West coast Floridians 'united' against proposed Lake Okeechobee management plan

The chances to make meaningful changes to a controversial Lake Okeechobee management plan are dwindling away as the new regulations are expected to be finalized soon. 

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is expected to select a preferred alternative by Aug. 10 for a new lake management schedule that will take effect late in 2022. 

Col. Andrew Kelly, the Army Corps' top officer in Florida, was heavily criticized last week by local elected officials, environmental groups, a former South Florida Water Management District governing board member and development consultants, at a meeting in Fort Myers, for tentatively selecting what's known as Alternative CC. 

Some even accused Kelly and the Army Corps of manipulating data and graphics to better appease west coast residents and business owners. 

"The only thing I took exception to was the not-so-subtle innuendo," Kelly said during an interview with the News-Press. "It was right out there. I can say without hesitation that there was no manipulation of the data or changing of graphics to tell a story. I think it was a little bit more negative than I thought it would be. They're pretty fixated on the high flows and the numbers of days so they parsed the data pretty tightly, and we clearly think there is room to make improvements (to the proposed schedule)." 

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Alternative CC is a schedule that would send high flows to the Caloosahatchee during high rain events in the summer months, when toxic blue-green algae blooms are most common in the system. 

The alternative is part of the Lake Okeechobee System Operating Manual, or LOSOM, which will replace the Lake Okeechobee Regulation Schedule, or LORS (2008). 

Blue-green algae is most common on Lake Okeechobee during the summer, and the toxic algae is sometimes flushed to the Fort Myers-Cape Coral-Sanibel area, as was the case in 2018. 

That year the Army Corps released toxic blue-green algae from the lake during the summer, and soon after local canals and some waterways were blanketed with thick matts of toxic algae scum. 

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A state of emergency was declared for counties impacting by the blue-green algae bloom, which, for Lee County, came at a time when a red tide bloom was already raging along the coast. 

Lee County Commissioner Kevin Ruane said the Army Corps' plan does little but provide freshwater flows to the river and estuary during dry times, which is an ecological need for the system since much of the watershed was ditched and drained for farming and development. 

"All they’re doing is balancing the salinity of the estuary," Ruane said. "We can not have the prolonged stressful releases that are proposed with this alternative." 

Ruane said the Army Corps has managed the lake better in recent years than in did in 2018 and before, but that the proposed version of LOSOM won't equally distribute harm that comes from being connected to what's left of the historic Everglades. 

In recent years, flows from the Lake have gone to the St. Lucie River as well as the Caloosahatchee, which usually gets the bulk of the releases. Both rivers were artificially connected to the lake for drainage decades ago.  

"You can’t have one estuary receiving all the water and the other receiving none," Ruane said. "And we don’t backflow into the lake. They do. I’d love to send more water south, but at the end of the day it has to go east and west and I thought it wouldn’t be all the high flows." 

Ruane said he wasn't making threats of lawsuits but that local governments will have little choice but to fight back at this point. 

"If they’re going to ram this down our throat, we’re going to challenge it," Ruane said. "If it’s exactly the way it is I can assure you we will challenge it."

Kelly said the Army Corps will likely consider tweaks to the current LOSOM plan that may help the Caloosahatchee River and its estuary during high rain periods, during certain years. 

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"I think that's one of the areas we'll most likely look at," Kelly said. "If you carry the lake for a year or two at a high level there has got to be some way to correct that. Whether it's Mother Nature doing it or it's us giving Mother Nature a little push." 

He described the LOSOM CC alternative, which is has been criticized by everyone from environmental groups to the agriculture industry, as the most fair plan of the five that were considered. 

"It's a tool that does the best to compare apples to apples," Kelly said. "At the end of the day it fairly demonstrates an apples to apples comparison that we all agreed to, and so I'm pretty satisfied at landing on CC as a good issue of balance, but I freely admit that we're not done. There's a little bit of tweaking we can do." 

What's called an environmental impact statement, or EIS, is scheduled for a public comment period in February, with the final document being officially adopted in November 2022. 

Barry Rosen, a Florida Gulf Coast University professor and researcher, said the public should understand that the main priorities for the Army Corps are managing lake levels for flood control and water supply. 

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"You have to step back and realize it's the Okeechobee Waterway," Rosen said. "So when the lake reaches a certain stage, and there's been an issue with the integrity of the dike, they have to let water go. They can move a small amount of water south but there's very limited capacity south." 

Rosen, who worked on previous Lake Okeechobee schedules when he worked for the U.S. Geological Survey, said Army Corps goals revolve around things like navigation and flood protection, not necessarily water quality and nutrient pollution. 

"That is a project purpose, to navigate from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean," Rosen said of the system. "And the other project is backup water supply for the east coast. It actually recharges the groundwater on the southern east coast when there is an eminent drought." 

Rosen said the reason people on the west coast are upset is because the vast balance of flood water from Okeechobee will still be sent to the Caloosahatchee River, with the east coast taking very little of the adversity. 

"St. Lucie, we're going to hold you harmless and maybe you'll take 300 (cubic feet per second) and on the Caloosahatchee side, take the throttle off," Rosen said. "That's what people are upset about. There is a disproportionate feeling because there is a disproportionate amount of water." 

Calusa Waterkeeper John Cassani said Alternative CC offers little flexibility in management decisions for this coast, at least during the current rendition. 

"On the higher elevations the options are limited, and we get more harmful impact during those conditions," Cassani said. "I could understand if everyone was sharing the same adversity, but they're not. Agriculture gets near perfect water supply and flood control." 

He, too, said he'd like to see more water flowing to the St. Lucie side during high-water events. 

"There's a shared adversity issue," he said. "A lot of the stakeholders were lured into this process (thinking) this was the only option. From my point of view it's the tail wagging the dog." 

Ruane said the fight is still not over, and that the public should be given more time to digest the proposed alternative and to come up with other options. 

"I have to advocate for our coast strong and loudly," Ruane said. "This is one of the reasons I’m in office, so we’re just starting this fight as far as I’m concerned. The good news is the west coast is very united. I don’t think you’ll find much variation." 

Connect with this reporter: @ChadEugene on Twitter.