The southern half of Florida was once a massive wetland, but it has been reduced to less than half its original size. Work is underway to repair the damage.
Florida spent decades draining a vast wetland: Now billions of dollars are being spent to restore it
Southern Florida is today a popular tourist destination, known for its amusement parks in Orlando and sunny beaches strung along its Atlantic and Gulf coasts. The population of the region has risen from less that a couple hundred thousand in sparse settlements to over 6 million people today living in major metropolitan areas.
This transformation was curtesy of major engineering projects that drained the vast swaths of the swampy wetland that stretched from just south of Orlando through Lake Okeechobee to Florida Bay. The Everglades, one of the largest wetlands in the world, was once a continuous diffuse and slow moving river system, creeping along at about a 100 feet per day.
Unfortunately for the ecosystem and the development it enabled, the drainage projects were very effective. The Everglades covers less than half its original area and the water flow has been reduced by more than 70 percent. This has led to a degradation of the ecosystem, the loss of wildlife, and saltwater intrusion into the aquifer threatening the freshwater supply on which residents and farms rely.
The multi-billion-dollar effort to restore the Everglades
Work is underway to restore this environmental treasure, which was became a national park nearly eighty years ago, under the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP), which Congress approved in 2000. This multi-billion-dollar plan includes 68 projects being carried out by the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
One of the most audacious pieces of the puzzle to reverse the environmental damage wrought is the Everglades Agricultural Area Reservoir. It will cover 10,500 acres and is designed to be able to store and treat at least 240,000 acre-feet of water, over 78 billion gallons, according to the SFWMD. That is equivalent to 327,000 Olympic-size swimming pools.
The reservoir will be filled during the wet season and then when conditions begin to dry, water will be slowly released to feed the Everglades and maintain a steady flow of water. Before the water can enter the Everglades though, it will first pass through a 6,500-acre constructed wetland consisting of three separate treatment cells to remove nutrient pollution and clean the water.
This will reduce harmful discharges that have fouled estuaries in the past and improve water quality by naturally purifying the water using aquatic vegetation before it enters the Everglades.
Work began on the reservoir and the treatment cells in 2020. The original timeline projected the work to be completed by 2032. However, this past spring Governor Ron DeSantis announced that all federally funded contracts for the Everglades Agricultural Area Reservoir have been fully executed.
This has expedited its completion, moving forward the timeline by five years to 2029. “This milestone brings us a step closer to delivering on our commitment to restore the Everglades,” said the governor in a statement.
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