Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 25, 2007
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/tcoast/epaper/2007/08/25/m1b_tcriver_0825.html
STUART — St. Lucie River activists have renewed calls for a marshy "flow way" south of Lake Okeechobee, a project they say would save money on Everglades restoration and improve the health of the St. Lucie Estuary.
During a meeting Friday at the Blake Library, members of the Rivers Coalition said the so-called "Plan 6" could save about $5 billion by eliminating the need for more than 200 planned deep-injection wells around Lake Okeechobee.
The idea behind the wells, part of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, is to inject excess water deep into the ground during rainy seasons and extract the water during droughts.
The problem is that the wells would take more than 150 days to lower Lake Okeechobee a foot, said Mark Perry, executive director of the Florida Oceanographic Society.
By contrast, the proposed flow way could take a foot off the lake within 34 days.
John Marshall of the Arthur R. Marshall Foundation said water managers could buy 50,000 to 70,000 acres of land and revegetate it for a flow way with about $1.5 billion, a fraction of the estimated $6.5 billion price tag for the wells.
"It's crazy to do anything else," Marshall said.
St. Lucie River activists long have championed Plan 6, so named because it was the sixth in a list of proposals once considered by the Army Corps of Engineers to restore the ecosystem between the Kissimmee River and Florida Bay.
The idea fell apart under criticism from sugar growers and other critics in the mid-1990s.
St. Lucie River activists say it might be the only way to prevent more massive lake discharges to the brackish river, where past influxes of fresh water have harmed fish, sea grass and oysters.
"Plan 6 to me is the only way I'm going to see relief for our rivers in my lifetime," Rivers Coalition member Ted Guy said.
Water managers have said the lake isn't the only problem for the St. Lucie Estuary; local storm-water runoff from increasing development also sends torrents of polluted fresh water into the estuary.
A member reported Friday that salinity in the North and South Forks of the St. Lucie River had dropped off significantly in the past two weeks, something he attributed to increased rain after a prolonged drought.
The Rivers Coalition, an alliance of more than 40 business, civic and recreation groups, continues its lawsuit against the federal government, which has mismanaged the lake, endangering the St. Lucie River, according to coalition members. A federal judge on Thursday agreed to give attorneys for both sides until mid-January to finish collecting evidence and expert testimony.