Claims of progress in Everglades restoration disputed

Key parties with stakes in the massive $8 billion Florida Everglades restoration project weighed in Friday before Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., one of the plan's architects.

At an oversight hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, witnesses for the Army Corps of Engineers and the Interior Department cited progress, such as the fact that 75 percent of the land that must be acquired to carry out the plan had already been bought. Still, concerns surfaced about federal actions that seem to violate the 37-year plan authorized by Congress in 2000.

Dexter Lehtinen, attorney for the Miccosukee Tribe, noted that four court decisions had ruled federal government actions illegal. For example, he said, a court found the Corps' condemnation of homes in west Miami-Dade County to have been unlawful.

The Senate is backing the Corps' action in language in the fiscal 2003 Interior appropriations bill. In another case, Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service is changing water levels north and sound of the Tamiami Trail to save an endangered sparrow in contradiction to how water levels are supposed to be changed in the restoration's master plan. As a result, the tribe does not believe federal agencies will stick to the plan, Lehtinen testified.

Environmental groups have other worries about the plan. The World Wildlife Fund's Shannon Estenoz said draft regulations for implementing the plan must be changed to require independent scientific reviews and audits so that the Corps and other government agencies are not reviewing their own work. Comments on the draft rules will close Oct. 1.