Okeechobee Waterway of Orlando and extending southward through the Kissimmee River Basin to the Everglades National Park to Florida Bay. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers manages five locks and dams along the Okeechobee Waterway. The St. Lucie lock was built in 1941 for navigation and flood-control purposes. 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. The Port Mayaca Lock and Dam was built in 1977 for navigation purposes, to permit the raising of water levels in Lake Okeechobee, and to moderate the
Okeechobee Waterway Okeechobee Waterway The Okeechobee Waterway or Okeechobee Canal is a relatively shallow man-made waterway in the United States, stretching across Florida from Fort Myers on the west coast to Stuart on Florida's east coast. The waterway can support tows such as barges or private vessels up to wide x long which draw less than , as parts of the system, especially the locks may have low water depths of just ten feet. The system of channels runs through Lake Okeechobee and consists of the Caloosahatchee River to the west of the lake and the St. Lucie Canal (C-44) east of