New reservoir for S. Florida can’t wait.
Florida Senate President Joe Negron’s proposal to build a $2.4 billion reservoir south of Lake Okeechobee is one of the hot topics during the current legislative session in Tallahassee. Negron, a Stuart Republican, represents a district that was hit hard last year by algae blooms fed by discharges of polluted water from the lake to reduce its level and the risk of flooding. The Everglades Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to restoring the River of Grass, has taken the lead in supporting Negron’s plan. Recently the Sentinel Editorial Board discussed the plan with the foundation’s CEO, Eric Eikenberg. Excerpts follow. A longer transcript and a video of the interview are at OrlandoSentinel.com/Opinion.
Q: Would the reservoir eliminate the discharges from the lake that were a big factor in the algae blooms last year? A: It doesn’t eliminate [them], but ... this project reduces the volume of water going east and west and the duration of those type of events by half — almost 50 percent. And that’s significant to the residents along the east and west coast of Florida and to the business community that calls those communities home, and certainly for the future of this state. We have to figure out a way to store water, clean it and send that water south. This ... project does so.
Q: So why wouldn’t the releases cause environmental problems if the water is sent south through the Everglades? A: ... [Y]ou have about 500,000 acres of sugar production south of Lake Okeechobee ... Just south of those sugar fields, you have roughly 60,000 acres of man-made wetlands. They are sort of the kidneys of the Everglades. And those wetlands effectively remove the phosphorous and nitrogen, the pollutants that are in the water — the pollutants that have made Lake Okeechobee sick ... We’ve invested over $2.5 billion to create these wetlands so you can effectively take lake water, store it south, place it into these wetlands, these kidneys, and deliver clean fresh water to the Everglades and ultimately down to the Florida Keys.
Q: But the sugar industry, which opposes this project, says it’ll kill jobs. A: ... U.S. Sugar itself came to the state of Florida in 2007 and 2008 and had a plan to get out of the business . ... [Since then] I have seen absolutely zero effort from ... elected officials both at the state and county-city levels to do all they can to provide for a better quality of life that would enable some job opportunities in those Glades communities . ... And in fact, where has U.S. Sugar’s leadership been providing that improved quality of life to the communities that they talk about so often now?
Q: Why not build a northern reservoir first to cleanse water that drains from Central Florida before it reaches the lake? A: ... [I]f you had a reservoir north of the lake, without that southern outlet, that reservoir is going to fill up due to rainfall, and that will need an outlet. And the outlet for a northern reservoir is Lake Okeechobee. The lake will rise, and we just compound the issues of dumping this water east and west . ... The northern reservoir is not the answer at this point . ...
Q: State leaders have passed up the opportunity before to speed up a southern reservoir. Is 2017 the last chance? A: … We can’t control what’s going to happen under a new governor; all we know is we have this moment now: We have a Senate president that’s putting political capital on the line to make this happen. We look forward to working with President Negron, Speaker [Richard] Corcoran, to deliver a bill to the governor that he can be proud to sign.