Tampa Bay Times, March 10, 2024
Progress is being made on the Everglades Agricultural Area Reservoir, which will restore a healthy flow of water.
When Steve Davis jumped out of the airboat and into the water in the middle of the Everglades, it rose to just below his waist, higher than last year, when it pooled around his knees.
“I’m standing in Miami-Dade’s water supply right now,” he said.
Davis, the chief science officer for the Everglades Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to restoring the ecosystem, joined Meenakshi Chabba, the foundation’s ecosystem and resilience scientist, on Friday morning for the annual Everglades airboat tour. The tour comes amid growing progress on the Everglades Agricultural Area Reservoir and an allocation in the state’s 2024-25 budget of more than $740 million dedicated to Everglades restoration.
The reservoir and allotment of federal and state funds are both critical pieces to the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, which Congress authorized in 2000. According to the National Park Service, the plan is supposed to “restore, preserve, and protect the south Florida ecosystem while providing for other water-related needs of the region, including water supply and flood protection.” It’s the largest hydrologic restoration project ever undertaken in the United States.
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