[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 116 (Wednesday, July 11, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4902-S4904]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Remembering Nathaniel Reed
Unfortunately, Mr. President, we received the very somber, sad news
this afternoon that one of our great Everglades restoration advocates,
Nathaniel Reed, has passed away. Nat Reed leaves behind a long legacy
as an environmental champion.
Nat served as environmental adviser to Governor Claude Kirk beginning
in 1967. In 1971, he became Assistant Secretary of the Interior for
Fish, Wildlife and National Parks under President Nixon and stayed in
that position through the Gerald Ford Presidency. Nat returned to
Florida in 1977 and continued his career in public service by working
under seven different Governors in various capacities, including
[[Page S4903]]
chairman of the Commission on Florida's Environmental Future, which was
instrumental in the land acquisition projects that we now know as
Everglades restoration. He also served as a board member for the
National Audubon Society, the Nature Conservancy, the National Parks
Conservation Association, and the Natural Resources Defense Council, as
well as the National Geographic Society.
One of Nat Reed's most passionate projects was to expedite
construction of this reservoir south of Lake Okeechobee--the project
the Army Corps approved today. I had spoken to Nat numerous times about
this important project and about our shared goal of restoring the
Everglades.
We have lost a real environmental champion who was bipartisan in his
approach. I mentioned that he served seven Governors. It didn't make
any difference whether the Governor was a Republican or a Democrat--Nat
was about restoring as much of Mother Nature as possible back to its
functioning self.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record
a column written by Nat in 2012 that lays out the history of the
Everglades' environmental problems and how we can fix them.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From TC Palm, Nov. 25, 2012]
Nathaniel Reed: Don't Blame the Army Corps of Engineers for Okeechobee,
Everglades Woes
Until a few weeks ago, billions of gallons of polluted
water was flowing into the St. Lucie River, the Indian River
and the Caloosahatchee Estuary from Lake Okeechobee.
The environmental damage is massive. After four years of
drought and no large releases of excess water from Lake
Okeechobee, the near record rainy season again has quickly
filled the lake. Every time there is a wet tropical storm or
series of hurricanes such as those that hit Florida in 2004-
05, the lake rapidly rises 3-4 feet within days, threatening
the Hoover Dike and the communities south of the lake.
The Corps has no options. It must reduce the water level in
Lake Okeechobee in case of a potential wet hurricane, common
in even October like Hurricanes Wilma and Isaac.
Before we collectively blame the Corps for the incredible
damage that is being inflicted on our once productive waters,
especially the remarkable recovery of seagrasses and inland
fisheries since the Okeechobee flood gates were last opened
in 2010, we collectively need a short history lesson and then
a firm guide on how to stop these all too frequent
environmental outrages.
The great Everglades ecosystem has been brutalized by a
number of thoughtless decisions.
The private construction of Tamiami Trail by the Collier
family to open up Naples to east coast tourists in the 1915-
20's formed a dike preventing natural water flow from the
northern Everglades marshes into what have become Everglades
National Park and the great fishery of Florida Bay.
Although there are gated discharge structures and culverts
under Tamiami Trail, they allow a fraction of the excess rain
water to flow south as the everglades system once functioned.
Water is backed up throughout the Florida Everglades known as
water conservation areas.
Overly high water is inundating the unique ``Tree
Islands,'' a major feature of the everglades system which
provides essential habitat for deer and other mammals
indigenous to the Everglades during times of excessive rain
water. The Tree Islands also are ``sacred sites'' for the
Miccosukee Native Americans.
Before the 1928 great hurricane that destroyed the small
dike that then surrounded much of Lake Okeechobee, small
farming communities grew around the south side of the lake.
Winter vegetables were the main crop, but thousands of acres
were devoted to raising cattle on the lush grass that the
muck fields provided. U.S. Sugar grew a total of 50,000-plus
acres of sugar cane. Their main profit was made from the sale
of some of the finest Brahma cattle raised in the world for
warm weather cattle ranches in Cuba, Central America and
South America. The King Ranch had a similar operation for
their famous crossbred cattle.
The low dike failed during a 1926 hurricane, and once again
in 1928, drowning 3,000 people. President Herbert Hoover
requested the Congress to pass legislation authorizing the
construction of a high dike around Lake Okeechobee.
When there were long, wet summer rain seasons and fall
hurricanes in the 1940s, excess water flowed through the
Everglades and even over Tamiami Trail into what is now the
Everglades National Park. The Corps of Engineers studied the
average size of Lake Okeechobee and designed a dike to
surround it. The dike was made from local sand and gravel.
The Corps then made a fateful engineering decision to cut off
the natural flow-way from Lake Okeechobee to the downstream
Everglades and dump it more ``efficiently'' to the east and
west estuaries.
Perhaps the nearly 700,000 acres now known as the
Everglades Agricultural Area of rich organic soils--the
byproduct of centuries of dying marsh grasses--was the
incentive, but this error in judgment has created a conflict
that will continue until sufficient land is acquired to
restore a flow-way from Lake Okeechobee to the northern
Florida Everglades and is then allowed to flow south and
under Tamiami Trail into Everglades National Park.
The decision by the power brokers to persuade the then-
governor of Florida and the congressional delegation to
dredge the Kissimmee River to allow drainage in the
headwaters of Lake Okeechobee was an ecological disaster.
Thousands of acres of wetlands that served as storage for
Lake Okeechobee and slowed down rain-driven floods moving
south into the Kissimmee chain of lakes allowed developers to
sell real estate around those lakes, guaranteeing an
unnatural low water level. The Kissimmee chain of lakes
during high rainfall periods used to hold billions of gallons
of water that was slowly released down the Kissimmee into
Lake Okeechobee naturally. The wetland marshes flanking the
Kissimmee's two-mile-wide flood plain were wildlife treasures
that were drained and turned into cattle pastures when the
project was completed. Excessive rainwater then flowed at
unnatural speed into the lake, raising it to dangerous levels
and carrying a pollution-filled muck that now covers half the
lake's bottom.
The Caloosahatchee River first was connected to Lake
Okeechobee by Hamilton Disston, one of Florida's pioneer
speculators who envisioned steamboats moving up from Ft.
Myers and then the Kissimmee River to pick up winter crops
and bring their loads back to Ft. Myers for shipment north.
After about 10 years, the St. Lucie Canal was completed in
1926 to provide easy access from the lake to Stuart, where
ships would carry vegetables and fruit to the upper east
coast and provide access for the east to the west coast for
pleasure boats.
It did not take any length of time for the Corps to realize
that an overflowing Lake Okeechobee threatened the ``suspect
construction'' of the Hoover Dike and that the two outlets--
the St. Lucie Canal and the Caloosahatchee River--would serve
as escape valves whenever there was excessive rainfall and a
rising lake that could threaten the integrity of the Hoover
Dike, especially on the south side, where farming communities
had grown in size. With the connection to the Everglades now
severed, the present day colonel of the Corps of Engineers
and his staff have no options other than releasing billions
of gallons of water that is polluted from years of
agricultural back-pumping from the Everglades Agricultural
Area and now large amounts of nutrients flowing down the
Kissimmee and the other headwaters of the lake.
During his tenure, Gov. Bob Graham announced in the early
1980s a major effort to restore the Everglades system. Each
successive governor has made a contribution toward that goal.
The state has spent $1.8 billion acquiring land to clean up
the excess water flowing from the 500,000 acres of sugar
cane--a crop that enjoys a federal taxpayer guaranteed price.
The amount of cane sugar that is permitted to be imported
into the United States is controlled by the sugar cartel to
guarantee them maximum profit. Their leadership is
unrelenting in its efforts to produce maximum profits at the
Everglades' expense.
Unless excessive Lake Okeechobee water is cleansed through
a vast series of pollution-control artificial marsh systems
built principally by the taxpayers of the 16 counties of
South Florida for the sugar cane and winter crop growers,
drainage cannot be allowed to flow into the Everglades, as it
will change the botanical makeup of the River of Grass within
months.
So where are we?
Before the flow way and the pollution control marshes are
built and are operational, additional storage--both upstream
in the lake's headwaters and within the Everglades
Agricultural Area--must be acquired, and a number of other
priorities must be addressed.
First, Tamiami Trail must be modified to allow massive
amounts of water to flow southward into the park. A one-mile
bridge and limited road raising are currently under
construction. While this is a very positive first step, more
needs to done! The trail needs more bridges and road raising
(up to another 2 feet) so that it is protected when the
Everglades and the lake are once again connected.
Additionally, the southeast corner of the vast Everglades
system known as Water Conservation Area 3B has a vital role
in delivering Okeechobee and Florida Everglades' excess water
to flow under the proposed five-mile bridge. The Corps admits
that when the eastern dike of Water Conservation Area 3B was
constructed, it did not consider leakage to be a potential
problem, as no one farmed or lived near the dike. Now, there
are hundreds of acres of fruit trees and thousands of homes
that could be impacted if the dike allowed significant
seepage.
This problem must be solved before excess water can be
released into Everglades National Park, relieving the entire
system of too much water which forces the discharges of
billions of gallons of water down the Caloosahatchee and St.
Lucie rivers.
We also have some local problems that must be faced with
private drainage systems
[[Page S4904]]
that drain millions of gallons of excess water into the St.
Lucie River. Canals C-23, 24 and 25 were built at the urging
of the Martin and St. Lucie County citrus growers and
developers, who wanted their lands drained at public expense.
Together with the C-44 and the St. Lucie Canal, more than
498,000 acres drain through canals into the estuary and
lagoon.
These decisions have all combined to seriously add damaging
amounts of polluted runoff into the St. Lucie and Indian
rivers. There are plans to complete a pair of reservoirs? one
on the St Lucie, the other on the Caloosahatchee? to capture
local runoff, hold it and clean it before slowly releasing it
to flow into the two estuaries.
What is the hope for the two rivers that are being used as
drainage escape routes?
The federal and state governments must pay for the cost of
modifications of the eastern dike of Water Conservation 3B to
prevent seepage.
The Federal government should use fuel tax revenue to raise
Tamiami Trail and build additional bridges to allow water to
flow into ENP.
The state of Florida must acquire significant amounts of
additional land both north and south of the lake or, at
minimum, enforceable easements to contain excessive water
until it can be leaked slowly down to the lake from the north
and south through a flow-way into the Everglades system.
The gross pollution of Lake Okeechobee must become a state
priority. Recent phosphorus loads to Lake Okeechobee have
been in the 500-ton range, more than three times the goal of
140 tons. Today, estimates are that so much phosphorus has
already been spread in the watershed to keep these heavy
loads coming for decades. Today, nutrients from the EAA are
less than 5 percent of the total into Lake Okeechobee. More
than 90 percent is from the northern Lake Okeechobee
watersheds. The failure to control phosphorus runoff is
shared by the Florida Department of Agriculture and the
Department of Environmental Regulation.
Agricultural and water utility interests must accept the
fact that Lake Okeechobee's level must be held below 16 feet
and that `back pumping' polluted water from the EAA even in
times of drought must not be permitted. Lake Okeechobee
cannot continue to be considered a sewer.
Additional lands within the vast EAA must be acquired by
the state and the South Florida Water Management District to
construct major additional storage capacity and pollution
control marshes that will dramatically reduce the nutrients
flowing off the sugar cane plantations into the Everglades
system.
The sugar cane plantations should be forced to control and
treat the thousands of gallons of polluted water on their
land before they discharge it into the waters of the state.
They should pay a far greater share for cleaning up their
wastes for the needed additional pollution control marshes.
These are tall orders, but think for a moment before we
continue to rail against the Corps' decision to lower Lake
Okeechobee to protect the integrity of the Hoover Dike.
Everything on my ``must do'' list represents one week of
the Afghanistan War expenses.
Everything on my wish list is obtainable.
Our congressional delegation has significant power in
Congress. Our governor and Florida commissioner of
agriculture are very persuasive with our legislature, even in
times of recession.
Despite the need to reduce the incredible national deficit,
don't you think manmade disasters like what is threatening
our rivers and the Everglades ecosystem are worthy of
national and state investments?
Mr. NELSON. Nat recommended focusing on projects like bridging the
Tamiami Trail, which is U.S. 41--virtually a dike across the southern
peninsula of Florida. It is now being bridged, first with a mile-long
bridge, and now--under construction--with a 2\1/2\-mile bridge so the
water can flow under the road into the water-starved Everglades
National Park.
He recommended focusing on projects like restoring the Kissimmee
River to its natural meandering state. Half a century ago, when all the
emphasis was on flood control, getting the water off the land, they
took this meandering stream called the Kissimmee River that cleansed
the water as it oozed south in all of the marsh grasses, and what did
they do? They dug a straight ditch. Nat was one of the leaders in
advocating restoring the river to its natural meandering state so that
by the time the water gets to Lake Okeechobee, it will have been
cleaned up by natural processes.
Both of those projects--Tamiami Trail and the Kissimmee River--are
now well underway, and we are already seeing the benefits to the
environment and to the wildlife.
Nat also wrote about the importance of water storage and treatment
projects both north and south of the lake--a refrain this Senator often
repeats as well. That is why I not only respect and appreciate so much
what Nat contributed to our country and to our State but also loved him
as a friend. His untimely death today in an accident in Canada is a
huge loss. Nat and I had been so focused on advancing this new
reservoir project south of Lake Okeechobee. It saddens me so much to
announce this good news at the same time that I announce the death of
one of the Nation's true environmental champions. In the years to come,
as we go about actually constructing that reservoir, it would be a
fitting tribute to name that project in Nat Reed's honor. All we can do
is try to continue his life's work protecting Florida's unique
environment.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.