implement water policy. The District constructed six maj or canals totaling over 700 km, which

still connect Lake Okeechobee to the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. As had central

Florida' s earlier trend, the drainage of land for agriculture in south Florida continued to be

encouraged. In 1913, the General Drainage Act gave landowners the right to form districts to

reclaim their lands. Over 100 such districts were created in the Everglades area; some still

operate today (Anderson and Rosendahl 1998, Purdum et al. 1998).

 The 1920's saw a marked shift in state water management goals. Until that time, lands had

been drained and canals created to reclaim land and foster the development of both agriculture

and urban areas. During the 1920s, four major hurricanes hit south Florida and during the 1928

hurricane, Lake Okeechobee overflowed, killing over 2,000 people. This catastrophe led to an

increase in Federal assistance for water management projects and spurred the state to establish

the Okeechobee Flood Control District in 1929 (Anderson and Rosendahl 1998; Figure 1).

While the methods remained largely the same, the stated goal, which brought in federal help

from the USACOE, became one of flood protection, which had the ancillary benefit of providing

continued drainage for agriculture and urban development.

 By the 1940s, the legislature began to act under mounting recognition that state-level

oversight of water management was necessary. In 1945, the Florida legislature created the State

Board of Conservation. The board was tasked with the protection of the state's marine, mineral

and water resources. In 1947, the legislature created the Water Survey and Research Division,

whose records were later forwarded to the Florida Geological Survey in 1955 when the division

was dissolved (Purdum et al. 1998). Political willingness to move towards increased state

oversight was matched by the public sentiment of the times. Concern over the adequacy of

environmental protection was growing as newspapers reported fish kills in lake Apopka