Everglades Restoration Threatens Historic Sites

February 15, 2010

Author: Andy Reid

Source: Sun Sentinel

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/palm-beach/fl-everglades-historic-sites-20100215,0,6948015.story

First, farming and development robbed the Everglades of its life-giving water flows. Now, making up for those environmental mistakes risks robbing the Everglades of its history.

Multibillion-dollar plans to recreate once-natural water flows to the Everglades involve building massive reservoirs and filter marshes across hundreds of thousands of acres south of Lake Okeechobee.

But saving an environmental treasure threatens to trample sacred ground. Some of the land identified for restoration includes historic sites where South Florida's earliest Native American inhabitants lived and buried their dead.

An infusion of federal money has been a shot in the arm for long-stalled Everglades restoration construction. Now South Florida's tribes and other advocates for preserving historic sites are calling for caution as construction plans spread to more land.