Billions of gallons of polluted water are flowing into the
St. Lucie River, the Indian River and the Caloosahatchee Estuary from Lake
Okeechobee.
The environmental damage is massive. After four years of drought and no large
releases of excess water from Lake Okeechobee,
the near record rainy season again has quickly filled the lake. Every time there is a wet tropical storm or
series of hurricanes such as those that hit Florida in 2004-5, the lake rapidly
rises 3-4 feet within days threatening the Hoover Dike and the communities
south of the lake.
The Corps has no options.
They must reduce the water level in Lake Okeechobee in case of a
potential wet hurricane, common in even October like Hurricanes Wilma and
Isaac.
Before we collectively blame the Corps for the incredible
damage that is being inflicted on our once productive waters, especially the
remarkable recovery of sea grasses and inland fisheries since the Okeechobee
flood gates were last opened in 2010, we collectively need a short history
lesson and then a firm guide on how to stop these all too frequent
environmental outrages.
The great everglades ecosystem has been brutalized by a
number of thoughtless decisions.
The private construction of Tamiami Trail by the Collier
family to open up Naples to east coast tourists in the 1915-20’s formed a dike
preventing natural water flow from the northern everglades marshes into what
have become Everglades National Park (ENP) and the great fishery of Florida
Bay.
Although there are gated discharge structures and culverts
under Tamiami Trail, they allow a fraction of the excess rain water to flow
south as the everglades system once functioned.
Water is backed up throughout the Florida Everglades known as Water
Conservation Areas (WCA).
Overly high water is inundating the unique ‘Tree Islands’, a
major feature of the everglades system which provides essential habitat for
deer and other mammals indigenous to the everglades during times of excessive
rain water. The Tree Islands
are also ‘sacred sites’ for the Miccosukee Native Americans.
Before the 1928 great hurricane that destroyed the small
dike that then surrounded much of Lake Okeechobee,
small farming communities grew around the south side of the lake. Winter vegetables were the main crop, but
thousands of acres were devoted to raising cattle on the lush grass that the
muck fields provided. U.S. Sugar grew a
total of 50,000 plus acres of sugar cane. Their main profit was made from the
sale of some of the finest Brahma cattle raised in the world for warm weather
cattle ranches in Cuba,
Central America and South America. The King Ranch had a similar operation for
their famous crossbred cattle.
The low dike failed during a 1926 hurricane, and once again
in 1928, drowning 3,000 people.
President Herbert Hoover requested the Congress to pass legislation
authorizing the construction of a high dike around Lake Okeechobee.
When there were long, wet summer rain seasons and fall
hurricanes in the 1940’s, excess water flowed through the everglades and even
over Tamiami Trail into what is now the Everglades National Park. The Corps of Engineers studied the average
size of Lake Okeechobee and designed a dike to surround it. The dike was made from local sand and
gravel. The Corps then made a fateful
engineering decision to cut off the natural flow-way from Lake Okeechobee to
the downstream everglades and dump it more ‘efficiently’ to the east and west
estuaries.
Perhaps the near 700,000 acres now known as the Everglades
Agricultural Area (EAA) of rich organic soils, the byproduct of centuries of
dying marsh grasses was the incentive, but this error in judgment has created a
conflict that will continue until sufficient land is acquired to restore a
flow-way from Lake Okeechobee to the northern Florida Everglades and is then
‘allowed’ to flow south and under Tamiami Trail into ENP.
The decision by the ‘power brokers’ to persuade the then
governor of Florida and the congressional delegation to dredge the Kissimmee
River to allow drainage in the headwaters of Lake Okeechobee was an ecological
disaster. Thousands of acres of wetlands
that served as storage for Lake Okeechobee and slowed down rain driven floods
moving south into the Kissimmee chain of lakes allowed developers to sell real
estate around those lakes guaranteeing an unnatural low water level. The Kissimmee chain of lakes during high
rainfall periods used to hold billions of gallons of water that was slowly
released down the Kissimmee into Lake Okeechobee naturally. The wetland marshes flanking the Kissimmee
two mile wide flood plain were ‘wildlife treasures’ that were drained and
turned into cattle pastures when the project was completed. Excessive rainwater then flowed at unnatural
speed into the lake raising it to dangerous levels and carrying a
pollution-filled muck that now covers half the lake’s bottom.
The Caloosahatchee River first was connected to Lake Okeechobee by Hamilton
Disston, one of Florida’s pioneer speculators
who envisioned steamboats moving up from Ft.
Myers and then the Kissimmee River to
pick up winter crops and bring their loads back to Ft. Myers
for shipment north.
After about ten years, the St. Lucie Canal was completed in
1926 to provide easy access from the lake to Stuart where ships would carry
vegetables and fruit to the upper east coast and provide access for the east to
the west coast for pleasure boats.
It did not take any length of time for the Corps to realize
that an over flowing Lake Okeechobee threatened the ‘suspect construction’ of
the Hoover Dike and that the two outlets: the St. Lucie Canal and the
Caloosahatchee River would serve as ‘escape valves’ whenever there was
excessive rainfall and a rising lake that could threaten the integrity of the
Hoover Dike, especially on the south side where farming communities had grown
in size. With the connection to the
everglades now severed, the present day Colonel of the Corps of Engineer and
his staff have no options other than releasing billions of gallons of water
that is polluted from years of agricultural back pumping from the EAA and now
large amounts of nutrients flowing down the Kissimmee and the other headwaters of the
lake.
During his tenure, Governor Bob Graham announced in the early
1980’s a major effort to restore the everglades system. Each successive governor has made a
contribution toward that goal. The state
has spent $1.8 billion acquiring land to clean up the excess water flowing from
the 500,000 acres of sugar cane. A crop
that ‘enjoys’ a federal taxpayer ‘guaranteed’ price. The amount of cane sugar that is permitted to
be imported into the United
States is ‘controlled’ by the Sugar Cartel
to guarantee them maximum profit. Their
leadership is unrelenting in their efforts to produce maximum profits at the
everglades expense.
Unless excessive Lake Okeechobee water is cleansed through a
vast series of pollution control artificial marsh systems built principally by
the taxpayers of the 16 counties of south Florida for the sugar cane and winter
crop growers, drainage cannot be allowed to flow into the everglades, as it
will change the botanical makeup of the ‘the River of Grass’ within months.
So where are ‘we’?
Before the flow way and the pollution control marshes are built
and are operational, additional storage both upstream in the lake’s
headwaters and within the Everglades
Agricultural Area must be acquired and a number of other ‘priorities’ must be
addressed.
First, Tamiami Trail must be modified to allow massive amounts
of water to flow southward into the park. A one-mile bridge and limited road raising are
currently under construction; while this is a very positive first step, more
needs to done! The Trail needs more
bridges and road raising (up to another 2 feet) so that it is 'protected' when
the Everglades and the lake are once again
connected.
Additionally the southeast corner of the vast everglade
system known as Water Conservation Area 3B has a vital role in delivering
Okeechobee and Florida Everglade’s excess water to flow under the proposed five
mile bridge. The Corps admits that when
the eastern dike of Water Conservation Area 3B was constructed they did not
consider ‘leakage’ to be a potential problem, as no one farmed or lived near
the dike. Now there are hundreds of
acres of fruit trees and thousands of homes that could be impacted if the dike
allowed significant seepage.
This problem must be solved before excess water can be
released into ENP relieving the entire system of too much water which forces
the discharges of billions of gallons of water down the Caloosahatchee and St.
Lucie Rivers.
We also have some local ‘problems’ that must be faced with
‘private drainage systems’ that drain millions of gallons of excess water into
the St. Lucie River. Canals C-23, 24 and
25 were built at the urging of the Martin
and St. Lucie County citrus growers and developers who wanted their lands
drained at public expense. Together with
the C-44 and the St. Lucie Canal over 498,000 acres drain through canals into
the estuary and lagoon.
These decisions have all combined to seriously add damaging
amounts of polluted runoff into the St. Lucie and Indian Rivers. There are plans to complete a pair of
reservoirs: one on the St Lucie the other on the Caloosahatchee to capture
local runoff, hold it and clean it before slowly releasing it to flow into the
two estuaries.
What is the ‘hope’ for the two rivers that are being used as
drainage escape routes?
The federal and state governments must pay for the costs of
modifications of the eastern dike of Water Conservation 3B to prevent seepage.
The Federal government should use fuel tax revenue to raise
Tamiami Trail and build additional bridges to allow water to flow into ENP.
The State of Florida must acquire significant amounts of
additional land both north and south of the lake or a minimum, enforceable
easements to contain excessive water until it can be ‘leaked’ slowly down to
the lake from the north and south through a flow-way into the everglades
system.
The gross pollution of Lake Okeechobee must become a state
priority. Recent phosphorus loads to
Lake Okeechobee have been in the 500-ton range, more than three times the goal
of 140 tons. Today estimates are that so
much phosphorus has already been spread in the watershed to keep these heavy
loads coming for decades. Today,
nutrients from the EAA are less than 5% of the total into Lake Okeechobee. More than 90% is from the northern Lake
Okeechobee watersheds. The failure of
control phosphorus runoff is shared by the Florida’s Department of Agriculture
and the Department of Environmental Regulation.
Agricultural and water utility interests must accept the
fact that Lake Okeechobee’s level must be held below 16 feet and that ‘back
pumping’ polluted water from the EAA even in times of drought must not be
permitted. Lake Okeechobee cannot continue to be considered a sewer.
Additional lands within the vast EAA must be acquired by the
state and the South Florida Water Management District to construct major
additional storage capacity and pollution control marshes that will
dramatically reduce the nutrients flowing off the sugar cane plantations into
the everglades system
The sugar cane plantations should be forced to control and
treat the thousands of gallons of polluted water on their land before they
discharge it into the ‘waters of the state’.
They should pay a far greater share of cleaning up their wastes for the
needed additional pollution control marshes.
These are tall orders, but think for a moment before we
continue to rail against the Corps’ decision to lower Lake
Okeechobee to protect the integrity of the Hoover Dike.
Everything on my ‘must do list’ represents one week of the Afghanistan war
expenses.
Everything on my ‘wish list’ is obtainable.
Our congressional delegation has significant power in the
Congress. Our Governor and Florida
Commissioner of Agriculture are very persuasive with our legislature even in
times of recession.
Despite the need to reduce the incredible national deficit,
don’t you think man-made disasters like what is threatening our rivers and the
everglades ecosystem are worthy of national and state investments?
-Nathaniel Reed
