Kissimmee River Basin Restoration
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Video Transcript
Narrator: The original Kissimmee River meandered over a hundred miles from Lake Kissimmee to Lake Okeechobee. When it rained, the river swelled into a large flood plain almost two miles wide, though only a few feet deep. During the drier winter season the river would shrink back into its slow twisting course. This cycle was critical to the many species of organisms that thrived along the Kissimmee. When citizens demanded protection from floods, the Army Corps of Engineers canalized the river transforming it into a 56-mile-long canal, by draining almost 35,000 acres of flood planes and more than 68 miles of remnant river ceased to flow. But with the vanishing marsh so went the natural filters that protected the river from phosphorous and other agricultural and urban runoffs. And that set up a direct pipeline seeping contaminated water straight into the heart of the everglades.
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Copyright 2012 Florida Department of Environmental Protection