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Photo courtesy of Jacqui Thurlow-Lippisch

After heavy rains in May drove up water levels in Lake Okeechobee, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began discharging water into rivers to the west and east of the lake.

Now, Gov. Rick Scott has issued an emergency order to allow water from from the lake to be discharged to the south, hoping to prevent an election-year repeat of the pea-soup-thick algae disaster of 2016 that fouled beaches on both coasts.

The order is intended to reduce the discharges of lake water through the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie rivers, which caused an environmental crisis when toxic algae ruined fishing, harmed wildlife and drove away tourists. Images of the thick green muck — compared to guacamole in many media accounts — generated the wrong kind of national attention for regions that depend on clean beaches and clear water.

But releasing lake water to the south poses its own environmental risks to deer, wading birds and other Everglades animals.

The danger of doing nothing is significant: Authorities fear rising waters could burst through the lake’s decades-old dike, a towering mound of rock, gravel and shell encircling the lake to guard against flooding.