Conservancy of Southwest Florida Calls for Action on Lake Okeechobee Plan | News, sports, jobs

Conservancy of Southwest Florida Calls for Action on Lake Okeechobee Plan | News, sports, jobs

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nmayberg@breezenewspapers.com

The Conservancy of Southwest Florida has published a Call to Action on its website and through Southwest Florida urging concerned citizens to urge the U.S. Army’s Corps of Engineers to integrate “Critical changes to the Lake Okeechobee System Operating Manual (LOSOM) that will help protect the Caloosahatchee communities and the West Coast.”

The manual, which has been heavily criticized by local policy leaders and environmental groups for shifting more releases from Lake Okeechobee in Lee County and the Caloosahatchee River, is expected to be released in the next week with potentially new revisions aimed at optimizing the rivers. After that, the chances of making changes based on local contributions diminish, although the plan requires state approvals and is not expected to be passed until next fall.

The plan as currently envisaged shifts the burden off the St. Lucie Estuaries. The regulatory plan is being carefully monitored as work on the C-43 West Basin Storage Reservoir is expected to continue through 2023. The hope is that the completion of this reservoir will allow more runoff from Lake Okeechobee to be captured and unnecessary diverted releases into the mouths of the Caloosahatchee River and Lee County.

The Conservancy of Southwest Florida considers the plan, most recently selected by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers known as Alternative CC, to be detrimental to the Caloosahatchee River for the following reasons, as stated on their website:

• It relies on Caloosahatchee as the primary drain for Lake Okeechobee, resulting in significant improvements for some stakeholders at the expense of the Caloosahatchee and west coast communities.

• It increases the total amount of nutrient-rich water delivered to caloosahatchee and coastal waters that would be available to harmful algal blooms such as blue-green algae and red algae.

• It increases the number of days and duration of stressful and deleterious current events (runoffs greater than 2,100 cubic feet per second) to the Caloosahatchee, affecting the salinity and ecological health of our estuary.

In its call to action, the Conservancy of Southwest Florida urges the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to:

• Measure all outflows to the Caloosahatchee Estuary at Franklin Lock (S-79).

• Limiting regulatory discharges in Zone D, the primary operating zone, to a maximum of 2,100 cfs on S-79 – in line with ecological performance targets for the Caloosahatchee Estuary.

• Distribute the rivers evenly across all drains – south, east, and west – when conditions are wet.

• Enable beneficial dry season releases in all zones in the Caloosahatchee and Everglades.

• Minimize or eliminate the backflow of nutrient-rich water from the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA) and C-44 basins to the lake.

• Assessment and improvement of the modeling completed by the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) in Sensitivity Run 3.5 (SR3.5), which reduced the harmful high volume discharges into the Caloosahatchee.

The Conservancy of Southwest Florida action page for the Lake Okeechobee System Operating Manual plan is available at: https://conservancy.org/tell-the-us-army-corps-losom-must-be-balanced-for-all – stakeholders /

See similar https://www.pineisland-eagle.com/2021/08/10/conservancy-of-southwest-florida-urges-action-on-lake-okeechobee-plan/

The post Conservancy of Southwest Florida Calls for Action on Lake Okeechobee Plan | News, sports, jobs first appeared on Daily Florida Press.

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