Backfilling some parts of the canal has allowed water to flow naturally into wetlands, creating important seasonal habitat for fish and wildlife.

The bigger question might be when.

The original completion date of 2009 has been moved to 2012, “and now they may be five years behind on that,” said Paul Gray, with the Florida Audubon Society.

One of the holdups has been acquisition of land around the upper chain of lakes that’s needed to allow an increase in water storage. “The district has a mission to complete land acquisition by December 2005. That’s a hard date that has been set so we can proceed with restoration,” said Williams, adding that the remaining backfilling phases won’t begin until 2008, but that, “all the dirt will be in the canal by 2012.”

Gray is also concerned about the way the system has been managed to date.

Since completion of Phase I, the river has enjoyed more than 36 months of continuous flow. At the same time, Gray notes the floodplain has gone through wild swings of flood and drought, constantly setting back the restoration process. During the summer of 2004, the floodplain was suffering conditions equal to a 1-in-10-year drought; some say a similar fate may be in store next year.

Increased storage in the upper chain of lakes may alleviate such problems in the future, but for now, Gray puts at least part of the blame on the decision by the FWC to go forward with a muck removal project on Lake Tohopekaliga. Because they’re all connected, a number of lakes in the chain had to be lowered in order to draw down Tohopekaliga.

Now when the floodplain needs the water, there isn’t any to provide until the lakes fill up. The same could happen next year. Even before the drawdown, flow projections for 2004 and 2005 were zero for part of the dry season.

Worse, delays in Kissimmee restoration may ultimately hinder the much larger Everglades restoration project. As in the past, the two are connected.

“The Everglades restoration plan assumes that the Kissimmee restoration will be finished,” said Gray. “If that doesn’t happen, the modeling that Everglades restoration is based on will no longer be valid. You simply can’t have one without the other.”