I worked the condemnation of the entire Kissimmee River from Highway 60 in the north to Carey Hardin's Okeesimee Fish Camp at the mouth of Kissimmee and the Big Lake. The Kissimmee River was an old age river with the typical meanders and dead runs that define an old age river. There was great confuscation as to ownerships and political jurisdictions as the old metes and bounds legal descriptions used the river as a point of definition and the river had changed course and moved around a great deal.

The engineers thought this wasn't a very efficient way to run a railroad, so they drew up a plan to provide the river with distinct boundaries and move excess water out to the ocean all at the same time. Of course, this plan was to make the river a straight ditch of exactly 1/2 the length by cutting straight to Okeechobee and eliminating the meanders and dead runs that gave the river its charm and character (and also held millions of gallons of water and stabilized the hydrostatic table for the entire basin).

Today the engineers have a plan to restore the Kissimmee River by creating inpoundment areas to emulate the effect of the old meanders. In neither case was there any involvement of envioronmentalists. The whole game in both cases was run by the corps of engineers following their plan developed to respond to the 1926 and 1928 hurricanes that devasted the big lake.

There are hundreds of examples in Florida where growth has changed the design criteria.

Publius