BARTOW — Bright white rocks. Dead trees. Parched grass.

"This is the Peace River," said Bill Lewelling, a sandy 3-foot ribbon underneath his feet. The scene was shocking because of what was not visible: water. Lewelling, a hydrologist, should have been standing neck-deep in it.

Decades of pumping the ground for nearby farms, phosphate mines and home faucets, coupled with two years of unusually dry weather, have turned a 20-mile stretch of the upper Peace River into a cracked, sandy bed. For almost a third of the year, little or no water flows.

When there is no water, fish die. Grass and trees along the riverbank wither. Nesting habitat for birds and other critters disappears. Economies suffer as well when developers cannot get permits because there is not enough water.

It is not just the Peace River that is hurting. In an eight-county, 5,100-square-mile area, water levels are such a concern that state and local officials are embarking on the region's largest water restoration project yet. The price is expected to reach at least $1.8 billion by the time work is completed in 2025.

The effort includes building dams and reservoirs, working with farmers to recycle rainwater for irrigation, and using technology to raise lake and river levels. Restoring the upper Peace River is a major component of the project, but it is not the only part.

"It's not a problem that's developed overnight," said David Moore, executive director of the Southwest Florida Water Management District. "It's something that's been occurring over an entire century. It's not going to be fixed overnight."

This spring, the state Legislature approved $15 million for the endeavor, which is known as the West-Central Florida Water Restoration Action Plan.

The federal government and local cities and counties are expected to kick in money, as will the water management district.

The project targets a region referred to as the Southern Water Use Caution Area. It starts in Hillsborough County, south of State Road 60, and includes DeSoto, Hardee, Manatee and Sarasota counties as well as sections of Polk, Highlands and Charlotte counties.

Water was once plentiful in the upper Peace River, gushing out of the aquifer in the form of a cool, crystal-clear spring. Children frolicked in the spring, which also was a tourist draw for small-town Polk County.

But by the 1950s, as ground-water pumping intensified, the spring dried up, and the natural attraction was lost forever.

The disappearance of the spring is perhaps the starkest reminder of the impact of unregulated ground-water pumping over the decades. The state did not start managing water until the early 1970s.

It is also a symbol of how some man-made problems cannot be corrected.

Bringing the spring back would require Polk County users to cut ground-water pumping by 80 percent, according to Mark Hammond, the water management district's director of resource management.

The restoration project is not aiming for anything that dramatic but would bring at least a few inches of water to the river almost year-round, a big improvement over the bleached white moonscape that greets hydrologists and nature enthusiasts these days.

The project starts with Lake Hancock, a 4,500-acre lake near Bartow whose water more closely resembles pea soup than anything else. The lake, which for years has been a dumping ground for polluted irrigation runoff, flows into the upper Peace River.

Officials hope to corral more water into the lake during the wet season and raise the water level by a few feet. A structure similar to a dam would hold in the water.

During the dry season, the water would be slowly released, ensuring at least a trickle would make its way through the river. In the process, the river would act as a filter, at least partially cleaning the polluted water.

In addition to directing more water to the river, raising the level of Lake Hancock would restore about 1,000 acres of wetlands, fragile nurseries that provide habitat to birds and other animals. The area around the lake is mostly farmland and open space, with moss-draped oak trees and chirping frogs.

The district plans to purchase the homes of at least 30 families who live near the lake to move the project forward.

In the eight-county region, farms and other agricultural businesses use more than 40 percent of the water, the district's executive director said.

So it makes sense that farmers are brought onboard for the major water restoration effort.

In Hillsborough County, at least half a dozen farms have teamed up with the water management district to change farming practices.

Ruskin strawberry farmer Mike Council is one of them. Through a special grant program, he was able to build a $250,000 pond and pump system that stores runoff and rainfall, and then pumps that water back over his berries during the growing season. The district grant offset the cost by $111,000.

"It cuts way back on the water usage," he said recently, his 50-acre farm stretched out before him. Strawberry season has come and gone, but to keep the land fertile, he plants a transition crop, a legume, and it, too, needs to be watered.

Since he built the pond and installed the pump last year, his water use has dropped 40 percent, saving about 83,000 gallons per day on average.

By the time 2025 rolls around, officials hope to have worked with enough farms to offset the pumping of 40 million gallons of ground water per day.

So far, officials are a quarter of the way there.

All told, between working with farmers and using technology to reduce ground-water pumping, managers hope to offset the use of 50 million gallons of water per day in the 5,000-square-mile area. That is enough water to fill 50, 10-foot-deep swimming pools the length of football fields.

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