The Caloosahatchee River is a river on the southwest Gulf Coast of Florida in the United States, approximately long. It drains rural areas on the northern edge of the Everglades, east of Fort Myers. An important link in the Okeechobee Waterway, a manmade inland waterway system of southern Florida, the river forms a tidal estuary along most of its course and has become the subject of efforts to restore and preserve the Everglades. Description The river issues from Lake Hicpochee, in southeastern Glades County, approximately west of Clewiston. It flows west-southwest past LaBelle, where it becomes tidal, forming an estuary along its lower . It broadens as it nears the gulf, passing Fort Myers and Cape Coral. It enters the Gulf of Mexico southwest of Fort Myers in San Carlos Bay, protected by Sanibel Island. The C-43 Caloosahatchee Canal connecting Lake Hicpochee to Lake Okeechobee allows continuous navigation from the Caloosahatchee to the Okeechobee Waterway system; oxbow lakes mark isolated stretches of the original waterway. In 2013 heavy rains in southern Florida resulted in high runoff into Lake Okeechobee; rising lake levels forced the United States Army Corps of Engineers to release large volumes of polluted water from the lake through the St. Lucie River estuary to the east and the Caloosahatchee River estuary to the west. Thus the normal mix of fresh and salt water in those estuaries was replaced by a flood of polluted fresh water resulting in ecological damage. Until late in the 19th century the Caloosahatchee River was fed by a series of lakes starting from Lake Hicpochee, and including Lettuce Lake, Bonnet Lake and Flirt Lake. A waterfall and set of rapids at the lower end of Flirt Lake marked the beginning of the river. The rapids were close to long, with a drop in elevation of about . Lake Hicpochee, about in area, was only from Lake Okeechobee, but there was no connection between the two lakes before the late 19th century. Water flowed from Lake Hicpochee westward into Lettuce Lake and then Bonnet Lake. When the water was high the two lakes merged. From Bonnet Lake water flowed into Lake Flirt, which was about in area and long. All of the lakes were surrounded by extensive wetlands. In 1881 Hamilton Disston, as part of a scheme to drain large areas of wetlands in the interior of Florida, had a canal dredged from Lake