The city and federal governments conceived and began to implement a plan to save Mexico City's remaining chinampas called the Xochimilco Ecological Rescue Plan (Plan de Rescate Ecológico de Xochimilco), the center of which was the establishment of the park. The goal the project is to restore the chinampa ecosystem here to what it was during the Aztec Empire and then preserve it that way. The area was recharged with treated water to reinvigorate and create much of the surface water that is there today. Native vegetation was brought in by biologists and botanists. To restore soils, much of the sanitary debris from the 1985 earthquake and soils dug from the building of the Metro was brought in.