DeSantis says Florida should manage Everglades restoration

On Thursday, Gov. Ron DeSantis said he plans to ask Trump to let Florida take over Everglades restoration, essentially ending a 25-year partnership with the Army Corps of Engineers.

The sometimes uneasy partnership between the Corps and state was established to execute the 2000 plan authorized by Congress. While it ensures the costs for fixing decades of damaging flood control are shared, the deal also guarantees federal oversight of environmental protections, which can be more stringent than state rules.

But repeated delays, often at the hands of Congress, have caused costs to quadruple. The price now hovers at about $23 billion. Yet in justifying the move, DeSantis slammed the Corps.

“ We don't want to be bogged down by red tape. We don't want to be bogged down by bureaucracy,” DeSantis said at a Juno Beach press conference. “That is not how some federal agencies, like the Army Corps of Engineers, approach things.”

While DeSantis argued the state is far outspending the Corps on the plan, last year’s tally shows the split nearly even: the Corps has spent $2.6 billion and the state $2.8 billion. The state has also spent $2.6 billion to clean up water pollution, but that’s a separate issue for which Florida alone bears the cost.

Late last year, the Corps unveiled a new plan schedule loaded with delays. Among them was work on a reservoir south of Lake Okeechobee. Florida considers the project key to reducing pollution spreading from Lake Okeechobee to northern estuaries during the rainy season. While DeSantis may blame the Corps for slow work, the delay is connected to a towering embankment wall circling the reservoir, which was required after Florida lawmakers downsized the reservoir from a large shallow project to a smaller, deeper reservoir.

Nearly two decades after Katrina topped failed levees in New Orlean – a breach blamed partly on shortcuts demanded from the Corps by local officials – the Corps remains fastidious about flood safety. No surprise, considering a different reservoir recently completed has had leakage problems.

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