From the site of the C-139 Flow Equalization Basin, Friends of the Everglades executive director Eve Samples brings you your Voice of the Everglades update:

At Friends of the Everglades, we aren’t in the habit of cheering on half-measures that fall short of protecting Florida’s fragile waterways and wilderness. Our cause is too urgent — there’s no time for platitudes. Our founder, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, recognized that long ago.

But when true progress occurs, we make sure to celebrate the success and allow it to energize our continued fight. 

I’m happy to report that we have one of those moments now. 

This month, construction was completed on an 11,000-acre shallow, marshy reservoir on a former citrus grove far south of Lake Okeechobee. The project was the final water-quality project in a larger plan called Restoration Strategies that kicked off a dozen years ago. 

The South Florida Water Management District hosted a ribbon cutting in celebration of the completion of the construction phase of the Everglades Restoration Strategies Project on November 13, 2024.

This array of water-storage and treatment projects is especially important to Friends of the Everglades because we filed Clean Water Act litigation in 2005 that led to it. We went to court to hold the state of Florida accountable for cleaning up phosphorus pollution that was devastating the Everglades, most of it from U.S. Sugar and Florida Crystals fields south of Lake Okeechobee.

Our case was eventually joined with a similar case from the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians, forcing the state to spend $880 million on constructed wetlands to clean phosphorus from the water. The South Florida Water Management District built more than 6,500 acres of new stormwater treatment areas (STAs) and water storage features including the C-139 Flow Equalization Basin (FEB) that was completed this month. It will help the STAs perform better by controlling the inflow of water.

Our Friends of the Everglades team attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony on November 13, as the pumps were turned on to allow water to flow into the FEB. I encourage you to watch the short video above to get a sense of what landscape-scale restoration can look like when done right. When projects emulate nature, as these do, they are places of beauty and habitat for wildlife. They also can save this iconic ecosystem.

This kind of work demands years, sometimes decades, of vigilance. And while we are celebrating the completion of Restoration Strategies — and the role Friends of the Everglades and the Miccosukee Tribe played in it — we’re not resting easy. Now we must monitor water quality resulting from these projects to ensure they comply with strict court-ordered phosphorus limits. And we are.

All of this work is powered by supporters like YOU. It also would not have been possible without our devoted pro-bono legal team.

As we reflect on gratitude this Thanksgiving week, I am especially grateful to have an Everglades success to celebrate.