Army Corps to send less Lake Okeechobee water down the Caloosahatchee starting Friday

Starting Friday, less Lake Okeechobee water will flow down the Caloosahatchee.

The Army Corps of Engineers, which controls lake releases, announced the reduction Thursday. It will completely stop sending lake water to the St. Lucie River on the state’s east coast.

During the rainy season, the Corps tries to keep the lake level from getting so high it endangers the aging Herbert Hoover Dike, so it releases fresh water down the two rivers.

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Once the rains slow down, the releases do too, which can create another set of problems for the region, as “the Caloosahatchee estuary typically receives less water than is needed to maintain its salinity balance,” agricultural engineer John Capece, of the nonprofit Calusa Waterkeeper, wrote in an email.

This summer’s releases, which started June 1, kicked off a disastrous season for the river and many surrounding waterways, as toxic blue-green algae (cyanobacteria) proliferated, plaguing the region throughout the summer.

After the bloom's unprecedented devastation, “it is hard to know whether any dry season shortfalls will have a significant negative impact upon our estuary ecosystem,” Capece wrote. “After all, we effectively slaughtered most everything living there and in the Gulf already. Whatever improvements would normally accrue from receiving sufficient dry season flows from Lake O may be negated by the algae content of those waters and the overall devastation of the past summer, including all the decaying algae sitting on the bottom.”

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About 1.9 million gallons a day have been flowing into the Caloosahatchee, but the Corps will begin lowering flows with a seven-day schedule of pulsed releases.

On Friday the target flow, measured at Olga’s W.P. Franklin Lock & Dam, will be 1.3 billion gallons a day. On Oct. 12 it’ll step down to 970 million gallons a day, then to 650 million gallons a day Oct. 19.

That graduated schedule is good news, and something Rae Ann Wessel, of the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation, and Sanibel Mayor Kevin Ruane had asked the Corps to do. The idea is to smooth the seasonal changeover instead of abruptly cutting flows, so the system and its creatures have time to acclimate.

“We’re very appreciative of the Corps providing this step down as we transition into the dry season,” Wessel said.

However, a storm brewing in the Gulf of Mexico could change that, if it brings a lot of rain. “We continue to monitor tropical activity, including a disturbance in the Gulf that could potentially bring additional rain to South Florida next week,” Reynolds said. Lake Okeechobee is now 14.41 feet above sea level, dropping about 4 inches over the past month.

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Balancing the water needs of the river and estuary with flood control is always a tricky business, and Wessel hopes "we can continue to receive the water we need, and not the excess, and not have to go into a severe shortage either."

Capece would like to see the whole system overhauled.

"Stepping back to get a proper perspective, it is clear that assigning any significance to these upcoming short-term Lake O release decisions is an exercise in futility. Until we develop better options, the Corps is locked into the current set of bad choices," he said. "Rather than focusing on these flow numbers, people need to focus on voting in good leaders to replace those with clearly bad track records on environmental issues. Then we might start to turn this situation around in the coming years."