The Everglades Forever Act is a Florida law passed in 1994 designed to restore the

Everglades The Everglades is a natural region of tropical climate, tropical wetlands in the southern portion of the U.S. state of Florida, comprising the southern half of a large drainage basin within the Neotropical realm. The system begins near Orland ...

. The law recognized, the “Everglades ecological system is endangered as a result of adverse changes in water quality, and in the quantity, distribution and timing of flows, and, therefore, must be restored and protected.” The law was codified i
§ 373.4592, Florida Statutes
The law was amended twice in 2003.

History

The Act was approved by Governor Lawton Chiles on May 3, 1994, and is filed as Chapter 94-115 of the General Acts, Resolutions, of the Florida Legislature published in 1994.

Phosphorus Reduction

The Act directed the State of Florida to develop a phosphorus criterion standard for the

Everglades Protection Area The Everglades Protection Area is a protected area of the Florida Everglades as defined by the Everglades Forever Act, and includes Water Conservation Area 1 (a.k.a. the Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge), Water Conservatio ...

Everglades Construction Project (1997)

Using data collected from the

Everglades Nutrient Removal Project The Everglades Nutrient Removal Project (ENRP) was a demonstration-scale wetland project proposed by the Everglades Forever Act. Functioning as a prototype for the much larger scale Everglades Construction Project, the ENRP was designed to model th ...

, which acted as a small scale model offering insight into the best implementation of both design and management, the Everglades Construction Project began in the spring of 1997 and was part of an $825 million water quality restoration project included in the Everglades Forever Act. In an effort to help restore the Everglades ecosystem, the project proposed the construction of 6 flow-through treatment marshes, called

Stormwater treatment area Stormwater treatment areas (STAs) are constructed wetlands divided into flow-through treatment cells that remove nutrients from agricultural and urban runoff water. The nutrients are consumed through plant growth, and captured by accumulation of d ...

s, to help reduce phosphorus levels in water that was bound for

Everglades National Park Everglades National Park is an American national park that protects the southern twenty percent of the original Everglades in Florida. The park is the largest tropical wilderness in the United States and the largest wilderness of any kind east ...

. Meant to augment the natural filtration abilities of marshes, the plan called for STA construction on more than 40,000 acres of land. Each of the STA locations are positioned downstream of major agricultural discharge canals therefore ensuring that all water flowing to the Everglades would first have to pass through for treatment.

Agriculture Privilege Tax

The Act created a tax on farmers in the

Everglades Agricultural Area The Everglades Agricultural Area Environmental Protection District (EAA EPD), better known as simply the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA), is an area extending south from Lake Okeechobee to the northern levee of Water Conservation Area 3A, from ...

, which would be reduced if farmers in the EAA complied with Best Management Practices.

References

1994 in Florida Everglades Florida statutes {{florida-stub