Nor is urban development any panacea. Despite its greater economic benefit, such development continues to destroy South Florida's native ecosystems and demands ever-greater quantities of increasingly scarce water. Although much remains to be learned, the pollution problem in the Everglades is reasonably well defined. An upper limit for phosphorus of 20 parts per billion has been set, although this amount may still be too high. Retention and treatment are the only known ways to eliminate the pollution.
Retention is a known technology that can be quickly implemented.
While designing retention areas is a straightforward engineering problem, the loss of this quantity of water to the Everglades would have to be made up with another source of clean water, which would be difficult. Using water from Lake Okeechobee is a possibility, if its phosphorus levels can be reduced. By contrast, treatment requires discharging farm drainage into an artificial marsh that would store nutrients and produce clean water. In 1988, the U.S. attorney for the southern district of Florida took an unprecedented action, filing a complaint on behalf of the United States against the Florida Department of Environmental Regulation and the South Florida Water Management District in an effort to protect the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge and Everglades National Park from the effects of polluted agricultural drainage water. Every major Florida and national conservation organization intervened on the side of the United States.