Lake Okeechobee reservoir to cut discharges approved by SFWMD; heads to Army Corps

A proposal to cut Lake Okeechobee discharges will soon be on its way to the head of the Army Corps of Engineers.

The South Florida Water Management District board Thursday unanimously approved a design for the project developed over the last several months by district scientists and engineers.

The project's plans are to be given to Ryan Fisher, who heads the Corps as acting assistant secretary of the Army for civil works, by March 30.

Corps to Congress

The Corps is scheduled to review and forward the plans to Congress for inclusion in the upcoming Water Resources and Development Act by Oct. 1.

"We'll push hard for congressional approval and appropriation," said Matt Morrison, the district's head of federal policy and coordination who led the design and planning for the project.

U.S. Rep. Brian Mast, a Palm City Republican and member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, has requested a "placeholder" for the project in the WRDA to make sure it's included. Otherwise, the project would have to wait two more years for the 2020 legislation.

Several environmental groups, including some that had been vocal opponents of the design, voiced their approval of the project and pledged to help the district get congressional approval.

"We'll be there with you in Washington, D.C.," said Kimberly Mitchell, executive director of the Everglades Trust.

Thanks to the project, "there will be a day soon when we finally reconnect Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades and Florida Bay," said Eric Eikenberg, CEO of the Everglades Foundation.

The foundation was one of several organizations that had claimed the project wouldn't be able to clean water flowing south to Everglades National Park enough to meet stringent federal standards.

Changes in attitudes

What changed their minds? An order issued Monday by the state Department of Environmental Protection approving the project design and vowing "additional actions" would be taken if water coming off the project doesn't meet federal standards.

MORE: Read the DEP order approving the reservoir project

"It's a strong commitment," said Cara Capp of the National Parks Conservation Association.

Other groups continue to oppose the plan.

The DEP order "is vague in the assurances it claims to provide," Diana Umpierre, of the Sierra Club, told the board.

The Sierra Club does not oppose the project, Umpierre said, but "we demand better."

The project isn't perfect, agreed Rae Ann Wessel, natural resources director of the Sanibel Captiva Conservation Foundation, but "it offers unparalleled benefits to the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee estuaries, Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades."

Morrison told the board he was "confident the project we're proposing will meet all water quality requirements."

More: Scott signs bill for reservoir to curb Lake O discharges

The legislation authorizing the project was championed by Senate President Joe Negron, a Stuart Republican, and signed into law May 9 by Gov. Rick Scott.

The governor held another ceremonial signing May 12 in Clewiston, where many people opposed an earlier version of the bill calling for the purchase of up to 60,000 acres of farmland.

District scientists and engineers came up with five options for the reservoir project on two "footprints" — one about 16,700 acres, the other about 31,200 acres — almost entirely on state-owned land.

They chose one of the smaller projects they deemed a "best buy" that would do the job the most efficiently for a cost $1.4 billion.

It's slightly more than a quarter the size of the 60,000-acre, $2.4 billion project first proposed by Negron in August 2016.

MORE: Negron's 'new' reservoir is same as one planned in 1999

Agricultural interests south of the lake, particularly sugar growers, fought Negron's proposal, saying jobs would be lost by taking too much farmland out of production.

The bill Negron pushed through the Legislature put the project mostly on land already in public hands, with extra acreage to be bought only from "willing sellers."

Except for a few hundred acres on the west side of the project site, no landowners were willing to sell their land or swap it for other state-owned land.

EAA reservoir project

How big will it be?

Reservoir:

10,100 acres

23 feet deep

78.2 billion gallon volume

Stormwater Treatment Area:

6,500 acres of man-made marsh

What will it do?

When combined with other water projects under construction and in the planning stage, the project will:

Take excess Lake Okeechobee water, reducing the volume of discharges to the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers by about 56 percent and the number of discharge events by 63 percent.

Send an average of about 120 billion gallons of clean water to Everglades National Park and Florida Bay, both of which need fresh water.

What will it cost?