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A degraded area within the Miccosukee Reservation (in Water Conservation Area 3A) that is within the footprint of the Western Everglades Restoration Project (WERP). Photo taken by Diana Umpierre, September 2018. |
On Wednesday, October 19, 2022, at the South Florida Ecosystem (Everglades) Restoration Task Force meeting held in Washington, DC, Sierra Club Organizing Representative Diana Umpierre submitted virtual verbal comments regarding the critical need for prioritization of the Western Everglades Restoration Project (WERP):
“Sierra Club does not want WERP [the Western Everglades Restoration Project] terminated, period! In fact, it should be a top priority of both agencies.
Sierra Club wants the stormwater treatment areas (STAs), the water quality components, to happen as part of CERP and for the cost-share issues between the federal and state [governments] to be resolved. It is absolutely crazy to consider ecosystem restoration as separate from water quality restoration. One is not possible without the other. Concerns about current willing sellers must not limit the agencies from evaluating potential alternatives on where to put the STAs.
Government agencies must prioritize listening to both Tribes and follow their advice on how to resolve the remaining concerns. We echo the calls that have been made to not delay this again, and to keep an aim for WRDA 2024. In fact, WERP should have top prioritization of time, funding, and resources, because WERP is the kind of “crown jewel” ecosystem restoration that we need.
Lastly, we want to make clear: We owe to the tribes, from whom the Everglades was stolen from. We owe to listen to them and follow their guidance, and we must prioritize what they tell us should be prioritized, and not the projects that both tribes have told us that they have serious concerns with, if not, outright straight opposition. Among them, Sierra Club has consistently raised its opposition to the currently flawed design of the super unnaturally deep EAA Reservoir and the misrepresented claimed benefits with an STA that is not sized big enough. Much “noise” has been made by certain stakeholders making the EAA Reservoir sound far more important than WERP, and hence, hurting the need for WERP to have the higher priority.
Sierra Club asks [to] start listening to the people of the Tribal nations that are truly the longest stewards, and that still live in the very heart, of the Everglades.”