Rivers Coalition members back reservoir to cut Lake Okeechobee discharges

About half the member organizations that make up the Rivers Coalition are voicing support for the proposed design for a reservoir to cut Lake Okeechobee discharges to the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers — but with reservations.

As of a 5 p.m. Thursday deadline, 47 of the group's 103 member organizations had signed a three-page letter supporting the project to R.D. James, assistant secretary of the Army for civil works who heads the Army Corps of Engineers.

More members are expected to sign after the letter is sent Friday, said Mark Perry, executive director of the Florida Oceanographic Society in Stuart and a member of the coalition's leadership team.

"The letter doesn't state an official position by the Rivers Coalition," Perry said, "but a lot of our members had said they wanted to voice their support, and we wanted to give them a way to do it. Some members also have some real problems with the plan."

The coalition — a consortium of businesses, homeowners associations, nonprofit agencies and fishing clubs representing about 300,000 residents in Martin and St. Lucie counties — says its support is contingent on the project fulfilling its goals of:

• Reducing discharges by 55 percent
• Sending an average 120 billion gallons of clean water each year to the Everglades and Florida Bay.

If those goals aren't met, the coalition wants the Corps and the South Florida Water Management District, the federal and state partners on the project, to "commit to modifications, including securing and adding more land ... to provide the full benefits."

The water district has proposed, and sent to the Corps for review, a 10,100-acre, 23-foot-deep reservoir to hold excess Lake O water and a 6,500-acre man-made marsh to clean the water.

MORE: Water district chooses plan for reservoir project

Several environmental groups have said that's too small to do the job.

MORE:District inflates reservoir's abilities, Everglades Foundation says

The project's small size "will limit the project's capacity to reduce discharges, limit the volume of water it can deliver to Florida Bay and reduce its ability to meet water quality standards," the coalition's letter states.

District engineers repeatedly have said their design for the project will meet its goals, and so did a review by Battelle Memorial Institute, a private consultant often used by the Corps.

MORE:Peer review says reservoir plan would work

The project envisioned by the district would be built almost entirely on land already owned by the state because no farmers in the area were willing to sell their land or swap it for government-owned parcels elsewhere south of Lake O.

"We remain disappointed by the (district's) efforts to limit the scope and benefits of this project and by the sugar industry's efforts to obstruct and constrain it," the coalition's letter states.

Despite their misgivings, coalition members said they support the project because it "may represent the last, best chance" to curtail the discharges and further Everglades restoration.

Several other environmental groups, most notably the Everglades Foundation, have endorsed the project with similar reservations. The coalition's support is significant because of the group's high profile and broad range of support by Treasure Coast businesses and nonprofits.

MORE:U.S. Sugar Corp., Rivers Coalition battle in newspaper ads

The group is focused on stopping the Lake O discharges, and in 2006 filed a federal lawsuit against the Corps alleging pollution from the lake was an unconstitutional “taking” of riparian rights of waterfront property owners.

The lawsuit was shot down when both a trial judge and a federal appeals court ruled that because the discharges have been damaging the environment for decades, the suit was filed after the six-year statute of limitations had run out.