MIAMI-DADE -- A menagerie of officials hailing from Washington, Tallahassee and South Florida descended upon the Tamiami Trail last Friday for the groundbreaking of a project being called the most significant one yet in the effort to restore the Everglades.

But just 15 miles up the highway sits a reminder of why restoration of the River of Grass has proven such a difficult task.

Dressed smartly in a suit, bolo tie and Everglades ball cap, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar was among those who shoveled the ceremonial first scoops of dirt for the $81 million, three-year project that officials expect will increase water flow by 92 percent from north of the Tamiami Trail, also called U.S. 41, into Everglades National Park.

The project, featuring the construction of a one-mile bridge just west of the intersection of the Tamiami Trail and Krome Avenue and the reinforcement of another 10 miles of roadway, has been on the drawing board for 20 years.

It is designed to alleviate problems caused by the east-west highway, which acts as a giant dam, keeping northern Glades water out of the Shark River and Taylor sloughs, and thereby disrupting the River of Grass' historic flow from Lake Okeechobee south to the Gulf of Mexico and Florida Bay.

Salazar promised the exuberant audience of approximately 300 at the groundbreaking that more Everglades restoration projects would begin at the "speed of lightning," and stressed the importance that President Barack Obama attaches to the unique ecosystem.

"If we do not succeed here in the Everglades, we will not be able to succeed in restoration efforts all across America," Salazar said.

Despite the excitement of the moment, government officials and environmental advocates alike say that more will have to be done along Tamiami Trail if Everglades National Park is to be genuinely rehydrated.

Plans approved in 2005 had called for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to build a second bridge, running for two miles, on the west end of the project area. Skyrocketing cost estimates caused the plan to be scrapped. But last year Congress directed the Department of the Interior to evaluate the need for additional bridges and report back in March.

In an interview last week, Everglades National Park Superintendent Dan Kimball said the evaluation would be complete by February. Along with the environment, it will take into account myriad stakeholders along the eastern Tamiami Trail, including Native American camps and airboat operations.

"We've got to get the most bridging we can and recognize the commercial interests," Kimball said.

It's not just conflicts between public and private, however, which have made the oft-delayed Everglades restoration process so difficult to implement.

Since well before the onset of the $20 billion Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan in 2000, South Florida ecosystem projects have been slowed by battles between various branches of governments; between governments and industry -- notably Florida's sugar industry; between government and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians; and between the competing needs of South Florida's urban, rural and wild areas.

Exemplifying those problems is the current debate over how Miami-Dade County should make use of the Everglades Jetport property, located along the Tamiami Trail just a handful of miles west of the road project zone and within the boundaries of the Big Cypress National Preserve.

In the late 1960s, Dade officials had targeted the area as the site for a regional international airport, but the plan was defeated by a coalition of environmentalists, hunters and federal officials and prompted the creation of the Big Cypress National Preserve in 1974.

Since then the one airstrip that was built on the 37-square-mile site has functioned as a pilot training facility for various government agencies. But most of the land has been left alone -- managed under contract by the Big Cypress Preserve.

In early November, however, with Miami-Dade's Aviation Department buried beneath more than half a billion dollars of debt brought on by renovations at Miami International Airport, administrators recommended putting the property to use for oil and gas exploration. Officials projected that such exploration, which would take place in a region with known oil reserves, could yield $140 million in revenues over a 20-year period.

Officials also put forth alternative uses for the tract, including rock mining, establishing it as a park for off-road vehicle trails, selling the land for restoration to developers who damage habitat elsewhere, or selling it outright. But oil and gas drilling was their top choice.

For now, the proposal is on hold. Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez pulled the item from the county commission agenda last month, saying he opposed further drilling in the preserve.

But Miami-Dade Aviation does not consider it dead, media relations manager Mark Henderson told the Free Press last week.

"All of the options are still there, including the oil," he said.

Kimball said issues like the financial one afflicting Miami-Dade Aviation are just part of the complicated overlap that characterizes Everglades management.

"We have a very complex natural ecosystem and we have a very complex institutional ecosystem," he said. "... We are trying to do everything we can to restore the place, but we also know there are agencies facing financial problems. I think at the end of the day everybody realizes the priority is to restore the Glades."

Indeed, surrounded by the euphoria of the groundbreaking ceremony last week, the jetport and the many other complications that are part of Everglades restoration didn't register as a blip on the mind of Florida Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Michael Sole.

"I tell my staff that if we point our arrows in the same direction we can accomplish anything," he told the crowd. "Today I really get the feeling that we have our arrows pointed in the same direction."

rsilk@keysnews.com