Advisers to the Nation on Science, Engineering, and Medicine

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 achievements of engineers. Dr. Wm. 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. Harvey V. Fineberg 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 furthering 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. Wm. A. Wulf are chair and vice chair, respectively, of the National Research Council

www.national-academies.org

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The Everglades of south Florida is truly a unique ecosystem. Nowhere else on Earth is there the same combination of a warm and alternately wet-dry climate, relatively flat topography, and predominantly limestone geology that came together in south Florida to create a vast wetland unlike any other. The animals and plants that live there have evolved in a unique environment and thus the biological community is unique as well. The ecological value of this ecosystem is reflected in the approval by Congress in 2000 of nearly $8 billion for its restoration. And restoration is needed: the changes that have occurred in south Florida over the past century have been dramatic. They include the development of large cities along Florida’s coasts; the development of agriculture in the region, especially to the south of Lake Okeechobee; and the construction of canals, levees, dikes, roads, and other structures in and around the Everglades designed to move water and people and to protect people and their structures from floods.

Restoring the ecosystem—or even successfully preventing further degradation—is an enormous and exciting challenge. There is no successful model to follow anywhere. Many components of the restoration plan depend on relatively new technologies, untried at the scale envisioned for the Everglades. A host of financial, political, social, environmental, ecological, administrative, and legal challenges make the effort even more complex. The stakes are high.

This is the seventh and final report¹ of the National Research Council’s (NRC) Committee on Restoration of the Greater Everglades Ecosystem (CROGEE),² which provides consensus advice to the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Task Force (“Task Force”). The Task Force was established in 1993 and was codified in the 1996 Water Resources Development Act (WRDA); its responsibilities include facilitating the coordination of the development of a comprehensive plan for restoring, preserving, and protecting the south Florida ecosystem, and the coordination of related research. The CROGEE, established in 1999, works under the auspices

of the National Research Council’s Water Science and Technology Board and Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology.

The CROGEE’s mandate includes providing the Task Force with scientific overview and technical assessment of the restoration activities and plans, while also providing focused advice on technical topics of importance to the restoration effort. The main topic of this report is the storage options in the restoration program. Replacing the natural storage and flow-damping functions within the Greater Everglades that have been lost through more than a century of drainage and development in south Florida is at the heart of the Restoration Plan’s goal of “getting the water right.” Thus, the success of this multidecadal, multibillion dollar restoration project hinges on the many project components related to storage, some conventional and some novel.

Over the past five years, the CROGEE has devoted several meetings to reviews of hydrologic and ecological analyses and other considerations with respect to water storage components proposed in the restoration effort. Those meetings included workshops, field trips, and public sessions. This final report of the CROGEE is based on information obtained during these meetings as well as additional review of literature and project documents by committee members. The Restoration Plan continues to evolve, and some recent changes that occurred after this report entered review were not evaluated by the committee. Whereas this report focuses on storage, because of the critical role played by storage components in the Restoration Plan, it also touches on and has implications for broader issues related to the scientific basis of the plan, some of which have not been fully explored in previous committee reports.

The entire committee, with valuable assistance from NRC staff David Policansky, William Logan, and Patricia Jones Kershaw, was involved in the development and writing of this report. The director of the Water Science and Technology Board, Stephen Parker, guided the overall effort and contributed substantively to the committee’s deliberations. Working with them has been educational and productive, and I am grateful to them all. The CROGEE is grateful for the numerous meeting presentations, assistance in data gathering, clarification of project documents, and fact checking provided by many individuals from the Army Corps of Engineers, the South Florida Water Management District, Everglades National Park, and other partners in the Restoration Plan. The committee has been impressed with the quality of service the staff of those agencies and others are providing to the public. They are dedicated, thoughtful, and able. We suspect that they, like the committee, are motivated at least in part by the wonders of the ecosystem we all have been focusing on. It is difficult to single any of them out for the help they gave to this committee, but I would be remiss not to give special thanks to Stuart Appelbaum, Nick Aumen, Ronnie Best, Michael Chimney, Steve Davis, Bob Johnson, Jayantha Obeysekera, John Ogden, Peter Ortner, and Kenneth Tarboten for their clear briefings, willingness to provide information, and their patient answering of the committee’s questions.

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:

David L. Freyberg, Stanford University

Steven P. Gloss, U.S. Geological Survey and University of Arizona

Louis J. Gross, University of Tennessee

Frances C. James, Florida State University

Stuart L. Pimm, Duke University

Rutherford H. Platt, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Jerald L. Schnoor, University of Iowa

Leonard Shabman, Resources for the Future

John Vecchioli, Odessa, Florida

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 and Frank H. Stillinger, Princeton University. Appointed by the National Research Council, they were 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.

Jean M. Bahr, Chair

Committee on Restoration of the Greater Everglades Ecosystem

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