[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.