Saving the Everglades

The Everglades are in dire need of such aid. A century ago, water flowed uninterrupted from the Kissimmee River into Lake Okeechobee and then south through the Everglades before emptying into Florida Bay. But decades of agricultural, residential and commercial development fundamentally altered that ecosystem. Water was drained, rerouted and polluted. As a result, the nation's largest subtropical wilderness--which is home to dozens of federally threatened and endangered species, including the Florida panther and American crocodile--has shrunk to half its former size. It is literally dying.

More than 15 years ago, Jones and his friend Barley grew aghast at this ecological disaster, which was ruining their beloved sport of tarpon fishing with pollution-induced algae blooms. So in 1993, they started the Everglades Foundation. Two years later, however, Barley died in an airplane crash while on the way to a meeting in Jacksonville about the Everglades. At Barley's graveside, his widow, Mary, and Jones vowed to carry on the fight. "We all became more committed," says Mary Barley, now the foundation's vice chair. "It gave me something to do to shut my pain down." One of the foundation's earliest battles, in 1996, was a drive to levy a penny-per-pound pollution tax on sugar growers. Though Jones poured $11 million into that effort, the industry responded with a $24 million countercampaign that succeeded in stifling the measure. But another proposal backed by the foundation--a constitutional amendment requiring that polluters bear the brunt of cleanup costs--was approved by voters that same year.

The foundation has found an ally in Crist. When Jones took him on that 2007 fishing trip, he urged the governor to appoint more eco-sensitive people to the South Florida Water Management District, which oversees Everglades projects. Later that year, Crist named a former Everglades Foundation board member, Shannon Estenoz, to the SFWMD's board. Along with other Crist appointees, she helped shift the balance of power away from agribusiness interests. The effect became clear last summer, when the board voted to halt the agricultural industry's longstanding practice of pumping excess water back into Lake Okeechobee.

In response, U.S. Sugar dispatched a few of its lobbyists late last year to complain to Crist, according to the governor's spokesman (the company declined to comment). In the course of that meeting, Crist broached an idea that took the industry representatives by surprise: buying out U.S. Sugar. That launched the discussions that produced the landmark deal, which is scheduled to close in November. The accord is "the most stunning news since we started working on Everglades restoration," says Mary Barley. Her husband would undoubtedly be proud.

© 2008