South of Lake Okeechobee, Florida — at the heart of Everglades National Park — a new freshwater reservoir is underway.
And at a whopping 10,100 acres, it will be larger than Manhattan and Staten Island combined.
The Everglades Foundation, one of the non-profit organizations behind the project, told the BBC that the restoration plan is the “largest environmental restoration project” in the world.
“It is the single most important project to store, clean and send water from Lake Okeechobee to nourish the Everglades and supply clean drinking water to millions in South Florida,” Meenakshi Chabba, an ecosystem scientist at The Everglades Foundation, told BBC Future Planet.
“The freshwater flowing across the Everglades recharges Biscayne Aquifer, which provides drinking water to millions of South Florida residents,” Chabba said.
The man-made lake, officially called the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA) reservoir, is set to be complete by 2029.
According to Jason Schultz — a spokesperson for the South Florida Water Management District — the reservoir will help to reduce harmful discharges to the St Lucie River, the Caloosahatchee River, and Lake Worth Lagoon.
“The EAA Reservoir and Stormwater Treatment Area is a cornerstone project that reduces damaging discharges that harm our coastal communities while providing fresh, clean water to America's Everglades and Florida Bay,” said Schultz.
“Restoring America's Everglades is one of the most ambitious hydrologic restoration projects ever undertaken and will restore the natural flow of clean water south where it is needed most,” Schultz added.
However, there are a lot of challenges at play in this restoration project, which have been affecting Florida for years.
Obstacles include fighting agricultural runoff from local farming, which continues to impact water quality.
Climate change has additionally ushered along an uptick in extreme weather events and rising sea levels, both of which put a strain on water management and could potentially lead to saltwater mixing with the drinking water supply.
There’s also Florida’s ongoing struggle to keep the water free of pollutants like phosphorous, which can lead to harmful algae blooms, like Tampa Bay’s “red tide” event of 2021, which killed fish and manatees on a devastating scale.
In fact, Lake Okeechobee often plays host to the same algae blooms that discharge to the coast.
“It's complicated. Can you really get the relief you want from a reservoir?” asked Barry Rosen, a professor of ecology and environment at Florida Gulf Coast University, in an interview with the BBC.
“The reservoir is not going to resolve the whole thing. But if it shaves a little bit of the problem, then great. If the system is better restored it will be more resilient.”
Rosen is right to be cautious. Fortunately, the environmentalists and experts helming this project are all too aware of the challenges they face, and they are working overtime to ensure that the restoration project is successful on multiple fronts.
Their plan includes doing stormwater treatments to remove pollutants before they reach the reservoir, implementing advanced filtration techniques, and taking a broader restoration approach to the Everglades by restoring natural barriers like mangroves and wetlands to slow saltwater intrusion.
“The potential benefits for ecosystem restoration, water management and reduction of harmful algae blooms are significant,” Assefa Melesse, professor at the Institute of Environment at Florida International University, told the BBC.
For Floridians, it’s a project worth embarking on.
“The Everglades is a unique and complex ecosystem found nowhere else in the world and it is crucial to life in Florida,” Schultz said.
When it comes to Melesse, the good outweighs the bad.
But she hopes that the attention that comes with this world-first reservoir also leads to larger efforts to protect the “crown jewel” of the Everglades — and the national park at large.
“The reservoir is not a complete solution,” Melesse said. “[But] it is part of a broader, integrated approach to water management and environmental protection in Florida.”
Header image via Joe Shlabotnik / Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
