Everglades Essay ⋆ Environment Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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Florida’ s Kissimmee River flows south into Lake Okeechobee, an expansive and shallow body of water in the south-central area of the state. At its southern end the lake slowly gives up its water to the Everglades, a vast and flat area of grasses and animal life extending southward to the Florida Keys. During the warm months, the water from Lake Okeechobee slowly flows in what has been characterized as a “River of Grass,” three feet deep at its extreme and up to 50 miles in width. In the dry season, water flow is diminished and multitudes of wildlife-birds, alligators, and large cats-seek refuge near pools of deeper water until the flow of water again begins in the spring. The Everglades is a truly unique landform, and its existence was in danger following the transformation of the land south of Lake Okeechobee to agriculture and to urbanization along the Atlantic coast.

Fragile Environment

Extensive areas of vegetables and sugar cane capture large volumes of the water that perennially flowed south to the Florida Keys. As population quickly grew along Florida’s Atlantic coast, vast amounts of water were moved along canals directly from Lake Okeechobee to West Palm Beach and the nearly continuous line of cities south to the Miami metropolitan complex. Robbed of its natural flow of water, the Everglades would not have survived without widespread public concern over its possible demise; and a series of governmental actions began in the 1970s. In 1972, a series of laws were passed in the Florida legislature to protect the fragile environment of the Everglades. Among them was the Land Conservation Act, authorizing the purchase of recreation lands and areas deemed to be environmentally endangered. The Save Our Everglades program was launched in 1983, which brought together federal and state governmental agencies and the South Florida Water Management District in a large-scale effort to restore the entire region to what it was 100 years earlier. Included in the program were the Kissimmee River Basin, Lake Okeechobee, the Everglades, and adjacent areas all affected by the diversion of waters from the ecosystem-the Big Cyprus Swamp; Florida Bay, the water body separating mainland Florida and the Keys; Biscayne Bay on the Atlantic coast south of Miami; and the Ten Thousand Islands, a mass of small islands off the Florida coast on the Gulf of Mexico.

Subsequent legislation created the Local Government Comprehensive Planning and Land Development Regulation, which was aimed at attaining sustainable state growth within a fully integrated planning process: local plans were required to be linked to the plans of adjacent communities and to fit well within comprehensive plans produced for the region and the state. An important plan emerged in 1987 aimed at the cleanup of polluted waters throughout the region. The Surface Water Improvement and Management Act of that year required every Florida water management districts to implement plans to ensure sustainable water quality throughout the region. As extensive as plans were through the 1980s, they paled by comparison to the scope of projects unfolding a few years later. A major redesign of the entire regional water management system was prepared for U.S. congressional approval in July 1999. The plan proposed the expenditure of $7.8 billion over a 20-year period to guarantee the life of the Everglades, the sustainability of Florida’s economic growth, and a continued supply of fresh water to the burgeoning urban concentrations along the Atlantic coast.

An initiative entitled “Eastward Ho! Revitalizing Southeast Florida’s Urban Core” in 1995 focused on ways to curb urban sprawl and to rejuvenate deteriorating sections of coastal cities. This initiative acts to slow down the continued loss of both wetland and valuable agricultural land to the spread of urbanization and to ensure the viability of the inner cities through gentrification programs. Perhaps no other natural region on the continent has received the degree of attention and the commitment of resources afforded to the Everglades. While experts have argued for the actual abandonment of large portions of the Great Plains, the Everglades has attracted billions of dollars in investment to maintain the unique “River of Grass” and its surrounding agricultural areas and the mighty cities along Florida’s south coasts.

Bibliography:

Susan Cerulean, The Book of the Everglades (Milkweed Editions, 2002);
Marjory Stone-man Douglas, Everglades: River of Grass, Special S0th Edition (Pineapple Press, 2003);
Thomas Lodge, Everglades Handbook: Understanding the Ecosystem (CRC Press, 2004);
Connie Bransliver and Larry W. Richardson, Florida’s Unsung Wilderness: The Swamps (Westcliffe Publishers, 2000);
National Park Service, Everglades National Park Strategic Plan: 2001-200S (Bureau of the Interior, 2001).