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Backpumping to
replenish Lake O considered
Water managers could move Wednesday to declare a
drought emergency that would activate the controversial practice of pumping farm
water back into Lake Okeechobee.
“They are talking about turning the pumps on and trying to fill the lake,”
said Paul Gray, an Audubon of Florida scientist. “It is just one more way to
harm Lake Okeechobee.”
At 9.45 feet, the lake has risen about eight inches from last month’s historic
low — and rainy season has started water flowing from the northern Kissimmee
Basin for the first time in nearly a year.
But water managers say chances are just 50-50 that the lake will crest 12 feet
by autumn — the height at which it entered dry season last year, according to
spokesman Randy Smith of the South Florida Water Management District.
“It’s a water supply issue that is of concern here,” Smith said.
Halfway through rainy season temporary submersible pumps continue to be used to
pull water over spillways and into surrounding canals used for drinking and
agriculture.
Smith said options the board will be presented with today include increasing the
amount of water flowing into the lake from the Kissimmee Basin to the north and
the possibility of backpumping water into the lake from the vast agricultural
area to the south, last done during the 2001 drought.
Backpumping
Gray said the district is under a decades-old court order against water-supply
backpumping but used state authority to move more than 300,000 acre feet — the
equivalent of 3 million swimming pools — back into the lake during the 2001
drought. A second court order this summer requires the district to seek federal
permits for all backpumping, including flood control but does not forbid it from
happening.
The water district’s governing board split on the issue last month when it
requested more information. Two members were absent, including Charles Dauray,
the new representative for Lee County, who said he plans to keep an open mind at
today’s hearing.
Smith said backpumping authority would have to come from a vote of the board and
permission from the Department of Environmental Protection.
Farmers in the agricultural area to the south are pushing it as a way to
increase storage against a lingering drought this winter.
“(Drought) is catastrophic for agriculture and the communities around the lake
depend on it for drinking,” said Judy Sanchez, spokeswoman for U.S. Sugar,
which has 180,000 acres of farmland in the area,
But Gray said it was akin to making the lake nothing more than a storage
reservoir for farmers.
“The exact people wanting the water back later are the ones getting rid of it
now,” he said. “We just think it’s not a very good way to manage public
resources.”
And he said water-supply backpumping during the 2001 drought — all 3 million
pools worth — only added about eight inches to the lake.
“It’s not really that great of a cushion,” he said.
Caloosahatchee
Kurt Harclerode, operation manager of the Lee County Division of Natural
Resources, said the Caloosahatchee River continues to recover from massive
discharges of lake water after the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons.
“I don’t think the benefits you derive from backpumping potentially polluted
water into Lake Okeechobee outweigh the environmental concerns,” Harclerode
said.
Lee County Commissioner Ray Judah said the practice only benefits agricultural
interests at the expense of everyone else — including rim communities that
must rely on the water for drinking.
“It’s about providing the optimal growing environment for sugarcane
fields,” Judah said.
Gray points out the district just spent $11 million to remove polluted muck from
the dried lake bottom during the drought.
“To be backpumping the same junk back into the lake right after you just paid
to take it out — It’s goofy, whip-saw management in this day and age when we
have had so much trouble with the lake and estuaries,” Gray said.
Sanchez said long-standing regulations make runoff south of the lake some of the
cleanest water available.
“It is much cleaner than water from any other source,” she said. “If you
are looking at it from a political agenda of hurting farmers then you don’t
want to put extra water in the lake to get through the drought — unfortunately
there are some well-heeled environmental types that have that very thing on
their agenda.”