The governor says it marks the 80th milestone in Everglades restoration under his watch.
Ron DeSantis was near Lake Okeechobee in Palm Beach County for the groundbreaking to a new pump station.
"This is an essential component of the EAA Reservoir Project. This will have nine pumps and will be one of the largest pump stations in the entire state of Florida."
When completed, the governor says the South Bay pump station will have the capacity to send about 3 billion gallons of water into the southern reservoir, which he describes this way.
"Now the reservoir...it will be larger than Manhattan. And it will probably be safer than Manhattan's gonna be too."
The comments coming two days after Democratic Socialist candidate Zohran Mamdani was elected as New York City's next mayor.
The goal of the reservoir and the pump station is to eventually put an end to all east and west discharges from Lake Okeechobee, which have proven to be harmful to local estuaries.
The EAA Reservoir is now expected to be finished by 2029, which is five years earlier than initially expected.