Ding-Dong, the Ditch is Dead: Restoration Plugs Picayune’s Miller Canal
The Picayune Strand Restoration Project in the Western Everglades is finally nearing completion with the construction of the Miller Canal plugs.
In the mid-20th century, overzealous developers built hundreds of miles of canals and raised roadbeds in an ill-fated and infamous "swampland swindle" scheme to create residential neighborhoods in the Western Everglades. In the process, they drastically altered the natural water levels of the region, destroying habitat for wading birds, fish, Florida panthers, and more. Most of the roads and all of the canals in the area formerly known as Southern Golden Gate Estates have been removed or plugged, while three new pump stations are already reducing the flooding risk of nearby communities.
As the first Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Program (CERP) project to begin construction, the Picayune Strand Restoration Project will restore water flows to a portion of Collier County in Southwest Florida. Like the other three major drainage canals, Miller Canal has now been restored by using original dredged spoil to create "plugs" to stop flows. The remnant habitat pools between the plugs act as wildlife refugia along the twelve-mile-long stretch that now feeds the estuaries of the Ten Thousand Islands instead of being shunted straight to the sea.
³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ Southwest Florida Policy Associate Brad Cornell was ebullient: "Restoring the world's largest subdivision back into diverse and wonderful sloughs, downstream estuaries, and pine islands for panthers, bears, Red-cockaded Woodpeckers, manatees, and Wood Storks is a hopeful sign for us all!"
Only a final levee culverting project remains before the overall Picayune restoration crosses the finish line. ³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ hopes to celebrate the completion of this massive Western Everglades restoration in late 2025 or early 2026. Now hydrologically complete, the Picayune Strand Restoration Project's full restoration flows are rejuvenating over 70,000 acres of wetlands, and the many pine islands in the Picayune Strand as well as nearby public lands such as the Fakahatchee Strand State Preserve, the Ten Thousand Islands National Wildlife Refuge, Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, and the Collier-Seminole State Park.