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Reversal of fortune: How a restored Kissimmee River helps save wildlife and battle floods

  • Sun-Sentinel
  • Jun 29
  • 2 min read

Sun Sentinel, June 29,2025

Aerial view of winding Kissimmee River – the headwaters of the Everglades watershed – through vast green and brown landscape under a clear sky. Sparse trees and patches of water dot the terrain.

It’s not often that the powers-that-be make an about-face, but once in a while it happens. And once in a while it pays off.


In 1947 a hurricane caused severe flooding along the Kissimmee River between Orlando and Lake Okeechobee. The state asked the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to fix the problem — the floodplain was mostly swamp, which seemed of little value at the time.

The Army Corps’ solution was to take a meandering 103-mile river that snaked through one of the wildest areas in the state, drain it, and carve it into a ruler-straight, 56-mile 30-foot-deep canal dubbed the C-38 — not exactly fodder for the tourism board.


Now, 54 years after engineers eliminated the river and finished the canal, there has been a reversal of fortune.


The Kissimmee is a river once again. It took a massive $1 billion state- and federally-funded restoration project to do it, but 44 miles of the river have been restored to its former serpentine path. Over the past four years, the restoration has proven that 40 square miles of wetland can not only regain the wildlife it once lost, but it can actually slow floods and protect human development.


The Kissimmee’s protective powers matter more now than ever, as the National Hurricane Center and others are calling for a strong hurricane season in 2025, and human-induced climate change is making rain events more intense.


To be fair, the notion of “fixing” nature was not without merit in the mid-20th century. During and after the Great Depression, the Tennessee Valley Authority built dozens of hydroelectric dams, bringing electricity and flood control to the most remote and poverty-stricken hollows of Appalachia.


Construction on the C-38 lasted from 1962 to 1971. Though the canal offered flood protection south of Orlando, it caused other problems.


“That deep wide canal mainlined that dirty water into Lake (Okeechobee),” said Steve Davis, chief science officer at the Everglades Foundation, who studies the science behind the restoration of the entire Everglades system, which starts with the Kissimmee River. Read the full Sun Sentinel article here: https://www.sun-sentinel.com/2025/06/29/reversal-of-fortune-how-a-restored-kissimmee-river-helps-save-wildlife-and-battle-floods/


Want to learn more?

 

You’re in the right place. For more than 30 years, The Everglades Foundation has been the premier organization fighting to restore and protect the precious Everglades ecosystem through science, advocacy, and education.

 

Join the movement to restore and protect the global treasure that is America’s Everglades. Sign up to learn more. Follow us on Facebook, InstagramLinkedIn, YouTube, and X (formerly Twitter). Give a gift of any amount you can to support our mission at EvergladesFoundation.org/Donate.

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