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So why are the Everglades, once encompassing 3 million acres connected by a shallow river snaking across sawgrass prairies, such an intractable problem? From high in a helicopter, it's easy to see: 500,000 acres of sugarcane fields and western suburbs now sit between the lake and marshes to the south. Restoration projects happen on a landscape-altering scale, consuming thousands of acres and involving some of the toughest issues in government: property rights, environmental protection and endangered species.

The slow pace of restoration also means projects almost always undergo tinkering from shifting political leadership or changes in science, often provoking new skirmishes.

Over the years, the academy scientists say revisions have shorted water storage — a central feature in the original plan and expected to have the biggest price tag. To work, original plans called about 1 million acre feet more of storage, which represents about two feet of water in Lake Okeechobee. Current plans only provide 364,000 acre feet.

But in this year's NAS report, scientists say those original estimates might be vastly underestimated and cited other reasons that the storage estimates might be inadequate. The high level of pollution in Lake O will likely require more capacity to clean water than previously thought. And a sprawling network of wells to store water in the aquifer was downsized by more than half after an 11-year study. Water storage calculations also need to accommodate changing sea levels triggered by climate change.

As with all things Everglades, things got nasty when the scientists suggested updating the comprehensive plan to address the shortfalls.

"The Committee's recommendation is saturated in self-interest," the district said in a statement about the team that included a Yale hydrologist and the water district's former chief scientist. "It solely benefits the Committee's agenda to order more studies, when South Florida is in need of serious action."

To be fair, even critics acknowledge that work by the district has picked up considerably in recent years in part because of a 2012 settlement Scott signed with the federal government to resolve long-running pollution lawsuits. Now dubbed "Restoration Strategies," the project calls for the cleanup work to be finished by 2026.

Last year, Congress approved another major component, the Central Everglades Planning Project, drafted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the district's federal partner in restoration. The suite of projects is designed to deliver more water south — a step that will require the Corps to finish long-delayed work to fix the old flood control system erected decades ago that helped cut off water to Everglades National Park. That work, the Modified Deliveries project, calls for more bridges along the Tamiami Trail and needs to be in place before the newly approved group of projects.