The State of the Everglades

 A story in the Fort Myers News-Press examines a stretch of U.S. 41 and changes that could help the Everglades.


 The largest dam in Florida has sprung a leak, finally.
Actually the “dam” is the Tamiami Trail, the “leak” a one-mile bridge that will soon allow water to flow south through the Shark River Valley for the first time in nearly a century. The new bridge is just west of Miami in the Everglades, just east of Coopertown.
“Floridians and Americans can see where the dollars actually go and how this works,” said Eric Eikenberg, director of the Everglades Foundation. “In our view, it’s the most important road project in the U.S Park Service. It’s the lifeblood of Everglades National Park, which is desperate for water.”
The stretch of U.S. 41 that connects Naples to Miami is widely considered one of the state’s biggest ecological travesties. Built in a era guided more by draining South Florida for development than preserving the Everglades, Tamiami Trail choked off the famed River of Grass, severing Shark River Valley and cutting off freshwater flows to the creeks, rivers and lakes that flow into Florida Bay.

Glades Water flow