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NATIONAL ACADEMY PRESS 2101 Constitution Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20418
NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competencies and with regard for appropriate balance.
Supported by the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Task Force, Department of Interior, under assistance of Cooperative Agreement No. 5280-9-9029. The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the Government.
This report is available from the National Academy Press , 2101 Constitution Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20418, (800) 624-6242 or (202) 334-3313 (in the Washington metropolitan area); internet < http://www.nap.edu >.
International Standard Book Number 0-309-07347-2
Copyright 2001 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
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THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES
Advisers to the Nation on Science, Engineering, and Medicine
National Academy of Sciences
National Academy of Engineering
Institute of Medicine
National Research Council
Printed in the United States of America
The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit, self-perpetuating society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. Upon the authority of the charter granted to it by the Congress in 1863, the Academy has a mandate that requires it to advise the federal government on scientific and technical matters. Dr. Bruce M. Alberts is president of the National Academy of Sciences.
The National Academy of Engineering was established in 1964, under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences, as a parallel organization of outstanding engineers. It is autonomous in its administration and in the selection of its members, sharing with the National Academy of Sciences the responsibility for advising the federal government. The National Academy of Engineering also sponsors engineering programs aimed at meeting national needs, encourages education and research, and recognizes the superior achievement of engineers. Dr. William A. Wulf is president of the National Academy of Engineering.
The Institute of Medicine was established in 1970 by the National Academy of Sciences to secure the services of eminent members of appropriate professions in the examination of policy matters pertaining to the health of the public. The Institute acts under the responsibility given to the National Academy of Sciences by its congressional charter to be an adviser to the federal government and, upon its own initiative, to identify issues of medical care, research, and education. Dr. Kenneth I. Shine is president of the Institute of Medicine.
The National Research Council was organized by the National Academy of Sciences in 1916 to associate the broad community of science and technology with the Academy's purposes of 0furthering knowledge and advising the federal government. Functioning in accordance with general policies determined by the Academy, the Council has become the principal operating agency of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering in providing services to the government, the public, and the scientific and engineering communities. The Council is administered jointly by both Academies and the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Bruce M. Alberts and Dr. William A. Wulf are chairman and vice chairman, respectively, of the National Research Council.
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COMMITTEE ON RESTORATION OF THE GREATER EVERGLADES ECOSYSTEM
JAMES M. DAVIDSON , Chair, University of Florida (ret.), Gainesville
SCOTT W. NIXON , University of Rhode Island, Narragansett
JOHN S. ADAMS , University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
JEAN M. BAHR , University of Wisconsin, Madison
LINDA K. BLUM , University of Virginia, Charlottesville
PATRICK L. BREZONIK , University of Minnesota, St. Paul
FRANK W. DAVIS , University of California, Santa Barbara
WAYNE C. HUBER , Oregon State University, Corvallis
STEPHEN R. HUMPHREY , University of Florida, Gainesville
DANIEL P. LOUCKS , Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
GORDON H. ORIANS , University of Washington, Seattle (resigned December 2000)
KENNETH W. POTTER , University of Wisconsin, Madison
LARRY ROBINSON , Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, Tallahassee
STEVEN E. SANDERSON , Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia
REBECCA R. SHARITZ , Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, Aiken, South Carolina, and University of Georgia, Atlanta
JOHN VECCHIOLI , U.S. Geological Survey (ret.), Tallahassee, Florida
NRC Staff
STEPHEN D. PARKER , Director, Water Science and Technology Board
DAVID J. POLICANSKY , Associate Director, Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology
WILLIAM S. LOGAN , Staff Officer, Water Science and Technology Board
PATRICIA JONES KERSHAW , Staff Associate, Water Science and Technology Board
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WATER SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY BOARD
HENRY J. VAUX , Jr., Chair, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of California, Oakland
RICHARD G. LUTHY , Vice Chair, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
RICHELLE M. ALLEN -KING , Washington State University, Pullman
GREGORY B. BAECHER , University of Maryland, College Park
JOHN BRISCOE , The World Bank, Washington, D.C.
EFI FOUFOULA -GEORGIOU , University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
STEVEN P. GLOSS , University of Wyoming, Laramie
WILLIAM A. JURY , University of California, Riverside
GARY S. LOGSDON , Black & Veatch, Cincinnati, Ohio
DIANE M. MC KNIGHT , University of Colorado, Boulder
JOHN W. MORRIS , J.W. Morris Ltd., Arlington, Virginia
PHILIP A. PALMER (Retired), E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., Wilmington, Delaware
REBECCA T. PARKIN , The George Washington University, Washington, D.C.
RUTHERFORD H. PLATT , University of Massachusetts, Amherst
JOAN B. ROSE , University of South Florida, St. Petersburg
JERALD L. SCHNOOR , University of Iowa, Iowa City
R. RHODES TRUSSELL , Montgomery Watson, Pasadena, California
Staff
STEPHEN D. PARKER , Director
LAURA J. EHLERS , Senior Staff Officer
CHRIS ELFRING , Senior Staff Officer
JEFFREY W. JACOBS , Senior Staff Officer
MARK C. GIBSON , Staff Officer
WILLIAM S. LOGAN , Staff Officer
M. JEANNE AQUILINO , Administrative Associate
PATRICIA JONES KERSHAW , Study/Research Associate
ANITA A. HALL , Administrative Assistant
ELLEN DE GUZMAN , Senior Project Assistant
ANIKE L. JOHNSON , Project Assistant
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BOARD ON ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES AND TOXICOLOGY
GORDON ORIANS (Chair), University of Washington, Seattle, Washington
JOHN DOULL , University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, Kansas
DAVID ALLEN , University of Texas, Austin, Texas
INGRID C. BURKE , Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado
THOMAS BURKE , Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland
GLEN R. CASS , Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia
WILLIAM L. CHAMEIDES , Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia
CHRISTOPHER B. FIELD , Carnegie Institute of Washington, Stanford, California
JOHN GERHART , University of California, Berkeley, California
J. PAUL GILMAN , Celera Genomics, Rockville, Maryland
DANIEL S. GREENBAUM , Health Effects Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts
BRUCE D. HAMMOCK , University of California, Davis, California
ROGENE HENDERSON , Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute, Albuquerque, New Mexico
CAROL HENRY , American Chemistry Council, Arlington, Virginia
ROBERT HUGGETT , Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan
JAMES F. KITCHELL , University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin
DANIEL KREWSKI , University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario
JAMES A. MAC MAHON , Utah State University, Logan, Utah
CHARLES O'MELIA , Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland
WILLEM F. PASSCHIER , Health Council of the Netherlands, The Hague
ANN POWERS , Pace University School of Law, White Plains, New York
KIRK SMITH , University of California, Berkeley, California
TERRY F. YOSIE , American Chemistry Council, Arlington, Virginia
Senior Staff
JAMES J. REISA , Director
DAVID J. POLICANSKY , Associate Director and Senior Program Director for Applied Ecology
RAYMOND A. WASSEL , Senior Program Director for Environmental Sciences and Engineering
KULBIR BAKSHI , Program Director for the Committee on Toxicology
ROBERTA M. WEDGE , Program Director for Risk Analysis
K. JOHN HOLMES , Senior Staff Officer
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Preface
This report is a product of the Committee on Restoration of the Greater Everglades Ecosystem (CROGEE), which provides consensus advice to the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Task Force (“Task Force”). The Task Force was first established in 1993 and was codified in the 1996 Water Resources Development Act (WRDA); its responsibilities include the development of a comprehensive plan for restoring, preserving and protecting the South Florida ecosystem, and the coordination of related research. The CROGEE works under the auspices of the Water Science and Technology Board and the Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology of the National Research Council.
Much, but not all, of the material used for this report came directly or indirectly from the Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR) workshop held by the CROGEE in Miami, Florida, on October 19, 2000. The workshop was open to the public and was attended by about 60 people including personnel from the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), federal, state and local agencies, universities, consulting firms, and environmental organizations. There were 10 invited experts from government, academia and the private sector, and eight members of the CROGEE present. The workshop agenda and list of participants are shown in Appendices A and B, respectively.
ASR was chosen as the workshop topic for several important reasons. First, ASR is a critical element of the restoration effort, accounting for a significant amount of the storage of water presently being lost to tide through the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee basins. The restoration plan anticipates capturing this water during wet intervals and releasing it for ecological use and for water supply when needed.
Second, due to the technical and regulatory uncertainties of implementing ASR at the proposed scale, the 1999 WRDA contained authorization for the execution of two ASR pilot projects – one for the area around Lake Okeechobee, and another for the western Hillsboro site in Palm Beach County. These two pilot projects were the first of the 31 projects and six pilot projects to be implemented under the Master Project Management Plan to have individual Project Management Plans prepared for them. Thus, there were written materials available for the committee to evaluate.
Finally, these documents were still in a draft form, and their authors have been actively soliciting input from federal, state, and local agencies, academia, and the private sector. The designers of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) have incorporated into the plan the concept of adaptive assessment, i.e., the development of a protocol for collecting and interpreting new information for the purpose of improving the design of the restoration plan. The two ASR pilot projects seemed to be highly appropriate targets for the application of this principle; that is, the time appeared right to help the USACE and SFWMD to maximize the opportunities for learning from the ASR pilot projects.
Thus, the ASR pilot projects were chosen for attention by the CROGEE not because they were perceived to be any more or less well designed than other aspects of the Comprehensive Plan, but because of their importance to the overall restoration effort, and because they were at an optimal planning stage for constructive feedback.
The primary documents submitted to the committee for their evaluation were the “second drafts” of the Project Management Plans for the Lake Okeechobee and Western Hillsboro Aquifer
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Storage and Recovery Pilot Projects, dated September 2000. (Later drafts of these plans now are available but were not evaluated by the committee for this report.) Following receipt of these documents, but prior to the workshop, the committee submitted a list of questions about the plans, organized by theme, to the designers of the pilot projects. The answers to these questions were supplied to the CROGEE several days before the workshop ( Appendix C). This procedure saved valuable time during the workshop, and enabled the committee to focus on specific issues of interest.
The workshop was planned with the cooperation and assistance of Peter Kwiatkowski, Project Manager (SFWMD) for the Lake Okeechobee ASR Pilot Project; Rick Nevulis, Project Manager (SFWMD) for the Western Hillsboro ASR Pilot Project; Glenn Landers, Project Manager (USACE) for both Pilot Projects; Terrence “Rock” Salt, Executive Director of the Task Force; Peter Ortner, liaison to the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Working Group; Paul Dresler, liaison to the Department of the Interior; and many others. Peter Kwiatkowski also took the lead for the Task Force agencies to present the ASR plans at the workshop.
The Committee is grateful for the participation in the workshop of the following invited experts: Walt Schmidt, Florida Geological Survey; Robert Renken, U.S. Geological Survey; Donald McNeill, University of Miami; James Cowart, Florida State University; Joan Rose, University of South Florida; Richard Harvey, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; Joan Browder, Southeast Fisheries Science Center; Mark Pearce, Water Resource Solutions Inc.; Rich Deuerling, Florida Department of Environmental Protection; and Tom Missimer, CDM-Missimer International. We are also grateful for the oral and written comments of other participants in the workshop. The Committee also acknowledges the previous efforts of the ASR Issue Team members, many of whom attended this workshop, who identified many of the crucial gaps in knowledge in their 1999 report to the Task Force.
Within the CROGEE, the Workshop was planned by a subgroup consisting of CROGEE members Jean Bahr, Patrick Brezonik, and John Vecchioli and NRC staff officer Will Logan. Following the workshop, the CROGEE members present met to outline their major conclusions. These were drafted, presented to the full CROGEE, and revised during a closed meeting the following day. Subsequent to the workshop, participants submitted additional materials to the committee ( Appendix D), and these were also considered in drafting the report. All members have had a subsequent opportunity to review the full text of the report, which should be considered as a consensus report of the full CROGEE. It should also be emphasized that these conclusions do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the other participants in the workshop.
This report has been reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise, in accordance with procedures approved by the NRC's Report Review Committee. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the institution in making its published report as sound as possible and to ensure that the report meets institutional standards for objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative process. We wish to thank the following individuals for their review of this report:
Wilfried H. Brutsaert, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
James Crook, Black & Veatch, Boston, Massachusetts
James T. Morris, University of South Carolina, Columbia
Zhuping Sheng, El Paso Water Utilities, Texas
Carol Wicks, University of Missouri, Columbia
William W. Woessner, University of Montana, Missoula
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Although the reviewers listed above have provided many constructive comments and suggestions, they were not asked to endorse the conclusions or recommendations nor did they see the final draft of the report before its release. The review of this report was overseen by George M. Hornberger, University of Virginia, appointed by the Division on Earth and Life Studies. Dr. Hornberger was responsible for making certain that an independent examination of this report was carried out in accordance with institutional procedures and that all review comments were carefully considered. Responsibility for the final content of this report rests entirely with the authoring committee and the institution.
James M. Davidson, Chair
Committee on Restoration of the Greater Everglades Ecosystem
Jean M. Bahr, Chair
CROGEE Subcommittee on Aquifer Storage and Recovery
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Contents
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