Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, dams and levees were built to tame the Everglades to make room for agriculture and suburbia. But in hindsight, it had a devastating impact for maintaining the flow of clean fresh water in the Glades. Yesterday an event was held to celebrate a milestone that reverses some of that damage.
The 275-mile-long Tamiami Trail connects Tampa to Miami, slices right through the Everglades and essentially acts as the biggest dam in Florida. It blocks the flow of fresh water through the River of Grass, which is damaging to wildlife, our water supply and ecosystem. It’s been a problem for a long time time.
Now, nearly two decades since Congress first launched a plan to fix it, a one-mile bridge has been built to replace a portion of the old road .At the dedication ceremony, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar drove a Toyota hybrid over the $154 million road project. It was his eleventh and perhaps last official visit to Florida.
“Wherever I go from sea to shining sea, from the oceans of Alaska to the oceans of the gulf, I always tell the world that when you want to look at an ecosystem that is actually being restored, the place to go is the Everglades in Florida", said Salazar.
When all is said and done, in decades to come there may be up to 6.5 miles of bridging . Julie Hill-Gabriel is Everglades policy coordinator for Audubon of Florida. She says as sea level rises and contaminates our drinking water, restoring our fresh water flow is critical.
“Now We’ve seen from the National Academy of Sciences, National Resource Council, If we can recreate the natural fresh water flow it will create a barrier to the salt water intrusion", Hill-Gabriel said.
Even with this new bridge, fresh water won’t be flowing yet. That is until the portion of the road it replaces is gone by the end of the year.