Everglades Restoration Progress 2026 — Florida

Everglades restoration in Florida is a multi-decade, multi-agency effort to reverse the hydrological damage inflicted on the greater Everglades ecosystem by 20th-century drainage and flood-control infrastructure. The ecosystem spans roughly 18,000 square miles of South Florida, extending from the Kissimmee River and Lake Okeechobee southward through the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA), the Everglades Protection Area, Everglades National Park, and ultimately to Florida Bay and Biscayne Bay. Beginning in the 1940s, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) constructed an extensive network of canals, levees, and pumping stations that reduced the Everglades to approximately half its historic extent and severely degraded the natural southward sheetflow of water that sustained the wetland system.

The Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP), authorized by Congress in the Water Resources Development Act of 2000 (P.L. 106-541), provides the primary coordinating framework, involving USACE, the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD), and the State of Florida in what the Congressional Research Service, in January 2025, projected as a 50-year, $23.2 billion program in FY2020 dollars. As of mid-2026, construction on several landmark infrastructure projects has accelerated following a July 2025 federal-state agreement, while scientific assessments document measurable ecological gains alongside persistent water quality challenges.

CERP was originally scoped in 2000 as more than 50 projects to be completed over 30 years at a cost of $8.2 billion in FY2000 dollars. As the Congressional Research Service reported in January 2025, the program is now projected to require approximately 50 years from its 2000 authorization to fully implement, at a revised total cost of $23.2 billion in FY2020 dollars. Under CERP's cost-sharing structure, the federal government — through USACE and the Department of the Interior — bears half the costs, with the State of Florida responsible for the other half; tribal governments and local agencies are also involved. The program has been described by members of Congress as the largest ecosystem restoration project in the world.

Successive Water Resources Development Acts have continued to authorize individual CERP projects. WRDA 2020 (P.L. 116-260) authorized the Loxahatchee River Watershed Restoration Project. WRDA 2022 (P.L. 117-263) adjusted the program's structure. WRDA 2024 (P.L. 118-272) authorized construction of the Western Everglades Restoration Project (WERP) at $2.1 billion and provided $320 million in assistance for nonfederal construction of the North Feeder Stormwater Treatment Area, according to the Congressional Research Service. Governor Ron DeSantis signed Executive Order 23-06 on January 10, 2023, directing expedited restoration project delivery, building on an earlier Executive Order 19-12 issued in 2019.

Independent scientific oversight is provided through biennial reviews by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), which Congress mandated to evaluate CERP progress. The Tenth Biennial Review, published in 2024, acknowledged historic progress in restoration and documented on-the-ground ecological benefits in Everglades National Park and Picayune Strand State Forest, while identifying water quality compliance as an unresolved concern. NASEM's 2022 recommendation that the state develop an adaptive management plan for meeting the water quality-based effluent limit had not been fulfilled as of January 2025, according to the Congressional Research Service.

The Everglades Agricultural Area Reservoir Project is CERP's most consequential active construction initiative. It is a joint undertaking between USACE and SFWMD comprising two primary components: a 6,500-acre EAA Stormwater Treatment Area (STA) — a constructed wetland using aquatic vegetation to remove phosphorus from agricultural runoff before water flows south — and a 10,500-acre reservoir designed to hold 240,000 acre-feet of water redirected from Lake Okeechobee, according to SFWMD project records.

SFWMD broke ground on the STA component in April 2020, ahead of schedule. USACE and SFWMD jointly broke ground on the reservoir in February 2023. In January 2024, SFWMD began filling the completed STA. A 10-year, $2.87 billion embankment contract was awarded to Thalle Construction Company for the reservoir, as Florida Politics reported in October 2024, citing SFWMD Executive Director Drew Bartlett. In November 2025, SFWMD broke ground on the EAA Reservoir Inflow Pump Station, a facility engineered to move approximately 3 billion gallons of water per day from Lake Okeechobee into the reservoir.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (P.L. 117-58), enacted in 2021, delivered what the U.S. Department of the Interior described as the largest single federal investment in the Everglades in U.S. history — $1.1 billion for South Florida Ecosystem Restoration (SFER). The Biden-Harris administration's combined federal allocations for Everglades restoration over the two years preceding January 2025 totaled a reported $2 billion, including Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funds and presidential budget requests.

Water quality compliance is the program's central unresolved challenge. The Federal Clean Water Act (33 U.S.C. §§1251–1388) requires the state to maintain water quality standards in the Everglades Protection Area, and phosphorus concentration — the primary nutrient pollutant from EAA agricultural runoff — is the governing metric. Florida's state standard is 10 parts per billion (ppb) for phosphorus in the Everglades Protection Area.

The SFWMD-operated stormwater treatment area network — a system of constructed wetlands using species including giant bulrush, alligator flag, and American lotus to filter phosphorus — was completed in 2025 and represents roughly $2 billion in constructed infrastructure. As Inside Climate News reported in April 2026, SFWMD's annual South Florida Environmental Report documented that during water year 2025, more than 98 percent of protected Everglades areas met the 10 ppb phosphorus standard — among the best performance on record. The STA network has treated nearly 9.4 trillion gallons of water in total and achieved an approximately 78 percent overall phosphorus reduction since operations began, with an 81 percent reduction recorded during water year 2025 specifically.

However, Inside Climate News also reported in April 2026 that phosphorus loads flowing from the STAs into protected areas rose between 2024 and 2025 in some zones. SFWMD attributed this increase to an extreme rain event in June 2024 that overwhelmed treatment capacity. The Congressional Research Service noted in January 2025 that a required effluent limit attainment assessment for the completed STA network is scheduled to begin in 2026, and that construction of CERP North infrastructure is conditioned on meeting that phosphorus effluent limit — making the outcome of the 2026 assessment a live policy question for the program's scheduling. Florida's Restoration Strategies Regional Water Quality Plan, developed in 2012, established the framework of expanded STA acreage and supporting infrastructure that the 2025 construction completion fulfilled.

Restoration activity is concentrated across South Florida, spanning a corridor from the Kissimmee River headwaters in Osceola and Okeechobee counties southward through Palm Beach, Hendry, Miami-Dade, Collier, and Lee counties, and out to Florida Bay and Biscayne Bay.

The Kissimmee River restoration — already completed prior to the CERP era — is documented by SFWMD as one of the largest successful river restoration projects in U.S. history, addressing the system's northern headwaters. The EAA Reservoir Project is sited in the northern EAA, south of Lake Okeechobee, in Palm Beach and Hendry counties. The Central Everglades Planning Project (CEPP) targets the reestablishment of northward-to-southward sheetflow through the central Everglades and Everglades National Park in Miami-Dade County; in September 2025, USACE held a ribbon cutting for a completed CEPP component, and the state separately broke ground on the Blue Shanty Flow Way — a conveyance element — in the same month.

In southwest Florida, the C-43 West Basin Storage Reservoir is sited along the Caloosahatchee River in Lee County, aimed at reducing harmful lake discharge volumes to the Caloosahatchee Estuary. The Loxahatchee River Watershed Restoration Project, authorized under WRDA 2020, addresses Palm Beach and Martin counties at the system's northern extent. The Western Everglades Restoration Project (WERP), newly authorized under WRDA 2024 at $2.1 billion, focuses on Collier County's wetland systems, including Picayune Strand State Forest, where the NASEM Tenth Biennial Review of 2024 documented measurable on-the-ground ecological benefits. Since 2019, SFWMD reports the program has reached 80 ribbon cuttings and groundbreakings as a cumulative milestone marker.

On July 18, 2025, Governor Ron DeSantis announced a landmark agreement between the State of Florida and the U.S. Department of the Army to accelerate completion of the EAA Reservoir by five years — from a projected 2034 timeline to 2029. Under the agreement, Florida is authorized to construct the inflow pump station and supporting features, allowing USACE to concentrate its resources on the main reservoir basin. In November 2025, SFWMD broke ground on the EAA Reservoir Inflow Pump Station, engineered to move approximately 3 billion gallons per day. In September 2025, USACE marked a completed reservoir component with a ribbon cutting, and the state broke ground on the Blue Shanty Flow Way conveyance project.

In March 2026, SFWMD released its annual South Florida Environmental Report, which documented water year 2025 phosphorus performance at 98 percent compliance with the 10 ppb standard — described as among the best on record. Inside Climate News reported in April 2026 that some phosphorus load measurements from STAs into protected areas rose between 2024 and 2025, attributed by SFWMD to the June 2024 rain event. An adaptive management plan for water quality effluent compliance — recommended by NASEM in 2022 — remained undeveloped as of January 2025, per the Congressional Research Service. The effluent limit attainment assessment required to begin in 2026 will carry direct scheduling consequences for CERP North construction.

An ecological threat documented in a 2025 peer-reviewed study in Scientific Reports (vol. 15, article 17975) concerns the Asian Swamp Eel (Monopterus albus/javanicus), whose invasion — first recorded in drainage areas around 2012 — has disrupted crayfish and small fish prey production that supports wading bird nesting colonies, posing a threat that interacts directly with restoration hydrology objectives.

Everglades restoration intersects with several of Florida's most significant environmental, economic, and public health systems. Lake Okeechobee management — governed by the Lake Okeechobee System Operating Manual (LOSOM) — is directly linked to CERP: the timing and volume of lake releases determines the quantity and quality of water available to be redirected southward through EAA infrastructure. Harmful discharges from Lake Okeechobee to the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie estuaries have triggered toxic algae blooms documented as damaging commercial fishing, tourism economies, and public health in Southwest Florida and Treasure Coast communities — harms that the EAA Reservoir and related storage projects are designed to reduce.

The Biscayne Aquifer — the primary drinking water source for Miami-Dade and Broward counties — is recharged by the Everglades system, connecting restoration directly to the drinking water security of millions of Floridians. Florida Bay and Biscayne Bay, the marine ecosystems at the system's southern terminus, depend on the volume and salinity balance of freshwater moving through restored sheetflow. Invasive species — including the Burmese python and the Asian Swamp Eel documented in the 2025 Scientific Reports study — represent ecological challenges that interact with restoration hydrology in ways that existing CERP planning did not fully anticipate. Florida's agricultural economy, particularly the approximately 700,000-acre sugarcane cultivation zone in the EAA, shapes both the political economy of restoration and the nutrient loading that makes phosphorus compliance the program's enduring unresolved challenge.

The CERP cost-sharing structure carries direct fiscal consequences for Florida taxpayers: the state is obligated for half of a program now projected at $23.2 billion in FY2020 dollars, according to the Congressional Research Service's January 2025 report, making restoration one of the largest long-term infrastructure commitments in Florida government history.