One generation’s crowning feats of engineering often turn out to be the next’s headaches; what seemed a brilliant idea at the time must later be undone. That has been the case many times over in the Everglades, which have been carved up, drained, dammed, and diverted. Beginning in the 1880s and continuing on through the 1960s, colossal projects made much of the swampy land usable for agriculture, development, and industry, but at a devastating cost to the ecosystem. As the flow of water continued to change, drought led to massive wildfires, and eventually saltwater flowed into some of Florida’s freshwater sources as well.
One of the trickier engineering projects in the Everglades was the C-111 canal, built in the 1960s in part to allow the Aerojet Corp. to transport huge rocket engines by barge. The canal essentially caused water to flow the opposite way—east, instead of west into the Florida Bay—causing the bay to become saltier and leading to periodic flooding in the Barnes Sound where the canal ends up.
The South Florida Water Management District is launching an effort to undo the damage caused by the canal. As with so many projects in the area, this one is expensive—around $25 million—and controversial. Farmers are worried that raising the water level will cause agricultural fields to flood; others are concerned that the work won’t raise it high enough.
The long-term project involves plugging the C-111 and connecting canals and slowly raising the water level over a period of several years, as well as building hundreds of acres of retention ponds and constructing pump stations. The result will be more water flowing into the Florida Bay. Details of the project, and the concerns over how it will be carried out, were the subject of a recent article in the Miami Herald, which also points out that eventually, more water will be needed from the north.