Everglades Fishing – Captain Ned Small

Dear FLORIDA NACO Member,

 EVERGLADES: Fla., Army Corps sign deal to end restoration logjam (08/13/2009) Taryn Luntz, E&E reporterThe federal government and the state of Florida today reached a cost-sharing deal for restoring the Everglades after eight years of disputes that have held up the massive series of projects.

The “master agreement” between the South Florida Water Management District and the Army Corps of Engineers sets a baseline cost-sharing model for the more than 60 individual projects in the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan.

Congress and the state agreed in 2000 to split the cost of the $10.9 billion program, but the federal government has proved a poor partner thus far, with the state outspending it, 6 to 1. President Obama has pledged a renewed federal commitment to the project, proposing $210 million for it in fiscal 2010.

Much of the wrangling between Florida and the Army Corps centered on how much credit the state would get for the $3 billion it has already spent.

“This master agreement is kind of the opening of the logjam between us and the federal government,” said Ken Ammon, the water district’s deputy executive director of Everglades restoration and capital projects. “The agreement essentially gives us the credit for the work we’ve already done and authorizes the future projects to be cost-shared 50-50.”

While each of the individual Everglades restoration projects will need its own cost-sharing agreement as it moves forward, the master agreement provides a detailed model, Ammon said.

Florida and the Army Corps today also signed their first individual project partnership agreement, advancing a plan to reclaim 55,000 acres in the Picayune Strand, a failed development site slated for wetlands restoration.

Florida already has purchased the land, and the project received initial construction funding this year from the federal stimulus package.

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