Higher water levels in Lake Okeechobee may be part of new Army Corps plan

 

Lake Okeechobee may be kept at higher levels for longer periods of time under a new management plan the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is refining now that a $1.8 billion upgrade of the Herbert Hoover Dike is nearly completed.

The Corps picked a preferred alternative, called “CC,” out of six choices and will now work on fine-tuning the plan based on extensive feedback from environmentalists, agriculture representatives, Native American tribes and other leaders on how to balance the conflicting demands on lake waters..

“We are building on the CC foundation in order to get every ounce of benefit out of the new plan,” Col. Andrew Kelly, the Corps commander for Florida, said during a presentation outlining the basics on Monday. “The technical team is now running optimization models and they will come back in September with a better defined plan,” he said.

 

Priorities include reducing harmful releases of polluted lake water to the Caloosahatchee estuary on the west and to the St. Lucie on the east, and sending more water south to the parched Everglades and Florida Bay. But the plan also aims to guarantee more water to users, including the sugar industry which has vast fields around the lake. Reducing pollution in the lake and lowering the risk of harmful algae blooms that have plagued Florida’s coasts and hurt local economies were also among the consensus priorities, Kelly said.

The biggest changes from years past: A massive $1.8 billion upgrade of the dike that is scheduled to be completed next year, as well as Everglades restoration projects that will come online in the next few years. The projects include a vast reservoir and storm water treatment area that, once completed in 2023, will allow managers to send more water south when lake levels rise, reducing discharges to estuaries on the east and west.

The aim is to produce water that’s clean enough to replenish the Everglades amid efforts to recreate something close to the original flow of the River of Grass, going south through Shark Valley in Everglades National Park, taking much-needed fresh water all the way south to Florida Bay.

“While we’re encouraged by the Army Corps’ selection, the new Lake O playbook won’t be successful unless it brings relief to the Caloosahatchee estuary without sending additional water to the St. Lucie,” said Eve Samples, executive director of Friends of the Everglades. “The way to accomplish this is by sending more clean water south during the dry season, rather than stockpiling it in the lake for irrigation south of the lake.”

An algae bloom in the lake in May generated a sense of urgency and pressure on the Corps to accelerate work on the new plan, seen as a solution for the conflicting demands for water from the Everglades’ liquid heart, at least for the next decade. Environmentalists and Everglades restoration advocates argue that the lake has been managed for the needs of agriculture south of the lake, which is primarily sugar.

Farmers and those in the recreation and fishing business around the lake want assurances that they will have the water when they need it. And South Florida’s growing cities also want the certainty of uninterrupted water supply and flood control during the rainy season.

By running the lake in a more balanced way and giving its own operations more flexibility, the Corps hopes to reduce water releases that have been disastrous for the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie estuaries. As renovation work on the dike is expected to reduce the risk of a breach, over a foot more water can be kept on the lake during the rainy season. The lake is usually kept between 12.5 feet (to guarantee water supply) and 15.5 feet (to protect the dike). Under the new plan, it could go higher than 17 feet and stay at around that level for more days, Kelly said.

Raising lake levels could have environmental ripple effects, however, on aquatic plants and fish. A higher lake may also be detrimental to the system’s ecology, drowning and killing vegetation that helps clean up nutrients that feed algae blooms.

“When the lake is over 15 feet you are killing the vegetation, and when you kill the vegetation all the water that goes west, east, south will be polluted and it will be a disaster,” Newton Cook, the president of United Waterfowlers Florida, said Monday during the meeting.

Kelly said the Corps’ technical team will run models taking into account the different comments and will present a more detailed plan in September. That plan will receive more public input through the end of October, when the Corps will set a schedule for coordination with the South Florida Water Management District and other agencies involved in the new lake management plan. Their input will be added to the process, and a draft document is expected to be ready in February, he said.

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