Lake Okeechobee discharges to St. Lucie River increasing, Army Corps says

Tyler Treadway | Treasure Coast Newspapers

Show Caption Hide Caption Lake Okeechobee discharges begin June 1 Environmental reporter Tyler Treadway reports on the first Lake Okeechobee discharges of 2018 from the St. Lucie Lock and Dam in Stuart.

Lake Okeechobee discharges to the St. Lucie River will increase Friday to an average of nearly 970 million gallons a day, the Army Corps of Engineers announced Thursday.

That's an increase of more than 200 million gallons a day from the current flow. And the flow through the St. Lucie Lock and Dam into the river could be higher some days if there's significant rainfall runoff in the basin between the lake and the river.

Since discharges began June 1, about 55 billion gallons of lake water has poured into the river. Some of the water has contained blue-green algae from a bloom covering about half the lake, according to the most recent satellite images from NOAA.

That algae has spurred blooms, some of them toxic, in the river estuary. Possible blooms also have been reported in the Indian River Lagoon and in the ocean at Bathtub Beach on Hutchinson Island just north of the St. Lucie Inlet.

More: Blue-green algae gone from Bathtub Beach but throughout river

More: Vacuuming blue-green algae blooms from St. Lucie River should start Friday

The discharges will continue in a weekly "pulse" pattern, with higher flows tapering off to a flow-free day once a week. The pulses are generally recognized for helping tides flush out the estuary — although they haven't stopped the algae blooms.

The flow increase was needed to "slow the still dangerous rise in lake levels" that threaten the integrity of the Herbert Hoover Dike around the lake, said Col. Jason Kirk, the Corps' commander for Florida.

More: Corps, water district won't say how low Lake O should go



The lake elevation was 14 feet 6⅞ inches Thursday morning. That's higher than when Hurricane Irma struck in September 2017, causing the lake level to exceed 17 feet.

The lake was exactly half a foot higher than its average elevation for Aug. 23: 14 feet ⅞ inches.

More: New algae bloom bill introduced by Sens. Marco Rubio, Bill Nelson

More: As crisis worsens, government needs to move at the speed of algae

The Corps tries to keep the lake between 12 feet 6 inches at the start of the dry season in early summer and 15 feet 6 inches at the beginning of the dry season in late fall.

Under current conditions, the Corps' guideline for maintaining the lake allow discharges up to nearly 1.2 billion gallons a day.