By Andy Reid
"As
the primary back-up water supply for most
The district also imposed
Phase II water restrictions on primarily agricultural, industrial and
commercial water users in parts of Hendry, Glades, Okeechobee, Lee, Martin, St.
Lucie and western
The restrictions also apply
to people whose water source is
Farmers are required to
reduce surface water consumption by 45 percent. Residential users must limit
lawn watering, boat and car washing to one day per week: Saturdays from
A brushfire burning 4,000
acres of normally submerged lakebed near the northwestern shore was just one of
the consequences.
Emergency pumps have been
required to keep about half of the usual water flowing to canals that help
restock
And as the lake continues to
drop, sugar cane, vegetable and other growers are struggling to get the lake
water they need for irrigation.
"It is nature telling
us that we need to be more focused on where the water comes from," said
Eric Buermann, the new chairman of the South Florida
Water Management District. "We need to modify our behavior ... seek out
alternative sources and conserve."
The summer rainy season is
under way in some coastal areas of
If the lake drops below 7
feet, the temporary pumps would no longer be able to send water south.
Some relief could come this
weekend. Forecasts call for a 50 percent chance of rain on Saturday and a 40
percent chance of rain on Sunday for
The earthen dike along the
lake's northwestern shore near Buckhead Ridge,
usually relied on to protect residents from flooding, on Tuesday became the
dividing line fire officials needed to keep flames from jumping into a nearby
neighborhood. "It isn't really bad for the lake. It's just something you
don't want to get out of control," said Jim Harrell, spokesman for the
Florida Division of Forestry.
People who rely on lake
water to make their living are already suffering from low water levels. Agricultural
representatives say the lack of rain and reduced amount of lake water to
supplement irrigation canals threaten to bring worse economic hardships than
the 2001 drought, when the crop loss was estimated at more than $100 million.
"Each day that goes by,
we are just that much drier and that much further behind," said Charles
Shinn, who monitors water conditions for the Florida Farm Bureau. "It's a
serious concern and it continues to be." Fishing guides, bait shops and
mom-and-pop motels have suffered since retreating lake levels made it hard even
to launch a bass boat in some spots.
Seasonal residents are
staying away, and the usual summertime fishermen who used to come for a day on
the lake are going elsewhere, longtime lake fisherman Jack Weldon said. Weldon
says decisions to dump lake water last year worsened the drought's effect on
his fishing grounds.
"Where
the fish used to feed and eat, it's not there no more," Weldon said.
"A lot of people ain't coming back. ... It's a
sad situation." The water level that officials use to monitor the lake is
a daily computation that comes from averaging the readings of four gauges
inside the lake and comparing them with a mean sea level standard set in 1929.
The actual
depth of the lake can vary from more than 20 feet in the middle to a few feet
near the shoreline. Lowering the lake can have environmental benefits, but not
when water dips this low, said Paul Grey, a scientist for Audubon of Florida.
Keeping
water levels too high can drown the natural grasses needed for fish to spawn
and birds to eat, but now it has dropped to the point that the marsh areas are
drying up, Grey said.
The
long-term solution is to build more reservoirs and water treatment areas north
of the lake to compensate for drainage systems built to funnel stormwater into
the lake and out to sea, he said. "When they built the system ... they
were trying to drain the state, and it worked," Grey said.
Water
restrictions are expected to remain even after the summer rains start and could
continue into next year if the storm season fails to provide above-normal
rainfall, said Gray, of the water management district.
The drought of
2001 ended after heavier-than-normal summer rains pumped the lake back up to
normal levels by October. "This drought is much more widespread. It's
going to take quite a bit of rainfall to get us back up," Gray said.
Long-term
water relief comes from requiring growing communities to develop alternative
sources, such as using treated wastewater for irrigation and tapping deeper,
more plentiful underground water sources, said Buermann,
the head of the water district's governing board.
"We
have to look across the board at what we are doing," Buermann
said. "We can't just build, build, build and assume the water will be
there."
Andy Reid
can be reached at abreid@sun-sentinel.com or 561-228-5504.