Army Corps' dry-season approach for Lake Okeechobee is a step backwards | Opinion

The history of Everglades restoration and water management in South Florida has always been a story of one step forward and two steps back.  

For every advancement, such as the passage of a bill for a reservoir south of Lake Okeechobee, we see a current of opposition to progress. That is how a 2017 bill intended to acquire agricultural land to create a 60,000 acre reservoir was reduced to 10,100 acres without enough accompanying treatment marshes that scientists believe are necessary to meet water-quality standards. 

Lost in the environmental community's cheerleading of the funding for that project, and others, was the fact that we can address the problem NOW, without waiting a decade-plus for new infrastructure to come online. 

In 2019, the Army Corps of Engineers used its operational flexibility to manage Lake Okeechobee differently. Instead of holding it artificially high during the dry season, it reduced the lake level, resulting in a wet season with zero toxic algae discharges. This step forward alarmed the agricultural industry because it threatened their guaranteed unlimited supply of irrigation water.  

And incredibly, guess what U.S. Sugar’s response to our first discharge-free wet season since 2015 was? It sued the Army Corps, making it clear that they would not accept the risk involved in sharing adversity and not being prioritized and guaranteed every drop of irrigation they might have wanted.

Alarmingly, in late December, the Army Corps announced their approach to the 2020 dry season: They will be focused on “retaining water during the dry season” with the goal of “maintain[ing] enough water in the lake to enter wet season without water supply concerns.”

According to Col. Andrew Kelly, they will continue to supply the Caloosahatchee River with “some fresh-water flows as long as possible.” In other words, as long as they can do so without jeopardizing their primary concern — guaranteeing the supply of fresh water for the agricultural industry. 

In 2019, Kelly explained in a column, the Army Corps had “success thinking outside the box and using (their) authorities” to take a step forward and use operational flexibility to lower the lake and prevent toxic algal discharges (only the third time in the past 12 years they’ve been able to accomplish that feat).

It seems the lesson learned from that success was that the agricultural industry is uncomfortable with the possibility of having to share adversity and that the coastal communities and downstream environments need to be once again subjugated in priority. 

The water management story of 2020 will be written in the dry season, NOW. This is a state of emergency. Between now and June 1, the Army Corps has an opportunity to manage the lake levels through operational flexibility and build upon the success of 2019.  

Those of us who care about conserving the unique environments of South Florida and who remember the tremendous costs brought about by toxic algae discharges in 2018, and eight other years since 2004, should take the time now to reach out to the Army Corps. Let them know that our way of life, the health of our estuaries and the health of our coastal cities is every bit as much a priority as irrigation water for Big Sugar.

The time is now. We can’t afford to wait until toxic waters begin to flow. 

Philip Kushlan is president of Friends of the Everglades, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting, preserving, and restoring the only Everglades in the world.