Yesterday in the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, we considered the Water Resources and Development Act (or WRDA), the bill we pass every two years to authorize and direct the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on how they manage water infrastructure projects across the country…and here on the Treasure Coast. For our community, it’s our most important arena to fight for every tool we can get from Washington—it’s how I got funding for the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA) Reservoir authorized and how I got the old Lake Okeechobee operating manual rewritten. When I talk about the progress we’ve made, so many of the victories I talk about came out of this very bill, and this year was no exception. I offered several amendments to benefit Florida 21.

This year my amendments for WRDA all row in that same direction—here’s a breakdown:

• Holding the Corps accountable on Lake Okeechobee. When I pushed to get the rulebook the Army Corps had been using to manage Lake Okeechobee redrafted, I did it for one reason—stop all toxic discharges into the St. Lucie River and our saltwater coastal estuaries. But the Corps left themselves a loophole called “recovery operations,” dumping water into our communities to grow freshwater seagrass in the lake, while killing off even more of the saltwater seagrass on our side of the levee. That’s robbing Peter to pay Paul. My amendment, adopted today, makes the Corps show their work. They have to tell us why they opened the gates, where every drop of water went, and whether they grew more grass than they killed. It’s about accountability. WATCH
• Making it clear what the EAA Reservoir was built to do. We spent billions, matched dollar for dollar by the State of Florida, on a 17,000-acre project that will store 78 billion gallons of water, clean it, and send it south to the Everglades and Florida Bay. My amendment puts the project’s purpose in writing as the official stance of the United States Congress so nobody can rewrite history down the road. WATCH

That doesn’t even include all of the wins we carried for our district that are already in the bill:

• Fast-tracked completion of Indian River Lagoon restoration and Lake Okeechobee Watershed Restoration
• Authorization of the C-111 project in the southern Everglades, to build more of the infrastructure that helps send the water south
• Environmental infrastructure assistance for Riviera Beach
• A full accounting of Army Corps easements across our state
• A review of the architect and engineering fees that drive up project costs

The legislation now heads for a vote on the House floor, and I plan on keeping the pressure on until we’re over the finish line because our fight to stop the toxic discharges for clean water is 24/7, 365 days a year.