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St. Thomas Law Review

First Page

645

Document Type

Article

Abstract

For more than a century, efforts have been under way to control water in the Lake Okeechobee/Everglades ecosystem. After years of scheming dating back to the 1840s, drainage projects began in earnest in the 1880s. Although each project was intended to make up for the shortcomings of the last, each was progressively more damaging to the environment, and thus necessitated another more expensive project. Thus, each project had unintended consequences. Throughout this progression of projects, opposing interests repeatedly found themselves in the Florida Legislature and the Florida Supreme Court. In those forums, the zeal for Everglades drainage produced an enlarged sense of executive power, new rules relating to land use and ownership that applied only in cases involving drainage projects, and a legislatively created special taxing district that burgeoned into an vast bureaucratic empire. Since the beginning in the 1880s, the underlying principle for every project and each new state and federal law could be encapsulated in the phrase "this time for sure." As the new millennium begins, yet a new project looms - the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (the Plan) - which proposes to undo the damage caused by the last major project, the 1948 Central and Southern Florida Flood Control Project.' To succeed at any semblance of Everglades restoration, the Plan must both overcome the immense political influence of agricultural and urban development interests which are competing for now-limited water supplies and inevitable litigation over priorities, private property rights, water quality, and the reservation and allocation of water use rights. The Restoration Plan must also escape the fate of all previous projects - major unforeseen consequences resulting from incomplete science and engineering and a failure to consider accumulating adverse environmental effects. Despite a consensus that the Everglades ecosystem is imperiled, it remains to be seen whether the Restoration Plan can practically or legally deliver on its promise of "this time for sure." Part I of this article describes Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades in their natural condition, as reported in primary sources prior to the 1880s. Part II describes unusual legal authorizations that led up to the drainage schemes of Hamilton Disston in the 1880s. Part III chronicles the Acts of the Florida legislature authorizing the excavation of the five Everglades canals between 1910 and 1926, the surprising disregard of the law that took place during this process, and the consequences of the excavation of those canals. Part IV sets out the unprecedented federal Acts regarding Lake Okeechobee in the wake of the hurricane disasters of 1926 and 1928. Part V explains the Central and Southern Florida Flood Control Project of 1948, the court's determination to implement it and its ecological consequences. Finally, Part VI places into historical context the proposals in the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan and compares the first phase of implementation to previous water control plans.

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