Fact Sheets

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Category: Lake Okeechobee Waterways
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  • MANATEE PASS GATES PROJECT | Moore Haven Lock

    The Manatee Pass Gates project received authorization in the Energy and Water Development Appropriation Act of 1994. The project is located in southeast Florida at selected Okeechobee Waterway and Central and Southern Florida (C&SF) project navigation locks and water control structures located in areas within West Indian manatee habitat. The federal government listed the West Indian manatee as an endangered species in 1967, and actively began protecting the manatee under the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 and the Endangered Species Act of 1973. To this day, the manatee remains on the endangered species list.
  • LAKE OKEECHOBEE / Water Management

    Lake Okeechobee is the nation’s second largest freshwater lake and the largest lake in Florida. It is the heart of the Kissimmee-Okeechobee-Everglades system. The lake provides drinking water for surrounding communities serves as a source of irrigation for a $1.5 billion-a-year agricultural industry that produces sugar cane, winter vegetables, citrus and rice. The lake also serves as a source of water for navigation, recreation and for estuaries. Before south Florida was settled, Lake Okeechobee water levels were controlled by natural conditions and events such as rainfall, runoff from the Kissimmee River, evaporation, and outflows south into the Everglades. As the population of south Florida grew and agricultural communities began to thrive, the State of Florida and the Army Corps of Engineers constructed an array of projects to control the lake’s elevation. In the end, the lake was surrounded by a massive earthen berm, the Herbert Hoover Dike.