OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Stephanie Hanna (O) 202/208-6416

January 16, 1997

ADMINISTRATION ANNOUNCES INITIAL USE OF FARM BILL FUNDS FOR LAND PURCHASE IN EVERGLADES AGRICULTURAL AREA

The Clinton Administration today announced that the Department of the Interior has entered into an agreement with the South Florida Water Management District for the acquisition of 1,233 acres located in the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA) for Everglades restoration purposes. The federal/state $3.1 million joint acquisition of this property, currently in use as a sod farm located in Palm Beach County west of Boca Raton, represents the first use of funds provided in the 1997 Farm Bill for land acquisition in the EAA.

Kathleen A. McGinty, Chair of President Clinton’s Council on Environmental Quality, will discuss the announcement in her remarks at the annual meeting of the Everglades Coalition in Palm Beach on January 17.

“The restoration of the Everglades ecosystem is one of the highest priorities of the Clinton/Gore Administration,” McGinty said. “This initial acquisition of land in the EAA, in full partnership with the South Florida Water Management District, demonstrates our commitment to the continuing acquisition of lands critical to the restoration of the Everglades.”

The acquisition of lands in the EAA for water storage was one of the top two priorities for the expenditure of $200 million made available to the Department of the Interior for Everglades restoration in the 1996 Farm Bill. Both the Working Group of the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Task Force and the Governor’s Commission for a Sustainable South Florida recommended acquisitions in the EAA and the East Coast Water Preserve Area for water storage as the highest priorities

“When I took office almost four years ago, Everglades National Park and the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge were in a precipitous environmental death-spiral from causes that could not be fixed from within their boundaries,” Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt said. “With help from Governor Chiles, Senator Graham and a host of others, the Clinton/Gore Administration and the State of Florida have embarked on the largest, most inclusive and most complex landscape restoration initiative in this country’s history. Step by step, we are on target to turn destruction into restoration from the Kissimmee River to Florida Bay to the Keys.”

“The Everglades are an important part of Florida’s --- and the nation’s --- natural heritage. Everyone benefits from our efforts to protect and restore the Everglades,” Governor Lawton Chiles said. “This purchase of fragile Everglades land demonstrates how ourcoordinated state and federal partnership is working to accomplish our goal of Everglades protection and restoration. The purchase demonstrates our commitment to use every available tool to move our efforts to safeguard the Everglades forward.”

The lands will be incorporated into planned water storage areas within the EAA to help restore the hydrology of the Everglades ecosystem and provide a variety of environmental benefits, including restoration of natural sheetflow, reduction of pollution through retention of phosphorous loads, and reduction of waters otherwise lost to tide. The lands are intended to become part of a future Corps of Engineers project that will supplement the Stormwater Treatment Area designed to improve water quality.

Last month the Department of the Interior and the South Florida Water Management District entered into an agreement for $18.2 million of Farm Bill funds for the acquisition of four parcels in Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties for water storage in the East Coast buffer.

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