Rising Everglades waters in western Broward and Miami-Dade counties, kept artificially high to protect South Florida communities from flooding, are threatening to wipe out dwindling animal habitat.
Heavier-than-usual winter rains, fueled by the El Niño-weather pattern, have boosted water levels throughout South Florida.
Now, state and federal officials are working on an emergency plan to move more water out of the Everglades water-conservation areas, without swamping neighborhoods or causing worse environmental woes elsewhere.
"Any and all options for operating the system will be looked at," South Florida Water Management District spokesman Randy Smith said. "The main objective is to get the water out."
Without relief, rising waters could overwhelm tree islands that provide the high ground that deer, wading birds, turtles and other Everglades animals need to survive.
The problem is, there are limits on how much water from the conservation areas can be redirected to the coast because canals running through Fort Lauderdale and Miami also are dealing with corralling flood waters in urban areas amid a wetter-than-usual winter.
And the design of South Florida's drainage system, as well as regulatory controls aimed at curbing water pollution, limit how much of the water in the conservation areas can be moved into Everglades National Park.
Now the South Florida Water Management District is collaborating with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and federal agencies to explore short-term ways to alleviate what has been a long-term challenge for the region.
"The water is backed up behind the [levees] and flooding the tree islands," said Tom Van Lent, Everglades Foundation science director. "There are very few quick fixes. Only hard choices."
South Florida's vast system of canals, pumps and levees through the decades has allowed farming and suburbia to spread across land that was once part of the Everglades.
While that drainage system has been good at avoiding flooding in South Florida's growing communities, it can often leave too little water for some parts of the Everglades while also flooding other portions of Florida's famed River of Grass.
That's what is happening now in the water-conservation areas that stretch across western Broward and Miami-Dade. The water level there has hit 11.29 feet above sea level, about 1 foot higher than normal.
El Niño-driven rains this year have boosted water levels in the conservation areas and elsewhere, amplifying the harmful environmental effects on the Everglades from South Florida's flood-control system.
An El Niño weather pattern occurs when warming of the eastern Pacific results in a wetter winter for Florida.
As a result, Fort Lauderdale rainfall so far this year is nearly 5 inches above normal, during what is usually South Florida's dry season. West Palm Beach and Miami have had almost 7 inches more rainfall than normal, according to the National Weather Service office in Miami.
Rainier-than-usual conditions from the El Niño are expected to linger into April, according to National Weather Service Meteorologist Chuck Caracozza.
Also, this week some of the highest tides of the year are forecast for South Florida, according to the water management district. That makes it harder to move more water from western Broward through canals and out to sea, Smith said.
Swells on the ocean Tuesday were already resulting in higher-than-usual water levels along the coast in Fort Lauderdale, Caracozza said.
High water levels in Everglades water conservation areas that stretch through Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties are adding to the South Florida water storage problems that reach all the way to Lake Okeechobee.
Rising water levels in the lake have raised concerns about the strain on the erosion-prone dike that protects lakeside communities and South Florida's sugar cane country from flooding.
To help protect the dike, the Army Corps of Engineers has been draining billions of gallons of water a day out of Lake Okeechobee to the east and west coasts – despite the potential dam