Reversing any major part of the enormous environmental damage done to the Everglades in the past half century will take some dramatic technological gambles.

That is why engineers need to press ahead with a 3 1/2-year pilot program for aquifer storage and recovery, a controversial technique untried on the massive scale envisioned in the Everglades restoration project.

The $8 billion federal-state Everglades restoration tries to make everybody a winner by saving the water that the system produces naturally but which is now drained off to the sea to prevent flooding and keep certain historic wetlands available for farming.

Farms, cities and the environment will all get what they need under Everglades restoration, despite enormous projected increases in human demand.

In theory it works, but it depends in part on aquifer storage and recovery, in which water is captured in the rainy season and stored underground for use in the dry season. The process has been used successfully in Florida, but not on the scale contemplated in Everglades restoration, with 44 wells planned in the Caloosahatchee Basin and 333 across South Florida, storing billions of gallons.

A pilot well just east of the Lee-Hendry county border is one of five designed to answer some of the questions about aquifer storage and recovery. Some scientists and environmentalists worry that trying to store so much water underground will damage or pollute natural aquifers. They also wonder if enough water can be recovered when it is needed.

If aquifer storage and recovery doesn’t work as hoped, the authorities will have to turn to the method they probably should have used all along, the purchase and reflooding of major chunks of farmland developed in the old Everglades flow way.

That will really test our commitment to restoring the Everglades.