While the report offers promising news about CERP’s progress, it also makes clear that serious water quality challenges remain throughout much of the greater Everglades ecosystem, underscoring the need for continued progress toward restoring the natural system.
“This report reflects real improvements in water quality due to decades of hard work by committed scientists, engineers, restoration managers and many others,” said Col. Andrew Kelly, Jacksonville District commander and CERP lead for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
“CERP still has a long way to go, but the progress we’re seeing shows we are on the right track,” he said.
The report is the fourth South Florida Environment Report (SFER), a periodic multiagency assessment of the impacts of CERP on the environment. It was released Tuesday at the CERP Science Conference in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, and is available on the SFER website.
SFER 2023 builds on data from previous reports, including SFER 2019, which found that water quality in the greater Everglades ecosystem was generally declining, with few signs of improvement.
The new report shows that water quality standards in the Everglades Protection Area (EPA) and the Biscayne Bay Coastal Wetlands (BBCW) have improved since 2019 for parameters including phosphorus and dissolved oxygen.
The report also shows improvements in the northern Everglades system – the Kissimmee River, Lake Okeechobee and the Caloosahatchee River – where projects such as the Kissimmee River Restoration and the Caloosahatchee River (C-43) West Basin Storage Reservoir are providing substantial water storage and improved flow.
However, the report shows continuing challenges, such as harmful algal blooms, the loss of seagrass in Florida Bay, and the persistence of high phosphorus levels in the C-43 canal and the EPA.
“This SFER gives us renewed hope for the future of the Everglades,” said Tommy Strowd, Governing Board Chairman of the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD). “By continuing our work and monitoring our progress, we can turn hope into reality.”
CERP is a massive, multi-billion-dollar effort to restore the greater Everglades ecosystem, a nearly 19 million acre landscape in southern Florida that includes the famed Everglades “River of Grass,” Florida Bay, the Keys and the Ten Thousand Islands.
CERP is a joint effort of the federal government, the State of Florida, and the SFWMD, along with numerous other partners.
