Everglades and St. Lucie River advocates are watching with guarded optimism as construction begins this year on the C-44 Reservoir and two stormwater treatment areas (STAs), in rural central Martin County.

In late January, the state of Florida finalized the purchase of 12,000 acres for the three projects, using funds raised through the sale of bonds. The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) hailed the purchase as part of Governor Bush's October 2004 Acceler8 initiative, aimed at fast-tracking critical Everglades restoration projects.

According to Randy Smith, a spokesperson for SFWMD, the 3,400-acre reservoir will be designed to capture and store rainfall and irrigation water draining from agricultural lands into the C-23 canal. The C-23 is a tributary of the larger C-44 canal which links Lake Okeechobee to the St. Lucie Estuary in Stuart. "We can also funnel some water from

Lake Okeechobee into the reservoir for storage," Smith added.

The above-ground reservoir, 15 feet deep and surrounded by berms, will lead to a pair of STAs totaling 6,200 acres, before the water is discharged into the C-44 Canal, and then the St. Lucie River.

The STAs are passive water-treatment marshes, where a mix of rooted and floating vegetation slowly extracts phosphorous and other nutrients, remnants of fertilizers applied by farmers upstream. Excess nutrients, added to pristine waterways in Florida, can fuel algae blooms, much like the swath of blue-green algae which covered the surface of the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers in the summer of 2005. That bloom came directly from Lake Okeechobee, a source of harmful water discharges that won't be directly curtailed by the C-44 and Martin STAs.

A handful of STAs are already in operation along the periphery of the Everglades Agricultural Area, south of Lake Okeechobee, where phosphorous from sugar farming has allowed invasive cattail to displace native sawgrass in parts of Florida's famed "River of Grass."

According to Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Colleen Castile, construction of the reservoir and STAs in Martin County "will advance the restoration and lead to the long-term recovery of the St. Lucie Estuary."

Mark Perry, director of the Florida Oceanographic Institute on Hutchinson Island, expressed some reservations about the Martin County projects. Perry is a staunch advocate for the health of the St. Lucie Estuary, directing a team of local volunteers who monitor water quality each week.

"The best way is to treat water at the source of the problem, so that before it goes into the reservoir or STA, it will already be low in phosphorous and other nutrients," he said. "I'm concerned there will be a buildup of phosphorous in the reservoir, so the STAs may become overloaded, and after awhile they'll need to be expanded or changed somehow." "Along the St. Lucie Canal there is a 25-mile stretch where 31 drainage basins come into the canal, from a 116,000-acre watershed, primarily citrus," Perry explained. "The best thing to do is, go upstream into those basins, find out where high discharges are coming from, and work with the farmers to implement Best Management Practices."

Perry said BMPs may include limiting fertilizer use, employing different irrigation methods to conserve water and perhaps building "pre-treatment" reservoirs on farms. "At this point, BMPs are basically voluntary," he said.

Martin County contributed over $20 million to the reservoir and STA projects, slated for completion in 2009. Public access to the water treatment marshes is one topic to be discussed at a meeting and open house scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 16, 5:30 p.m., at the Indian River Community College Chastain Campus, 2400 SE Salerno Rd., in Stuart. A 100-acre county park will be adjacent to the lands, and waterfowl hunting may be permitted, as it has on other District STAs, said Smith.

The fiscal year 2007 budget slashes funding for the National Oceans Service by 23.5 percent, the National Marine Fisheries Service by 5.4 percent and Atmospheric Research by 4.8 percent.

“These drastic cuts in oceans funding, proposed by the Bush administration, will prohibit implementation of any of the recommendations from the Pew and U.S. Oceans Commissions. Although these recommendations to restore health to the nation's ocean ecosystems were largely endorsed by the president's own ocean action plan, his Administration seems anxious to 86 them,” Leape said.

FS