page_title: Restoration of the Everglades
section_title: Central and South Florida Project Restudy
hierarchical_section_title: Restoration of the Everglades / Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan / Central and South Florida Project Restudy
caption_attribution_description: Drainage patterns in South Florida as of 2005
context_page_description: The restoration of the Everglades is an ongoing effort to remedy damage inflicted on the environment of southern Florida during the 20th century. It is the 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 1,400 miles of canals and levees between the 1950s and 1971 throughout South Florida.
context_section_description: As part of the Water Resources Development Act of 1992, Congress authorized an evaluation of the effectiveness of the Central and Southern Florida Flood Control Project. A report known as the "Restudy", written by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the South Florida Water Management District, was submitted to Congress in 1999. It cited indicators of harm to the system: a 50% reduction in the original Everglades, diminished water storage, harmful timing of water release, an 85 to 90% decrease in wading bird populations over the past 50 years, and the decline of output from commercial fisheries. Bodies of water including Lake Okeechobee, the Caloosahatchee River, St. Lucie estuary, Lake Worth Lagoon, Biscayne Bay, Florida Bay, and the Everglades reflected drastic water level changes, hypersalinity, and dramatic changes in marine and freshwater ecosystems. The Restudy noted the overall decline in water quality over the past 50 years was caused by loss of wetlands that act as filters for polluted water. It predicted that without intervention the entire South Florida ecosystem would deteriorate. Canals took roughly 170 billion US gallons (640 Gl) of water to the Atlantic Ocean or Gulf of Mexico daily, so there was no opportunity for water storage, yet flooding was still a problem. Without changes to the current system, the Restudy predicted water restrictions would be necessary every other year, and annually in some locations. It also warned that revising some portions of the project without dedicating efforts to an overall comprehensive plan would be insufficient and probably detrimental.
  After evaluating ten plans, the Restudy recommended a comprehensive strategy that would cost $7.8 billion over 20 years. The plan advised taking the following actions:
  Create surface water storage reservoirs to capture 1,500,000 acre feet (1.9 km³) of water in several locations taking up 181,300 acres (734 km²).
  Create water preserve areas between Miami-Dade and Palm Beach and the eastern Everglades to treat runoff water.
  Manage Lake Okeechobee as an ecological resource to avoid the drastic rise and fall of water levels in the lake that are harmful to aquatic plant and animal life and disturb the lake sediments.
  Improve water deliveries to estuaries to reduce the rapid discharge of excess water to the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie estuaries that upset nutrient balances and cause lesions on fish. Stormwater discharge would be sent instead to reservoirs.
  Increase underground water storage to hold 16 billion US gallons (61 Gl) a day in wells, or reservoirs in the Floridan Aquifer, to be used later in dry periods, in a method called Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR).
  Construct treatment wetlands as Stormwater Treatment Areas throughout 35,600 acres (144 km²), that would decrease the amount of pollutants in the environment.
  Improve water deliveries to the Everglades by increasing them at a rate of approximately 26% into Shark River Slough.
  Remove barriers to sheetflow by destroying or removing 240 miles (390 km) of canals and levees, specifically removing the Miami Canal and reconstructing the Tamiami Trail from a highway to culverts and bridges to allow sheetflow to return to a more natural rate of water flow into Everglades National Park.
  Store water in quarries and reuse wastewater by employing existing quarries to supply the South Florida metropolitan area as well as Florida Bay and the Everglades. Construct two wastewater treatment plants capable of discharging 22 billion US gallons (83 Gl) a day to recharge the Biscayne Aquifer.
  The implementation of all of the advised actions, the report stated, would "result in the recovery of healthy, sustainable ecosystems throughout south Florida". The report admitted that it did not have all the answers, though no plan could. However, it predicted that it would restore the "essential defining features of the pre-drainage wetlands over large portions of the remaining system", that populations of all animals would increase, and animal distribution patterns would return to their natural states. Critic
caption: Current water drainage patterns in South Florida in 2005
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