7.2. Hydrology and canal construction 
A description of the hydrology of the pre-drainage system of the Everglades and water 
management of the area can be found in Parker (1984), DeGrove (1984), and Light and Dineen 
(1994). 
A detailed description of the hydrology of pre-drainage system of the Everglades can be found 
in Parker (1984) and is abstracted in this section. Descriptions of the Everglades, published as 
early as 1832, described the area southwest of Miami as sandy soil with large stone outcrops 
inundated by about two feet of water and very tall and dense sawgrass. During the latter part 
of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th, geologists and naturalists began scientific 
explorations of the Florida peninsula resulting in numerous published accounts documenting pre¬ 
drainage hydrologic conditions of the Everglades. In a paper on the topography of South Florida 
published in 1890, Shaler wrote that very large quantities of water were stored in the 
Everglades behind the Atlantic Coastal Ridge (current location of the city of Miami and adjacent 
municipalities). The Ridge was thickly penetrated with sink holes so that rain and fresh water 
appeared to flow via these underground channels to the sea where they emerged as fresh water 
springs. He further proposed a canal system to drain waters from the Everglades into Biscayne 
Bay. The naturalist Alexander Agassiz, in a note attached to the paper by Shaler, comments: 
‘To the damming up of the waters in the Everglades and to the outbursts of gigantic masses of 
water charged with organic matter and lime, we may trace the immense destruction of fishes 
which so frequently occurs on the shores of the Florida Keys and the waters surrounding them." 
Numerous early reports by land developers, promoters, their hired surveyors and engineers, 
and by early settlers preserve additional observed data. They all add up to the judgment that, 
in pre-drainage days, the Everglades were generally either wet or flooded most of the time but 
that occasionally a drought of two or more years' duration would occur and the glades would 
then become dried out. During such times the surficial soils in the higher parts of this almost 
perfectly flat land would become powdery dry and deeply cracked. Fires would then sweep the 
glades, creating deep, burned-out pockets in the organic soils floored with gray-to-black ash 
layers up to several inches thick. The drainage plan was part of a populist movement designed 
to attract settlers to South Florida (Light and Deneen, 1994), and as early as 1913, a system 
of drainage canals was proposed to drain 'excess" water from Lake Okeechobee and the Florida 
Everglades (Florida Everglades Engineering Commission, 1913). These canals interrupted the 
flow of the Everglades, which is a very shallow, slow moving river, flowing from Lake 
Okeechobee south-southwest into Florida Bay. The slope of this drainage basin is only 2 in. per 
mile. Early efforts at water control included the Everglades Drainage District works, consisting 
of 440 mi (70.8 km) of canals and levees, and the Okeechobee Flood Control District, which 
constructed a federally subsidized dike around the southern rim of Lake Okeechobee. However, 
these efforts were a prelude to a massive federal project (Central and Southern Florida Project 
for Flood Control and Other Purposes) which was authorized after the massive flooding during 
1948. 
The Everglades Drainage District was established at that time, with boundaries running just 
north of Lake Okeechobee down to the Florida Straits excluding the coastal urban areas, the 
Kissimmee and St. Johns valleys and the western part of the Caloosahatchee valley (DeGrove, 
1984). The basic drainage plan of this agency was to lower the level of Lake Okeechobee by 
outlet canals and to furnish additional drainage by a series of canals from the southern shores 
of the Lake southeasterly through the Everglades to connect with the short lower east coast 
rivers. Operations lasted until 1928 with the financial collapse of the Everglades Drainage 
District agency, and basic maintenance was neglected and system efficiency decreased. From 
1931 to 1947, a comprehensive water control program was developed to replace the old 
drainage efforts. In 1949, a comprehensive plan was adopted by the Federal Government 
through the US Army Corps of Engineers. 
40 
