That means more bass for fishermen, and a safer water supply for 150,000 people who drink Melbourne city water.

First, President Bush must sign a funding bill that includes moving ahead with the more than $13 million dredging project. Officials with the Army Corps of Engineers in Jacksonville expect that soon.

"It's a line item in the budget," said Doris Marlin, a Corps project manager.

The Corps wants to dredge 2 million cubic yards total: 1.09 million cubic yards from Sawgrass and 980,000 cubic yards from Hell n' Blazes. Combined, that's enough muck to fill the Cocoa water tower -- the one painted with an American flag at U.S. 1 and State Road 520 -- 268 times.

Black, rotted plant matter makes the lake bottoms low-oxygen dead zones for fish. Forty years ago, fishermen reeled in trophy bass by the dozens. But decades of farm runoff carried in goop that destroyed a potential $18 million annual fishery.

The lakes sit a few miles upstream from Lake Washington, where two-thirds of Melbourne's drinking water originates. All three lakes are openings of the 310-mile St. Johns River, one of the few rivers in North America that flows north.

"Our biggest concern is not that Sawgrass and Hell n' Blazes are sedimented up. It's the potential to start sedimenting Lake Washington," said Bob Klaproth, Melbourne's utilities director. "If it silts up, it's going to be much more difficult for us to get water out of it."

Corps officials tout the project as mainly an ecological restoration. Plants can't take hold in the slimy organic matter because it stirs up easily, clouds the water and blocks sunlight from bottom plants. Fewer bugs, snails and other organisms that fish feed on stay around. The more resilient garfish, alligators and snakes dominate the food chain.

Biologists say the lakes' bass and other aquatic life could begin to recover in as soon as two years after dredging.

The Corps helped create the problems in the lakes when it dug canals for farming and drainage through the St. Johns River basin, mostly in the 1920s. The canals resulted in faster-flowing water that carried more sediment to the lakes than would otherwise flow there naturally.

Much of the gunk is a byproduct of agricultural pumping during World War II. Farms exploded along the river's upper basin to help feed U.S. troops. Most of the rivers' manmade problems were fixed since then in a 15-year, $195 million project that restored the natural flow of the river's headwaters.

Because of that restoration, Corps and St. Johns officials expect the lakes dredging to last at least 50 years.

But the lakes must be dredged before another planned restoration project, the rediversion of Canal 1 in Palm Bay. That project, also slated for 2006, would help to restore the natural flow of the river.

The canal, dredged decades ago, sends too much fresh water from the river into the brackish Indian River Lagoon, diluting salt content to the detriment of marine life.

Officials at the St. Johns River Water Management District said the lake dredging must happen before the Canal 1 rediversion, or the latter would flood the 800-acre site east of the lakes, where the dredge spoils are to go. They also said Canal 1 would go forward with or without the lake dredging, because the project's benefit to the lagoon is a high priority for the district.

"(Canal 1) has to happen no matter what happens with Hell n' Blazes and Sawgrass," said John Mongioi, chairman of Friends of Turkey Creek, a nonprofit group that represents about 60 homeowners along the creek. "The viability of the lagoon depends on it."

The lake dredging came into jeopardy earlier this year when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers put a nationwide freeze on any new river restorations. But Congress restored the funding for some projects, including the lakes.

Mongioi said the environmental problems caused by runoff into the St. Johns River and the lagoon highlight the importance of controlled growth and more federal funding for environmental restorations.

"It showed, they need more money in the budget," he said. "We continue to pollute and create all these problems."

Contact Waymer at 242-3663 or e-mail jwaymer@flatoday.net

Sources of money

The dredging of Lakes Sawgrass and Hell n' Blazes awaits President Bush's signature, which is expected soon. The dredging could start as soon as 2006.

Here's how the funding breaks down: