BONITA NEWS

January 31, 2007

Bill would bring oversight to Caloosahatchee

By Charlie Whitehead

http://www.bonitanews.com/news/2007/jan/31/bill_would_bring_oversight_caloosahatchee/?local_news

A proposed amendment to the Lake Okeechobee Protection Act would focus more agency attention — and money — on the Caloosahatchee River and coastal estuaries. The amendment implements the recommendations of the Caloosahatchee/ St. Lucie Rivers Corridor Advisory Committee, the so-called Caloosa-Lucie committee created by the Legislature last year.

According to John Fumero, an attorney hired by the county to pursue water management changes, the amendment would give the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie rivers the kind of oversight the act gives the lake.

“It’s a huge step in the right direction,” Fumero said. “It forces the agencies to do the job. To be accountable. To identify the problems, pull the research together and come up with fixes.”

Lee Commissioner Tammy Hall, who served on the committee, said the amendment has local sponsors, with Rep. Trudi Williams of Fort Myers, who chairs the House Committee on Environmental Protection and Sen. Burt Saunders of Naples, chairman of the Environmental Preservation and Conservation Committee, leading the way.

“This bill already has a lot of chatter,” she said. The amendment would create a new section under the act. What it doesn’t create, Fumero said, is money. “This is part of the puzzle,” he said. “The second piece is coming up with a funding source.” A project of the scale needed will cost tens of millions of dollars, Fumero said.

County water resources specialist Kurt Harclerode said the amendment at least sets up the framework. “It’s happening north of the lake,” he said. “This will apply it to our watershed, to our estuary.” Lee commissioners were glad to endorse the bill.

“It’s my opinion we have to do absolutely everything we can to defend against the foreign threat of discharges from Lake Okeechobee,” said Commissioner Brian Bigelow, who repeated a call to sue the South Florida Water Management District for the way it has managed the system.

Commissioners also discussed county priorities on water projects. Hall asked whether commissioners still see finishing the Southwest Florida Feasibility Study — the west coast piece of Everglades restoration — and the C-43 reservoir in Hendry County, designed to hold water that would otherwise flow down the Caloosahatchee, as their top priorities.

Commissioners agreed they are, with the proviso that the C-43 reservoir needs a water quality element added. Commissioner Frank Mann said they have to be careful, though, that they don’ t lose the $400 million reservoir. “This doesn’t mean we say hold up on a $400 million project,” he said. “I think we’d make a mistake to say all this year or nothing. We’re shooting ourselves in the foot.”