NEWS PRESS
March 05, 2007

SPILLWAY DREDGING MIHGT HELP CALOOSAHATCHEE

By Joel Moroney
jmoroney@news-press.com

http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007703050352

Motorhomes and airboats speed past indifferently — only alligators pay any mind to the huge barge dredging muck from the mouth of the Everglades. Deep in the wilderness south of Alligator Alley — where the only sign of civilization is the Tamiami Trail as it slices toward Miami — a pilot project is under way that could bring environmental relief to the Caloosahatchee River.

A set of four spillways and 19 culverts runs under the road, separating 1,000 square miles of wetlands from Everglades National Park. Largely neglected since the 1960s and increasingly filled with sediment, their diminished ability to move water from South-Central Florida is one of the reasons the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie rivers have picked up the slack. A pilot project to clean out one of the spillways, 40 percent blocked, could mean more water moving south and less coming down the Caloosahatchee River.

"You want to see a reduction in water down the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie rivers, and you will," said Susan Sylvester, director of operations control for the South Florida Water Management District. "If you are standing in water up to your eyeballs with concrete shoes on and I tell you I'm going to lower the water 2 inches, you're thrilled."

Water could be reduced by as much as 6 inches in the 1,000 square miles of wetlands between the lake and the Everglades, Sylvester said. That would be the rough equivalent of a foot of lake water. However constraints on the ability to treat water before its release into the wetlands and a host of other factors make it impossible to pinpoint exactly how big an impact it could have on the rivers.

Both rivers are connected to Lake Okeechobee — the largest inland freshwater lake in the country — and are forced to take massive discharges of freshwater during rainy season to relieve pressure on the lake's aging dike.

Those discharges have been blamed for upsetting the saltwater balance in the rivers and causing other environmental problems. But if the project is successful in moving more water south, that could mean less being pushed east and west down the rivers during rainy season.

"It's part of the overall puzzle," Sylvester said. "There may be times over an annual period that you may be able to move more water south."

Mike Buff, 62, former president of RiverWatch, a local organization dedicated to the health and welfare of the Caloosahatchee, said restoring the natural flow of water south is the way God intended it. "Certainly, if it restores anything close to the natural flow ... the estuaries will be better off," said Buff, referring to where salt and freshwater mix in the river and which large lake discharges affect negatively. "What it means when they have a lot of water, is they can dump it south and not dump it all east and west."

But Rae Ann Wessel, natural resource policy director for the Sanibel Captiva Conservation Foundation, called the cleanout a maintenance issue unlikely to have much impact on water heading our way. "It's just one little piece," Wessel said. "I don't know that we will see any difference."

Cleanup effort

The water district is spending $1.4 million to clean the fourth and most active spillway — known as S12D — this winter as part of a partnership with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Miccosukee Indians, who call the area home.

"It's been a slow, slow, slow decline — basically no maintenance work has been done for over 30 years," Sylvester said. "The biggest challenge is it's a designated wilderness area — imagine going to Yellowstone and telling them you want to clean out a geyser."

An inflatable dam rings the excavation, keeping turbid water from flowing into the sanctuary. Dan Kimball, superintendent for the Everglades and Dry Tortugas National Park, is pleased enough with the project to be talking about cleaning the remaining trio of spillways. "I am very impressed with the district's professional approach to the cleanout ... and water-quality control," Kimball said. "We are going to look at the results of this pilot project and then map out our next steps."

Paying the bill

While the Corps owns the spillways, it did not have funding to clean them out, according to Kim Taplin, project manager. "It wasn't in the program for us to do it — it hasn't been budgeted," Taplin said. "We feel very fortunate that it is being done." So the water district is using its authority to clear vegetation from waterways to pay for the project and hopes to keep up with maintenance in the future.

The work is slow and the task enormous — Lai Shafau, the district's project manager on the job, hopes to be done with the first gate in June. Sediment has led to a 40 percent blockage of the spillway. It is being piped a mile away to a limestone pit the size of a football field.

Twice as much water was sent down the Caloosahatchee River last year as traveled south through the clogged system — 391 billion gallons to the south compared to 782 billion gallons for the river, according to district statistics.Shafau estimated more than 2,700 dump trucks worth of material will be removed from the spillway, where grassy islands have filled what should be a 12-foot-deep channel.

Sylvester expects a 5 to 10 percent improvement — any better would require forging farther into the Everglades, which will require environmental impact study and complex planning. "We are trying to get any little improvement we can and this was a project we could do," Sylvester said. "It's an overall system so any improvement you make to relieve pressure is what we are looking at doing."

Impact on tribe

Thrilled, too, are the Miccosukee Indians, who rely on the water conservation area to the north for their heritage and livelihood. It is where they hid from the settlers, who attempted to force them west during a trio of Seminole Wars in the 1800s.

Modern tribes are descendants of the 50 who survived by hiding in the area, according to tribe history. "All the natural flow of water to the south has been effectively blocked and it is drowning the land," said Terry Rice, environmental consultant for the tribe. "From the tribe standpoint, it is a positive step. But there is much, much more to be done."

That includes a three-mile bridge, planned for later this decade, which will elevate the Tamiami Trail and allow for a more natural flow of water south. "No matter how much you try, you can never put it back how it was — for one thing, everybody in Florida would have to leave," Sylvester said.

For now, the district is left to make the best of a system originally designed for navigation and flood control, without deference to the environment. "It's sort of like your body — any part you hurt, you feel lousy," Sylvester said. "My job is to keep the patient as healthy as possible."

Still there are signs of man's indifference — in this case a pile of furniture boxes and debris dumped along the access road. "Our people still don't get it — everyone is responsible for the environment," she said. "That doesn't belong in the Everglades. It was probably put there by someone who lives in Miami."