New Dawn for the Kissimmee River: Orlando to Okeechobee by Kayak.

Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida, (2009). First Edition. Review copy, with Publisher’s release letter laid-in. Octavo, green cloth (hardcover), xii + 151 pp. Fine in a Fine dust jacket. From dust jacket: The Everglades. Few realize that the world’s most famous wetlands begins in Orlando. A tiny waterway known as Shingle Creek flows into an impressive chain of lakes that, in turn, empties into a river like no other -- the Kissimmee. Long the domain of alligator and bald eagle, Seminole and Cowboy, the Kissimmee River was once a twisting stream with a grassy floodplain up to two miles wide. For millennia, it nourished Lake Okeechobee and the rest of the Everglades system with life-giving water and nutrients. But between 1960 and 1971, the Army Corps of Engineers straightened and diverted the river’s lfow to control persistent flooding. These alterations shortened the length of the Kissimmee, significantly reduced wildlife and fish populations, and funneled too much water too quickly to Lake Okeechobee during the rainy season. In 1992, at the behest of long-time conservationists such as Marjory Stoneman Douglas, Congress acted to restore the river to its original flow. In the spring of 2007, Doug Alderson joined an expedition down the Kissimmee chain of lakes and the newly restored Kissimmee River. Chronicled nightly on local television, the group witnessed firsthand the recovering bird populations, spotted otters, turtles, alligators, and other wildlife that make up the hidden beauty of this part of Florida. In New Dawn for the Kissimmee River, Alderson uses this twelve-day paddling excursion as a thread to explore the history and ecology of the region, while highlighting the most successful restoration project of its kind in the world, the model for the overall Everglades restoration plan.