WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — The multi billion-dollar project to restore the Everglades has come to a near standstill, and the government can no longer estimate how much it will cost or how long it will take, the top federal official in charge of construction told The Associated Press.
In part because Congress has failed to come through with the promised money, some tasks have fallen years behind schedule.
In the meantime, construction costs are rising, along with the price of the Florida real estate that must be bought up as part of the plan to restore the natural flow of water in the Everglades.
The largest wetlands restoration effort in the world — approved in 2000 and formally known as the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) — was originally estimated to cost $7.8 billion and take 30 years. By last year, the price tag had been put at $10.5 billion, and experts said it could take 50 years.
Now, it’s anybody’s guess.
“I don’t know what the cost of CERP is right now because the cost of land down there has skyrocketed and the cost of construction in South Florida has also gone through the roof,” Gary Hardesty, the Everglades restoration chief for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, told AP on Tuesday.
Because of the uncertainty over federal funding and a lack of scientific data that the projects will actually work, Hardesty said, the Corps is being forced to adopt a slower, more deliberate pace.
