Simple problem? I doubt it. Lake Okeechobee is a gigantic sump in the middle of the state that naturally drained into the everglades. The Everglades were naturally a stagnant sump of brackish water that eventually seeped into Florida Bay. The lake did not historically drain into the Caloosahatchee (to the west) or the St. Lucie Rivers (to the east) until canals were dug to create a continuous waterway across the state, and more importantly in the past, to divert water from draining into the everglades so that agricultural land could be created to the south of Lake Okeechobee.
So now the controversy is how do you drain Lake Okeechobee without re-claiming natural everglades from the farmland that was created? The river drainage is obviously causing environmental problems, but there is a lot of political pressure against re-claiming agricultural land.
Their solutions seem to be an effort to create water storage uphill to the north (Kissimmee River basin that naturally flows into Lake Okeechobee) . That might slow down water flow but it obviously can't stop it. They are also trying to obtain locations to the south of the lake where water can be diverted without re-claiming so much farm land. The canals that connect the Caloosahatchee and St Lucie Rivers would need to be restricted to reduce direct flow into the rivers, but those drains have been opened for years and it would be difficult politically to close them up now.
Draining into the Everglades is the natural and best solution, but they have that (not so) small matter of all that southern agricultural land that they need to either avoid or re-claim. That's the difficulty.
