How do you reward an employee for years of faithful service on a project? A new watch? A raise? At least a pat on the back? Nah. If you’re following the lead of the EPA, you remove him from the project.
Richard Harvey has been serving as an EPA representative on the Everglades restoration since it began in 1999. The project has been plagued by environmental problems since the get-go, and Harvey hasn’t been shy about pointing them out. When water authorities diverted excess water from polluted Lake Okeechobee into the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie rivers, Harvey warned that this wasn’t a great idea.
The most recent scuffle started last fall, when officials wanted to install an underground pipe to shunt excess water from the lake. A pipeline is not a magician, though, and dirty water has to go somewhere. In this case, Harvey said, the water would flow into Biscayne National Park. Another not-so-great idea. At a meeting, via conference call, he said:
Once again we’re routing dirty water….We are extremely concerned because the track record when the district and the corps move dirty water around is some resource gets trashed.
Little did Harvey know, a reporter was also at the meeting, and she quoted him in print. A few months later, Harvey’s supervisor removed him from the project.
The restoration is now almost a decade old, and some people seem to think that the park is all better. Last summer, for example, the U.N. World Heritage Committee removed the Everglades from its list of endangered places. But most experts agree with Harvey—the River of Grass still has a long way to go.
