C-43 Reservoir done in Hendry County;...

HENDRY COUNTY, Fla. — Hendry County's massive C-43 Reservoir is officially complete, and it was celebrated as giant pumps blasted more than 650,000 gallons of water in. Governor Ron Desantis says this is a big step for Everglades restoration.

Water shot out of the pumps like a geyser, and community leaders gathered to watch the milestone moment.

“Welcome everybody, to the largest above ground reservoir in America!” an orator announced.

All 18 square miles of land on site will soon be under 55 billion gallons of water. Governor DeSantis said it's built to help cleanse and manage water flow to protect South Florida's Everglades and waterways, like the Caloosahatchee River.

“The Everglades is home to a lot of great species,” DeSantis said. "It provides fresh water to Florida Bay as well as clean drinking water for more than eight million Floridians. And it supplies irrigation for the state’s agriculture."

The South Florida Water Management District says this is one of 75 completed projects to restore the Everglades.

“The estuary suffers from too much runoff, too much lake discharges that overwhelms it in the rainy season. And it's too dry in the dry season. So the reservoir is about getting that balance right,” SFWMD’s Phil Flood said.

They will clean the water with a chemical called alum to remove nitrogen before it flows downstream. Schargorodski has shown in previous reporting how releasing too much water from Lake Okeechobee when levels are too high floods the estuary with nitrogen, causing blue-green algae blooms that hurt tourism and sea life.

But, this project has been controversial. Calusa Waterkeepers said online in part: "Our concern has long been that the potential for harmful algal blooms in the reservoir and the flocculant from the alum treatment could hamper water managers ability to discharge the water at certain times."

The district says the reservoir will take about a year to fill. And once it's full, SFWMD says it will double as a recreation spot for boating and hiking.