10216 Lee Road,
Boynton Beach,
FL 33437-4796, 407-732-3684.

. . . Where the Everglades begin

Located within the northernmost part of the legendary Florida Everglades, Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee NWR is the only surviving remnant of the northern Everglades. The 146,000-acre refuge consists mostly of the sawgrass marsh that is so characteristic of the Everglades environment and is one of the few places where lucky observers might see the endangered snail kite searching for food.

The inviting public-use areas provide viewing opportunities for a large variety of wetland flora and fauna. Most visitors are unaware, however, of the difficult habitat problems faced by the refuge staff and the history of the attempts to undo the wildlife habitat damage that began in 1947.

Visitors should stop at the handsome Visitor Center for information and browse the retail shop operated by the Loxahatchee Natural History Association, the cooperating nonprofit association that finances projects to promote public awareness of the refuge.

Location: Northern everglades southwest of West Palm Beach, Florida.
Size: 146,000 acres.
Features: Sawgrass marsh.
Activities: Nature walks, hiking, canoeing, birdwatching, bass fishing.
Photos: Egret, alligator.

Activities

Both the Cypress Swamp Boardwalk and marsh impoundments are accessible by foot from the Visitor Center. The boardwalk is a 0.4 mile trail that loops through one of the few remaining cypress swamps that once lined the edge of the Everglades where it met higher ground and is an ideal place to see ferns, orchids, and air plants. Limpkins can often be seen feeding in the ponds around the Visitor Center.

Walking the dikes around the several impoundments is how the refuge's variety of water birds may be observed along with some of the thousands of American alligators that inhabit the refuge. Depending on water levels, ibises, egrets, and herons regularly feed in them as well as sandhill cranes and ducks including migratory blue- and green-wing teal and ringnecked and resident mottled and wood ducks. The refuge bird list includes over 250 species.

The 5.5-mile canoe trail provides the best way to see and explore the Everglades up close. Canoeing and boating are allowed in refuge canals as is sport fishing, which is mostly catch-and-release of bass because of health warnings.

Hunting for waterfowl is allowed in a designated area by permit. Deer hunts and the use of air boats by hunters were steeped in controversy in the past, a public-use activity that is now prohibited at the refuge by an act of Congress.

Concessionaire air boats were also used in the past for interpretive tours of the refuge, a service discontinued primarily because of cost. Now Assistant Manager Alan Flock says the only public use of refuge air boats is to haul out air balloons and aircraft that have emergency landed in the marsh.

Visitors between November and April will discover a wide array of scheduled events at the refuge including nature walks, photography workshops, lectures, and art contests and shows. Many of the events are staffed by some of the more than 100 refuge volunteers, who also perform maintenance services, work at the Visitor Center, and contribute clerical skills.

Natural History Association

The value to a refuge of a cooperating association is demonstrated again by the record of the Natural History Association, set up in 1982 at the request of the refuge manager. Besides sponsoring the annual art shows and contests, the association pays for all refuge leaflets, furnished audio and video equipment for the Visitor Center, and matches grant funds to improve public accommodations like a new fishing pier that is accessible to disabled fishers. Sales and donations yield a net income of around $15,000 a year.

Hal Wiedemann is the association's immediate past president. A former metallurgical engineer, Wiedemann typifies the association activists—a professional who moved to the area after retirement and was attracted by the refuge volunteer program. Fellow board member and Vice-President Bill Loery practiced pathology in New Jersey before his retirement in 1987.

They and the other ten board members are promoting the showcasing of their adopted refuge. They want refuge visitors to be satisfied visitors, and they get just as exercised as the birders who complain if cattails in the impoundments are crowding out the birds.

Protecting the Habitat

Cattails are just the tip of the iceberg of problems that face Manager Burkett Neely and staff. Assistant Manager Flock explains that nutrients in the water are the culprit, bringing to the refuge nonnative vegetation that would otherwise not survive in the normally low-nutrient habitat. Neely says that, while cattails are the first visible sign of trouble to the nonscientist, they are the third or fourth symptom of change in the environment.

Degradation of the algal community has also occurred, reducing the invertebrates depended on by birds for food. The oxygen in the water has also suffered, depleting the fish supply. Infestation of the marshes by exotic Brazilian pepper and melaleuca makes it impenetrable to either humans or wildlife and requires expensive hand treatment for control.

The phosphate in the refuge waters comes from the fertilizer used by the adjacent $1.5 billion sugar industry. Nearly one-third of the water flow into the refuge is pumped from agricultural drainage. Rainwater runoff on which the refuge depends also picks up agricultural nutrients.

Refuge Management

The water levels in the refuge are maintained by a multipurpose agreement with the South Florida Water Management District. Besides wildlife management, the agreement calls for storage of water in the refuge during hurricane rains and for releases to irrigate croplands and to prevent saltwater intrusions into the local aquifer.

Virtually all of the refuge is an area leased from the state and compartmentalized with canals and dikes as one of three"water conservation areas." The areas comprise 850,000 acres of marshlands protected from development and designed to hold flood waters that can be used later for irrigation.

It is part of the Central and Southern Florida Flood Control Project constructed by the Army Corps of Engineers beginning in 1947 and consisting of 1900 miles of canals and levees overlaying and replacing the upper portion of the "River of Grass." Now managed by the Water Management District, the massive project also includes 700,000 acres of drained wetlands in which the sugar industry is firmly established. As a result, both the quality and the quantity of water delivered to the remaining Everglades were set by political appointees on the board of the WMD. Previously, water came to the gently tilting Everglades as sheet flow from Lake Okeechobee as it seasonally overflowed.

Refuge Issues/Projects

Agriculturists, politicians, agency regulators, and environmentalists have been arguing in and out of court for years trying to somehow strike a better balance between the dryness needs of the economic interests and the water needs of the environment.

Although past settlements and agreements have given hope that the Everglades system could be restored, none has been as promising as the latest development. Simply put, it is supposed to clean up the agricultural runoff and reduce farmland water demand, improving both the quantity and the quality of water available to both the refuge and the rest of the remaining Everglades.

A $14 million demonstration project is showing that phosphorous can be removed from runoffs if wetlands are built where plants can uptake the nutrients before the water reaches its destination. As might be expected, cattails are the predominate filterer.

Flock says that the 4000-acre project has exceeded expectations, opening the way for its expansion to over 30,000 acres. That expansion depends on the Administration's proposal announced in February and involving the purchase of as many as 100,000 acres of farmland, much of it nearing the end of its productivity. Some of it would be used for the constructed wetlands. The purchase plan requires Congressional approval as well as a new tax on sugar producers. Both seem likely because Everglades' restoration now enjoys broad political support.

Flock is also encouraged by the additional water the refuge gets from a renegotiated water schedule agreement. He says the wetter condition has stabilized the food source, which has improved the nesting opportunities for water birds. He sees more snail kites than ever. Flock believes that the Everglades probably have the highest priority for ecosystem restoration in the nation. That is the result of years of sleuthing by scientists who have uncovered the damaging effects of the changes made to the hydrology of the Everglades. The future looks brighter for the refuge, but Flock says they are still trying to do more with less, a reflection of the staff and financial resource shortages faced by refuges throughout the system.

Refuge Named after Everglades Defender

Arthur Raymond Marshall, Jr., joined the small number of honored conservationists who have refuges named for them when the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge was renamed in 1986 to the Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee NWR.

President Ronald Reagan enacted the authorizing legislation that was introduced by then-U.S. Senator Lawton Chiles, Florida's current governor. The Loxahatchee name comes from the river of the same Seminole Indian name.

"Art" Marshall worked at FWS in several capacities as a marine fisheries biologist for 15 years before teaching at two Florida universities and advising three Florida governors.

He is most remembered, however, for his expertise on the ecology of the Florida Everglades and his crusading opposition to its disruption. He was involved in virtually every significant environmental issue in south Florida up until his death in 1985.

Marshall campaigned against and was a leader in defeating the determined advocates of a proposal to build a jetport and to complete a barge canal in the Everglades. He lived in Florida for 49 years of his 65-year life.

But Marshall wanted more than anything else the restoration of the Everglades, and for that he espoused ridding the Kissimmee River that feeds the Everglades of its $40 million of constructed ditch.

His theory, dubbed "The Marshall Plan," was that the meandering natural state of the river produced a sheet flow of water that was necessary to help ensure an adequate water supply for the Everglades and south Florida.

He admitted to a friend that "no one really knew if Einstein was correct in his theory—not even he was absolutely certain of its validity—until that bomb went off at Alamogordo. My bomb is the Kissimmee ditch removed and the river restored."

Marshall would be happy to know that parts of the Kissimmee are now being dechannelized.

Many more people realize now what scientist Marshall theorized and promoted then: There is scientific basis for treating "the Everglades from Lake Kissimmee to the Florida Bay as a single ecosystem."

Among his many awards for environmental service was his naming by the Florida National Wildlife Federation as the "Conservationist of the Decade," an honor granted just months before his untimely death.

Directions to the Refuge

From 1-95, west on US-98, south on US-441 for 14 miles to refuge entrance on right. Or, from 1-95, FL-806 west, US-441 north for 2 miles to refuge entrance on left.

The Visitor Center is open every day except Christmas from 9 am to 4 p.m. weekdays and to 4:30 p.m. weekends and holidays between mid-October and mid-April. During the rest of the year, it is closed Mondays and Tuesdays. The refuge is open every day from sunrise to sunset; entrance fee is $4 per automobile. Annual individual and family memberships are $8 and $12 in the Loxahatchee Natural History Association, P.O. Box 27237, Delray Beach, Fl 33447-2737.

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