Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday said he plans to ask President-elect Donald Trump to let Florida take over Everglades restoration efforts, effectively ending a 25-year partnership with the Army Corps of Engineers. Ta.
A sometimes uneasy partnership was established between the Corps and the state to carry out the 2000 plan approved by Congress. The agreement ensures that the costs of fixing problems that have negatively affected decades of flood control are shared, while providing federal protections for the environment that could be more stringent than state rules. Government oversight is also guaranteed.
But delays, often at the hands of Congress, quadrupled the cost. The price currently hovers around $23 billion. But DeSantis justified the move and criticized the Corps.
“We don’t want to be bogged down in red tape. We don’t want to be bogged down in red tape,” DeSantis said at a news conference in Juno Beach. “Some federal agencies, like the Army Corps of Engineers, don’t approach things that way.”
Mr. DeSantis argued that the state far outspent the Corps on the program, but that last year’s tally was that the Corps spent $2.6 billion and the state $2.8 billion, a roughly even split. is shown. The state also spent $2.6 billion to clean up water pollution, but that’s a separate issue and only Florida is paying for it.
Late last year, the Corps announced a new planning schedule with delays. That included work on a reservoir south of Lake Okeechobee. The state of Florida believes this project is key to reducing pollution that spreads from Lake Okeechobee to the northern estuary during the rainy season. DeSantis may blame the Corps’ slow work, but the delays are tied to the towering levee wall that surrounds the reservoir. The levee was needed after the Florida Legislature downsized the reservoir from large, shallow projects to smaller, deeper reservoirs.
Nearly 20 years after Katrina breached a levee breach in New Orleans, the breach was blamed in part on a shortcut that local officials requested from the Corps, but the Corps is still We are concerned about flood safety. Not surprising given that another recently completed reservoir had leakage issues.
This article was originally published in Florida, a multi-newsroom initiative founded by the Miami Herald, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Palm Beach Post, Orlando Sentinel, WLRN Public Media and the Tampa Bay Times. Produced in partnership with Climate Reporting Network.
