Canals, suger and America's Sweeted Town

It took me two full days of hiking along canals to reach Lake Okeechobee. On the first day I am mostly walking on an earthen levee, with sugar cane fields stretching out as far as the eye can see. Like many a day that follows a storm, the air is crisp and the sky mostly free of clouds. By midday some cumulus clouds drift in from the north brightening the azul sky. Off to the east five large plumes of smoke rise up from the horizon. The sugar is burning. Sugar is burned before harvest to remove the leafy matter from the stock. The fires seem controlled as each one only last about 15 minutes. This, though, sends masses of particulates skyward. In contrast with the clouds which hold their relative form as they move, the smoke dissipates at altitude, coloring the sky with streaks of gray. This, though is just a portion of the environmental impact on Florida by the sugar industry. Agricultural runoff has led to massive concentrations of nutrients, destroying the habitat of many species and polluting the headwaters of the Everglades. The good news is that as part of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Act of 2000 (signed by President Clinton at the end of his final term and not often publicized because of the national media distraction with Bush v. Gore) called for massive purchases of sugar land to restore the headwaters of the Everglades. A major step in this process was taken at the end of 2010 when the South Florida Water Management District, purchased some 27,000 acres (a massively scaled back deal due to the state of the Florida economy,  originally intended to be 187,000). While this purchase is mostly citrus land (owned by US Sugar Corp), the state has the option to purchase the additional acreage to fulfill the project. 
As I hike these two days along the canals I wonder to myself: Are they irrigation canals, used to supply water to the hundreds of thousands of acres of surrounding agricultural land? Or, are they drainage canals, whose purpose is to drain the land so that agriculture is possible?  The zen idea of duality works well in defining the roll of these canals, they are not one or both, but one and both at the same time. Water is moved from canal to canal via massive pumps, depending on where it is needed or, just as importantly, not needed.
The land south of the Lake "O" was once a vital part of the Everglades Ecosystem. Water flowed into the lake from the north via the meandering Kissimmee River. In high water years, the lake would spill over it's banks and into it's flood plain to the south and on into the Everglades. This natural flood cycle kept most of the land south of the lake inhabitable by most modern humans. What flourished though, was innumerable species of birds, alligators, snakes, deer, otter, fish, frogs along with various hardwood forests, namely cypress and pine. Decades of drainage efforts eventually allowed for some settlement by hearty agrarians, many of whom were attracted by bogus land deals, but stuck it out. In 1928 a category 5 hurricane struck peninsular Florida causing a massive storm surge that flooded Lake Okeechobee. Some 2500 people died. The Army Corp of Engineers stepped in and built the Herbert Hoover Dike, which is 30 foot tall at it's highest and borders the entire lake. Water enters and leaves the lake through numerous water control structures via canals.
I reached Lake Okeechobee and the dike around 4:00 pm on the second day along the canals (my 7th day on the trail). With my food supplies running very thin I must decide quickly what to do. Do I a) stop in another 2 miles and camp along the dike and resupply in Clewiston (America's Sweetest Town) the next day? Or b) make a big push that night into Clewiston and get a cheap hotel and eat dinner out. The former would necessitate that I eat peanut butter for dinner and breakfast. The latter would mean hiking an additional 6 miles, mostly in the dark. I opt for the big push and pick up the pace.
I arrived in Clewiston around 8pm and found a cheap (and I do mean cheap) motel right off the trail. I dropped my bag in the room and went out in search of a descent meal. The first 3 tacerias I found only server beef and tongue; no fish, no vegetables. Finally, I find a place selling fish. Armed with 2 fillets of whatever fish of the day and a large can of Heineken, I return to my rented room to recover from the 22 miles I trod that day. The next 3 days of hiking will be atop the dike overlooking the lake, but for now I have a bed and the last 30 minutes of Forest Gump on the television to distract me from any other worldly concern.