As a part of the region’s massive public works system that provides flood protection and adequate water supplies for South Florida, three vast Water Conservation Areas (WCAs) are maintained in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach Counties using a system of levees and water control structures. The WCAs sustain remnant Everglades wetlands, and their combined footprint of 1,346 square miles is bigger than the state of Rhode Island. Managing and manipulating the River of Grass is the responsibility of a host of government agencies including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the South Florida Water Management District, and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Even though the fifth largest metropolitan area on the continent is just to the east of these areas, the men and women who work out there seem to be stationed at an outpost — on the frontier of civilization, far, far away from home.
