Senator Garrett Richter (R-Naples) is on the right track with his strong op-ed appearing in the Fort Myers News-Press urging more funding for the South Florida Water Management District's Dispersed Water Management program.

This year the district qualified 24 projects for ranchers and citrus growers to convert parts of their farms to literally "farm water", that is impound, or hold back water restoring water levels, wetlands, wildlife habitat, and slow the flow of water toward Lake Okeechobee and the fragile estuaries. Unfortunately, SFWMD only has enough funds to proceed with a small fraction of the projects that could be built. If all  24 of these projects were built, more than 100,000 acre feet of water (a single acre-foot is equal to about 326,000 gallons)would be held back from cascading toward Lake Okeechobee and the Estuaries.

This year, Audubon was pleased to be able to advocate the approval of a final Corps of Engineers permit to build the largest Dispersed Water Management project of all - the 16,000 acre, 30,000 acre-foot Nicodemus Slough project by the Lykes Brothers Corporation.  Under Dispersed Water Mangement, landowners are paid an annual fee to construct water retention works on their land and operate those works to specifications approved by the SFWMD.

Audubon has produced a short video about some of these projects and their significant environmental value:

Audubon Everglades Headwaters from Scott B. Taylor on Vimeo.