Originally published in the News-Press by Chad Gillis on October 17, 2025
The 2025-26 dry season may be the exact case for what the reservoir was designed to do, to take the water that was stored during the rainy season and make it available for the estuary during the dry season.
That’s the entire purpose of the C-43 Reservoir. That’s the whole plan, in a nutshell.
It has a long history as the project was called for in the original Everglades restoration plans, approved by Congress in 2000.
But will it work this year, as has been promised?
Some local river advocates say the project is still not ready and that virtually no water has been stored this year in the reservoir.
“It’s not storing any water and we’re going into dry season,” said John Cassani, Calusa Waterkeeper Emeritis. “There’s not going to be a source to meet the (minimum flow level) for the estuary because they don’t have anything stored yet.”
Cassani said photographs taken by local pilot Ralph Arwood show that there it little to no water in the C-43 reservoir.
Cassani is right, according to an email from a water management district spokesman.
The reservoir was not operational this past summer.
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