Florida and the northern Everglades. Development was further spurred by the Florida land boom of the 1920s, during which a speculative wave resulted in a frenzy of planning, land redevelopment, and construction continued until 1926, when the bubble burst. Between 1926 and the beginning of World War II, growth in the state was slow and relatively stable. As World War II came to an end, thousands of people moved to Florida, bringing about a sharp population increase. The state's population in 1940 was 1,897,414; in 1950, it was 2,771,305, an increase of 46.1 percent. The Tampa Bay area and South Florida were the biggest-growth areas, although almost all of the coastal areas along the peninsula saw strong growth. By 1945, a prolonged drought in Florida spotlighted the first signs of the consequences of altering the environment. Saltwater intrusion became an issue in wells in the southern part of the state, and large wildfires consumed parcels of farmland, destroying the peat which had made the land so fertile. Prior to instituting controlled burns, the state forests and pastures burned for months during the dry season. From the 1940s to the 1970s, the state and federal government assumed control of burning that prevented uncontrolled fires. In 2010, the state burned a record . Extensive flooding in 1947, during which 90 percent of the state south of Orlando was underwater, made it clear that the current drainage projects were not beneficial to the environment, to farmers, or to the developing cities. 1947 was also the year that Everglades National Park was dedicated, and the year in which Marjory Stoneman Douglas published The Everglades: River of Grass, which warned of the damage that had occurred to the fragile ecosystem. The following year, the state of Florida created the agency which eventually became the South Florida Water Management District, responsible for water quality, flood control, water supply and environmental restoration in 16 counties, from Orlando to the Florida Keys. To control flooding, the Kissimmee River was straightened from 1962 to 1970. While the project delivered on the promise of flood protection, it also destroyed much of a floodplain-dependent ecosystem that nurtured threatened and endangered species, as well as hundreds of other native fish and wetland-dependent animals. More than 90 percent of the waterfowl that once graced the wetlands disappeared and the number of bald eagle nesting territories decreased by 70 percent. After the waterway was