New contractor: Caloosahatchee River reservoir ready in five years

Water managers Thursday approved a long-awaited $523 million project that's aimed at improving water quality conditions in the Caloosahatchee River estuary. 

It's the largest contract the South Florida Water Management District has signed and represents one of the final steps in making the Caloosahatchee reservoir, often called the C-43, built and operational. 

"It’s very difficult to tell from a map really how large this facility is," said district project manager Matt Morrison. "But when you look at 10,500 acres, that’s about the same size as the city of Naples, to put it into perspective." 

The reservoir is being built in Hendry County near the Lee County border and will capture excess water flowing down the river during the wet season, store that water and then have it available for release during the dry season, when the Caloosahatchee's estuary needs freshwater to maintain healthy salinity balances. 

Part of the reservoir is already complete, but the vast majority of work will be done by C-43 Water Management Builders Joint Venture, which provided the district with the lowest bid. 

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The highest bid was around $880 million, or about $350 million more than the venture's bid. 

Such a discrepancy in bids caused some concern for some at the district. 

Newly appointed executive director Drew Bartlett suggested governing board members consider waiting another month before approving the contract to make sure that everyone was comfortable with such a large amount of money exchanging hands. 

"We had a company bid on the project for a very good price, but it was much less than the other companies," said Bartlett, who now works at the Florida Department of Environmental Protection but will join the district as the top staffer in April. "The first thing you think about is: Is this real?" 

Board member Chauncey Goss, who was voted chairman Thursday, said the district could wait on the contract but that he also wanted to move forward. 

"We’ve all been here four hours, so maybe we need more time to take a look at it," said Goss, also a Sanibel city councilman. 

But after hearing from the district staff and the joint venture, Goss and others voted unanimously to approve the contract. 

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"I’m conflicted because the emotional side of me really wants to do this and the other side of me says ‘wait, wait, wait,'" Goss said. "My view on this is this was somebody else’s project and once we vote on it it’s our project." 

Morrison said construction will happen in a series of steps and that the builder will have to prove that it can build the smaller parts of the reservoir before moving onto the larger project. 

Designs on the reservoir started in 2004 and include 170,000 acre-feet, or about 55 billion gallons, of water storage on land that connects to the Townsend Canal. 

"It certainly raises an eyebrow or gives reason to raise an eyebrow, but I was impressed by the presentations today," said board member Scott Wagner, who was selected as vice chair during the meeting. "I was compelled by the explanation that maybe the other bids were higher because one of those companies were biting off a little more than they could chew and left themselves a lot of room for error whereas it seems this joint venture does this routinely." 

This board is entirely new after a controversial lease was given last fall to a sugar farming company on lands meant for an Everglades restoration project. 

At the time, Gov. Ron DeSantis was not yet confirmed as governor, but he and Congressman Brian Mast asked the district board to not approve the lease. 

The board approved it anyway, and DeSantis asked all board members to step down earlier this year. 

"A week ago we weren't ready to do this," Goss said after the vote. 

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