For almost twenty years, environmentalists have been fighting the Cross Florida Barge Canal -- one of the most grandiose and destructive projects ever dreamed up by the Army Corps of Engineers. The proposed canal connecting Florida's Atlantic and Gulf coasts would be 110 miles long and cost over $500 million. The project had already destroyed more than a third of the beautiful Oklawaha River when construction was halted by President Nixon in 1971. Both Florida's Governor and state legislature are now opposed to the canal. But its promoters in Congress are biding their time, and Congress has refused to kill the project.

The canal would destroy one of the richest and largest wildlife areas left in this fast growing state, including critical habitat for the manatee in the swamps and river bottom forests along the Oklawaha. Worse yet, for 28 miles this industrial barge canal would cut up to 15 feet below the water table of the Floridan aquifer. This would threaten to contaminate the main drinking water supply for millions of people in central Florida with toxics and salt water. The vote is on the Shaw amendment to deauthorize and thus kill the Cross Florida Barge Canal.

Shaw amendment rejected 201-204; June 28, 1984. YES is the pro-environmental vote. (Shaw amendment to the Water Resources Development Authorization bill, H.R. 3678.) Although the amendment lost, construction is still halted. Promoters are now cooking up a new study to try to justify the project.