Restoration of the Everglades
The Everglades, a region of tropical wetlands in southern Florida, are under an ongoing effort to remedy damage inflicted during the 20th century; it is the considered most expensive and comprehensive environmental repair attempt in history. The degradation of the Everglades became an issue in the United States in the early 1970s after a proposal to construct an airport in the Big Cypress Swamp. Studies indicated the airport would have destroyed the ecosystem in South Florida and Everglades National Park. After decades of destructive practices, both state and federal agencies are looking for ways to balance the needs of the natural environment in South Florida with urban and agricultural centers that have recently and rapidly grown in and near the Everglades.
In response to floods caused by hurricanes in 1947, the Central and Southern Florida Flood Control Project was established to construct flood control devices in the Everglades. The C&SF built of canals and levees between the 1950s and 1971 throughout South Florida. Their last venture was the C-38 canal, which straightened the Kissimmee River and caused catastrophic damage to animal habitats, adversely affecting water quality in the region. The canal became the first C&SF project to revert when the canal began to be backfilled, or refilled with the material excavated from it, in the 1980s.
When high levels of phosphorus and mercury were discovered in the waterways in 1986, water quality became a focus for water management agencies. Costly and lengthy court battles were waged between various government entities to determine who was responsible for monitoring and enforcing water quality standards. Governor Lawton Chiles proposed a bill that determined which agencies would have that responsibility, and set deadlines for pollutant levels to decrease in water. Initially the bill was criticized by conservation groups for not being strict enough on polluters, but the Everglades Forever Act was passed in 1994. Since then, the South Florida Water Management District and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have surpassed expectations for achieving lower phosphorus levels.
A commission appointed by Governor Chiles published a report in 1995 stating that South Florida was unable to sustain its growth, and the deterioration of the environment was negatively affecting daily life for residents in South Florida. The environmental decline was predicted to harm tourism and commercial interests if no actions were taken to halt current trends. Results of an eight-year study that evaluated the C&SF were submitted to the United States Congress in 1999. The report warned that if no action was taken the region would rapidly deteriorate. A strategy called the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan was enacted to restore portions of the Everglades, Lake Okeechobee, the Caloosahatchee River, and Florida Bay to undo the damage of the past 50 years. It would take 30 years and cost $7.8 billion to complete. Though the plan was passed into law in 2000, it has been compromised by political and funding problems.
On June 27, 2025, a coalition led by Friends of the Everglades, the Center for Biological Diversity, and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians filed suit in a federal court seeking an injunction against the installation of an immigration detention camp until a full environmental review and public-comment period are completed. Plaintiffs argue the project threatens endangered species habitat, including that of the Florida Panther, and violates both the National Environmental Policy Act and tribal cultural-resource protections.
Background
The Everglades are part of a very large watershed that begins in the vicinity of Orlando. The Kissimmee River drains into Lake Okeechobee, a lake with an average depth of. During the wet season when the lake exceeds its capacity, the water leaves the lake in a very wide and shallow river, approximately long and wide. This wide and shallow flow is known as sheetflow. The land gradually slopes toward Florida Bay, the historical destination of most of the water leaving the Everglades. Before drainage attempts, the Everglades comprised, taking up a third of the Florida peninsula.Since the early 19th century the Everglades have been a subject of interest for agricultural development. The first attempt to drain the Everglades occurred in 1882 when Pennsylvania land developer Hamilton Disston constructed the first canals. Though these attempts were largely unsuccessful, Disston's purchase of land spurred tourism and real estate development of the state. The political motivations of Governor Napoleon Bonaparte Broward resulted in more successful attempts at canal construction between 1906 and 1920. Recently reclaimed wetlands were used for cultivating sugarcane and vegetables, while urban development began in the Everglades.
The 1926 Miami Hurricane and the 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane caused widespread devastation and flooding which prompted the Army Corps of Engineers to construct a dike around Lake Okeechobee. The four-story wall cut off water from the Everglades. Floods from hurricanes in 1947 motivated the US Congress to establish the Central and Southern Florida Flood Control Project, responsible for constructing of canals and levees, hundreds of pumping stations and other water control devices. The C&SF established Water Conservation Areas in 37% of the original Everglades, which acted as reservoirs providing excess water to the South Florida metropolitan area, or flushing it into the Atlantic Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico. The C&SF also established the Everglades Agricultural Area, which grows the majority of sugarcane crops in the United States. When the EAA was first established, it encompassed approximately 27% of the original Everglades.
By the 1960s, urban development and agricultural use had decreased the size of the Everglades considerably. The remaining 25% of the Everglades in its original state is protected in Everglades National Park, but the park was established before the C&SF, and it depended upon the actions of the C&SF to release water. As Miami and other metropolitan areas began to intrude on the Everglades in the 1960s, political battles took place between park management and the C&SF when insufficient water in the park threw ecosystems into chaos. Fertilizers used in the EAA began to alter soil and hydrology in Everglades National Park, causing the proliferation of exotic plant species. A proposition to build a massive jetport in the Big Cypress Swamp in 1969 focused attention on the degraded natural systems in the Everglades. For the first time, the Everglades became a subject of environmental conservation.
Everglades as a priority
Environmental protection became a national priority in the 1970s. Time magazine declared it the Issue of the Year in January 1971, reporting that it was rated as Americans' "most serious problem confronting their community—well ahead of crime, drugs and poor schools". When South Florida experienced a severe drought from 1970 to 1975, with Miami receiving only of rain in 1971— less than average—media attention focused on the Everglades. With the assistance of governor's aide Nathaniel Reed and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Arthur R. Marshall, politicians began to take action. Governor Reubin Askew implemented the Land Conservation Act in 1972, allowing the state to use voter-approved bonds of $240 million to purchase land considered to be environmentally unique and irreplaceable. Since then, Florida has purchased more land for public use than any other state. In 1972 President Richard Nixon declared the Big Cypress Swamp—the intended location for the Miami jetport in 1969—to be federally protected. Big Cypress National Preserve was established in 1974, and Fakahatchee Strand State Preserve was created the same year.In 1976, Everglades National Park was declared an International Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO, which also listed the park as a World Heritage Site in 1979. The Ramsar Convention designated the Everglades a Wetland of International Importance in 1987. Only three locations on Earth have appeared on all three lists: Everglades National Park, Lake Ichkeul in Tunisia, and Srebarna Lake in Bulgaria.
Kissimmee River
In the 1960s, the C&SF came under increased scrutiny from government overseers and conservation groups. Critics maintained its size was comparable to the Tennessee Valley Authority's dam-building projects during the Great Depression, and that the construction had run into the billions of dollars without any apparent resolution or plan. The projects of the C&SF have been characterized as part of "crisis and response" cycles that "ignored the consequence for the full system, assumed certainty of the future, and succeeded in solving the momentary crisis, but set in motion conditions that exaggerate future crises". The last project, to build a canal to straighten the winding floodplain of the Kissimmee River that had historically fed Lake Okeechobee which in turn fed the Everglades, began in 1962. Marjory Stoneman Douglas later wrote that the C&SF projects were "interrelated stupidity", crowned by the C-38 canal. Designed to replace a meandering river with a channel, the canal was completed in 1971 and cost $29 million. It supplanted approximately of marshland with retention ponds, dams, and vegetation. Loss of habitat has caused the region to experience a drastic decrease of waterfowl, wading birds, and game fish. The reclaimed floodplains were taken over by agriculture, bringing fertilizers and insecticides that washed into Lake Okeechobee. Even before the canal was finished, conservation organizations and sport fishing and hunting groups were calling for the restoration of the Kissimmee River.File:Kissimmee River S-65B Destruction.jpg|thumb|left|alt=A color photograph of a large cement structure on the C-38 Canal being destroyed with explosives|Structure 65B on the Kissimmee River is destroyed by the Corps of Engineers in 2000 to restore the natural flow of the river.
Arthur R. Marshall led the efforts to undo the damage. According to Douglas, Marshall was successful in portraying the Everglades from the Kissimmee Chain of Lakes to Florida Bay—including the atmosphere, climate, and limestone—as a single organism. Rather than remaining the preserve of conservation organizations, the cause of restoring the Everglades became a priority for politicians. Douglas observed, "Marshall accomplished the extraordinary magic of taking the Everglades out of the bleeding-hearts category forever". At the insistent urging of Marshall, newly elected Governor Bob Graham announced the formation of the "Save Our Everglades" campaign in 1983, and in 1985 Graham lifted the first shovel of backfill for a portion of the C-38 canal. Within a year the area was covered with water returning to its original state. Graham declared that by the year 2000, the Everglades would resemble its predrainage state as much as possible. The Kissimmee River Restoration Project was approved by Congress in the Water Resources Development Act of 1992. The project was estimated to cost $578 million to convert only of the canal; the cost was designed to be divided between the state of Florida and the U.S. government, with the state being responsible for purchasing land to be restored. A project manager for the Army Corps of Engineers explained in 2002, "What we're doing on this scale is going to be taken to a larger scale when we do the restoration of the Everglades". The entire project was originally estimated to be completed by 2011, but was completed in July 2021. In all, about of the Kissimmee River was restored, plus 20,000 acres of wetlands.