The Lake Apopka Restoration Act of 1985 and the Florida Surface Water Improvement and Management Act of 1987 began restoration work at Lake Apopka’s north shore. Efforts included purchasing more than 19,000 acres of agricultural land along the lake’s north shore to reduce phosphorus discharge from farms, restoring former marshes, developing and operating a marsh filtration system to filter pollutants from lake water, harvesting non-desirable gizzard shad to remove phosphorus held in their bodies and reduce algae fertilization from their waste, replanting native wetland vegetation to restore fish and wildlife habitat, and bringing local governments, the Friends of Lake Apopka, and the East Central Florida Regional Planning Council together to create a plan so future development would not negatively affect the lake. The St. Johns River Water Management District constructed and operates the Lake Apopka Marsh Flow-Way, a four-cell, 760-acre wetland treatment system. Lake Apopka’s turbid water, filled with phosphorus, algae, and sediment, enters the marsh flow-way by gravity and moves through treatment cells where marsh vegetation naturally filters pollutants. Dominant plants in the flow-way include cattail, pennywort, pickerel weed, and arrowhead. Cleaner water is then pumped out of the flow-way and returned to the Apopka-Beauclair Canal, and some of this cleaner water replaces lake water currently flowing down the canal to the Harris Chain of Lakes.