On May 15, 2023, Everglades Law Center, together with the Everglades Foundation, National Park Conservation Association, and Audubon Florida, submitted comments to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as part of initial planning to revise operations of the Central and South Project (C&SF Project) to incorporate available portions of newly constructed and in-progress Everglades restoration projects.
The move to this new operational plan embodies a shift from a long phase of restoration planning to a new phase of implementing restoration actions and evaluating their success. Our written comments focused on the need for a broad scope of analysis, expanded monitoring and assessment, and attention to impacts on water quality and endangered species. Our comments also reiterated concerns we raised as part of prior operational planning. We emphasized the importance of ensuring flows to Everglades National Park in drier periods and droughts and maximizing flows through Northeast Shark River Slough. We also highlighted the need to recreate, to the maximum extent possible, a more natural flow regime in the wetlands and waters affected by the operations of S18-C and S-197 in the southernmost end of the C&SF Project.
(Photo Credit to John Campbell)