Posted on 10/17/2003 6:24:14 AM PDT by AAABEST
A helicopter carried Gov. Jeb Bush into the heart of the western Everglades on Thursday to officially break ground on the first project in the $8 billion Everglades restoration plan about seven years ahead of schedule.
“This is going to be an incredible project,” Bush said of the Southern Golden Gate Estates Hydrologic Restoration as some 250 people gathered.
Thursday’s groundbreaking sets in motion Phase I of the project, which fills miles of canals, tears out roads and eradicates exotic plant species to reverse decades of drainage and return the land to the Everglades.
While many projects benefiting the Everglades are up and running or under construction, the Southern Golden Gate restoration is the first under the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan approved by Congress in 2000.
Locals call the 94-square-mile area the Southern Block.
Developers in the 1960s divided the land into 19,000 lots, laid a 290-mile crisscross of roads and dug 48 miles of canals.
Over the years, the water table dropped dramatically and invasive species such as Brazilian Pepper and melaleuca moved in.
Now local, state and federal governments are working together to return the land back to the Everglades.
Workers will fill in seven miles of the Prairie Canal, one of four main canals that drain the abandoned subdivision; remove about 25 miles of road; destroy exotic plants that choke the natives; and add culverts to Stewart Boulevard and Janes Scenic Memorial Drive.
The work will raise the water table 4 feet, protect the Naples well fields, restore habitat for endangered species such as the Florida panther and return more normal water flow patterns to Florida Bay.
One property owner refuses to sell, district officials said.
“I’m not a big fan of eminent domain,” Bush said. “But it appears we may have to use it to remove this one person.”
State and federal dignitaries came to turn dirt with Bush, too. But each gave credit to lesser known people, such as Judy Warrick, the woman in charge of buying the lots for the state since 1998.
“This has been very dear to my heart,” said Warrick, a native of Southwest Florida who now works in Tallahassee.
Giddy state workers snapped pictures of each other with the ceremonial brass shovels and hard hats.
“We did it,” Big Cypress Basin Director Clarence Tears Jr. said softly after the ceremony.
Tears has been working on the project since 1995, and he said he was thrilled to finally see dirt moved.
“Because I know 50 years from now people will be thanking this generation for all their efforts,” Tears said.
Audubon of Florida Everglades Policy Director April Gromnicki said the early start sends a strong message to Congress.
“The state is really showing commitment in moving ahead of the federal process,” Gromnicki said. “This is real. This is real — I’m not going to say concrete — restoration.”
What’s not said in this incredibly biased article is that the people who live just North of this “restoration” will have their water table raised (water seeks it’s own level) and have their property devalued and flooded. Which is exactly what the enviros want, so they can continue their detestable consumption of the American dream.
Jeb is their best friend, just as he was when the people in the 8 ½ square mile area to had their property flooded, devalued and taken.
The guy GOP Jeb is talking about using eminent domain against is Jesse Hardy. There was a big push on this forum for Jesse a while back. He’s a disabled vet who would make history as the first Florida homesteader to have eminent domain used against him in such a fashion.
I strongly urge any conservative or liberty minded American reading this to do whatever it takes to ensure that this man never EVER becomes President.
He can't stop the murder of an innocent woman, but he CAN take people's homes from them. I was a Jeb Bush supporter until now. Citizens of Florida, VOTE HIM OUT, ASAP!
Free Republic thread on Jesse Hardy.
Intentional flooding of people living in hte 8 1/2 square mile area.
Always good to see you btw.
Specifically: Article X, Miscellaneous, Section 6 = Eminent Domain
FLORIDA STATE CONSTITUTION
Should "we" the people wish to change the Constitution, let's have at it.
I say this knowing full well that I bore many, however we live by laws.
Should the law [Constitution] be in need of amending, by all means, let us amend it.
LOL. "Delicate eco-system" huh, nice keywords.
Let's start with the premise that the Everglades is only around 6,000 years old. We already have a 100 mile wide swath that the government is ruining known as "Everglades National Park". Putting that once beautiful area on government welfare was the worst thing to ever happen to it. The populations of warm blooded vertibrae has plummeted since we've entrusted their care to disintersted gov employee bureaucrats from Colorodo, Maine or wherever.
Why is it that you people think that giving property over to the government somehow is good for the environment?
I don't know what clownish literature you've been reading but please tell me how adding 2 feet of nutrient and phosphorus contaminated canal water to this area restores anything. Nothing is being restored as the land was never in the condition they want to make it into. Even their own damn scientists are saying that it's not going to work.
Don't let that stop you however from blurting out platitudes on how an 8 billion dollar socialist boondoggle is just great for everyone.
I'm with ya on that G-man. Sadly however, it seems the only time the dopey populace wants to change the constitution is when they want to afford protections to pigs!
May we join your club? We just elected the same thing in CA, according to his published campaign "EnvironMental Agenda!"
More like a support group.
My friend, that will be the understatement of the day!
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