Greetings,

I hope you will appreciate this special edition of Restore.  Lake Okeechobee is a top priority and we want all conservationists to learn about and help advocate for recovery of this special place.

Thanks for your support!
Paul Gray, PhD
Lake Okeechobee Watershed Program Manager

Audubon's Recipe for Lake Okeechobee Recovery

·  Lower the lake level ·  Restore native plants and wildlife
·  Stop excessive releases to the estuaries ·  Create water supply alternatives
·  Clean up the pollution ·  Manage growth in the watershed

  

Lake Okeechobee is world-famous as a wildlife and fishing destination.  Unfortunately, for many years pollution, drainage and invasive exotic species have created world-famous problems for this great waterway.  

 

In October 2005, state officials gathered on the shore of Lake Okeechobee to reaffirm commitments to recover the lake and limit ongoing damage to the estuaries from excessive water releases.  Much of what is in the Lake Okeechobee and Estuary Recovery (LOER) proposal reflects recommendations Audubon and other groups have been making. This report details an environmental action plan to build public support for the policies and actions that are needed to truly recover Lake Okeechobee.

 

The hurricanes of this year and last seemed like natural events, but the resulting mud stirred up from the lake bottom and the rapid, harmful rises in lake levels were the effects of a century of human activity.  If the lake is to recover, we must undo much of the human-induced damage.

 

Complex problems call for multi-faceted, creative solutions. Below are some of the problems and solutions as Audubon sees them. 

 

Lake Levels 

Lake Okeechobee’s water levels rise very quickly because its watershed, once dominated by wetlands, is now is riddled with drainage ditches and canals.  Water that once seeped through vast swamps for months now runs into the lake within days or weeks.  This leaves the watershed dry and the lake too deep. This water, in turn, is dumped in massive amounts to the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee estuaries, carrying pollution and altering estuarine conditions. The results: harmful algae blooms, sea grass and oyster die-offs, diminished fisheries, and potential diseases for the fish, turtles and dolphins that remain. Ironically, when Florida’s long winter dry season commences, reduced inflows and human water supply withdrawals from the lake make it drop so low that water shortages are common.  South Florida has enough water for people and nature, but water is alternately hoarded for irrigation and public supply, and wasted by being dumped. 

 AUDUBON'S PRESCRIPTION: Manage Lake Levels for Environmental Benefits

Audubon has requested the lake’s manager, the US Army Corps of Engineers, try a revised Lake Okeechobee Regulation Schedule by 2006 to keep water levels no higher than 15.5 feet above sea level, with a target low of 13.0.  The lake needs these levels immediately and planned structural changes will allow even lower levels by 2010. Audubon wants these recommendations to be reflected in the Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for the “Water Supply and Environment” water management schedule. This water schedule will allow the lake's 100,000 acre marsh to recover and provide habitat for fish and birds.
New Water Supply Plan 
In tandem with the schedule referenced above, Audubon is encouraging the South Florida Water Management District to implement a new Supply-side Management Plan that limits the use of the lake for water supply during dry periods.  The current reliance on the lake for irrigation and public water supply forces managers to hold too much water in the lake.

 AUDUBON'S PRESCRIPTION: Alternative Storage

Gaining better control over lake levels requires the ability to store more water outside of the lake itself.  Wetlands must be restored en masse and some reservoirs must be built.  During wet periods, water can be captured in these storage features to prevent high water events in the lake.  During dry periods, the storage can be a source for environmental and human needs.
Audubon’s analysis indicates that all present programs combined will not store enough water, and we will push to store at least a million acre feet of water (equal to 2 feet in Okeechobee) upstream of the lake.

Water Storage and the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA)
   This large area between Okeechobee and the Everglades is losing its soil due to agricultural use, and farming will be phased out in the near future.  Much of this land should be converted to water storage reservoirs and  stormwater treatment areas (STAs), as well as restored for wildlife and recreational habitat.  Audubon is working to ensure the reservoirs and STAs in the EAA will provide maximum benefits to Lake Okeechobee, the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie estuaries, and the rest of the Everglades ecosystem. The EAA reservoirs will be a step in the right direction, storing more water in the system and reducing pollutant transport to the greater Everglades and Florida Bay. EAA storage will be a critical part of the much larger "storage portfolio" necessary for system-wide restoration.  

Too Much Pollution

It will take decades to clean up the phosphorus deposited in the Okeechobee system by years of excess fertilizer use in the watershed. The phosphorus goal for Okeechobee is an average of 105 tons of phosphorus inflow per year (not including rainfall) yielding a natural 40 parts per billion water concentration.  The lake now receives an average 500-600 tons a year. Too much phosphorus causes noxious algae blooms and accelerated growth of exotic plants and cattails. As the algae and other plants die and sink, they decompose into a gooey mud bottom. This goo now covers more than half the lake’s bottom. The mud contains so much phosphorus that even after inflow goals are met, recirculated phosphorus from the bottom will keep the water column polluted for decades. Sadly, Lake Okeechobee water is needed for Everglades restoration; at present, it is too polluted to use.

 
   Algae blooms in Nubbin Slough reveal phosphorus pollution
   ready to flow into Lake Okeechobee.  (Paul Gray)

 AUDUBON'S PRESCRIPTIONS

P budget: the overall amount of phosphorus entering the system as animal feed, fertilizer and sewage sludge disposal must be reduced ten-fold 
BMPs: Updated Best Management Practices for animal waste, fertilizers, cultivation, and water storage must be used by all farmers and introduced for urban areas. 
Stormwater runoff:  management and treatment systems must be used to remove nutrients before water reaches the lake’s tributaries. Regional stormwater treatment areas should polish water entering the lake to bring average phosphorous concentrations to 40 parts per billion.
Restoring wetlands: implementation throughout the watershed can help reduce phosphorus runoff and store more water, while increasing habitat 

Declining Wildlife

As a result of exotic species invasions, pollution, and unseasonably high and low water, Lake Okeechobee’s wildlife resources have suffered greatly.  Snail Kites have not nested successfully on the lake for a decade.  Large-scale wading bird nesting and foraging only occurs erratically.  Loss of some 60 square miles of submerged plants during recent high water apparently has decimated the largemouthed bass fishery.  Similarly, black crappie have not successfully reproduced in two years.  Land use changes in the watershed are reducing Florida’s endemic prairie bird fauna, including Caracaras, Florida Grasshopper Sparrows and Florida Sandhill Cranes. 

 AUDUBON'S PRESCRIPTION:
Management for Fish and Wildlife

If Lake Okeechobee is managed primarily for the benefit of native fish and wildlife, we can recover the resident and migratory bird species now fading from the watershed. Managing the lake’s level to allow the marsh to recover and reducing pollutant loads will allow native plants to re-establish and restore habitat for birds, fish and other wildlife.

  
Courting great blue herons          © David Roach

 Exotic species

Torpedo grass chokes more than 25 square miles of Okeechobee marshes and Audubon is pushing for increased funding to reduce it to maintenance levels.  Other exotics such as melaleuca, water lettuce and water hyacinth require ongoing control.   

 AUDUBON'S PRESCRIPTION: Aggressive Control of Exotics

Funding and implementing aggressive control of these invasive exotics must be a top priority of all entities involved in Lake Okeechobee restoration.

 

Growth Management

The Upper Kissimmee basin is undergoing unprecedented pressure to convert pasture, range, and other agricultural lands into large scale urban development projects. Much of this land was once Kissimmee Prairie-type habitat, but was drained for agriculture by randomly constructed ditches and canals in the 1940’s and 1950’s. Within the past six months, five “Developments of Regional Impact” have been proposed that could dramatically impact water management and the nutrient budget upstream from Okeechobee.

 AUDUBON'S PRESCRIPTION: Careful Evaluation and Clustered Development

While the initial development proposals cause great concern, it is possible that some of these projects could be redesigned to in fact rework and correct some of the area's current overdrainage. If dense clusters of housing and commercial uses are built surrounded by substantial preservation areas, the result might even mean water management improvements and less polluted runoff than occurs today.  Audubon is working hard to influence the decisions of local governments and state agencies concerning this surge of development.  

 

Implications for Everglades Restoration

Recovering Lake Okeechobee’s watershed is critical to the success of Everglades restoration.  Audubon is pushing to include the Kissimmee Chain of Lakes region and Lake Istokpoga’s watershed in the Everglades restoration plan.  These two systems cover about 40% and 10% of the Okeechobee watershed respectively. Cleaning the water and gaining storage in these regions will help these lakes, Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

· Learn more about the challenges facing Lake Okeechobee and the new LOER plan for lake restoration.

· Visit Lake Okeechobee: See for yourself!

· Take Action: Contact your state legislators and tell them that the damage to Lake Okeechobee and the estuaries must stop and recovery must begin.  Ask them to do all in their power to fund and authorize a crash program to recover the health of the lake.

 

 

LOER Plan Summary and Audubon's Goals for Lake Okeechobee Recovery 

LOER Plan's Goals  Positions of Audubon and Our Allies
Finish building three stormwater treatment areas/reservoirs

More than 60,000 acres of additional land for projects is needed along with restoration of wetlands and other natural storage features

Revise regulations schedule for lake levels.

 Draw down the lake this winter to protect the estuaries next summer and change regulation schedule immediately to keep lake levels lower
Establish TMDLs (water pollution limits) for Tributaries

Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs) are already required by law. The key is to set levels that will actually result in a cleaner lake.

Mandatory BMPs
(Best Management Practices)		 Current BMPs are inadequate – they must require near-zero phosphorus fertilizers, strict controls on polluted runoff, and increased water storage to be effective.
Better Permit Requirements for Development

This holds great promise if agencies follow through and require tough controls on stormwater from developments.

Identify options for storage and/or disposal of excess surface water

A crash program is needed to buy land and/or get landowners to agree to hold more water in previously drained wetland areas.

Implement growth management programs to encourage innovative land use planning to facilitate acquisition of lands

Audubon is committed to working with local land use plans to employ creative solutions to preserve and restore habitat.

Elimination of land application of domestic wastewater residuals

Eliminating sewage sludge from the watershed makes sense and removes a large source of nutrient pollution

Full implementation of the Lake Okeechobee Protection Program and the CERP Lake Okeechobee Watershed Project 

These programs need serious upgrades.  The current versions will not recover Lake Okeechobee without significant modifications.

Kissimmee River Restoration

 Finish this vital restoration project

 

 

Funding Appropriated for Everglades Modified Water Deliveries Program!

  The Energy and Water Appropriations bill contains $35 million dollars in Army Corps of Engineers funding for the Everglades Modified Water Deliveries program, a critical project that lays the groundwork for Everglades Restoration. Thanks to all who responded to our recent alert on this funding issue-- your efforts made a difference!.

 HOW YOU CAN HELP Representatives Mario Diaz- Balart (R, Florida), David Hobson (R, Ohio) and Peter Visclosky (D, Indiana) as well as Senator Pete Domenici (R, New Mexico) were all integral to getting this funding approved. Thank them through our ModWaters advocacy page (especially if you live in their district!) and let them know their support of the Everglades does not go unnoticed!

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