Everglades Restoration

Historical Context

Large-scale modifications of the Everglades began with the Swamp Lands Act of 1850, when the state of Florida claimed ownership of more than 20 million acres of the Everglades with the plan to drain the system so as to attract private investment [Page 1040]and economic activity. In 1880, the developer Hamilton Disston initiated the first significant drainage efforts designed to convert the wetlands into fertile agricultural land. In 1904, Napoleon Bonaparte Broward made the Everglades drainage the centerpiece of his successful, gubernatorial campaign as he invested significant political capital into drainage efforts that he promoted as creating vast, economic opportunities for Floridians. From 1906 to 1930, the Everglades experienced the construction of three major drainage canals—North New River, Hillsboro, and West Palm Beach—and completion of the Miami Canal.

To enhance drainage, a levee system was constructed in the 1920s around the southern shore of Lake Okeechobee, which prevented the natural sheet flow of fresh water from Lake Okeechobee south to Florida Bay. Concurrently, the Tamiami Trail highway was constructed to connect the rapidly developing communities on the eastern and western coasts of South Florida, which blocked nearly all surface water flow and divided the enormous, contiguous Everglades into two distinct northern and southern systems.

The second major phase in the human alterations of the Everglades began in 1948, when the Central and Southern Florida Project for Flood Control (C&SF Project) was authorized by Congress to expand greatly the previous drainage canal network for South Florida's booming human population. The Central and Southern Florida Flood Control District, now known as the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD), was given authority to manage the system, with the primary goal of preventing flooding in the rapidly growing urban areas. The major alterations of the C&SF Project included the construction of more levees and conversion of several hundred thousand acres of natural wetlands to the EAA.

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