed building parts of the Everglades restoration project for the state, raising fears that it wants to own the water.

"This plan does not preclude private involvement," Bush said.

The Bush plan calls for funneling the money through a trust fund of the type that, in the past, lawmakers routinely raided to pay for other programs. Bush dismissed fears that a similar fate could befall Everglades funding.

Politicians have been talking about restoring the Everglades for decades, but the drive picked up steam two years ago when Vice President Al Gore unveiled a plan to undo the damage the Army Corps of Engineers did to South Florida 50 years ago.

Originally the Everglades was a vast sheet of water flowing so slowly that no one realized it was a river. Then the Corps of Engineers built the Central and South Florida Flood Control Project, which uses a system of canals, levees and pumps to rid South Florida of potential floods and promote development.

The C&SF project also wastes 1.7-billion gallons of water a day and has rendered the River of Grass either parched or inundated, and has drowned deer, killed trees and fish and harmed Florida Bay.

The restoration plan calls for ripping out some canals and levees, raising 20 miles of the Tamiami Trail so the River of Grass can flow beneath it unimpeded, creating thousands of acres of man-made swamps and storing water in 300 deep wells and a pair of limestone quarries.

The plan's architects say the result would be a plumbing system that would allow what is left of the Everglades to function more naturally while still providing enough drinking water for South Florida's sprawling population to double.

Gore, who may wind up battling the governor's brother for the presidency later this year, praised Bush's spending proposal Tuesday. Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Graham said he was "heartened" by Bush's desire to preserve the Everglades.

U.S. Rep. Bill McCollum, R-Altamonte Springs, predicted the Florida delegation will have to battle other states to get the federal share, but said it was a fight that had to be won.

"Without water," he said, "Florida just isn't Florida."

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