You may have seen some coverage lately about flooding in certain parts of the Everglades, but it’s time to shed some light on what exactly is going on and where that water is coming from.
Right now, the Water Conservation Areas (WCAs), which are massive wetlands that help move water through the central Everglades, under Tamiami trail, and into Everglades National Park, are higher than they should be—about a foot higher.
Unfortunately, the Tamiami Trail highway bisects the Everglades east to west, creating a barrier and bottleneck for the flow of water south. This can sometimes cause a harmful high-water situation in the WCAs, like we’re seeing right now.
Solutions are on the horizon
In recent years, under the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP), there have been some major improvements to facilitate more flow under Tamiami Trail and prevent water from stacking up in the WCAs.
Ongoing seepage and flood-control projects in the 8.5 Square Mile Area, removal of the Old Tamiami Trail roadbed, and bridges raised on the Tamiami Trail have given water managers far more capacity to flow water from the WCAs under the Tamiami Trail and into Everglades National Park.
Without those updates online, this situation would actually be even worse right now.
But there are even more infrastructure upgrades within the Central Everglades Planning Project (CEPP) under construction that will further alleviate future situations like this. Additional culverts, spillways, and efforts to raise the Tamiami Trail road will all allow more water to flow out of that area.
Those projects will help uncork that zone even more and make a measurable difference to this issue.
That’s the good news about this bad news: there are near-term solutions, once again through Everglades restoration.
The bad news about this bad news is that at this moment, the water is high, and the reason it’s high underscores the ongoing inequities within South Florida’s waters.
Where’s all the water coming from?
So, why is there so much water in the WCAs right now in the first place?
For one thing, there’s been a lot of rain lately, which naturally causes water levels in the WCAs to spike.
But the WCAs also receive a significant amount of water from the stormwater treatment areas (STAs) just south of the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA), where the Sugar Industry farms.
Now where’s that water in the treatment areas coming from?
Well, in a perfect world (one with even remotely fair water distribution), at least some of it would be coming from Lake Okeechobee, but as you can see in the graph below, over 96% of the water in the treatment areas is coming off the EAA.
WY 2023 STA inflows: 1,084 Kaf (thousand acre-feet) from the EAA compared to only 43 Kaf from Lake Okeechobee.
Translation: the water flowing into the STAs—which then fills into the WCAs—is almost exclusively runoff from sugarcane growing operations.
In fact, since May 1st, the EAA has added about one foot of water to WCA 3A, where the concern of flooding is occurring.
Coincidently, WCA 3A is almost a foot above schedule right now. So, without all that EAA water, this really wouldn’t even be a conversation right now.
Instead, while the entire system south of the Everglades Agricultural Area is completely inundated with water, the Sugar Industry is sitting high and dry with no adversity to worry about, enjoying their perfect conditions and flushing their runoff into the STAs whenever they want, regardless of downstream concerns.
The EAA doesn’t share in the adversity under the status quo
That, unfortunately, is how the current system is written. It guarantees the EAA optimum levels all the time, despite what that might mean for the rest of the stakeholders.
We wonder why we have this high lake all the time. Well, the STA’s that WE the taxpayers pay for are being filled up by the EAA’s runoff first, leaving no room for lake water to be cleaned and sent south.
Again, additional projects are currently under construction that will help prevent this bottleneck from happening in the future, but at present, there’s no shared adversity to mitigate the immediate situation.
That’s what’s frustrating.
Why can’t the EAA share in sub-optimal conditions for even a short time to help balance the rest of the system?
There are ways in which they could relieve the burden on the system as a whole, as outlined in this piece from Florida Oceanographic Society.
For example, by holding more water in the EAA—in the canals and water table—it would help other areas that are struggling, like the high WCAs and high Lake Okeechobee.
It’s high time to shatter these status-quo operations. This whole deal has been lopsided for long enough, and it’s about time we see far more balance across the board.
Thankfully, Everglades Restoration is moving forward like never before, but on top of that, it’s time we demand more of a fair share from everyone involved, in every aspect, no special-interest exceptions.
You may have seen some coverage lately about flooding in certain parts of the Everglades, but it’s time to shed some light on what exactly is going on and where that water is coming from.
Right now, the Water Conservation Areas (WCAs), which are massive wetlands that help move water through the central Everglades, under Tamiami trail, and into Everglades National Park, are higher than they should be—about a foot higher.
Unfortunately, the Tamiami Trail highway bisects the Everglades east to west, creating a barrier and bottleneck for the flow of water south. This can sometimes cause a harmful high-water situation in the WCAs, like we’re seeing right now.
Solutions are on the horizon
In recent years, under the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP), there have been some major improvements to facilitate more flow under Tamiami Trail and prevent water from stacking up in the WCAs.
Ongoing seepage and flood-control projects in the 8.5 Square Mile Area, removal of the Old Tamiami Trail roadbed, and bridges raised on the Tamiami Trail have given water managers far more capacity to flow water from the WCAs under the Tamiami Trail and into Everglades National Park.
Without those updates online, this situation would actually be even worse right now.
But there are even more infrastructure upgrades within the Central Everglades Planning Project (CEPP) under construction that will further alleviate future situations like this. Additional culverts, spillways, and efforts to raise the Tamiami Trail road will all allow more water to flow out of that area.
Those projects will help uncork that zone even more and make a measurable difference to this issue.
That’s the good news about this bad news: there are near-term solutions, once again through Everglades restoration.
The bad news about this bad news is that at this moment, the water is high, and the reason it’s high underscores the ongoing inequities within South Florida’s waters.
Where’s all the water coming from?
So, why is there so much water in the WCAs right now in the first place?
For one thing, there’s been a lot of rain lately, which naturally causes water levels in the WCAs to spike.
But the WCAs also receive a significant amount of water from the stormwater treatment areas (STAs) just south of the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA), where the Sugar Industry farms.
Now where’s that water in the treatment areas coming from?
Well, in a perfect world (one with even remotely fair water distribution), at least some of it would be coming from Lake Okeechobee, but as you can see in the graph below, over 96% of the water in the treatment areas is coming off the EAA.
WY 2023 STA inflows: 1,084 Kaf (thousand acre-feet) from the EAA compared to only 43 Kaf from Lake Okeechobee.
Translation: the water flowing into the STAs—which then fills into the WCAs—is almost exclusively runoff from sugarcane growing operations.
In fact, since May 1st, the EAA has added about one foot of water to WCA 3A, where the concern of flooding is occurring.
Coincidently, WCA 3A is almost a foot above schedule right now. So, without all that EAA water, this really wouldn’t even be a conversation right now.
Instead, while the entire system south of the Everglades Agricultural Area is completely inundated with water, the Sugar Industry is sitting high and dry with no adversity to worry about, enjoying their perfect conditions and flushing their runoff into the STAs whenever they want, regardless of downstream concerns.
The EAA doesn’t share in the adversity under the status quo
That, unfortunately, is how the current system is written. It guarantees the EAA optimum levels all the time, despite what that might mean for the rest of the stakeholders.
We wonder why we have this high lake all the time. Well, the STA’s that WE the taxpayers pay for are being filled up by the EAA’s runoff first, leaving no room for lake water to be cleaned and sent south.
Again, additional projects are currently under construction that will help prevent this bottleneck from happening in the future, but at present, there’s no shared adversity to mitigate the immediate situation.
That’s what’s frustrating.
Why can’t the EAA share in sub-optimal conditions for even a short time to help balance the rest of the system?
There are ways in which they could relieve the burden on the system as a whole, as outlined in this piece from Florida Oceanographic Society.
For example, by holding more water in the EAA—in the canals and water table—it would help other areas that are struggling, like the high WCAs and high Lake Okeechobee.
It’s high time to shatter these status-quo operations. This whole deal has been lopsided for long enough, and it’s about time we see far more balance across the board.
Thankfully, Everglades Restoration is moving forward like never before, but on top of that, it’s time we demand more of a fair share from everyone involved, in every aspect, no special-interest exceptions.