Sebring: The 22-year project to recover the Kissimmee Florida River from the handmade channel directly to the winding situation has marked the main milestone.
Officials involved in the Kissimmee River Restoration Project nearly $ 1 billion at an event Thursday that 44 miles (70 kilometers) from the water channel had been returned to the curved path in Central Florida.
The project began in 1999 in the middle of evidence that changing the river with a straight flood control channel in the 1970s damaged the environment, removing more polluted water to Lake Okeechobee, sharply reducing waterfowd and bald eagle population and detrimental fish and invertebrates.
The TC Palm newspaper reported that the floodland and Oxbows Kissimmee River would help cleanse water with nitrogen and phosphorus of agricultural runoff, which had given a dangerous algae bloom, translating lake for decades.
“Not only do we keep water in the river area and send it in the right volume and frequency, we are also connected to the floodland where it cleanses the water before going to the lake,” said the executive director of South Florida Water Management Drew Bartlett.
“From the point of view of the quantity (water), this is home-run,” he added.
“From a quality point of view, too.” The total project costs are estimated at $ 980 million, dividing 50-50 between US Army and Water Management District Corps.
Now the construction is complete, the next step is to increase the storage of upstream lake and imitate how the river once naturally flows.
It will be done in 2026, officials said.
“They have made a more formidable river,” Shannon Estenoz said, the assistant department of the Secretary of the US Interior for fish, wildlife, and parks.
“The restored river is a tough river against external strength.”