Man made lakes and water ways.

[caryrae]

Not sure where to put this but I was watching a past video of our boat ride from POFQ to then DtD. I started thinking about all the man made water ways and lakes and with how much water it took to fill the areas I started thinking how did they fill them all and where did all that water come from at the beginning?

 

[NS8VN]

The man made lakes at WDW are just where earth was taken and used to create dry land to build upon. The whole area is built on swampland, if you dig a hole it fills with water. As an example, the Seven Seas Lagoon is where dirt came from to build the foundations of MK and the monorail loop resorts.

 

[Wood Nymph]

Not sure where to put this but I was watching a past video of our boat ride from POFQ to then DtD. I started thinking about all the man made water ways and lakes and with how much water it took to fill the areas I started thinking how did they fill them all and where did all that water come from at the beginning?

Some of the lakes at Disney were always lakes, like Bay Lake. That is not man made.

 

[Sagginit]

It also serves as a natural drainage. If they had trucked in dirt to fill the swamp and not create waterways it would probably flood terribly when it rains. This gives the rain a natural place to go. I have a coffee table book I got when I went for the 25th anniversary and they have pictures of them moving land in there. If you google it you can find some images of it during construction and see how they did it.

 

[Lynne M]

I'm pretty sure that Bay Lake is the only natural body of water at WDW. All the other lakes, ponds, lagoons, 'rivers', creeks, etc are man-made. The drainage system is complex, and carefully managed by Disney, as they essentially took swampland and re-engineered it.

 

[OKW Lover]

Not sure where to put this but I was watching a past video of our boat ride from POFQ to then DtD. I started thinking about all the man made water ways and lakes and with how much water it took to fill the areas I started thinking how did they fill them all and where did all that water come from at the beginning?

The water was always there. When Disney first bought the land that WDW sits on, it was a large, swampy area. They had to do a major civil engineering project to control and channel the water so that they could build. There were lots of streams (Reedy Creek being one of them, from which the newly formed governmental body took its name) and ponds, including Bay Lake. That's the lake to the east of the Contemporary, where Wilderness Lodge and Fort Wilderness are located. The lake in front of the MK, Seven Seas Lagoon is entirely man made. The dirt that was in this area was used to build up the land that the MK was constructed on.

 

[AngiTN]

We talked to the boat folks about the Sassagaloah (sp?) waterway last week.
They said that the river, while man made, follows the natural water path that was there when it was swamp. The dredged it deep enough to allow for boats and the land was built up around for the resorts (much like the land for MK was made)

 

[Polydweller]

The man made lakes at WDW are just where earth was taken and used to create dry land to build upon. The whole area is built on swampland, if you dig a hole it fills with water. As an example, the Seven Seas Lagoon is where dirt came from to build the foundations of MK and the monorail loop resorts.

Just a minor modification, the Seven Seas was dug to get earth to cover over the utilidors and foundations, not to build them. The utilidors are actually at natural ground level and the earth and streets you walk on are actually the second floor. The earth was not used at the resorts, except possibly some landscaping but I've never seen that landscaping stated anywhere.

 

[MHDTS]

Also remember being told that the sand along the shores of Seven Seas Lagoon and Bay Lake actually came from their dredging -- that is was a "surprise" when excavated that was used to help beautify the shorelines.

 

[bigskip]

All of the waterways at WDW are linked to natural waterways.