 In 1948 Congress approved the Central and Southern Florida Project for Flood Control and Other <unk> ( C & SF ) and consolidated the Everglades Drainage District and the Okeechobee Flood Control District under this . The C & SF used four methods in flood management : levees , water storage areas , canal improvements , and large pumps to assist gravity . Between 1952 and 1954 in cooperation with the state of Florida it built a levee 100 miles ( 160 km ) long between the eastern Everglades and suburbs from Palm Beach to <unk> , and blocked the flow of water into populated areas . Between 1954 and 1963 it divided the Everglades into basins . In the northern Everglades were Water Conservation Areas ( WCAs ) , and the Everglades Agricultural Area ( EAA ) bordering to the south of Lake Okeechobee . In the southern Everglades was Everglades National Park . <unk> and pumping stations bordered each WCA , which released water in drier times and removed it and pumped it to the ocean or Gulf of Mexico in times of flood . The WCAs took up about 37 percent of the original Everglades . 
