Lehigh Acres reservoir and filter marsh aim to cleanse water flowing into Caloosahatchee

Part of Everglades restoration, the 100-acre project will naturally filter water and provide flood control for Lehigh, all while doubling as a recreational park

LEHIGH ACRES — Keeping the Caloosahatchee’s water clean is crucial for our ecosystem, and a new reservoir and filter marsh in Lehigh is set to make a splash.

Excavators were busy digging out the storage reservoir, the final phase of this 100-acre project. Behind them. the filter marsh is a stretch of water that winds through the property - it will do the heavy lifting for water cleaning.

David Lindsay, manager of the Lehigh Acres Municipal Services Improvement District, walked me through how it works.

“We’ve got a structure that lets water in so that’s it’s able to come in here into the deep water, which lets some solids fall out, and then it proceeds to snake through. The shallow areas are planted with a lot of cypress trees that are really good at pulling nutrients out of the system. It’s stuck in there for a while before it gets discharged. Then, at the far end of the project, there’s another water control structure and we’re able to discharge back into the Hendry Canal,” Lindsay explained.