The glades is formed by two bodies of water, Lake Okeechobee and the Kissimmee River. The Kissimmee river winds through 103 miles of wetlands to Lake Okeechobee and every summer after the rainy season ends the Lake Okeechobee swells and spills its water over the lower southern tip of Florida forming a river also known as the Everglades (Golia 15).
The Kissimmee River, because of its winding path, flooded easily leaving the residents of southern Florida with a concern. So without thinking of the consequences, the people began looking for a way to straighten the river. It was in the decade of the 1960's that the people of the region began the actual straightening, which took approximately ten years to complete. This reshaping left the river to be only fifty-six miles long opposed to its original length of one hundred and three miles. Before the Kissimmee had been finished, it was clear the river had damaged the whole southern tip of Southern Florida. The wildlife began to disappear and Lake Okeechobee's water quality dropped. The straightening of the river left more space for farming which meant more runoff. Finally, Florida's public was able to become aware of the problems and concerns of the wetlands (Challand 67).
Experimental methods were tested in 1984 for returning the Kissimmee to its original twisting. In certain places, the engineers decided to keep the deep center channel and let the river run back into its old shall river bed (Challand 68). This plan did not fix everything though, because many species had already been lost along with the land. The work is still not done today, there is still a riverbed that is needed to be bought back from the farmers that was transformed into cattle ranches. (Challand 69).
The climate in the Everglades is much like a tropical islands", where plants and animals thrive. There are only two season in the Everglades, wet and dry, and both can be very extreme.
