FL - Everglades restoration south of Lake Okeechobee breaks new ground
The Everglades Agricultural Area Reservoir has been on a to-do list for decades to address detrimental changes happening in Florida's wetlands after man drained and farmed and constrained land.
A multibillion-dollar plan to heal South Florida's damaged ecosystem is breaking new ground in western Palm Beach County, where Lake Okeechobee waters once trickled south to nourish the Everglades and feed freshwater to Florida Bay.
The Everglades Agricultural Area Reservoir, a massive holding tank for lake overflow, has been on a to-do list for more than 20 years since lawmakers realized the detrimental changes happening in Florida's wetlands after man drained and farmed and constrained land south of Lake Okeechobee.
On Wednesday, the Army Corps of Engineers started a key phase of the massive construction project to emulate what was broken. Here's what to know.
What's happening in Palm Beach County:
Construction is beginning on a 10,500-acre reservoir in western Palm Beach County that will hold 240,000 acre-feet of water at a depth of about 23 feet. Water from Lake Okeechobee will flow into the reservoir, where it will then be doled out to man-made wetlands called stormwater treatment areas, or STAs. The STAs use plants to clean harmful nutrients from the water before moving it south into the Everglades.
The land where the reservoir and STA are being built is owned by the state.
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