to their environment, expressive of their concern for their environment.

I am here, as you know, at the request of Governor Askew to speak for him in regard to the matter proposed to protect the Big Cypress. Protection of the Big Cypress of southern Florida can be secured only by Federal purchase. Its protection has become a matter of prime concern to this committee. The issue is complex on the one hand and yet on the other, it is not. If the Big Cypress is not protected against typical south Florida development, south Florida, the Everglades, Everglades National Park, and the urban community of south Florida are going down the drain in respect to natural resources, water supply, and the quality of human life there. The people and the governments of Florida are struggling, as many have before me remarked, and with some notable recent successes, to prevent that unhappy series of events. They know that we are at the edge of a precipice. They know it from the water crisis which south Florida experienced in the spring of 1971, as well as from the straits of the wood stork, the alligator, the fires in the Everglades, dying portions of coral reefs, and they know it from the pressures of life in south Florida cities.

In the multiple means which must be employed to head off the degradation of south Florida, protection of the Big Cypress is a keystone which only the Federal Government can accomplish. Florida and Floridians are, I assure you gentlemen, tenaciously attacking the

rest.

Because of a combination of events, I believe that the Nation looks to Florida to develop means to solve environmental problems. There is validity and hope in this view; your decision to purchase the Big Cypress is central to that effort. The issues are people and water and all of the values which water supports there-wildlife, parks, estuarine fisheries, muck, and people. If the Big Cypress is not protected, great numbers of newcomers to Florida will buy it and occupy it. And they will demand it be drained. They probably won't know what they are doing, but they will demand the drainage anyway.

When they do, they will destroy the Big Cypress, they will eliminate its resource values along with those of the western portion of Everglades National Park, and they will bring south Florida to its knees, waterwise. Their escape from the environmental degradation of their former homes will prove ephemeral.

The central section of my report, Mr. Chairman, deals with hydrology, vegetation, wildlife, and the coastal zone, and being very conscious of the press of time, I am going to skip any further remarks, recognizing that many have adequately testified, and quite correctly, to these issues before me.

In conclusion, I would urgently suggest to you, Mr. Chairman, that any action you might propose in the protection of the Big Cypress state that the primary purpose of that protection is to protect the watershed as to quantity, seasonality, and quality of its water, and that only such other uses be allowed which are consonant with that primary purpose.

Certainly there are many recreational uses which would be consonant with that purpose. Under a regime of management which is sensitive to the character of the area, hunting of the upland and marsh

areas can continue. Similarly, fishing can and should continue in the fresh and salt water areas.

The Big Cypress area has vast potential for such other recreational uses as hiking, nature trails, wildlife watching and photography. These are all pursuits which have come into national prominence in recent years and which will be pursued by increasing numbers of people in the future. The rapidly growing populations of all of south Florida would make great recreational use of a Big Cyprus wild area. I suspect the time would soon come when limitations on such recreational use would have to be invoked.

The opportunity to protect the Big Cypress is an opportunity to protect the great and singular biological treasures of the Florida Everglades and of Everglades National Park. It is an opportunity to protect the great investment of the people of Florida and the Nation in Everglades National Park. It is an opportunity to curtail ultimately future Federal investment in drainage works and water supply systems in South Florida. It is an opportunity which will enable the people of Florida and their governments to develop that kind of environmental ethic which is so badly needed around the Nation and the world.

I believe that we are going to do it. We do need the chance you can give us by a favorable action on protection of the Big Cypress. I thank you for hearing me.

Mr. MARSHALL. I have appended to my formal statement, sir, a list of about a dozen references which I believe are the major references of study of this area which Senator Randolph Hodges previously mentioned. I cite this for the attention of your staff.

Thank you very much.

(Prepared statement follows:)

STATEMENT OF ARTHUR R. MARSHALL, DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF APPLIED ECOLOGY UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI, FLA.

Congressman Taylor, gentlemen of the Subcommittee, I am Arthur R. Marshall, Floridian, ecologist, Director of the Division of Applied Ecology, University of Miami, and an adviser to the Department of the Interior. I am glad to be here and am hopeful that I can help you.

Protection of the Big Cypress of southern Florida can be secured only by Federal purchase. Thus the merits of its cost as weighed against the endless search for funds for myriad purposes have become a matter of prime concern to you.

The issue is complex and yet it is not. If Big Cypress is not protected against typical south Florida development, south Florida, the Everglades, Everglades National Park, and the urban communities of south Florida are going down the drain-in respect to natural resources, water, the quality of human life there and in the financial viability of its cities.

The people and the governments of Florida are struggling-and with some notable recent success to prevent that unhappy series of events. They know they are at the edge of precipice. They know it from the water crisis experienced in the spring of 1971. They know it from the straits of the wood stork, the alligator, the fires in the Everglades, the smoke over the Gold Coast, diseased fishes in their bays, dying coral reefs, and they know it from the pressures of life in the cities, and from the bankruptcy of their city governments.

In the multiple means which must be employed to head off the degradation of south Florida, protection of the Big Cypress is a keystone which only the Federal Government can accomplish. Florida and Floridians are tenaciously attacking the rest.

For the last dozen years, the environmental crises of south Florida have echoed in the national press with the monotony of a broken record. Unless there is a

novel change of direction, the discords will become more blatant, frequent and more costly to the Federal Government. South Florida and all it has offered to the Nation would, without such redirection, soon join the chorus of problems characteristic of New Jersey, the BosWash strip and the Potomac Basin.

I believe we can do better than that. I am sure that you, as selected American leaders, know it.

Because of a combination of events, the Nation looks to Florida to develop means to solve environmental problems. There is validity and hope in this view; your decision to purchase the Big Cypress is central to that effort.

The issues are people and water and all of the values which water supports there wildlife, parks, estuarine fisheries, muck, and people. If the Big Cypress is not protected, great numbers of newcomers to Florida will buy it and occupy it. And they will demand it be drained. They probably won't know what they are doing, but they will demand the drainage anyway.

When they do, they will destroy the Big Cypress, they will eliminate its resource values along with those of the western portion of Everglades National Park, and they will bring south Florida to its knees, water wise. Their escape from the environmental degradation of their former homes will prove ephemeral.

HYDROLOGY

The watershed of the Big Cypress is a broad, nearly flat area interspersed with pinelands, grass prairies and shallow cypress ponds and sloughs. With the land sloping gently south and southwest, water accumulated from the summer rains flows slowly overland about seventy per cent of the year to and through the western panhandle of Everglades National Park into the Gulf of Mexico.

Flow in the watershed, quite unlike a normal main-stem river, is in the form of a broad shallow sheet which covers much of the area in the summer and fall high water period. When the rains abate, beginning in November, water levels in the Big Cypress recede slowly from heights a foot or two above ground to perhaps three feet below ground in the dry months of the year.

The flora and fauna of the watershed, including that of its downstream estuaries, are attuned in their reproductive and breeding cycles to this cycle of summer flooding followed by recession. In the warm waters of the summer, many aquatic species such as freshwater shrimp, crayfish, mosquito fish, and killifishes reproduce themselves in great numbers, foraging over the flooded lands. As the winter recession occurs, these organisms are sufficiently concentrated to supply tremendous quantities of protein food to active bird rookeries and to some species of marine fishes which invade the brackish areas and lower marshes. Thus continued production of many animal species depends on the cycle of summer flood and subsequent recession. When wetlands are drained for development, both the flooding and the recession are so drastically altered that reproductive failures commonly occur-which is a major reason that seventeen Everglades species are now considered rare and endangered.

The Big Cypress also serves as a recharge area for ground water supplies. As the urban areas of the lower west coast expand, those municipalities will have to utilize waters farther to the east to meet their water demands. This is very similar-a reversed, mirror-image of the water demand/supply situation of the east coast cities, which much reach continually farther to the west for potable supplies.

No one can say with certainty when the growing demand will encounter the limits of supply for the west coast cities, for no such analyses have been made farther into the future than twenty years. We can say with considerable certainty, however, that the progression of events there will mirror-image those of the populous east coast, in that salt intrusions along the shore will become increasingly severe, that intermittent water-rationing will become necessary, that recycling of sewage wastes for re-use will become as necessary on the west coast as it is now urgent on the east. Development of the Big Cypress Watershed, by decreasing supply and increasing demand would accelerate the day of water crisis markedly.

VEGETATION

The Big Cypress comprises the western portion of the great wetlands of Florida south of Lake Okeechobee. It is largely a forested area interspersed with wetland sloughs and ponds, grassy prairies and rocky outcrops which stand above the general water surface for several months of the year. The

rocky outcrops are covered with thin soil and pine forests which cannot stand continuous flooding.

The prairies are dominated by a mixture of grasses, sedges and a few shrub species. All can tolerate a long period of flooding during the rainy season and light fires in the winter.

The deeper sloughs-4 to 6 feet deep-support stands of cypress on their thick peaty soils. The isolated potholes also support cypress in characteristic domes called cypress heads. In either situation, the deeper the peaty soil the taller the trees. Many native epiphytes-orchids and bromeliads-are abundant in the Big Cypress. The orchid flora is one of the richest known anywhere outside of the tropics.

The numerous ponds of the area are picturesque. Usually rimmed by cypress or pop ash, they formerly were the habitat of many alligators. The activities of these reptiles prevented them from closing in with vegetation.

This mixture of contour and vegetation, developed over many ages, greatly controls the purpose and usefulness of the Big Cypress. It provides great natural resources for the benefit of man-a water resource, recreation, hunting, fishing, and many non-game animals.

WILDLIFE

To most conservationists and scientists, the wildlife of south Florida and the Big Cypress is an essential unit of the regional ecosystem. Seventeen species that are officially listed as rare and endangered-4 mammals, 12 birds, and the alligator-inhabit the Big Cypress and its downstream estuaries during at least part of the annual cycle. These include some of the most characteristic wildlife of south Florida, such as the roseate spoonbill, and species such as the brown pelican and bald eagle which have been extirpated from much of their former range in the United States. A number of these, including the Florida panther and wood ibis, are virtually certain to disappear from Florida if the Big Cypress habitat is diminished and destroyed by drainage and development.

Besides these species in the rare and endangered category, the Big Cypress supports the full spectrum of the resident and native wildlife. Of particular importance is the seasonal and alternative feeding habitat that the Big Cypress provides to wading bird populations which breed in Everglades National Park. Without access to the resources of the Big Cypress, a long term decline of populations of large water birds of the Park is predictable. The preservation of the Big Cypress offers the only long range hope of maintaining huntable populations of larger game animals such as white-tailed deer and wild turkeys in southern Florida.

THE COASTAL ZONE

As the sheet of water moves from the upland marshes, it finally enters a broad mangrove-dominated estuarine zone. The area is characterized by mangrovefringed creeks, ponds, and bays which receive water from both the upland marshes and the sea. The tidal mixing which occurs in these bays and estuaries produces brackish conditions favorable to the growth of estuarine-dependent animals such as shrimp, blue crabs, mullet, oysters and many commercial and game fish.

Certain physical and chemical phenomena enable the brackish estuaries to conserve the nutrients which, under natural conditions, are contributed by the upland fresh water and the open ocean. These nutrients tend to be retained in the estuary and cycled continuously in the food chain. The bays and estuaries are thus many times more productive than the marshes above or the sea beyond.

The estuaries derive many benefits from the upland marshes. The extensive marsh system serves as a reservoir and control mechanism which absorbs the heavy summer rains and slowly releases this water into the estuaries. This mechanism serves two important purposes. The marsh filters the water in transit, removing sediments and utilizing some of the nutrients, and releases the fresh water into the estuary at a reasonably uniform rate across a broad front. Hence, the water coming from the marshes is normally clean and arrives in quantities which usually permit optimal salinity ranges in the estuaries. Under natural drainage conditions heavy rainfall in the interior may require 10 to 90 days, dependent on distance, to appear in the estuaries because of the low gradient of the region and frictional effects imposed by marsh vegetation.

Man-made drainage systems, on the other hand, are designed to accelerate the run-off of fresh water through canals. During periods of heavy rainfall, canalized run-off from the uplands moves quickly in large volume into the estuaries bearing

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massive deposits of organics, silt, and sand. Freshets of this type cause abrupt salinity changes which frequently kill plants and animals, especially attached forms such as oysters. Oxygen demand caused by abnormal quantities of organic material further stress the large bay areas, already laboring under the burden of abrupt salinity changes.

The high productivity of our coastal systems is intimately linked to the upland marshes and especially to the brackish areas. To safeguard this unique unit, the entire marsh sheet flow system must be protected to insure that the coastal zone receives high quality water in sufficient quantity and in the right seasons.

CONCLUSIONS

I urgently suggest that any action you may propose state that the primary purpose of the legislation is to protect the watershed as to quantity, seasonality and quality of its water, and that only such other uses be allowed which are consonant with that primary purpose.

Certainly there are many recreational uses which would be consonant with that purpose. Under a regimen of management which is sensitive to the character of the area, hunting of the upland and marsh areas can continue. Similarly, fishing can and should continue in the fresh and salt water areas.

The Big Cypress area has vast potential for such other recreational uses as hiking, nature trails, wildlife watching and photography. These are all pursuits which have come into national prominence in recent years and which will be pursued by increasing numbers of people in the future. The rapidly growing populations of all of south Florida would make great recreational use of a Big Cypress wild area. I suspect the time would soon come when limitations on such recreational use would have to be invoked.

The opportunity to protect the Big Cypress is an opportunity to protect the great and singular biological treasures of the Floriad Everglades and of Everglades National Park. It is an opportunity to protect the great investment of the people of Florida and the Nation in Everglades National Park. It is an opportunity to curtail ultimately future federal investment in drainage works and water supply systems in south Florida. It is an opportunity to protect aquifer recharge for future west coast water supplies.

It is an opportunity which will enable the people of Florida and their governments to develop that kind of environmental ethic which is so badly needed around the Nation and the world.

I believe we are going to do it. We do need the chance you can give us by a favorable action on protection of the Big Cypress.

I thank you for hearing me.

REFERENCES

Craighead, F. C. The Trees of South Florida. Vol. 1, University of Miami Press, 1971.

Orchids and Other Air Plants of Everglades National Park. University of Miami Press, 1963.

Loveless, C. M., A. R. Marshall, et al. Everglades Water and its Ecological Implications. 1970.

Lugo, E. A. et. al. Models for Planning and Research for the South Florida Environmental Study. University of Florida, Gainesville, 1971.

Parker, C. G. et. al. Water Resources of Southern Florida with Special Reference to Geology and Ground Water of the Miami Area. Washington, D.C., U.S. Geological Survey Water Supply Paper 1255, 1955.

Tabb, D. C. A Summary of Existing Information on the Freshwater, Brackish Water and Marine Ecology of the Florida Everglades Region in Relation to Freshwater Needs of Everglades National Park. University of Miami Institute of Marine Sciences, 1963.

et. al. The Ecology of Northern Florida Bay and Adjacent Estuaries. Board of Conservation, Technical Series 39, Tallahassee, Florida, 1962. State of Florida. Report of the Governor's Conference on Water Management in South Florida. 1971.

U.S. Department of the Interior. Environmental Impact of the Big Cypress Swamp Jetport. 1969.

National Park Service. Appraisal of Water Quality Needs and Criteria for Everglades National Park. June, 1971.