So, it's the middle of the week. Our usual posting schedule is on Sundays, but this is something that I've wanted to try for a while.

Midweek updates to large stories that we've been following for months when they happen.

And before I go any further, if you are looking for our hour-long update on

the state of the Disney Company 2025, it's just one episode back in the same feed right before

the episode that you're now listening to. But this is our first midweek update ever, I believe. Just a short segment dropped in on a

Wednesday as the news happens. We are going to have a new episode in our story about the life of

Disney artist Mary Blair on Sunday. So it seemed like today was a good place to explore

a big development for the Florida resort and what it means for projects out there moving forward.

Since August, here on the podcast, we've discussed Disney plans to close Rivers of America

at the Magic Kingdom in Florida to build a cars-themed area as part of a revised frontier land,

specifically a frontier land that inhabits the current year, not the 1800s, with off-road vehicles instead

of horse-drawn carriages. Since the end of the summer, we've tracked Disney's plans to close the

river, fill in the basin, and then regrade the land around it for two new attractions. We've also

discussed the fan community's reactions to these plans.

It's been mixed.

There have been supporters, but at the D23 event, on the stadium floor when park expansion

plans were announced, this was one of the only places in the program that received a small number,

but clearly audible number of booze.

During the fall, we followed the permitting process that would allow Disney to close the river,

which required state approval, even though it was a man-made river.

One of the largest sticking points concerned stormwater mitigation, essentially how stormwater in large public areas would be safely dispersed,

especially during hurricanes, if the rivers of America didn't carry it out to the larger Disney

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