Whenever I visit a new place, I always like to read about it. I have been to Florida many times, and lived in Florida for a short time, but the state never ceases to amaze me. I enjoy novels and nonfiction about Florida–soaking it all in like a sponge. I adore Carl Hiaasen’s novels–in large part because most of what he describes could really have happened. Betsy Carter is another of my favorite Florida writers.
I have had my own bizarre Florida experiences from a Dayquil induced stupor of a trip to Key West with my (at the time) new husband (Battling one of the most horrendous colds I have ever had), to a first-hand experience of the Miami Orchid Show, to strolling the sleepy streets of Sarasota at 9:00 pm after everyone in town had gone to sleep. I have traveled the road from Miami to Key West and back several times, and roamed around in parts of Miami and Miami Beach where no self-respecting individual would be caught. (This was before Hertz Neverlost. Love Hertz!) I have had a lizard live in my bathroom and taken a giant Englishman to buy a swimsuit and go to the beach. I have had fourteen carpenters sleep on my living room floor and gone with the carpenters and my fellow intern roommates to the beach at night in our pajamas because we could. I have stalked alligators by moonlight with fellow graduate students at the Montgomery Center in Coral Gables. I have driven across Alligator Alley in the dark, terrified that I would get a flat tire and disappear into the Everglades forever.
During my last trip to Florida, over the July 4 weekend, I purchased and devoured The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida and the Politics of Paradise, by Michael Grunwald.
The Swamp
Co-workers laughed at me when I told them that the book was “a bit dry,” my comment being a bit incongruous with the title. It is a little dry, because it is a book containing lengthy descriptions of water policy in Florida since, oh, about 1500. It is also a fascinating, devastating, humbling historical record of the destruction of the Everglades from the 1860s to the present day, and what that means to the citizens of South Florida, and of the United States as a whole.
When I wrote my history paper about the post World War II population boom in Florida, I read much about land speculation, drainage, marketing and imagery, but there did not exist a resource so thorough in its treatment of the literal wrestling with the land that has occurred in Florida over the last two hundred years. South Florida is naturally a “River of Grass,” as Marjory Stoneman Douglas wrote in her 1947 book of the same name. Starting from the “Chain of Lakes” at the headwaters of the Kissimmee River, and flowing through Lake Okeechobee, the Everglades covered the entire southern third of Florida with 1-3 inches of slowly flowing water.
Map of Everglades
During the industrial revolution, when “conservation” of land was actually viewed as “subjugation” of land for use by people, drainage project upon drainage project was begun to reclaim the Everglades for “productive use.”
We, as a collective population, as about 1/2 of the work was funded directly or indirectly by taxpayers, spent 100 years undoing, subduing and generally tinkering with the natural system of the Everglades. Forgetting a moment the beautiful plants and animals that live in the Everglades and nowhere else, think about South Florida’s fresh water supply. Florida is the land of farms–cattle, tomatoes, citrus, lettuce, potatoes, and more. Visitors who stray beyond the confines of Disney World are often surprised that much of the state is rural. Well, much of each of the 50 states is rural, with some type of farming or ranching taking place in all but the most inhospitable areas.
The water supply for the entirety of South Florida is filtered, held and taken from natural aquifers below the surface of the Everglades. During most of the 20th century as farming expanded and the population along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of Florida grew, water control became a top issue for politicians and real estate developers. Southern Florida is a sub-tropical area, meaning that it experiences wet and dry seasons. The winter is dry, the summer is wet. In the winter, water can be scarce. In the summer, overabundant. To keep farmers and residents happy, the Everglades was subdued, controlled and the natural flow re-routed. It was also damaged beyond repair.
Ok, so lots of things and places have been damaged beyond repair. To me, the situation in the Everglades is indicative of a widespread problem of progress and innovation. It can be used as a metaphor for many situations facing us today, from scientific research on the cellular level to wars and culture clashes. In the quest for further, faster, better, sometimes we make mistakes that we don’t even know we are going to make. That might be ok if you are baking cookies, but not if you are re-routing entire water supplies or re-writing trade agreements. With the Everglades, it started with Phosphorous. Despite efforts to dredge and drain, the real killer was phosphorous from fertilizer applied to farmlands south of Lake Okeechobee, that then flowed, unfiltered into the Everglades. This phosphorous influx harmed the Everglades more than almost anything else because the entire ecosystem–one third of the state–was a naturally occurring low-phosphorous zone. The massive influx of the nutrient caused plants and animals, and everything else in the chain of life to suffer.
This relates to modern innovation and scientific study because the phosphorous was applied to solve a problem on the farms, without thinking, or even possibly knowing, what it would do to the rest of the ecosystem beyond the farm. (Everglade death was a common occurrence in farm plants during the early twentieth century before farmers learned that the mucky Everglades soils, while rich, lacked copper–a micronutrient vital for plant growth. It is possible that the consequences of phosphorous on the Everglades system were entirely unknown. This relates to The Law of Unintended Consequences, popularized and defined in the 1930s by Robert K. Merton.
The Law of Unintended Consequences states that by taking one action, other, unknown reactions will occur. That is what, sadly, seems to have happened with the Everglades. Say what you want about pride or arrogance, I believe the real problem was that people rushed to action without having any understanding about the broader implications of their actions. We know better than to drain wetlands now, and cause potential floods. We do not always know what will happen when we de-stabilize a country, or tinker with interest rates, or clone an animal. That does not mean we should not do such things. (I’m not really in favor of de-stabilizing entire geographic regions, in general.) We should, however, try to gather as much information before acting as possible, and act based on the greater good–not just the greater padding of our wallets. Much damage inflicted on the Everglades was inflicted by people seeking to make money. While that was super for the people making the money, it is those left in the wake that pay the price. Money is necessary. Growth is necessary. Production is necessary. So, if we want a nice future for our children, is thought, reflection, study and context. There will always be unintended consequences–that we cannot change. We can try, though, to act based on a desire for the greater good and not just a greater account balance.
Not Just an Environmentalist
I found The Swamp to be an interesting piece of work because it was, overall, fairly balanced in its treatment of the history of the Everglades. I learned things about famous people in Florida’s history that I never knew. Grunwald is careful to present all sides of an argument, and relate little-known information about major players in Florida’s history. Historical figures get a second chance, or at least a second look, in The Swamp. Nixon, apparently funneled much money during his administration toward restoration projects in the Everglades. (In addition to creating the EPA) Audubon shot and killed almost every bird that he painted. These little tidbits that ran contrary to popular knowledge about certain individuals made the book interesting and quirky. (Almost making up for the many, MANY pages of Army Corps of Engineers policy described in the book.) The Swamp is not an environmental manifesto. It is a history of a piece of land and the people involved with it.
For me, the book served as a spark to think about wide-sweeping policies, research, behaviors and activities, and the future. If we don’t learn from the past, we will repeat it. That is an over-used phrase, but is true. The Swamp serves as much more than a history book; it is also a cautionary tale describing a metaphor for any march into the unknown.
