South Florida needs to take a stand against Big Sugar

The outcome of the U.S. Sugar lawsuit filed last month against the Army Corps of Engineers concerning management of lake Okeechobee will determine South Florida’s future.

Clewiston-based U.S. Sugar Corp. claims it represents the interests of the 6 million people living below and around the lake. They warn that, if their suit is unsuccessful, there will be devastating impacts on the public health and safety of all those people.

At issue: The Corps lowered lake levels last winter to avoid the very real disaster of the previous year. In 2018, high water and high nutrient levels led to lake coverage by toxic blue-green algae.

Discharges to the coastal estuaries were devastating. People showed up in the emergency room in Stuart after contact with those toxic discharges. Children around the lake who swam in a green soup risked serious health effects. Submerged vegetation in the lake was destroyed, encouraging further toxic blooms.

The lawsuit provides a list of negative impacts from low lake levels. Some of those impacts are exaggerated. While there are negative impacts, suggesting that the risk to boaters’ health and lives from running aground in low water is equivalent to a dike break at high water makes no sense.

Arguing that South Florida can only be saved by saving every drop of water to guarantee U.S. Sugar all of the water it wants — whenever it wants it — makes no sense.

First, there is no mention of the disastrous negative impacts of holding too much water in Lake Okeechobee. Those includes dike failure and increases in toxic blooms and damaging discharges.

Second, the suit suggests that avoiding low lake levels will protect Miami’s water supply. The Corps study for the current regulation schedule actually showed that lower lake levels would improve water supply for the lower East Coast.

Because U.S. Sugar demands all the drainage it wants whenever it wants it, excess water doesn’t go south. Several years back, when Miami’s wellfields were in trouble and there was a 30,000 acre fire in Big Cypress, no water was going south from an overflowing lake because all the stormwater treatment capacity for sending clean water south was taken up by U.S. Sugar field runoff.

Add to that the fact that U.S. Sugar believes its water use permit makes it first in line for lake water. In drought, Palm Beach County’s supply from the lake is cut off. U.S. Sugar continues to get lake water from “forward pumps” installed by the South Florida Water Management District at taxpayers expense. Those pumps have taken the lake down to the lowest levels we’ve seen.

When Ernie Marks, then director of the SFWMD, was asked how low they would pump the lake to meet U.S. Sugar’s needs, he famously replied, “as low as we need to.”

U.S. Sugar did not complain about low levels when they were caused by meeting the company’s irrigation demands.

U.S. Sugar leans heavily on the fact that the Corps can’t do the right thing just because it is the right thing. Instead, they must spend years studying it all before they can make any adjustments to protect the coastal estuaries, the children around the lake, South Florida’s urban water supply and the Everglades and Florida Bay.

If that argument succeeds, nearly all of the 6 million people in South Florida are in big trouble.

The Catch-22 in Lake Okeechobee management is that the SFWMD has given away water use permits for more lake water than they have.

If they hold all the water needed to meet permit holders’ needs in drier years, they will end up with lake levels over 16 feet that endanger the dike, destroy the coastal estuaries, and encourage massive blooms of toxic cyanobacteria. If they keep the lake low enough to avoid those risks, they will face the negative impacts of low lake levels.

In Florida, the people of the state own the water. Consumptive use permits issued by the SFWMD are a “loan” of the people’s water based on a reasonable beneficial use that is in the public interest. Consumptive use permits are not supposed to be issued if the withdrawals will harm the environment, yet the SFWMD gave a permit to every single farmer who requested one in 2008.The permits are not permanent and can be revoked when the use changes or is not in the public interest.

Until we tackle the problems of too many users and not enough water, the Corps can’t rationally manage a safe lake. That’s not an attack on U.S. Sugar. It’s an attempt at sanity.

While the SFWMD and former Gov. Rick Scott’s office were on Sugar’s side, even thinking about reviewing water use permits was unthinkable.

Now we have Gov. Ron DeSantis and the SFWMD board trying to do the right thing for all of South Florida.

All of those at risk from lake levels that are too high and lake levels that are too low need to join together to ask the SFWMD board to review all lake water use permits and all decisions on using the capacity in stormwater treatment areas to send clean water south.

South Florida needs to join the fight for a rational solution.