Okeechobee Waterway

The Okeechobee Waterway or Okeechobee Canal is a relatively shallow artificial waterway in the United States, stretching across Florida from Fort Myers on the west coast to Stuart on Florida's east coast.

[1] Geologically and geographically, the north bank of the canal is the official southern limit of the Eastern Continental Divide.

The projects cover 16,000 square miles (41,000 km2) starting just south of Orlando and extending southward through the Kissimmee River Basin to the Everglades National Park to Florida Bay.

In 1944, the connecting spillway structure was built for flood and regulatory flow control through the St. Lucie Canal to manage the water level in Lake Okeechobee.

[5] In 1934, the locks were dredged by Captain James B. Cox, who worked on the Hoover Dike, with Robert Pierce as engineer.

St. Lucie Lock and Dam on the Okeechobee Waterway, approximately 15 miles (24 kilometres) southwest of Stuart, Florida . According to the lock webpage by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers , the lock chamber is "50 feet wide x 250 feet long x 10 feet deep at low water" , [ 2 ] showing that the design of the canal system and waterway is for shallow barges and not a ship canal .