State: Skeptical scientists note flaw in Everglades plan

Scientists reviewing the $7.8-billion plan to restore the Everglades raised sharp questions Thursday about whether one of its central elements actually would damage the environment and South Florida's water supply.

Critics of the restoration long have complained about plans for injecting more than 1-billion gallons of water a day into hundreds of 1,000-foot-deep wells, then holding the water there as a free-floating bubble. They question whether the stored water will deteriorate and "pose environmental or health concerns."

A 57-page report by the independent National Research Council, unveiled at Everglades National Park on Thursday, was seen by critics as proof that the restoration plan has a gaping hole in it.

"It's just shocking to me how this could be such a large part of this plan without the scientific backup," said Jonathan Ullman of the Sierra Club. "To subject the public to risks like this is irresponsible."

One of the scientists who worked on the report noted that they did not say the deep-well part of the plan is bad, only that it needs a lot more study than will be provided by a pilot project now under way.

"The pilot is not going to be adequate to answer the questions that need to be answered," said University of Wisconsin geology professor Jean M. Bahr.

The report is the first issued by an independent science panel set up by federal officials to satisfy concerns about the plan's scientific underpinnings.

Environmentalists have been clamoring to restore the Everglades ever since the late Marjory Stoneman Douglas wrote The Everglades: River of Grass in 1947 -- a year before Army engineers started rerouting the natural flow of water through a complex system of canals, levees and pumps.

Last year Congress and the Legislature approved a massive plan to restore the Everglades to a semblance of itself while providing enough water for South Florida's population to double.

A key element of the plan is Aquifer Storage and Recovery, or ASR. During the rainy season, the corps would inject more than 1-billion gallons of freshwater a day into 333 wells. Two-thirds of the wells would line the northern shore of Lake Okeechobee, with the rest near the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge in Palm Beach County and the Caloosahatchee River near Fort Myers.

The freshwater would sit 1,000 feet underground as a bubble in the brackish aquifer, where about 30 percent of it could dribble away. During dry weather, what remained could be pumped back to the surface to feed the Everglades or thirsty Floridians.

ASR wells have been in use in Florida since 1983, though on a far smaller scale. All current ASR wells total only 3-billion gallons a day, and they are scattered around the state. The Everglades ASR plan to pump more than 1-billion gallons a day into wells in a comparatively small area is unprecedented, Bahr said.

ASR accounts for more than $1-billion of the restoration price and is so vital to the plan that scientists have said if it doesn't work, there will be no Everglades restoration.

Thursday's report warns that holding water in Florida's underground caverns for so long could lead to chemical interactions with the rocks. When brought back to the surface, the water could contain dangerous pollutants such as arsenic and heavy metals.

Even if the water is clean, the report says, the chemical composition could be so different from the Everglades' own water that mingling the two could change the types of plants that grow there.

The report also questions whether there will be so much water pushed underground that the pressure will fracture the rocks that separate drinking water from millions of gallons of municipal sewage that South Florida cities are injecting below the water wells.

"It's scary," Ullman said.

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Lucy Morgan

From the Times state desk