Farmers want their thumb on Lake Okeechobee water scale
A South Florida congressman claims the sugar industry wants to “steal” the public’s water. He has a case.
U.S. Rep. Brian Mast made the accusation last week in an op-ed article for the Fort Myers News-Press. He’s not alone. Dozens of environmental groups sent letters last week to the state’s congressional delegation criticizing this new ploy by U.S. Sugar and Florida Crystals.
The companies want language in the 2020 Water Resources Development Act that essentially would turn Lake Okeechobee from a public resource into a private reservoir for farmers.
“This language is an attempt to guarantee the sugar industry a level of service that no other water user in the country is given,” says Everglades Foundation CEO Eric Eikenberg.
The growers’ ally in the House is Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Delray Beach. In the Senate, it’s Rick Scott, who did many favors for the sugar industry while he compiled the worst environmental record of any modern-day Florida governor.
Congress must decide this year how the Army Corps of Engineers will manage Lake Okeechobee starting in 2022, when repair work to strengthen the Herbert Hoover Dike is finally completed.
This political fight has far-reaching implications for the Everglades and South Florida.
Under the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) of 2000, the Corps of Engineers manages the lake based on five priorities: flood control, water supply, environmental preservation, navigation and recreation.
Yet as Audubon of Florida’s Doug Gaston told the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board, for decades “the environment was relegated to the bottom of the list.”
Farmers have wanted the lake level as high as possible to keep water available for irrigation. High levels, however, damaged the lake’s natural systems. The nation’s second-largest freshwater lake essentially became a drainage pond.
And after heavy rainfalls, to protect the earthen dike from too-high lake levels, the Corps had to discharge water east and west into the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers. Those discharges, filled with pollution from farm and suburban runoff, caused toxic algae blooms in waterways on both coasts.
The dynamic began to change after Gov. Ron DeSantis, who campaigned on a promise to protect water quality, succeeded Scott in 2019.
DeSantis and Mast have urged the
Corps to keep the lake lower in the dry winter season, when it would naturally subside. Doing so reduces the need to release water during the summer rainy season. Mast represents Martin County, which has suffered some of the worst algae blooms.
The current Lake Okeechobee System Operating Manual calls for a range of between 12.5 feet and 15.5 feet, but the Corps can go as low as 10.5 feet. As of Friday, the lake was at 11.25 feet.
Farmers are pushing back against the lowered level. Last August, U.S. Sugar sued the Corps, claiming the new level was “capricious” and had created a “manmade drought.” The complaint noted that U.S. Sugar has been “relying on Lake Okeechobee to grow our crops.”
Sugar growers also sought allies. They got support from Palm Beach County elected officials and business groups, who note that the lake is the backup water supply for West Palm Beach. Officials in cities south of the lake accused Mast and environmental groups of favoring a “wealthy coastal elite” over low-income residents who depend on the agriculture industry.
“Congressman Mast and others who are desperately hoping to narrow the focus on this critical water supply issue to sugarcane farmers are attempting to marginalize the entirety of South Florida’s residents and stakeholders — including the Everglades water needs,” a U.S. Sugar spokeswoman said. She points out that many of the environmental groups calling for lower lake levels received donations from the Everglades Foundation.
It should also be pointed out that U.S. Sugar contributed roughly $10 million to candidates and political action committees during Florida’s 2018 election cycle. The company has donated about $3 million during the current cycle. Neither total includes money from Florida Crystals, the other large Everglades sugar grower, which recently held a fundraiser for Scott.
The 2000 Everglades restoration plan sets out a series of projects that are designed to store and clean water. In effect, the farmers want the Corps of Engineers to change its position and consider the lake a restoration project in the law’s “savings clause.” Doing so would require the Corps to set policy based on information that is two decades old.
The environmental groups correctly see the lake not at a reservoir project, but as the midpoint of the Everglades system that begins at the headwaters of the Kissimmee River south of Orlando and ends at Florida Bay.
Let’s also recall that the 2000 restoration plan was designed to help the Everglades and the wider South Florida economy, not subsidize farmers.
It was a major accomplishment in 2017 when the Legislature approved a water treatment reservoir south of the lake that could reduce or prevent the need for discharges east and west. Water from the reservoir, on which work has begun, will help Broward and Miami-Dade counties, the Everglades and Florida Bay.
If the farmers prevail, though, that water might not reach the reservoir. It also might not get to the Caloosahatchee River, which needs modest, regular amounts of fresh water.
“They get their water,” Eikenberg said of agriculture interests, “and the Everglades, Florida Bay, Broward and Dade counties, and the Caloosahatchee River be damned.”
We appreciate the need to balance the interests of those who depend on Lake Okeechobee. But only now is the balance shifting to include more than agriculture. The lake is not a private water supply.