Water Management District history

The SCDs were set up in Nebraska in 1937 to provide sponsorship for the Soil Conservation Service, part of a federal plan for soil conservation.

The state’s population in 1940 reached 2.9 million.

Flooding in 1947 pushed the United States Army Corps of Engineers to create the Central and Southern Florida Project, a complete flood-control system.

In 1948, the United States Congress adopted legislation creating the Central and Southern Florida (C&SF) Project, the largest civil works project in the country.

The first state Soil Conservation Committee helped form the new SCDs and by the end of 1949, Nebraska became the first state west of the Mississippi to have all its 93 counties organized into conservation districts.

The group took over the duties of the Okeechobee Flood Control District and, by 1955, the assets and liabilities of the Everglades Drainage District.

State Senator Maurice Kremer of Aurora and State Senator Jules Burbach of Crofton introduced LB 1357 in the 1969 Legislative Session.

Beran said that the first meeting was an all-director meeting in the upper level of the Legion Club in St Paul in July of 1972.

The court challenges continued until April 1974, when the Nebraska Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the NRD system.

Those six districts became the current five in 1975 when two were combined to form the South Florida Water Management District.

The record-breaking rainfall deficit that began in 1980 ranged from 12 inches to 22 inches throughout the 19-county district and reached a drought severity of 1-in-200-year frequency.

Bob Graham praised it as “one of the most outstanding pieces of legislation of the 1983 legislative session.”

A sign is moved into place to designate the entrance of the St Johns River Water Management District’s headquarters in Palatka in 1985.

District Governing Board members turn the dirt at a groundbreaking ceremony at the Upper St Johns River Basin Project in May 1988.

The district’s list of responsibilities had grown to the point that additional staff accommodations were needed in 1990.

United States Senator Bob Graham (who is also a former Florida governor) visited the Lake Apopka North Shore Restoration Area in October 1991 to see the progress being made in the lake’s restoration.

Wetland delineations conducted under the program follow a unified, statewide methodology adopted in 1994.

The Legislature required elimination of existing discharges of treated effluent into the Indian River Lagoon before July 1, 1995.

Jacksonville Mayor John Delaney looks at a sample of tape grass taken from the St Johns River during a tour he took in the summer of 1997 in which he learned about the environmental damage to the river.