W. Hodding Carter was born with a silver pen in his hand. His grandfather, W. Hodding Carter II, earned a Pulitzer for his editorials on racism, then started his own newspaper in Mississippi, The Delta Democrat-Times. His father, W. Hodding Carter III, is president and CEO of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
Like his namesakes, Carter is a man of conscience. Concerned about Florida's environmental policies after learning how we handle manatee protection, he finds ''Nature and Commerce caught in a stare-down. Who's gonna blink first? Up to now, it's always been nature.'' He decides to research the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, the unprecedented national program to spend $7.8 billion to fix the Glades, which leads him to wonder whether the time has arrived to reevaluate local priorities. Should we protect what's left of the Everglades and our water supply at the expense of further development and continued sugar farming?
Carter, former host of the TV travel show, Off to Nowhere , has written for Esquire, Outside, Smithsonian and other magazines and is at home on the water: He traced Leif Eriksson's trail from Greenland to Newfoundland in A Viking Voyage (Ballantine, $14 in paper). He spent three years paddling Florida's waterways researching Stolen Water . ''Man, is this going to make a funny story,'' he writes. ``Me and the tourists together, staring death straight in the face and not even knowing it.''
Carter's easy conversational style takes us along on his adventures from Kissimmee to the Keys. He shares his witty take on canoe trips that end in mangrove root tangles and a sailing expedition that doesn't quite make it to the Dry Tortugas. When he describes the pleasure of lying submerged in the waters of Shark Valley River, you'll wish you were there, too.
He casts an objective and educated eye upon the problem of Everglades restoration. Putting his access to good use, he gathers the top scientists and brass involved in CERP in his father's Brickell Avenue boardroom for a showdown of perspectives. Soon the weaknesses in the plan come to light, such as the Aquifer Storage Recovery system, which will force fresh water into underground wells for later use. The problem: we already use this technology to dispose of sewer sludge, and 33 of 100 wells in Florida are leaking. The force cracks the limestone aquifer, and the sewage seeps into surrounding canals and the ocean, contaminating water supplies and beaches. If the 330 proposed new wells crack the aquifer, the water we thought was saved for a dry day will be gone. Our water supply and its storage system will be destroyed.
Carter questions the quick dismissal of the alternative reservoir storage plan, widely portrayed as problematic because of evaporation. But, he asks, doesn't evaporation return as rain, replenishing parched land? Reservoirs have been rejected because they take up land space that could become another Weston or Pembroke Pines.
How did we end up in this predicament? ''It's simple really,'' Carter writes. ``It's all in how we vote. It's whom we choose to make the decision for us. We get what we deserve.''
Carter suggests that Sen. Bob Graham, a Florida native from Miami Lakes, who has received $100,000 from Big Sugar over the course of his political career, could still save the Glades. ``If Graham really cared, he could still fight for the Comprehensive Plan to be whatever he wants it to be.''
Carter's solution may raise a few eyebrows: Scrap the current plan and restore what's left of the Everglades. Close down Big Sugar by ending their generous subsidy program (''They've had their day.'') Use the $7.8 billion already appropriated to clean the water left on the farmlands south of Okeechobee, then raise Tamiami Trail in a ''showcase of American engineering,'' allowing water to spill from Lake Okeechobee and flow south to Florida Bay.
He never loses sight of his main message: The Everglades are unique and awe-inspiring. It's time, he writes, to value the people of South Florida above short-term financial interests. ``I'm all for people making money, but not at my expense.''
Trish Riley is a writer in Sunrise.