Originally published in the News-Press by Amy Bennett Williams on July 15, 2025
The reservoir is one of 68 original projects Congress signed into being when it approved the largest environmental restoration project on the globe in 2000.
As often happens with such undertakings, there were bumps along the way. Disputes with the project’s original builder led to delays, lawsuits and the South Florida Water Management District finally firing the firm, then taking the $560 million job in-house.
So to have it finally done is immensely gratifying for District Governing Board Chair Chauncey Goss – not just for the momentous accomplishment, but because as a Sanibel resident, Goss has seen (and smelled) how an unbalanced river can sicken the estuary. “It’s so gratifying,” he said.
And yet, concerns remain alongside the celebration. Part of the challenge is how much time has elapsed between concept and completion, points out Calusa Waterkeeper Emeritus John Cassani. The problem is the whole system is more polluted now than it was when the reservoir was envisioned as a giant storage tank.
“Declining water quality in the basin may represent a more recent constraint to reservoir operation,” Cassani wrote in an email. “The water discharged may not meet state water quality standards and slow the required nitrogen reduction plan for the estuary already impaired (polluted) for nutrients since 2009.”
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