Florida Crystals, EAA Farmers Achieve Everglades Water Quality That Is More Than Twice as Good as Florida’s Goal

Florida Crystals and farmers of the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA) achieved another successful year of sending clean water south to restore the Everglades.

The South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD), which is leading Everglades restoration, announced on Aug. 13 that farmers in the EAA basin reduced phosphorus in the water by 65% in Water Year 2026 through the use of Best Management Practices (BMPs) on our farms. EAA farmers are required to meet a 25% reduction in order to restore the Everglades, a goal established by the 1994 Florida’s Everglades Forever Act.

“Many of you know I used to work for EPA, so I looked at environmental efforts around the country and this is frankly a one-of-a-kind effort to get clean water to the Everglades,” said SFWMD Executive Director Drew Bartlett, when announcing the achievement at the agency’s governing board meeting.

Data also showed EAA farms cleaned up water that flowed through our farms from Lake Okeechobee before releasing it south to the Everglades. Water used for irrigation from Lake Okeechobee entered the EAA basin with a reading of 164 parts per billion (ppb) of phosphorus. After being filtered by the farms, the water left the EAA with a reading of 91 ppb. The data is further proof that EAA farmers’ BMPs play a vital role in Everglades restoration. After leaving our farms, that water is further filtered in the SFWMD’s Stormwater Treatment Areas (STAs), which were built on former farmland, before being released into the Everglades Water Conservation Areas.

EAA farmers have prevented more than 5,100 metric tons of phosphorus from entering the Everglades system to the south since the implementation of the BMP program.