Florida Attempts the Largest Hydraulic Restoration Project In the World To Save the Everglades (vice.com) 98
New submitter ar2286 shares a report from Motherboard: Florida is defined by its water -- the water flowing around it, through it, increasingly over it. But throughout the twentieth century, its major arteries of fresh water, which flowed from the Kissimmee River south of Orlando to Lake Okeechobee and down to the swampy Everglades, were permanently rerouted by the federal government and landowners to stop flooding, and make room for agriculture and housing in the southern part of the state. Now the state is working with the Army Corps of Engineers -- the government agency partly responsible for rerouting and draining water to begin with -- and the South Florida Water Management District to attempt the largest hydraulic restoration project in the world. And while some say the effort has turned Florida into a battleground, pitting sugar farmers against legislators and environmentalists, others are hoping this will finally right certain man-made wrongs and restore some balance to the state. If the government is able to fully fund the plan, and should dozens of contractors and state forces successfully carry it out, it could permanently change Florida. And set a precedent for inevitable restoration projects around the world, which are becoming increasingly crucial as climate change manifests in stronger storms and sea level rise. The state is embarking on such a massive restoration project because the aging levees and control gates surrounding Lake Okeechobee are at risk of failing during large storms and/or heavy rainfall. "The more rainwater that increases in Lake Okeechobee, the more pressure is on the lake, and that pressure can continue to build up and build up and build up and one day the levee can go," said Tammy Jackson-Moore, a Belle Glade resident who co-founded Guardians of the Glades, a nonprofit focused on community advocacy. "And we're talking about wiping out entire communities here." The rerouting has allowed for bursts of economic growth, but it does have its consequences. "The Everglades, the largest swath of subtropical wilderness in the country, is now half of its size circa 1920, and the ecosystem has deteriorated, losing wildlife and native flora," reports Motherboard. "Without a natural place to flow, stagnant water pushes toxic algae blooms into the rivers, and turns pristine ocean into sludgy waste."
As someone who lives in Florida (Score:3, Interesting)
All I can say is "Good!"
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Re:As someone who lives in Florida (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly this. If you like the environment, vote for things like this.
Also, if you believe in sensible government, you should support this. There are few things stupider than corn subsidies, but sugar subsidies are one of them. These sugar farms are totally uneconomical, and would immediately go out of business without government support ... and that doesn't even count the billions we spend to destroy the Everglades on their behalf.
Re:As someone who lives in Florida (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly this. If you like the environment, vote for things like this. Take down things like dikes and dames and allow Nature to return to itself.
I would agree with this to some extent.
Humans can be redisplaced from rural places where they are tearing up the enivronment and moved back into cities where they belong and can be managed.
Uh, OK, this is where you lost me. Move them back where they belong? As if a city is some kind of natural formation of concrete and greed. And we're talking about (rural) farmers here. You also going to vote for higher taxes to subsidize the growth in welfare to sustain farmers when you remove them from the job they know? And please don't attempt to throw a steaming political pile of STEM in my face as the solution here. Natural limitations often define the kind of job people do in life, and not every brain is cut out for a STEM job.
Earth gets to heal Herself and people become less of a plague on Earth. In the long run concentrations of populations is a good thing for efficiency of people, management of people (no one is X miles away from an administrative body), and biodiversity can regain its roots (no pun intended) throughout the rest of the lands and waters.
Ah, so efficiency of people is the goal here? Well, fuck it, let's not stop with all those "greedy" rural land owners. You spoiled bastards in your houses with your half-acre yards need to go too. I say we cram every human into apartment buildings like sardines; you know, for efficiency's sake. That way no one has grass-filled yards to waste water on, tends of thousands of separate air conditioners can be removed from the environment in favor of massive 100-story high-rise living, where everyone gets a standard-issue 750SF of administratively controlled living space. And of course, let's not forget in 10 years when cities are 10-million strong in population, the efforts we'll go through to re-route streams and rivers, once again cutting off natural habitats in order to provide enough water to feed the concrete jungle we insisted on shoving every human into.
I agree there needs to be a balance here, but cities are not where every human belongs. Part of the point of keeping our planet beautiful is to enjoy it, which often means populating areas that are not a fucking cancerous cesspool of concrete wasteland.
Re:As someone who lives in Florida (Score:5, Insightful)
You also going to vote for higher taxes to subsidize the growth in welfare to sustain farmers when you remove them from the job they know?
Americans pay more than $3.5B per year to support only about 100 sugar farmers. So unless welfare recipients receive more than $35M each, no tax increases will be needed.
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Americans pay more than $3.5B per year to support only about 100 sugar farmers. So unless welfare recipients receive more than $35M each, no tax increases will be needed.
This is absolutely not true. This is baseless BS from a group that was fighting sugar industry subsidies, which are less than $100M. It doesn't hold up to any common sense test. Surprised even you would be so blind. But, hey, anything you read that suits your need....................
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Americans pay more than $3.5B per year to support only about 100 sugar farmers. So unless welfare recipients receive more than $35M each, no tax increases will be needed.
This is absolutely not true. This is baseless BS from a group that was fighting sugar industry subsidies, which are less than $100M. It doesn't hold up to any common sense test.
So what you're saying is that unless welfare recipients receive more than $1M each, no tax increases will be needed? Thanks for clearing that up.
Re:As someone who lives in Florida (Score:4, Informative)
The number is actually much higher. Those government subsidies for the 'select few' sugar farmers are used to raise the price every American pays for sugar. This article estimates that it is costing US consumers $47B.
http://dailysignal.com/2017/07 [dailysignal.com]... [dailysignal.com]
If you will look Google maps you can see a gigantic sugar operation right south of Lake Okeechobee. In the middle of it is a plant that converts sugar cane into another subsidized product, ethanol, for a gasoline additive. This operation is so large it cuts off all of the natural flow between Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades forcing it into canals.
Simply get the sugar farmer's hands out of the government money and all of this would collapse since the entire operation is uneconomical without government support.
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The number is actually much higher. Those government subsidies for the 'select few' sugar farmers are used to raise the price every American pays for sugar. This article estimates that it is costing US consumers $47B.
http://dailysignal.com/2017/07... [dailysignal.com]
If you will look Google maps you can see a gigantic sugar operation right south of Lake Okeechobee. In the middle of it is a plant that converts sugar cane into another subsidized product, ethanol, for a gasoline additive. This operation is so large it cuts off
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The number is actually much higher. Those government subsidies for the 'select few' sugar farmers are used to raise the price every American pays for sugar. This article estimates that it is costing US consumers $47B.
http://dailysignal.com/2017/07 [dailysignal.com]... [dailysignal.com]
If you will look Google maps you can see a gigantic sugar operation right south of Lake Okeechobee. In the middle of it is a plant that converts sugar cane into another subsidized product, ethanol, for a gasoline additive. This operation is so
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The number is actually much higher. Those government subsidies for the 'select few' sugar farmers are used to raise the price every American pays for sugar. This article estimates that it is costing US consumers $47B.
http://dailysignal.com/2017/07 [dailysignal.com]... [dailysignal.com]
If you will look Google maps you can see a gigantic sugar operation right south of Lake Okeechobee. In the middle of it is a plant that converts sugar cane into another subsidized product, ethanol, for a gasoline additive. This operation is so
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Seems there was a hiccup at slashdot.
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" It calls for the human population to be warehoused in gigantic megacities and the rural areas to be depopulated. "
It's a swamp, not a 'rural area'.
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You obviously haven't spent much time in bayou country ;)
Bayou
In usage in the United States, a bayou is a body of water typically found in a flat, low-lying area, and can be either an extremely slow-moving stream or river, or a marshy lake or wetland.
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The number is actually much higher. Those government subsidies for the 'select few' sugar farmers are used to raise the price every American pays for sugar. This article estimates that it is costing US consumers $47B.
http://dailysignal.com/2017/07 [dailysignal.com]... [dailysignal.com]
If you will look Google maps you can see a gigantic sugar operation right south of Lake Okeechobee. In the middle of it is a plant that converts sugar cane into another subsidized product, ethanol, for a gasoline additive. This operation is so
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As if a city is some kind of natural formation of concrete and greed.
It's the wrong question. "Natural" is no longer sustainable. Human populations at the current level, living what is now considered a middle class lifestyle are unprecedented in the history of the planet.
So what is best isn't necessarily to try to return to a primitive lifestyle of small, isolated villages with stone-age technology. There are still a few native cultures where people live in villages and wear clothes made from wild animal skins, e.g. some Greenland Inuit. But if North Face tried make its ja
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Likewise imagine treating sewage for a city with a million people in it. It's a massive undertaking, but it doesn't cost much per person to do treatment that takes raw sewage and turns it to something that appears like clean river water. Take that million people and distribute them across a thousand neolithic villages of a thousand people and there's a lot more environment impact.
Only if you use the wrong system. If you just go ahead and use composting toilets, or if you must have flush then use AIWPS [sswm.info] then you can turn poop back into an asset instead of having it be a problem.
Re:As someone who lives in Florida (Score:4, Interesting)
Exactly this. I am moving from Western PA to the Finger Lakes region of New York. I bought a few acres and all of the land that didn't have trees or the frog pond on it was just mowed. Next Spring I'm going to till about an acre at least and plant crops for my wife and I to eat. Add a couple of chickens and beehives, plant some fruit trees.
Lawns are a waste of otherwise arable space for the most part. Sure we'll have some lawn area for recreation, but when I see a huge yard that is just mowed it irks me a bit.
I'm even going to plant clover and wildflowers over the septic leech field. Food for the bees.
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Next Spring I'm going to till about an acre at least and plant crops for my wife and I to eat. Add a couple of chickens and beehives, plant some fruit trees.
Will you also apply for farm subsidies?
https://www.wikihow.com/Get-a-... [wikihow.com]
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Hahaha. No.
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Hahaha. No.
Why not? Hobbyists get subsidies too, check the link.
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I don't want subsidies. Don't need them. My career in IT was/is very good to me (in the process of semi-retiring). Perhaps if I expand beyond an acre or two; I have right of first refusal should my neighbor decide to sell the 5 behind us. He's not doing anything with it, although the meadow and the more distant birch trees are lovely.
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Take down things like dikes [sic] and dames...
What do you have against women?
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Exactly this. If you like the environment, vote for things like this. Take down things like dikes and dames and allow Nature to return to itself.
All genders bear equal responsibility for this problem.
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>Earth gets to heal Herself and people become less of a plague on Earth
The attitude of 'humans are the pinnacle of Creation and Nature should be bent to their will' was admittedly extremely ignorant... however, so is the hippy bullshit you're spouting.
The reason we need biodiversity now is we recognize our ignorance and technological limitations prevent us from intelligently managing a sustainable biosphere that is human-friendly, not because Gaia's sad if we destroy the wetlands.
Life on Earth is in its
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So why aren't we looking at returning the island of Manhattan to it's original, beautiful, state? [gizmodo.com]
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As someone who doesn't (Score:2)
All I can say is "stop wasting money on that soon-to-be-submerged spit of sand and swamp, and spend it on a state that will still be here in a hundred years".
Drain it dry (Score:1)
Then kill all the damn pythons and imported crapfish, then refill in a controlled manner.
In the long run it doesn't matter (Score:5, Insightful)
As sea level continues to rise the Everglades (and most of Florida) will disappear under the ocean sometime between 100 and 300 years from now.
Re:In the long run it doesn't matter (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes. It is totally and completely insane to spend any money trying to do anything with Florida except buy people out of their homes, which is cheaper than any other option. And those who deliberately moved to that glorified sand bar deserve nothing.
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Are you sure about that being the cheapest option? The Dutch have been living on land that's below the sea-level rather successfully for centuries.
Now granted, there are coastal areas that cannot be defended with dams, because water can seep in through limestone etc. But the reason I'm asking is that relocating an entire state is bound to
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The Dutch are not surrounded by water on 3 sides, nor are they subjected to hurricanes, at least not of the sort is Florida. They are also not afflicted by brainless politicians who cannot think further that their kickbacks.
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We're surrounded by water on 2 sides plus two of the major rivers of Europe. Agree on the 'no hurricanes', but we have the Dutch + English coasts acting as a funnel into the English Channel, so we get storm surges much higher than one would expect of a 12 Beaufort wind.
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It's important to point out, most of Florida's NATURAL terrain might have once been low-lying, but 99.9% of the buildings in Florida aren't sitting on natural terrain, nor are their ground floors anywhere close to sea level (let alone below it). Most actual buildings sit on several feet of engineered fill dirt, dredged from manmade lakes & canals.
As far as I know, it hasn't been legal to build habitable buildings that are LITERALLY "below sea level" (or even "below floodplain level") in Florida since th
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What, exactly, does "the science" disagree with me about? The series of water control structures and "freshwater to saltwater gradient" plans aren't some dark, secret plot... South Florida Water Management District and the Army Corps of Engineers have always been pretty open about their priorities and plans. Their unambiguous missions are, in descending order:
1. Prevent urban land from flooding (and create new developable urban land wherever possible)
2. Secure a reliable supply of cheap fresh water suitabl
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The science that says you can expect 10 feet or more of sea level rise in 150 to 300 years. Yes you can probably make good things like you're talking about happen over the next 50 or 75 years but sea level will be rising for a long time until the great ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica catch up with the warming that's already occurred. The last time CO2 was over 400 ppm as it is now sea level was around 70 feet higher than it is now. There's no guarantee that won't happen now either, it will just ta
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zOMG! 10 whole feet in 150 years! Run for the hills!
300 years is longer than the United States has existed as a country.
The oldest surviving structure(*) in the ENTIRETY of Miami is only 160 years old [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] ]... and it's been badly-damaged by hurricanes so many times, it presents a genuine "Ship of Theseus" problem to historians because there's almost nothing LEFT that was actually part of the original house. The oldest surviving structure in Fort Lauderdale [ https://en.wikipe [wikipedia.org]
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What does 10 feet of sea level rise do to Miami and much of Florida? Doesn't that much rise move the coastline back 20 or 30 miles around much of the state? I agree it's slow enough that it's not going to be a sudden disaster but it's not something that will be stoppable either.
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It would if the land were in its natural state... but it's NOT. It's been DECADES since Florida has had anything vaguely resembling a natural coastline or terrain. South Florida wasn't "developed" so much as "terraformed".
How to envision Florida:
1. Dig deep lakes and lots of canals.
2. Dump the excavated rock and dirt to raise the level of the surrounding terrain.
3. Repeat on grand scale.
Here's a great example -- https://www.google.com/maps/@2... [google.com]
It's the city of Weston, Florida (approx. 10 miles west of down
Re: In the long run it doesn't matter (Score:2)
Just to emphasize, Florida does NOT use levees and dams to hold back ocean. It can't, because the limestone bedrock is too porous. The weight of the water on the "wet" side would eventually push it under the levee and up through the ground on the "dry" side.
Florida DOES have levees and flood-control structures, but they're purely for handling transient flood events (ie, storm surge or days and days of rain from a "slow, wet, and sloppy" tropical storm. They only have to hold back the water long enough to gi
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During our lifetimes you may be correct but as I said the last time CO2 levels were 400 ppm sea levels were 70 feet higher than they are now. It would probably take 500 years or more to get there but it may be inevitable. On top of that where is south Florida going to get fresh water from? As sea level rises it pushes into the fresh water aquifers they are currently using.
Re: In the long run it doesn't matte (Score:2)
Aquifers are the current best source of cheap, good water... but they're not the ONLY source. Dade, Broward, & Palm Beach counties ALL get quite a bit of water from Lake Okeechobee. They PREFER aquifer water because it needs less processing (i.e, it's cheaper), but all 3 counties could get all their water from the lake if necessary (though it might require expansion of their water-treatment capacity if they had to use lake water for everything).
If sea levels rose 100 feet, Florida would raise the lake t
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The surface elevation of Lake Okeechobee is less than 20 feet above sea level. Do you seriously think people are going to willing to spend the trillions of dollars it would take to raise it and all of the streams that feed into it plus raising all the other terrain the cities and farms are built on. How much are your taxes going to go up to pay for it all? It ain't going to happen.
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All at once? Of course not. Over the span of several hundred years? Yes.
Over time, "Lake Okeechobee" would become MULTIPLE lakes... Okeechobee, defined by its current dike... a new freshwater lake comprising what's now the "everglades" portion of Broward & Palm Beach counties (let's tentatively call it "Lake Seminole") connected to the original lake via canals, a new brackish-water lake between Tamiami Trail and I-75 (let's tentatively call it "Lake Miccosukee"), Florida's new Caribbean Coast (so named
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On a 100-year timeline, you're going to see problems within a human lifetime, but not so quickly people can't react to them.
I say... don't bother doing much at all. People will move out on their own as the ground becomes soggy with seawater. Or we get New Nice replacing Little Havana.
Mostly I think the government ought to be looking at removing anything that will cause large-scale pollution problems if it ends up abandoned and at least partially submerged.
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I say... don't bother doing much at all. People will move out on their own as the ground becomes soggy with seawater.
That's a nice theory, but it doesn't hold up. We have a fund for repairing people's homes, and it doesn't include any means testing, sunset date, or even maximum amount spent. The same property can get flooded and rebuilt again and again. It's very difficult to sell a home which has been flooded and which will almost certainly flood again, unless it's on a beachfront. Then it's just expensive to do the work, and we all pay for it.
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Ahh. Do one thing, then; add a sunset clause to that fund, stage it in based on anticipated rate of natural disasters by area and decade.
Maybe you get 90% assistance now, but 80% in the event of flooding after ten years, etc. And maybe add another clause that the rate can be adjusted as models are improved and annual measurements accumulate. Possibly add a third bit that says you can take a (small but non-zero) payout from the fund to assist with relocation, and set the amount to be less than the anticip
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FEMA might repeatedly pay to rebuild, but it still requires mitigation against future flood events. So flood #1 might destroy your house, but flood #2 will probably just destroy your car and everything in the garage (because FEMA would have required that your repaired/rebuilt house be raised on new pilings or a higher foundation). This is EXACTLY what happened in the coastal parts of New Jersey that were destroyed by Sandy.
Likewise, if your basement (but NOT the first floor) gets flooded in a state like Mis
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Newsflash: sandy beaches don't occur naturally (or at least, don't consistently exist as wide expanses of white, sparkling "sugar sand"). The fact that we HAVE wide, sandy beaches in Florida AT ALL is due to all of that "moving sand from the ocean". If Florida beaches ceased to be constantly rebuilt, within 10-20 years, most of them would revert to either mangrove swamps or foot-deep water washing up against a concrete seawall (like in Key West).
Beach erosion isn't some new thing... it was happening DECADES
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Do nothing most certainly not buying them out.
The economic impact of not buying people out of their only home is significant.
Screw it (Score:4, Funny)
Epic facepalm (Score:1)
It's "hydrologic", not hydraulic.
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After reading the title I was trying to figure out if they were attempting to raise the state of Florida to increase its height above sea level.....
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You joke, but...
http://www.miamirealestateguy.com/miami-beach-to-raise-west-avenue-1-to-2-feet-to-combat-rising-sea/ [miamirealestateguy.com]
Sell it back to Spain? (Score:2)
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That's not how technology works. When you let corporations have free rein, they don't produce more tech, they produce more pollution. It's when you place limitations upon them that they come up with novel solutions.