Progress Toward Restoring the Everglades: The Second Biennial Review, 2008, Committee on Independent Scientific Review of Everglades Restoration Progress, National Research Council
“The Committee on Independent Scientific Review of Everglades Restoration Progress (CISRERP) was established in 2004 in response to a request from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), with support from the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) and the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI), based on Congresss mandate in the Water Resources Development Act of 2000 (WRDA 2000). The committee is charged to submit biennial reports that review the CERPs progress in restoring the natural system. This is the committees second report in a series of biennial evaluations. The committee concludes that the CERP is bogged down in budgeting, planning, and procedural matters and is making only scant progress toward achieving restoration goals. Meanwhile, the ecosystems that the CERP is intended to save are in peril, construction costs are escalating, and population growth and associated development increasingly make accomplishing the goals of the CERP more difficult. Lack of timely restoration progress by the CERP, to date, has been largely due to the complex federal planning process and the need to resolve conflicts among agencies and stakeholders. However, future restoration progress is likely to be limited by the availability of funding and the current authorization and funding mechanisms. In periods of restricted funding and limited capability to move forward on many fronts, the ability to set priorities and implement them is critical. Much good science has been developed to support the restoration efforts, and the foundations of adaptive management have been established to support the CERP. To avert further declines, CERP planners should address major project planning and authorization hurdles and move forward expeditiously with projects that have the most potential for contributing to natural system restoration progress in the South Florida ecosystem.”
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