Sunday, August 14, 2005

Restoring national treasures

By Deb Price / Detroit News Washington Bureau

J. Pat Carter / Associated Press A great egret sits on top of a dead tree in the Florida Everglades as a thunderstorm moves across the area. Comment on this story Send this story to a friend Get Home Delivery

Over the past two decades, Congress has agreed to help rescue three other celebrated environmental sites. Here's a look at ongoing federal efforts elsewhere:

Everglades

History: Flood-control projects by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that began in the late 1940s succeeded in protecting south Florida homes and businesses. But the dams and canals created to steer excess water into the ocean robbed the Everglades of water and nutrients essential to maintaining the only subtropical preserve in North America, where alligators and crocodiles live side by side. The Everglades, which stretch from central Florida to the Florida Keys, shrank to one-third of their early 20th-century size. As a result, 68 plant and animal species have been designated as threatened or endangered, up to 95 percent of the wading-bird population has disappeared, and more than 1.5 million acres have been infested by invasive exotic plants.

Federal bailout: To try to restore the Everglades, Congress in 2001 passed the Restoring the Everglades plan, which envisions $7.8 billion in matching state and federal funds to buy land, take out canals and flood lands to restore wetlands and wildlife habitats. So far, Florida has come up with its annual contribution. But critics say the federal government is using accounting gimmicks to shortchange the joint effort.

Louisiana wetlands

Mike Dunne / The Advocate A dredge fills in a horseshoe-shaped area at the mouth of the Atchafalaya River near Morgan City, La., in 1998 to mimic a natural pattern of islands. The islands are part of a coastal restoration project.

History: Louisiana's expansive coastal wetlands are essential to sustaining migrating birds and a wide range of fish, crabs and shrimp. Unlike other areas that have lost wetlands to residential and commercial development, Louisiana has watched much of its wetlands turn into open water because of erosion and sinking land -- an estimated 1,500 square miles of lost wetlands since 1932 -- explaining why its widespread change in landscape is likened to the disappearing Italian city of Venice.

Federal bailout: In 1990, Congress passed the Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection and Restoration Act, later reauthorizing it until 2019. Under the act, Congress sets aside about $50 million a year for the wetlands project, and Louisiana adds about 15 percent more from taxes on water-based activities such as motor-boating. The plan includes stabilizing shorelines with boulders to reduce land loss due to waves, restoring marshes by adding nutrient-rich sediment that increases growth of marsh grasses, and diverting water from the Mississippi River to reduce salinity in areas overwhelmed by ocean water to encourage native plants to grow. Congress now is weighing the Louisiana Coastal Area Ecosystem Restoration Plan, which would target about $1.9 billion in additional money to high-risk sites over 10 years and for future studies and construction projects. The Iraq conflict and the budget deficit have forced advocates to concede the improbability of getting the $14 billion over 30 years that government scientists say is needed to correct the wetlands catastrophe.

Chesapeake Bay

Steve Earley / Virginian-Pilot Scientists and volunteers distribute 40,000 oysters around an artificial reef made out of mounds of oysters shells on Paradise Creek in Maryland's Chesapeake Bay.

History: This famed oyster and crab waterway along the Atlantic Ocean is threatened by nutrient overload from inadequate sewage treatment in the surrounding communities, chicken and pig wastes, and fertilizer from home lawns, golf courses and farms. The overload results in algae proliferation, which disrupts the food chain and depletes oxygen, killing fish. The algae also block sun from ecologically critical water grasses, thinning them out and thereby reducing them as food and shelter for baby fish and other small organisms. Included in the watershed are Maryland and Virginia, which bookend the bay, and New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware and West Virginia, which are part of the watershed because their waterways flow into the bay.

Federal bailout: In the early 1980s, Congress authorized the Environmental Protection Agency to coordinate federal and state efforts to save the bay, and about $20 million in federal money a year has followed. Last year, the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Blue Ribbon Finance Panel, a task force set up by governors in the watershed to speed up progress, called for at least $15 billion to rescue the bay with $12 billion coming from the federal government and the rest from the states. Maryland lawmakers are working on a comprehensive bill for a large-scale restoration effort, which could be introduced as early as next year.