SPILLWAY DREDGING MIHGT HELP CALOOSAHATCHEE
By Joel Moroney
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.
A set of four spillways and 19 culverts runs under the road,
separating 1,000 square miles of wetlands from Everglades National Park.
"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.
"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.
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.
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.
Paying the bill
While the Corps owns the spillways, it did not have funding
to clean them out, according to Kim Taplin, project manager.
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.
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.
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.
Impact on tribe
Thrilled, too, are the Miccosukee Indians, who rely on the
water conservation area to the north for their heritage and livelihood.
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.
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.
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."