$339 million reservoir is leaking, holding 80% less water

A $339 million reservoir designed to curb Lake Okeechobee discharges to the St. Lucie River is leaking, so the Army Corps of Engineers is filling it to only 20% of its maximum capacity.

The C-44 Reservoir’s water level has been kept at 3 feet instead of 15 feet since March, meaning it’s holding about 3.26 billion gallons of water instead of 16.5 billion gallons – about 13.2 billion gallons less than it should be.

The agency, which is in litigation with the construction contractor, is designing a solution, but has not estimated how much that will cost or how long that will take, Col. James Booth said. A few “catching facilities” that could include wells are being designed to intercept the leaking water, Booth said in September.

“We’re really trying to make sure we get this solved so it runs well for many, many decades,” Booth said of the reservoir, which Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez called “a crown jewel in all of Florida’s resources” during a November 2021 ribbon cutting ceremony.

The reservoir is still within the planned two-year period of operational testing, the Army Corps stressed.

C-44 Canal in Martin County

The agency detected two leaks in March 2022 when it tried to fill the reservoir, raising the water level a half-foot a day to 10 feet, Booth said.

“We saw some leaking coming in where we would not expect it to,” he said.

The seepage canal that surrounds the entire reservoir is designed to collect water that is expected to seep under and through the earthen embankments, but there was more water than expected on the southern and western banks.

The reason the agency stopped filling the reservoir has nothing to do with concerns about a breach.

It’s “not a dam and levee safety issue,” Booth said. “The real impact of the seepage is more of a maintenance issue. When folks go in and mow it, we don’t want them to mow through mud.”