Area leaders call for Lake O muck removal

OKEECHOBEE -- Hendry County Commissioner Ramon Iglesias holds up a jar of water from Lake Okeechobee. When he entered the Historic Okeechobee County Courthouse, the water at the top of the jar was clear. A small shake caused the muck at the bottom to be suspended in the water column. [Photo by Katrina Elsken/Lake Okeechobee News]

OKEECHOBEE — Hendry County Commissioner Ramon Iglesias brought a bottle of muck and lake water with him to the June 6 meeting of the 16 County Coalition for the Responsible Management of Lake Okeechobee, the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee Estuaries and the Lake Worth Lagoon.

As he held it up, the audience could see the water in the top half of the bottle was clear and the bottom was dark.

“This is what happens when a 20 mph wind stirs up the lake,” he explained, shaking the bottle slightly. The whole bottle turned dark, with the sediments now suspended throughout the water column.

Over the past dry season, Lake Okeechobee was in “recovery mode,” with water released east, west and south to bring the lake level down. The goal was to get the lake below 12 feet for at least 90 days or below 11.5 feet for at least 60 days, so sunlight can reach the lake bottom, which would allow new submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) to sprout.

“We have to do something about the muck,” said Iglesias. “When the wind stirs the muck, the sunlight will never penetrate the water column.”

“Lake Okeechobee thrives on needed vegetation to filter the water,” he said. We’ve got to do something with that muck on the bottom of the lake.”

He said in the last survey, Lake Okeechobee had less than 3,000 acres of SAV. The lake needs at least 50,000 acres, he said. “That lake is a big lake.”  Lake O covers 730 square miles – about 467,000 acres.

“Does the corps have any money or plans to start dredging or suction dredging de-mucking?” he asked. “We have to take the opportunity of a drought to do as much as we can. I don’t think we’re going to hit another drought any time soon.”

“It’s legacy sediment,” said Collier County Commissioner Bill McDaniel. “We need plan to remove that legacy sediment on a concerted basis.”

Instead of waiting on “blessings from Mother Nature,” the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) should do more to manage the lake and keep the lake level within the “ecological envelope” best for the lake’s ecology.

“We have the ability to manage the level of water in the lake,” he said. “We’ve all seen the ecological report on the happy level where that water needs to be.

He said any management plan that relies on luck or Mother Nature is doomed.

“The best path to travel is the removal of that legacy sediment,” said McDaniel. If the muck was removed, the water would be cleaner and there would be more capacity in the lake to hold water.

“We’re all aware it’s a major problem,” agreed Charlotte County Commissioner Ken Doherty. “We get a big storm, it turns the lake over.”

“We’ve seen multiple opportunities for pilot programs,” said McDaniel. One proposed using deep well injection pumps to send liquified muck to the Boulder Zone.

“After our last drought, game and fish (Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission) took the lead and removed some of the sediment,” said Commissioner David Hazellief. “Unfortunately, we could not haul it out and it’s islands now.”

Mike Elfenbein, of the Cypress Chapter of the Isaac Walton League, said AguaCulture has a way to remove the muck.  “Several years ago, USACE Col. Jason Kelly came down here, they brought the corps out. We went out on Lake Okeechobee and physically showed them we have the ability to pump the muck off the bottom of the lake,” he said.

Elfenbein said AguaCulture also had a plan for what to do with the muck. “We had a purpose for it,” he explained. “That was putting the material on the levees, to shore them up.” He said this is material that nature intended the areas around the lake to have. The dike prevents it from being washed up around the edges of the lake during storms.

“I can’t understand for the life of me why USACE didn’t even attempt to pursue that effort,” said Elfenbein.

He said SFWMD is now using the process on Lake Istokpoga. “We are taking the muck out of the bottom of the lake and using it to grow grass,” he said. The grass will be harvested for hay and transported out of the watershed, taking that nutrient load with it.

Buckhead Ridge resident Billy Locker said FWC’s use of chemical herbicides on aquatic vegetation adds to the problem.

“We talk about water quality, getting back vegetation, what can we do to filter it,” he said. “You have an enormous budget accrued by our legislators in Tallahassee with the chemical cartel. The vegetation sprayed becomes the legacy sediment – that is one of things I continued to be dismayed with. They will continue to approve that budget to continue to spray.”

“They talked about it for years to move the state to mechanical removal of aquatic vegetation,” he explained. “You never see it in the budget. Instead, you see them spraying the banks of the Kissimmee River.

“Déjà vu all over again,” said Newton Cook of United Waterfowlers. “I have been advocating deep injection wells for years. EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) said as long as it is slurry, no problem. You cannot fix this lake until you fix the muck. You’re just wasting money. Where is the group meeting to fix the bottom of Lake Okeechobee? Where is the group meeting for the SAV problem? This group needs to be put together now.”

He said they need a committee similar to the old Water Resources Advisory Committee (WRAC).

“We have a Biscayne Bay WRAC, Big Cypress WRAC but Lake Okeechobee doesn’t have one,” he noted.

“You all have to come together to advocate for these projects that are possible, that we can do, but for sheer will it is not being done,” said Elfenbein.

“If the lake is not healthy, nothing is going to be healthy south of the lake,” said Cook. “It is the heart of the Everglades.”

“The lake is doing better because it is low,” said Cook. “We’ve got one year under our belt. It takes up to 5 years to get the lake back.

Locker said FWC should be held accountable for the damage the spraying does to Kissimmee River and Lake Okeechobee.

“The lake is 11.15 feet (above sea level) today,” he continued. “A lot of people want to see the grass keep growing.”

Continue Reading Article