The Everglades Foundation has come a long way since it was started around a kitchen table in the early 1990s by two fishing buddies, George Barley and Paul Tudor Jones. They had noticed that the Florida Bay was degrading and wanted to do something about it.
In 1993, they began their nonprofit, which would use science, education and advocacy to spread the word that restoring natural water flow is critical to the health of the Everglades, Florida Bay, and South Florida’s estuaries.
Flash-forward to this past April: The Everglades Foundation hosted a gathering at Islamorada’s Safe Harbor Angler House to make an announcement to local officials. The $3 billion Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA) Reservoir project, a water treatment project to help restore the natural flow of water to the Everglades, had finally broken ground. It is set to be completed in 2029.
“All signs point to the success of the restoration project,” said Steve Davis, the foundation’s chief science officer. With a smile, he explained that water along the Tamiami Trail is flowing three times more as of 2024, helping to clean Florida Bay.
“But we’re not there yet,” he concluded.
Eric Eikenberg, the organization’s chief executive officer, told Keys Weekly that the foundation hosted the April gathering as part of a series of local events since January to take advantage of the momentum from the EAA Reservoir project.
“Our generation has a high calling to save what’s left,” he said. “The millions of people that come to the Keys annually as tourists are there because of the ecosystem. We want people to know it’s a trillion-dollar asset.”
Back at the gathering, Paul Hindsley, the Everglades Foundation’s chief economist, showed a slide presentation detailing the economic value of the Everglades.
“When I say it’s ‘an asset,’ it throws people off sometimes,” he told the crowd. “But it provides goods and services.”
Some figures: Over the past 50 years, the Everglades has contributed $1 trillion in such categories as real estate ($9.2 billion), recreation ($8.5 billion), and water supply ($1 billion).
“The response received in Washington from members of Congress was overwhelmingly supportive with this new messaging and data points,” Eikenberg said about the economic figures.
Some in the advocacy scene for Everglades restoration have bristled at the political lobbying by the Everglades Foundation. And to be clear, the achievements of restoring the Everglades are due to the combined efforts of a large network of organizations, scientists, tribes, fishing groups, businesses, and government agencies — not just the Everglades Foundation.
Some have accused the Everglades Foundation of “putting politics over science.”
“It’s unwarranted criticism,” Eikenberg told us firmly in response to the Miami Herald quote. “There’s no basis for it. We have a wonderful group of scientists. But you can have scientists all day long — you have to be in D.C. And we will use our political connections. The results are there. We see it as a unifying issue, not some wild, crazy detour. The political science plays a key role.”
On April 13, Eikenberg attended a ceremony to break ground on the EAA project with Gov. Ron DeSantis, who announced that all federally funded contracts for the reservoir had been fully executed.
“Today’s announcement is a powerful continuation of President Trump’s support for Everglades restoration dating back to his first term,” said Eikenberg at the gathering. “The EAA Reservoir will store, clean and send up to 120 billion gallons of freshwater south annually to the Everglades and Florida Bay, while protecting the coastal estuaries from toxic discharges.”
Islamorada environmental resources manager Peter Frezza, who attended the April 8 event at the Safe Harbor Angler House, said, “The EAA Reservoir is the most important thing going on right now in Everglades restoration. I think the Everglades Foundation is a great advocate. They are absolutely helping the cause of restoration, and I do see the value in talking about the economics. And I love their chief scientist (Steve Davis). That organization has to be incredible if he’s still there.”
Eikenberg said he is proud of being part of a 2015 petition by 207 independent researchers in the science community that called for excess water from Lake Okeechobee to be stored, treated and sent south.
“We grew the coalition over 10 years,” he said. “Together we went both to Tallahassee and to Washington in support of the reservoir. We passed legislation in 2017, and now Desantis and President Trump will have to complete it in 2029. We didn’t let the crisis go to waste. We rallied people. And the results are phenomenal.”
