Only about one-half of Florida’s original wetlands remain, but Florida still has more wetlands than any of the other forty-seven conterminous States. On top of that, over the last few decades, the State of Florida has been diligently restoring some of the lost wetlands.
The Kissimmee River once meandered for 103 miles through central Florida. Its floodplain, reaching up to three miles wide, was inundated for extended periods by heavy seasonal rains. Native wetland plants, wading birds and fish thrived there. The Kissimmee Basin encompasses more than two dozen lakes in the Kissimmee Chain of Lakes (KCOL), their tributary streams and associated marshes and the Kissimmee River and floodplain. The basin forms the headwaters of Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades; together they comprise the Kissimmee-Okeechobee-Everglades (KOE) system, but prolonged flooding in 1947 prompted a public outcry for federal assistance to reduce flood damage to property. In 1948, the U.S. Congress authorized the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to construct the Central and South Florida Project.
Site History
In the 1960s, the Central and Southern Florida Flood Control (C&SF) Project modified the native KOE system extensively throughout South Florida, including construction of canals and water control structures to achieve flood control in the Upper and Lower Kissimmee basins. The Kissimmee River was channelized by cutting and dredging a 30-feet-deep straightaway through the river’s meanders creating the C-38 canal.
After the river channel was straightened, 40,000 acres of floodplain below Lake Kissimmee dried out, reducing the quality of waterfowl habitat by ninety percent, and the number of herons, egrets and wood storks by two-thirds. Catches of largemouth bass in the river were consistently worse after the channelization. While the Kissimmee was not a significant source of pollution for Lake Okeechobee before channelization, in the 1970s and later the river contributed about 25% of the nitrogen and 20% of the phosphorus flowing into the lake.
While the project delivered on the promise of flood protection, it also destroyed much of a floodplain-dependent ecosystem that nurtured threatened and endangered species, as well as hundreds of other native fish and wetland-dependent animals.
Efforts to restore the Kissimmee River to its original flow were approved by Congress in 1992 and began with modification to the headwater lakes in 1997. The United States Army Corps of Engineers had initially hoped to complete the project in 2015. In 2006, the South Florida Water Management District had acquired enough land along the river and in the upper chain of lakes to complete restoration. In all, forty-three miles (69 km) of the Kissimmee River will be restored.
Project Goals
Major initiatives in the Kissimmee Basin include the Kissimmee River Restoration Project, the Kissimmee River Restoration Evaluation Program and the Kissimmee Chain of Lakes and Kissimmee Upper Basin Monitoring and Assessment. Several activities are associated with these projects, including ecosystem restoration, evaluation of restoration efforts, aquatic plant management, land management, water quality improvement and water supply planning.
The Kissimmee River Restoration Project will restore more than forty square miles of the river floodplain ecosystem, 20,000 acres of wetlands, and forty-four miles of the historic river channel. This major restoration effort is a 50-50 partnership between the USACE and the SFWMD. Over the past 22 years, the USACE and SFWMD worked together to:
- Complete backfilling of 22-miles of the C-38 canal between Lakes Kissimmee and Okeechobee.
- Reconstruct remnant river channels across the backfilled canal to reconnect and restore flow in remnant river channels.
- Remove two water control structures.
- Add two gates to the S-65 water control structure.
- Acquire more than 100,000 acres of land to restore the river and floodplain.
Restoration Progress
Already, wildlife is returning to the restored sections of the river. When flooding began again, muck and smothering aquatic weeds were flushed out. Sandbars reemerged. Encroaching dry land trees began dying back. Once-dormant plants began to reestablish themselves. The species included pink-tipped smartweed, horsetail, sedges, rushes, arrowhead, duck potato and pickerel weed. Flooding and continuous flow increased levels of dissolved oxygen in the water, creating near perfect conditions for aquatic invertebrates such as insects, mollusks, works, crayfish, and freshwater shrimp. This, in turn, boosted fish populations and it led to a rise in bird and alligator populations. The entire food chain benefited. The Kissimmee River restoration is one of the largest ecosystem restoration projects in the world.
The decades-long project to restore the historic Kissimmee River is now nearing completion. “There’s two phases to complete Kissimmee River restoration,” said Lawrence Glenn, director of the SFWMD’s water resources division. “The first step, construction, is now complete. Next is what Glenn calls “the restoration of hydrology.”
Standing from the bow of an airboat, Glenn pointed to the meandering grassy waters behind him. In the exact spot where the C-38 Canal once flowed, there was now an abundance of birds flying overhead. “The next step is managing the quantity, timing and distribution of the river’s water, to ensure the ecology thrives,” he said.
Sources
Chesnes, M. (2021). ‘A fantastic day’: Kissimmee River restoration project complete after 22 years. TCPalm. Retrieved from https://www.tcpalm.com/story/news/local/indian-river-lagoon/2021/07/29/army-corps-kissimmee-river-restoration-project-complete-22-years-lake-okeechobee-releases-discharges/5399944001/
Koebel Jr., J. W. (1995). An historical perspective on the Kissimmee River restoration project. Restoration Ecology, 3(3), Pages 149-159. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1526-100X.1995.tb00167.x
South Florida Management District. (n.d.). Kissimmee River. Retrieved from https://www.sfwmd.gov/our-work/kissimmee-river