Snowbirds, Flock for the Everglades!

by | Apr 15, 2021

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Spring is here and many of our part-time residents are migrating home for the summer.  If you consider yourself a part of that flock, flock, and flock for the Everglades!

No, not by taking your boat out onto the Florida Bay to catch a tarpon, or driving up to Everglades National Park to meander along the Anhinga Trail, but by using your voice for Everglades in the place you call home the remainder of the year. 

We need you to talk about the Everglades at home because it requires federal funding and widespread support to make it happen. In 2000, when the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) was first passed, it set-up a cost share program between the state and federal government to complete the most ambitious ecosystem restoration project in the world. In its more than 20 year history, the state has outspent the federal government nearly three to one!

The Biden Administration is now presented with the opportunity to make the investment to restore America’s Everglades. Since the devastating seagrass die-offs on Florida Bay that began in 2015, there has been much progress and the momentum on the side of restoration. The state legislature has funded at full levels since 2019 and that has translated into tangible action to send water south. This evidence is most visible with the progress in the construction of the EAA Reservoir Project; the singular project with the greatest potential impact for sending clean water south to Florida Bay. The momentum to restore the Everglades and save Florida Bay has never been greater, and what we need now is a commitment to $725 million a year for the Everglades from Washington. 

What does this have to do with snowbirds? 

Everglades restoration already receives bipartisan support from nearly all members of the Florida Delegation. We now need the rest of the members of the House and Senate to understand what you know already: that there are no other Everglades in the world, that the water you drink in your home in the Florida Keys depends on a healthy Everglades, that the value of your home is based on the quality of the water, and that you want to sEverglades restoration fully funded so your grandchildren might have the opportunity to enjoy Florida Bay as you have. We need your voices now to make that happen.

As you flock north on Highway 1 for the last time of the season, commit to using your voice for Florida Bay. Use it to support $725 million a year for the Everglades. Florida Bay will thank you during your return migration in the fall!