All agree at least some money is worth spending on Everglades restoration. Efforts already underway aim to reconstruct marshlands that act as filters for polluted runoff from farms and urban areas. The final tab for Everglades restoration depends heavily on the result of a reexamination of the canal system by the same Army Corps of Engineers that built it in the first place. The most volatile funding question is how much state's sugar industry should pay. The industry has long been excoriated by environmentalists for shedding polluted water from sugar fields into the park's water supply.
Critics argue the amount is too small.
The issue has heated up again with a state supreme court ruling in November that all polluters, not just sugar growers, must share the cost of restoration. A lawsuit filed within days by the environmental Everglades Foundation calls on state courts to shift the burden back to sugar. Meanwhile, the bulk of the bill continues to be paid by the taxpayers, and local and national politicians are making hay from the saw grass. The park's recovery has been a centerpiece of the Clinton White House, which has encouraged huge expenditures while the Congress has kept its hands off the subsidies that keep sugar cane fields in operation. And while preserving the Everglades generally draws bipartisan support among Florida politicians, the future is less clear.