Office of the Secretary

For Immediate Release: Hugh Vickery

November 4, 2003 202-501-4633

Interior Department Accomplishments in

Everglades Restoration Since 2000

• Ensuring Restoration of Natural Flows. President Bush and Governor Jeb Bush signed a landmark agreement in January 2002, to restore the Everglades, as required to implement the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP). The agreement is enforceable and binding. It will ensure the restoration of natural flows to the Everglades. Under the agreement, the state commits to managing its water resources so that water produced by the plan’s implementation will be available to restore the natural system. Meanwhile, the federal government commits to be an active partner in obtaining funding and working with the state to implement the plan.

• Developing sound programmatic regulations. Interior staff assisted the Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) in its development of the programmatic regulations that ensure the goals and purposes of the CERP are achieved and set the procedural framework to guide implementation of CERP. The final regulations were developed through a cooperative process involving the Corps, the state, the Seminole and Miccosukee tribes and other stakeholders in South Florida and are a significant step towards a restored Everglades. Along with the binding assurances agreement signed last year by President Bush and Governor Bush, the regulations provide certainty we will “get the water right” for both Everglades and the people of South Florida.

• Breaking Ground on CERP. In partnership with state of Florida, the Department recently participated in the ground breaking of the first CERP project, the Southern Golden Gates Estates Hydrological Project. In three construction phases, the restoration project will backfill most of a 7-mile drainage canal and remove 26 miles of adjacent roadways associated with the former Southern Golden Gates Estates subdivision. It will re-establish surface water sheet flow to restore wetlands within the project's boundaries and in the adjacent Fakahatchee Strand State Preserve, which supports the largest stand of native royal palms and the largest concentration of orchids in North America. The project will also contribute to the restoration of habitat that supports endangered Florida panthers and wood stork as well as the threatened red-cockaded woodpecker, bald eagle and eastern indigo snake.

• Completing Everglades National Park. The National Park Service acquired virtually all remaining lands within the park, thereby providing permanent protection for this important resource.

• Recovering Key deer. The Fish and Wildlife Service is finalizing its plan to ensure the recovery of the endangered Key deer, a species native to the Florida Keys at the extreme southern end of the greater Everglades ecosystem. The population, which once numbered about 300 during the 1970s, has grown to an estimated 600 to700 individuals. The Department provided $300,000 to translocate deer to previously occupied areas. The initial movement of deer occurred on May 14-15, 2003, when four were moved from Big Pine Key to Sugarloaf Key. Additional recovery activities to be accomplished with this funding include more translocations, a soft-release enclosure on Cudjoe Key; and research and monitoring of translocated deer.

• Working cooperatively to manage Loxahatchee NWR. The Fish and Wildlife Service and the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) approved a 50-year license agreement under which the Service will continue to manage state-owned lands that make up 97 percent of Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge. The license agreement represents a commitment by the Department to work cooperatively with the state in managing this important resource.

The Fish and Wildlife Service also signed a cooperative agreement with the SFWMD to implement the Loxahatchee Impoundment Landscape Assessment Cooperative Agreement (LILA), a research project that will serve as a pilot study to define hydrologic regimes that sustain a healthy Everglades ecosystem. The approach will be to sculpt key Everglades landscape features, overlay controlled hydrologic regimes with flow rates that simulate historic flows, and measure the response by wading birds, tree islands and ridge and sloughs. This project provides a unique opportunity to fill key information gaps of CERP and to provide the public with a rare opportunity to see restored Everglades habitat.

• Combating invasive species. The National Park Service has largely eliminated melaleuca at Big Cypress National Preserve. In addition, the department recently expended $1.3 million to eliminate melaleuca and other exotics on approximately 20,000 acres at Loxahatchee NWR. Efforts are underway to expand this effort. Construction is under way on a $6.2 million invasive species research facility that will help develop better techniques of exotic species in the Everglades.

• Conserving the Cape Sable seaside sparrow and other key species. The Corps of Engineers and the SFWMD have worked in partnership with the National Park Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service to develop a series of interim water management operations to avoid jeopardy to the endangered Cape Sable seaside sparrow. The most recent of these is the Interim Operational Plan, or "IOP.” The Department is working with the Corps and SFWMD to monitor and evaluate actual IOP operations and will incorporate the results of the monitoring into the development of the “Combined Structural and Operational Plan” or "CSOP." Furthermore, the agencies will increase stakeholder participation in the development of CSOP to incorporate a full range of views into the decision-making process.

The department also held two “Multi-Species Avian Workshops” this year under the auspices of the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Task Force. The overall goal of this effort is to develop a common understanding of the science and make it available to all parties, including decision makers. The first workshop reviewed the most current scientific information available on key indicator avian species in South Florida, including the Cape Sable Seaside Sparrow, wood stork, snail kite and roseatte spoon-bill. The second workshop provided a forum to integrate this most current scientific information into management and policy.

• Conserving the Florida panther. A team of experts assembled by Fish and Wildlife Service biologists developed a draft landscape conservation strategy for panthers in South Florida using an open and collaborative process. The strategy identifies lands essential for the continued conservation of panthers in South Florida, as well as a landscape linkage to provide for population expansion to aid in recovery of the species.

• Reaching agreement on the 8.5 Square Mile Area. In January, 2003, Secretary Norton announced the administration's support for efforts to provide explicit statutory authority for the Corps of Engineers to implement Alternative 6-D for the 8.5 Square Mile Area. This alternative, under the Modified Water Deliveries project, represents a compromise plan to provide a buffer area between Everglades National Park and the remaining developed portions of the 8.5 SMA. This new plan allows for the protection of the natural resources of the park while providing the required flood mitigation for the area. Legislative authority was forthcoming in the FY 2003 Omnibus Appropriations Act.

• Working with stakeholders. The South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Task Force, chaired by Ann Klee, counselor to Interior Secretary Norton, has met many times this year to continue discussions among governmental representatives and stakeholders to resolve conflicts and coordinate science and restoration activities.