Biennial Report Finds Little Progress, Many Hindrances
Ecosystems are in peril, construction costs are rising and encroaching development threatens the restoration of Florida’s Everglades, while the joint state-federal restoration effort “is bogged down in budgeting, planning and procedural matters and is making only scant progress.” That’s the bleak summary of the National Academy of Sciences’ second biennial report on the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) mandated by Congress and released on Sept. 29.
“Future restoration progress is likely to be limited by the availability of funding” and the cumbersome authorization and funding procedures required by law, the report adds. It calls for CERP planners to “move forward expeditiously with projects that have the most potential for contributing to natural system-restoration progress.”