BELLE GLADE — Construction of the foundation and cutoff wall for the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA) Reservoir, a major project to restore the Everglades, is 50 percent complete. Lee Forsgren, Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works, made the announcement today about the work that falls under Contract 11A.

"There is no place on Earth like America's Everglades, and restoring it, as President Trump would say, is part of Making America Beautiful Again," Forsgren said. "This reservoir will allow us to send clean water south when and where it's needed, protect South Florida's drinking water, and support its economy. Delivering it five years early is what happens when we build infrastructure, not paperwork."

The EAA Reservoir is one of the nation's largest ecosystem restoration projects. It is being built to deliver clean water to America's Everglades, among the country's most distinctive ecosystems. Designed to store more than 78 billion gallons of water, the reservoir will help capture, store and move water from Lake Okeechobee south to the central and southern Everglades.

Together with associated treatment infrastructure, the project is expected to deliver up to 470 billion gallons of clean water annually to America's Everglades and Florida Bay. Completing the reservoir ahead of schedule is expected to deliver environmental benefits sooner, restoring freshwater flows south and reducing harmful discharges to South Florida's estuaries.

The milestone moves the project closer to completion by 2029, five years ahead of the original schedule.  

Under Contract 11A, approximately eight miles of the reservoir's 15.84-mile foundation and cutoff wall alignment are complete. Construction is currently 34 days ahead of schedule, and the contract's completion timeline has been accelerated by 15 months.

The EAA Reservoir is one of four phases of the Central Everglades Planning Project (CEPP). Reservoir construction is being executed through three USACE contracts: Contract 10A, which includes the inflow, outflow and seepage canals and is complete; Contract 11A, which includes the reservoir foundation and cutoff wall and is scheduled for completion in March 2028; and Contract 11B, which includes the reservoir embankment and water control structures and has a required completion date of December 2029.

The accelerated schedule follows a 2025 agreement between the U.S. Army and the state of Florida to expedite Everglades restoration. The agreement allows USACE to focus on constructing the reservoir's foundation, embankments, perimeter canals and structures while the South Florida Water Management District constructs seepage and inflow pump stations and assumes responsibility for the Blue Shanty Flow Way.

The agreement also supports the objectives of the BINP initiative by streamlining federal processes and strengthening federal-state partnerships to accelerate delivery of nationally significant infrastructure projects.

EAA Reservoir by the Numbers:

• 17,000 acres
• 26.5 square miles
• Larger than Manhattan by land mass
• 33.2 million cubic yards excavated - Equivalent to 10 Great Pyramids of Giza
• 725,000 dump truck loads
• Nearly 7 stories tall
• Almost a football field wide
• 3 draglines in operation
• Includes 1 of only 3 Mteck 2100E draglines in the world