The third in a series of stories on the greater Everglades.

What begins as an agribusiness dream can turn into a noxious-weed nightmare.

Consider the march of Arundo donax, also known as the "giant reed," through the western United States.

Spanish settlers brought the Mediterranean native to California about 300 years ago to reinforce riverbanks, build roofs and feed livestock. Problem was, Arundo wasn't so swell at stopping erosion.

However, it was great at hitchhiking.

Centuries of storms have swept the reed into flood plains and forests, where the species easily elbows out native plants from sun and water. The green giant, which grows in bamboo-like clusters up to 30 feet tall, can be found in 23 states today. Arizona, California, Texas and Nevada list the reed as a noxious weed and spend tens of millions annually to strangle it.

"We never talk about Arundo eradication around here," concedes Joe DiTomaso, director of the University of California Davis' Weed Research and Information Center. "We just try to contain it."

So given the West's giant reed woes, a plan to grow the perennial grass in Florida is raising eyebrows.

For several years, Gulf Breeze, Fla.-based Biomass Investment Group Inc. quietly cobbled together a deal to plant 20,000 acres of giant reed as feedstock for a power plant in south-central Florida. The company hired the French firm Technip to design the power plant and inked an agreement with Progress Energy Florida to buy its electricity output -- about 130 megawatts per year.

Progress officials tout that the biomass project would boost the state's green power and curb its greenhouse gas emissions. But as word of the project's proposed feedstock spreads, opposition is sprouting.

Biomass Investment Group officials declined interview requests for this article. But public records show that the company recently sold its biomass-to-energy pyrolysis technology to Dubai-based Innovative Energy Group.

Kevin Mills, a former Biomass Investment Group executive and current vice president with IEG's Florida subsidiary, vowed in an interview to break ground on the project next summer. Three sites near Lake Okeechobee are under consideration.

Mills would not specify the locations of those tracts, but he emphasized that none is amid the Everglades Agricultural Area that separates Lake Okeechobee from the Everglades. The sprawling lake and farming basin are central to a $10.9 billion plan to restore the quality and quantity of water that flows southward into the fabled River of Grass and 1.5 million-acre Everglades National Park -- an ecosystem already bedeviled by Melaleuca quinquenervia and other invasive species (see sidebar).

"Frankly, we would not want to put [Arundo] in a place where it would be irresponsibly grown," Mills said. "The problem was that it was irresponsibly grown in California."

But how does a company grow 20,000 acres of giant reed and ensure that it doesn't hitchhike in a hurricane? And how close is too close to the Everglades watershed?

Those familiar with the power project debate whether the reed's risks outweigh its potential rewards.

"This seems to be a high-risk option," said Alison Fox, a University of Florida agronomy professor and chairwoman of the Florida Exotic Pest Plant Council, an independent panel of researchers, government officials and land managers.

"We haven't been good as a society at controlling invasive species," she added, "and Florida has suffered more than many states."

Prolific plant

The Arundo donax that grows in North America doesn't produce a viable seed, scientists say. Rather, the reed spreads through underground roots and regenerative fragments.

Even with marginal sun and soil, an Arundo root node as small as a cubic inch can grow into a towering plant, noted Tom Dudley, who directs the Riparian Invasives Research Laboratory at the University of California Santa Barbara.

"These things are like ginger on steroids," Dudley said of the bulb-like rhizomes. "They have a really good ability to regenerate."

In California, the reed thrives at the base of stormwater pipes and other places where water is loaded with nutrients from upstream farms. The plant stands more than 150 feet wide and stretches for more than 20 miles along the banks of the Santa Clara and Santa Ana rivers, near Los Angeles.

The thickets are so dense that even a cat cannot pass through, watershed managers claim.

Unlike native riparian plants, giant reed provides little shade for waterways and the fish and wildlife that depend on them. Add fire to the mix, and the plant has an even bigger advantage over the natives.

"It's incredibly flammable," Dudley explained. "When fire wipes out riparian vegetation, Arundo often comes back stronger."

Chemical poisoning, mechanical plowing and manual plucking are the preferred ways to control giant reed. Scientists are testing European insects as control agents, but deploying enough bugs in the battle may be a few years away.

The stem-boring wasp pictured above, called Tetramesa romana, lays eggs in a young shoot of Arundo donax. U.S. scientists are testing the insect, which is native to Europe, as a biological agent to help control the reed in California. Once the wasp's hungry larvae hatch, they consume the plant's stem from within. Photo courtesy of the University of California Integrated Pest Management program.

It is these very same hearty characteristics that make giant reed an attractive energy crop, agribusiness supporters say.

Steaming ahead

Arundo, or "e-grass," as Mills and his colleagues have branded it, has a high yield per acre, low maintenance costs and high tolerance to pests and drought, according to documents filed with the Florida Public Service Commission, which regulates the state's utilities.

Florida's balmy climate could produce a full Arundo crop twice a year, and each harvest would yield about 15-20 dry tons per acre. What's more, fields would not need to be tilled after the initial planting because the rhizomes remaining in the soil would regenerate, Biomass Investment Group officials promised in a presentation last summer at the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services' "Farm-to-Fuel" summit.

Company officials also vowed to build buffers around their flat Florida fields and harvest the reed at an immature state to mitigate the risk of rhizomes spreading. Giant reed would be shredded in the fields and converted into synthetic "bio-oil" through an oxygen-free thermochemical process, according to the presentation.

In California, Arundo donax (foreground) thrives along waterways and overtakes native vegetation that provides shade for fish and wildlife. Along the Santa Clara and Santa Ana rivers, for example, Arundo stands stretch more than 150 feet wide for more than 20 miles, watershed managers say. Photo courtesy of Regents of the University of California.

Mills, whose parent company is developing additional e-grass projects in Italy, Honduras, Jamaica and Mexico, said Arundo is the most cost-effective energy crop his company could grow in Florida. No native plants nor other imports could produce enough biomass for the power plant, he underscored.

Progress officials say they need the greenhouse gas-free electricity for their Florida service territory, which is growing by more than 30,000 customers annually. Using local biomass rather than coal in the power plant would prevent emissions of more than 20 million metric tons of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases, company officials claim.

"We need new sources of clean power to meet demand," explained C.J. Drake, a Progress spokesman. "Coal has gotten a really chilly reception here."

Indeed, Gov. Charlie Crist (R) signed an executive order last summer to reduce Florida's greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent by 2025. In the meantime, the first-term Republican wants Florida to get 20 percent of its electricity from sun, wind and other renewable sources.

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