Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan Additional Water Quality Projects May Be Needed And Could Increase Costs

The South FL Ecosystem Restoration Initiative is a long-term effort to restore the South FL ecosystem, which includes the Everglades. This report: describes the role of the Army Corps of Engineers' Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan in addressing the major water quality concerns in the ecosystem, and identifies modifications that may be needed as the Plan is implemented. The info. is based on discussions with fed. and state officials that have responsibilities for managing water supplies and ensuring water quality in South FL. Also reviewed the portions of the Plan that describe water quality projects and obtained and reviewed other pertinent water quality reports and studies.

RCED-00-235 Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan: Additional Water Quality Projects May Be Needed and Could Increase Costs

The South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Initiative is a complex, long-term effort to restore the South Florida ecosystem, which includes the Everglades. Because water is key to restoring the ecosystem, one of the initiative's major goals is 'getting the water right'-or improving the quality, quantity, timing, and distribution of water in the ecosystem. The primary means of achieving this goal is through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (the Plan). Although achieving the right quantity, timing, and distribution of water is important, improving its quality is critical to sustaining and restoring the South Florida ecosystem. The Plan represents one of the most ambitious restoration efforts the Corps has ever undertaken; it contains 66 individual projects that are scheduled to take more than 20 years to complete."2 Implementing the Plan is currently estimated to cost $7.8 billion-a cost that will be snared equally by the federal government and the state of Florida. We are here today to discuss our report,3 which is being released today, on (1) the role of the Corps' Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan in addressing the major water quality concerns in the ecosystem and (2) modifications that may be needed as the Corps implements the Plan after it has been authorized by the Congress.

Aquifer storage and recovery (ASR) is a process by which water is recharged through wells to an aquifer and extracted for beneficial use at some later time from the same wells. ASR is proposed as a major water storage component in the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP), developed jointly by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD). The plan would use the Upper Floridan aquifer (UFA) to store as much as 1.7 billion gallons per day (gpd) (6.3 million m3/day) of excess surface water and shallow groundwater during wet periods for recovery during seasonal or longer-term dry periods, using about 333 wells. ASR represents about one-fifth of the total estimated cost of the CERP. Aquifer Storage and Recovery in the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan examines pilot project from the perspective of adaptive assessment, i.e., the extent to which the pilot projects will contribute to process understanding that can improve design and implementation of restoration project components. This report is a critique of the pilot projects and related studies.