A fight for the Everglades.

The Everglades, Florida's celebrated river of grass, is much more than a swamp. But environmentalists worry that a recent law, signed by Governor Jeb Bush, could threaten the areas already fragile ecosystem (community made up of plants, animals, and microorganisms).

Everglades National Park, the largest subtropical wilderness remaining in the U.S., is an interrelated system of marshes, bays, grasslands, and forests. Its native animals--alligators and crocodiles, bobcats, panthers, manatees, and all kinds of birds and reptiles--depend on each element of this complex natural community for survival. But more than a century of development, diversion of water for farms and towns, and pollution have taken a toll on the area, which is now about one fifth its original size.

Fifteen years ago, Florida was hit with a federal lawsuit over pollution of the Everglades. Then in 1992, state officials agreed to limit the runoff of phosphorus, a chemical present in farm fertilizer, into Everglades water. A federal judge set a date of 2006 to rid the area of the pollutant.

But last May, Governor Bush extended the deadline until 2016. The state's sugar industry, whose farms are responsible for much of the runoff, lobbied for the extension, saying that the cleanup world take longer than expected.

Governor Bush has defended the measure, saying that the work will be more than 95 percent complete by the original deadline of 2006. But his bill has faced intense criticism from Florida environmentalists and Washington lawmakers alike.

U.S. Representative E. Clay Shaw (R, Fort Lauderdale) called the new measure "a terrible idea" for an area already under siege.

"We're down to 10 percent of the wading birds that once lived there," Representative Shaw said. "We've raised havoc with the Everglades." The Everglades are home to 68 species of endangered or threatened animals.