Lee BOCC chair criticizes four plans for LOSOM
Lee County Board of County Commissioners Chairman Kevin Ruane says the U.S. Army Corps of Engineer’s plans for Lake Okeechobee releases could devastate the Caloosahatchee River.
He detailed those concerns in a recent letter to Jacksonville District Commander Col. Andrew Kelly.
The health of the Caloosahatchee, a 75-mile-long river and estuary which runs from Lake Okeechobee to the Gulf of Mexico and throughout Lee County, has been a top concern due to red tide, plus blue-green algae blooms that have been tied to releases from Lake Okeechobee.
The waters discharged are high in nutrients said to foster blooms and blue-green algae is present in the lake.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers manages those releases.
Red tide has continued to persist in the area in recent weeks with hundreds of fish washing up on the shore, some sea turtles and dozens of birds reported deceased after being transported to the Clinic for Rehabilitation of Wildlife due to suspected red tide poisoning.
In the letter dated May 11, Ruane wrote to express his “deep concern about current management of Lake Okeechobee and the direction the Army Corps is moving in with the modeling of Lake Okeechobee System Operating Manual. As we have expressed to you in the past, tourism and the natural environment are the lifeblood of Lee County’s economy. The economic loss that we experienced in the summer of 2018 was unlike any felt in the system. Our freshwater rivers and canals were flooded with blue green algae and our saltwater environment was besieged with red tide. Our tourism industry suffered that season, based in part on how the Army Corps was managing Lake Okeechobee. Now, after the loss of tourism in 2020, we cannot afford a similar event just as our economy is recovering post-covid. All measures must be taken to avoid this outcome.”
Ruane wrote that the latest released “Balanced Framework” alternatives “seems to put the burden of high-volume discharges solely on the Caloosahatchee. All four plans that included decision trees appear to be varying levels of devastating for the Caloosahatchee Estuary. This is unacceptable. Worse yet is the lack of transparency by your team in how these ‘balanced framework’ alternatives were selected and how you chose plans that unilaterally sacrifice the Caloosahatchee Estuary to protect other parts of the water management system.”
For Lee County, Ruane wrote, “any balanced plan must decrease high volume discharges and increase optimal flows and improve over the future without performance. We cannot continue to be starved for water in the dry season only to be deluged by high volume discharges weeks later as the rainy season arrives.”
Two weeks ago, the Army Corps of Engineers announced it would be reducing flows from 2,000 cubic feet per second to 1,500 cubic feet per second while changing from a steady flow to a pulse release to flush the lower end of the system, raise salinities and help combat the formation of algae.
Erica Skolte, public affairs specialist for the Jacksonville district, responded to a request for comment on Ruane’s letter by issuing the following statement:
“We are very pleased by the incredible participation we’ve received from our partners and stakeholders throughout the LOSOM process, and we continue to encourage individuals and groups to continue providing input as we complete the work this year on producing a Lake Okeechobee System Operating Manual that focuses on memory and flexibility as it balances the way we manage the lake.
“We are listening to all of the input we receive, and will continue to work within the Product Delivery Team structure to come up with a solution that balances those different needs.”
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