The public land available in the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA) is more than sufficient to site a reservoir big enough to cut discharges to the coasts and restore flows of clean water to the Everglades.

With a cost-effective depth of 12 feet, a reservoir holding 240,000 acre-foot (78 billion gallons) of water from Lake Okeechobee would cover 20,000 acres. The 13,000 acres of STAs that independent hydrologists say will allow water to be cleaned fast enough to let the reservoir acheive optimimum discharge reduction would bring the total project footprint to 33,000 acres. Florida taxpayers own far more than that.

This map offers a sense of how much land in the EAA the public owns, and where it is. Most is near the proposed reservoir site, and some can be swapped for adjacent property–something the SFWMD has explicit authority to do. Click anywhere in the image to explore the map and see how much acreage is available for this project.