NaplesNews.com

July 30, 2007

Water summit brings different groups to same table

http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2007/jul/30/water_summit_brings_different_groups_same_table/?breaking_news

by Julio Ochoa

The South Florida Water Management District is usually in the middle of competing interests when it comes to managing water in the 16 counties it serves.

District officials brought the different players face to face Monday for a water summit on the east coast.

The result was a dialogue among panelists from the east and west coast estuaries, environmental groups, business owners and the agricultural industry.

“We’ve got all these competing interests putting their cards on the table,” said district spokesman Jesus Rodriguez. “A lot of folks are seeing what sort of impacts their desired outcomes have on other people.”

Lee County Commissioner Ray Judah used the forum to try to gain support for one of his favorite topics — sending more water south.

Judah represented the west coast on the 12-member panel and said the estuaries on both coasts will continue to suffer until the district and the Army Corps of Engineers looks south for more treatment and storage.

The idea has garnered a lot of resistance, especially from the agriculture industry, which uses public lands south of Lake Okeechobee for water storage, Judah said.

Judah learned Monday that he’s not alone in his support for the concept.

“I do believe we’re gaining ground in that area,” he said after the meeting. “I saw a number of stakeholders and sensed a tremendous amount of agreement from many of them.”

Estuaries on the east and west coasts suffer from massive releases of polluted freshwater from Lake Okeechobee. However, if the releases are kept to a minimum by keeping the lake’s level low, water users such as the agricultural industry may experience shortages and boaters could have trouble navigating the lake.

The district held the meeting to get feedback about the impacts of its decisions and to educate stakeholders about why those decisions are made.

If the drought continues over the next 12 months, the district will face some tough water-management scenarios, said Carol Wehle, the district’s executive director.

Wehle proposed holding the water summits more often so the district can have a better understanding of how stakeholders are impacted by its decisions.

District officials meet every week to discuss forecasts, environmental conditions and other data. It uses the data to come up with a recommendation for the next week’s water releases.

Stakeholders on Monday got a taste of the constraints district officials deal with when making decisions about where to send the lake’s water during an exercise that simulated actual conditions.

Judah took exception to the exercise, complaining it did not allow panelists to come up with solutions to make the system work.

“This whole exercise is an exercise in futility,” Judah said. “We’re set up to fail because we can’t (send water) south.”

But that wasn’t the point of the exercise, said the meeting’s facilitator, Janice Fleischer.

“The point of today was to get everybody really understanding what the challenges are and what they are up against when trying to do it,” Fleischer said. “What we want you to do is work with what they usually work with and see how it comes out.”

Other district staff members acknowledged real improvements to the estuaries won’t come without more storage and treatment.

“We don’t have enough control to make a major impact,” said Dean Powell, director of the district’s watershed management department. “We’re just trimming around the edges.”