Daniel Beard, the first superintendent of Everglades National Park, once noted that "in any approach to understanding the problems of the Everglades, it is necessary for one to look at the present and see the future." His observation remains true today, as concerned citizens in Florida work on the world's largest watershed restoration project and the focus remains on the work ahead.

Our goals are ambitious. We are committed to cleaning up polluted water that enters the Everglades so that native flora and fauna, which depend upon water free of excessive nutrients, are conserved. We are committed to increasing water supplies for the environment -- at the right time and place -- as well as meeting the needs of the many individuals and businesses of South Florida. And we are committed to restoring habitat by reconnecting natural areas that have been separated by dikes and levees and removing invasive exotics.

Based upon our past accomplishments, I am confident that we will succeed. For example, the state is constructing 44,000 acres of storm-water treatment areas to clean up the water entering the Everglades. Farmers are acting to reduce phosphorus loads from farm runoff. And the South Florida Water Management District is undertaking numerous additional strategies identified in its long term plan to achieve clean water.

Additionally, we are implementing the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan. We celebrated early in this administration's term when the president and Gov. Bush signed a historic agreement to ensure that appropriate quantities of water developed by this plan would be dedicated and managed for environmental use.

Along the way, however, there will be issues that threaten to divide us and weaken the partnership that we need to succeed. Today we are facing one such issue.

The U.S. Department of Justice has filed a friend-of-the-court brief in an important water-quality case to be decided by the Supreme Court next year.

The case, South Florida Water Management District vs. Miccosukee Tribe of Indians, concerns the quality of water discharged from the S-9 pump into the Everglades. The district operates the S-9 pump, without which western Broward County could flood within days.

The issue is whether the South Florida Water Management District must obtain a Clean Water Act permit before the S-9 pumps water into the Everglades. This might require construction of a new water treatment facility at this, and perhaps other, drainage facilities.

A more effective approach would be to rely on other permits and programs to improve the quality of this water. These programs control pollution at its source, rather than subject the operators of the S-9 pump -- who do not contribute any pollution to the water -- to additional federal requirements.

As partners in the Everglades restoration effort, the federal government has an interest in a shared solution. In our view, the most effective tools to achieve clean water here are the Clean Water Act's nonpoint source pollution programs. These programs encourage states, and not the federal government, to develop land-use planning and nonpoint source management programs to control nonpoint sources of pollution. The state of Florida is doing just that with its permit program and incorporation of best-management practices to improve the quality of runoff entering the Everglades.

In addition, the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan also offers promise for a shared solution. The recently authorized $125 million C-11 Stormwater Treatment Area/Impoundment proposes to divert and treat the runoff being pumped by S-9 so that the Everglades will be protected.

Against this background of ongoing efforts to attack pollution at its source, the imposition of an additional federal permit for S-9 is unlikely to be useful or cost effective.

Working together on shared solutions will allow us to achieve an Everglades that will once again pulse with life and sustain a vibrant and ecologically productive habitat for numerous species of subtropical plants and animals and coastal fisheries.

Gale A. Norton is U.S. Secretary of the Interior.