FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - If Everglades restoration doesn't start soon, Ron Bergeron is afraid that there might not be an Everglades left to save.

High water levels are threatening to turn the River of Grass into the River of Death.

When the water is too high, sawgrass prairies have so much water that they look like sloughs. Tree islands are flooded and the water eventually destroys the islands.

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Ron Bergeron of the Conservation Commission wades through the Everglades south of Alligator Alley in Florida earlier this month.

Many of the agencies charged with restoring the Everglades are concerned about the quality of the water in the Glades, particularly the high levels of phosphorus in the water.

Bergeron said water depth in the water conservation areas in the Everglades, which stretch from the Palm Beach-Broward county line to Tamiami Trail, is a more serious problem.

"I think the quantity of water has done 80 percent of the damage since 1982," he said, referring to a time when water levels were so high, a special hunt was held to put the deer out of their misery. "North of Tamiami Trail is a reservoir, not a wetlands."

How, after two years of drought, did this happen?

Tropical Storm Fay inundated Florida with rain in August and Hurricane Hanna brought more rain as it passed by offshore. Most of that water ended up, via the Kissimmee River and Lake Okeechobee, in the Everglades. Just like that, conditions in the Glades went from dry to flooded.

The only way to get water out of the water conservation areas is to send it from WCA 2 through canals to the east coast and to let it flow south under Tamiami Trail into Everglades National Park, but the flow rate along the trail is restricted by the design of the roadway.

A key part of Everglades restoration is a retooling of Tamiami Trail to allow an increased flow of water. Proposals include everything from one bridge to a series of bridges to a skyway bridge, but nothing has received unanimous support, so the process drags on and on and on.

Bergeron said the waiting has gone on long enough.

A fourth-generation Floridian who first went into the Everglades at the age of 3 with his grandfather, Bergeron, 63, has been going ever since. He has an intimate knowledge of the camps, tree islands and sloughs in the sprawling marsh and he loves to introduce others to what he refers to as one of the 10 natural wonders of the world.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - If Everglades restoration doesn't start soon, Ron Bergeron is afraid that there might not be an Everglades left to save.

High water levels are threatening to turn the River of Grass into the River of Death.

When the water is too high, sawgrass prairies have so much water that they look like sloughs. Tree islands are flooded and the water eventually destroys the islands.

Whitetail deer don't have any dry ground to get to, their food sources disappear, and constantly being in the water can cause hoof rot. Sick and starving, they end up dying. Also adversely impacted by the high water is everything from raccoons and rabbits to alligators and snail kites.

Many of the agencies charged with restoring the Everglades are concerned about the quality of the water in the Glades, particularly the high levels of phosphorus in the water.

Bergeron said water depth in the water conservation areas in the Everglades, which stretch from the Palm Beach-Broward county line to Tamiami Trail, is a more serious problem.

"I think the quantity of water has done 80 percent of the damage since 1982," he said, referring to a time when water levels were so high, a special hunt was held to put the deer out of their misery. "North of Tamiami Trail is a reservoir, not a wetlands."

How, after two years of drought, did this happen?

Tropical Storm Fay inundated Florida with rain in August and Hurricane Hanna brought more rain as it passed by offshore. Most of that water ended up, via the Kissimmee River and Lake Okeechobee, in the Everglades. Just like that, conditions in the Glades went from dry to flooded.

The only way to get water out of the water conservation areas is to send it from WCA 2 through canals to the east coast and to let it flow south under Tamiami Trail into Everglades National Park, but the flow rate along the trail is restricted by the design of the roadway.

A key part of Everglades restoration is a retooling of Tamiami Trail to allow an increased flow of water. Proposals include everything from one bridge to a series of bridges to a skyway bridge, but nothing has received unanimous support, so the process drags on and on and on.

Bergeron said the waiting has gone on long enough.

A fourth-generation Floridian who first went into the Everglades at the age of 3 with his grandfather, Bergeron, 63, has been going ever since. He has an intimate knowledge of the camps, tree islands and sloughs in the sprawling marsh and he loves to introduce others to what he refers to as one of the 10 natural wonders of the world.

For years, he has worked behind the scenes to educate legislators about the Everglades, even taking them out into the Glades in his airboat. Since Gov. Charlie Crist appointed Bergeron as a commissioner to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission a little over a year ago, Bergeron has used his position to get other agencies to do the right thing for the Everglades.

On Tuesday of last week, he took Congressman Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, and Klein's assistant, Melissa Silverman, on his airboat into the Everglades south of Alligator Alley. He showed them tree islands covered with water and jumped a deer that struggled to run away by splashing through three feet of water.

At Carmichael Island, Bergeron and Klein got out of the airboat and into the water and slogged their way onto what had been an Indian mound. The highest point of the island was wet and muddy, but not flooded, which was not good news.

"This island is 14 inches higher than the rest of the tree islands in this region," Bergeron said. "If this island has water, probably 95 percent of all the deer islands are under water."

What really ticks off Bergeron is that the damage is from the failure of the agencies in charge of Everglades restoration to get anything done.

"You take a 100-year act of God (like Tropical Storm Fay) which is a two- or three-month event and extend it into a two-year duration," he said. "Now you've created a 500-year manmade event."

Klein said he and other members of the Florida delegation have told their colleagues about the importance of the Everglades and of the need to fund restoration projects.

However, when agencies and groups that have an interest in restoration argue about project details, like how Tamiami Trail should be modified and how much it should cost, it's hard for Klein to sell his colleagues on a deal.

"If there is not a unified presentation from the [South Florida] community, then all that does is give the rest of the country the opportunity to say, 'Come back to us when you have your act together,'"  Klein said. "Everyone has to realize that everyone shares the same objective. Everyone just has to give a little bit."

Bergeron wants to see a swale pilot project get started. The swales would be dug 30 feet deep and 1,000 feet long on the south side of Tamiami Trail to increase the flow of water under the highway. Bergeron said the swales, which could be built in six months, compared with years to build bridges, could increase flow anywhere from 10 percent to 35 percent. Everglades National Park and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plan to test the effectiveness of two swales to determine if more should be built.

Several groups and individuals are against the swales, saying they won't increase water flow. Some don't want to destroy a piece, albeit minuscule, of the 1.5-million acre Everglades National Park, even though the swales could help the park and the 740,000 acres in the WCAs and the 800,000 acres in Big Cypress National Preserve.

"If 80 percent of the damage to the heart of the Everglades is because of water quantity, you have to prioritize the projects that will help reduce the water level," Bergeron said. "I think it's worth destroying maybe 75 acres of park land for the benefit of 3 million acres."