Restoring America's Everglades reflects the Department's strong commitment to collaborative conservation. The Department manages more than 3.1 million acres of conservation lands in South Florida, which is also home to more than 7 million people and a growing economy. Areas managed by the Department include Everglades and Biscayne National Parks, Big Cypress National Preserve and 16 national wildlife refuges, all of which protect habitat found nowhere else.
To preserve these resources for the future, the Department is implementing an aggressive restoration program with State, Federal, Tribal and local government partners and numerous stakeholders. With its partners, the Department is improving water quality and restoring more natural flows of water to the Everglades, restoring habitat, and recovering endangered species. The Department chairs the intergovernmental South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Task Force, which serves as a focal point for the ongoing collaboration that is necessary to undertake the largest watershed restoration program in the world.
During the last 5 years, the Department has worked with the State of Florida and its other Federal partners to lay a strong legal foundation to ensure that the water that is produced by the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) is available in sufficient quantities to restore the Everglades, while also providing for other water related needs in the region. President Bush and Governor Bush executed a binding and enforceable agreement to ensure that the environmental benefits of CERP would be achieved. Additionally, the Army has issued programmatic regulations, with the concurrence of the Department and the State of Florida, to guide the CERP during its four-decade implementation. We have established a National Academy of Sciences panel to provide continuous feedback on CERP's progress toward restoration so that we can adaptively manage and incorporate new information into our restoration projects.
Most importantly during the last year, Interior worked to advance the completion of important near-term restoration projects. In cooperation with our Federal partners and Congress, funding was secured to complete an essential component of the project to restore more natural flows to Everglades National Park this year. The Department has expedited review of those portions of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) that can be constructed within the next few years. The local sponsor, the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) is working to secure $1.5 billion in funds to forge ahead with portions of specific CERP projects that will increase water supplies for the environment and other users, while continuing long-range planning with the Corps of Engineers (Corps) on the remaining projects. The Department provides advice to the Corps and to the SFWMD on detailed design and operation of the projects to maximize ecological benefits throughout the Central and Southern Florida Project. We are active participants in interagency efforts to evaluate proposed CERP projects on a system-wide basis, monitor these projects after their construction, and administer an adaptive management program to continually seek opportunities to improve the design and operation of the CERP.
Speeches:
- Remarks as Prepared for Delivery
for The Honorable Dirk Kempthorne
Secretary of the Interior
The 22nd Annual Everglades Coalition Conference
(January 19, 2007)
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