Was Disney World built on a swamp? How Disney tamed the water, from Joe's ditches to Bay Lake

Was Disney World really built on a swamp?

Partly. Two creeks cross the property: Reedy Creek runs south along the western edge and Bonnet Creek through the middle, and both empty into the Reedy Creek Swamp in the south. The district's 2045 comprehensive plan still lists cypress swamps, bay swamps and pine wetlands among the land's plant communities.

Much of it is still wet. The plan puts about 10,388 acres, or 42% of the district, inside the 100-year flood plain. About 10,800 acres of lakes and wetland are used to store runoff after storms, and 6,450 acres of the Reedy Creek flood plain are set aside as conservation land that cannot be built on.

Walt Disney World was built on the drier ground, on land raised with fill, and around water that engineers had brought under control.

How was the water drained from Disney World?

Mostly it was not drained. It was controlled. The plan of reclamation for the property was approved in 1966, the year before the district was created, and most of it was built and working by 1971, the year Magic Kingdom opened.

The district says the aim was to keep ground and surface water "as nearly as possible" at natural levels while still protecting against floods.

The system today, from the district's 2045 plan:

• Man-made canals — 56 linear miles
• Water control structures (gates and weirs) — 25
• Places where outside water flows in — 12
• Land draining through it, inside and outside the district — 108,000 acres

Many of the gates are Amil gates, with no manual, electrical or mechanical controls. Each opens by itself when the water behind it rises past a set level and closes again when it falls. Water leaves the district at its south end through the S-40 structure, where the district's rules cap the flow at 3,282 cubic feet a second in a ten-year, three-day storm.

Who designed the canals, the "Joe's ditches"?

William "Joe" Potter, a retired Army major general who had governed the Panama Canal Zone. D23, Disney's official fan club, says Walt Disney hired him in 1965 to build the infrastructure, and credits him with the drainage canals nicknamed "Joe's ditches". The district was created on 12 May 1967, and Potter became president of its board in 1968.

Disney historian Christopher Lucas told the Orlando Sentinel in 2021 that Panama had taught Potter what standing water does. People there died of malaria, so he insisted that any water on the property had to be running off or moving. That is also the main reason Disney World has so few mosquitoes.

He is still on the property. One of the three Magic Kingdom ferries was renamed the General Joe Potter in 1997, and a window above Main Street reads "General Joe's Building Permits, Licensed In Florida since '66".

Did Disney drain Bay Lake?

Yes, Bay Lake is the part that was drained, and then refilled. It is a natural lake, and the one Walt Disney spotted from the air when he chose the site, WKMG News 6 reported for the resort's 50th anniversary.

Its water was stained brown by tannins. Potter recalled in his oral history for the Army Corps of Engineers that it would turn blond hair brown and white swimsuits grey.

According to WKMG, in 1969 the lake was drained of 3.5 billion gallons and its bottom scraped of roots, silt and muck. Potter's account, as the Orlando Sentinel reported it, is that his crews pumped out 5 million cubic yards of sand, refilled the lake with well water and cleaned its bottom.

Under the muck was white sand, which Disney says went to make the beaches of the new lagoon next door.

The sources disagree on its size: WKMG says 450 acres, and the district's 2045 plan lists 406.

Why is Magic Kingdom built on a second floor?

The Seven Seas Lagoon was dug out of ground too wet to build on, and the earth went to raise Magic Kingdom. According to Disney, as WKMG reported, 7 million cubic yards of earth were moved to make the lagoon.

Surveyors had judged that site unstable and unsuitable for building, so the fill was used to form the park's ground floor, over its 9-acre network of service tunnels, the utilidors.

Wikipedia's account of the tunnels gives the reason they are not underground: the water table is too high. They were built at ground level and the park sits on top, so the Magic Kingdom you walk around is, in effect, the second storey.

The lagoon's size depends on who you ask. The district's plan lists Seven Seas Lagoon at 185 acres, and the Orlando Sentinel's account of Potter's work calls it the 200-acre lagoon by the Polynesian.

Does the drainage system still work today?

Yes, and it is still the district's job. The Central Florida Tourism Oversight District runs a drainage department, and its 2026 budget gives it about $41 million and 38 staff. The 2045 plan says the gates and weirs get a full inspection every year, above and below the water, and the South Florida Water Management District still permits the system's operation.

The hardware is ageing. The original culverts went in during the 1970s and most of the gates between 1969 and 1985, with an expected life of 50 to 75 years. The plan says the priority now is upkeep: cleaning out canals, maintaining levees and replacing structures as they wear out.

The district itself changed hands in 2023, when Florida renamed the Reedy Creek Improvement District and gave the state the power to appoint its board. The canals did not notice.