×
×
homepage logo
STORE

Public effort regarding Lake O discharges gratifying; result is not

By Staff | Nov 18, 2021

To the editor:

Thanks to everybody who got involved in attempting to save Cape Coral from red tide by sending written comments to the Army Corp of Engineers. Your pleas for mercy fell on deaf ears. The new 2021-2031 plan for Lake Okeechobee releases to protect the Herbert Hoover dam was a 10-year proposal. You may recall there was some saber rattling from Lee County District 1 Kevin Ruane early in the process. He had stated the county might go to court to stop the plan to send 71% of all discharges exclusively down the Caloosahatchee. Now we are getting precisely that level of pollution, but our Republican representatives are backpedaling on any action to protect the county district’s water.

The Army Corp. of Engineers has decided to spare St. Lucie’s estuary at the expense of Southwest Florida. Whenever the lake rises, 24% of discharges will be sent south, if containment can be provided. The other 71% of sludge- laden water will come our way. The bluster of legal action did not, seemingly, alter the Army’s plan one substantive whit. The Army Corp of Engineers requested comments to finalize it’s Lake Okeechobee Operating Systems Manual plan, and if you wrote in, thank you. To spare your home over the next 10 years some greater political action may be required. You may have to vote as though you wanted your home spared during next year’s election.

Scientists have estimated red tide to create a neurotoxin that can become airborne and cause brain damage. A release of 1,000 cfs of Lake Okeechobee sludge, we are told, can be safely absorbed by the Caloosahatchee. But release rates from the lake have continued to be 2,300 cubic feet per second this fall, or 1,500 million gallons of red tide laced discharge per day into the Caloosahatchee. More than 1,000 cubic feet per second released is considered harmful to our habitat. 1,000 cubic feet per second is equal to about 646 million gallons per day. For the lake to drop an inch (12 billion gallons) the Caloosahatchee River would have to endure an increased discharge for five weeks at an additional 500 cfs release. The lake stands about 15 feet over sea level. The Corps plan is to never consider polluting the St. Lucie unless the lake level rises above 18 feet. Of course as the releases to the west prevent the rise of the lake, the bottom line is St. Lucie’s constituency bears no burden.

Once the scum laden water enters the Caloosahatchee River, red tide has inevitably followed.

St. Lucie’s estuary will be virtually exempt from receiving discharges, while we in the Corps’ plan A zone (Caloosahatchee) will get all the red tide laced water that does not flow south. The St. Lucie (F zone) east is exempted from the Lake Okeechobee discharges while the Lake can be held below 18 feet through ever increasing flow of pollution to the A zone exclusively. The east of Florida appears to have the political protection of Democratic Congressperson Val Demings. We in Cape Coral elected to Congress Byron Donalds. He has championed the plan to funnel into Caloosahatchee the Lake Okeechobee sludge down our river. During next year’s election cycle I hope to get a Congressional candidate at the federal level who can protect my health from assault by my own standing army. Apparently written comments didn’t get me there yet. If we citizens want to save our homes and Southwest Florida, we will need to do more here in Cape Coral.

Ellen Starbird

Cape Coral