U.S. Aid for Swamps-- and Bays : Worthy environmental projects in Florida and California

The Clinton administration’s seven-year plan to restore Florida swampland, formally announced Monday, is an ambitious environmental proposal. Restoration is indisputably necessary; scientists have long documented the decline in swampland acreage as a result of sugar cultivation. The loss of such land, a natural hydraulic system that provides cities with fresh water and protects them from flood, threatens more than 5 million residents of southeast Florida.

Clearly, the federal government can and should play a key role in a project of this magnitude. Not only does the federal government have the deepest pockets--estimates put this project at $1.5 billion--but all Americans have an interest in maintaining the unique Everglades swamplands. These lands are now rapidly dwindling.

But big uncertainties remain over funding for this massive project, imperiling its success. Those uncertainties must be resolved before work gets under way--that is one lesson from the ongoing Santa Monica Bay restoration project. Another lesson is that it won’t be easy.

The Santa Monica Bay project is a local public-private operation that aims to reduce storm and pollutant runoff into the bay in order to protect beaches and marine life. The project involves more street sweeping and the imposition of tighter water quality standards. But a shortfall in federal funding slows progress.

The Everglades project involves purchasing about one-fifth of Florida land now in sugar production and allowing it to revert to marsh. That means removing the levees, canals and pumping stations that crisscross central and southern Florida.

The administration wants Florida sugar growers, whose activities have led to the draining of swampland, to help pay for this restoration through a $245-million subsidy reduction on sugar cane. Subsidies to growers would be cut by a penny a pound, with the savings used to buy and retire 126,000 acres of farmland. This funding approach makes sense but its future is cloudy. Congressional action is needed to implement several parts of the Everglades plan, including the sugar subsidy reduction. Yet generous subsidies to sugar and peanut growers were left intact in the farm bill that passed the Senate this month. The House will take up its version in coming weeks; debate over these subsidies will be fierce. Floridians and indeed all Americans have a stake in the outcome of that debate and in the success of the administration’s Everglades plan.