Where The Water In The Everglades Come From?

By: Glenn Wilsey, Sr.

One question that I am asked on a daily basis is; "where does the water in The Everglades come from?" The answer to the question is that we get our water in South Florida and The Everglades mainly from rainfall and natural springs. As rain falls in the Orlando area and southward, it hits the ground and flows inward, into the Kissimee River basin. The Kissimee River then flows into Lake Okeechobee. Any rain that fell in or around Lake Okeechobee would also flow into The Everglades. And, of course, all summer long the rains fall directly over the glades, saturating the ground with fresh water.

The Kissimee River basin is about 60 miles long but the river WAS about 130 miles long, although, it is now only about 50 miles long (more on that oxymoron later). I tell tourists, that, from outer space Florida kind of looks like a banana. However, from eye level it looks more like one piece of banana peel. If you look at Florida from the southern tip to the north at eye level you would see that the east and west sides of the coastline have a high rim. This dish effect keeps the salt water on either side of the state from washing inland. The impression (if you look inland from the east or west coasts) is that the altitude drops. Oh yeah, we measure altitude here in South Florida (from the center of the state around Orlando south to the Florida bay) in just a few feet. The Kissimee river basin that the rain water flows into is only about 25 to 35 miles wide, it was wider before humans started over populating the east and west coasts. Before we interfered, The Kissimee River was also longer. The river was 130 miles long while the basin is only 60 miles long. The Kissimee WAS a slithering snake from Central Florida south to Lake Okeechobee. Its coils extended 15 miles or so to the west or east then turned back to the middle. That’s why if you took a canoe trip from one end to the other you paddled for 130 miles while only traveling about 60 miles.

Although the Kissimee River flows mostly with rainwater, we do get a lot of our water from natural springs. Natural spring water is filtered up from our aquifer, which flows about 100 feet below Florida. Some of that water comes from a long way off. Our aquifer starts in Tennessee, runs south under Georgia and Florida all the way to the Florida bay.

Our dry windy winters dissipate some of the water in The Everglades, and then summer comes again. I do hope this helps you under stand where the water in The Everglades comes from.

In this story, I mentioned the Kissimee River WAS 130 miles long and now is only 50 miles long (THE OXYMORON THING). To explain that is another story, so, you know what next month’s story will be about.

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REMEMBER NATURE RULES!!!!!!!!!

SINCERLY YOURS

"GATORMAN" (Glenn W. Wilsey Sr.)

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