Hundreds protest Okeechobee releases at FGCU workshop

Busses and cars full of people unloaded at the South Florida Water Management District's governing board meeting in Estero today to voice concerns about water quality problems in Lake Okeechobee and the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers.

The nine-member governing board, appointed by the state governor, makes water management decisions that affect all of south Florida, from the Kissimmee Chain of Lakes to the tip of the peninsula.

The board listened for three hours as residents and representatives from Lee, Martin, Glades and Hendry counties offered suggestions on how to restore and improve the management of Lake Okeechobee - the heart the region's ecosystem.

From years of alteration and weak water-quality controls, Lake Okeechobee is severely polluted. Water clarity is so poor in the center of the lake that it has almost become a dead zone, where even algae can't obtain enough sunlight to photosynthesize. Underwater grasses are virtually non-existent and crappie and bass populations have plummeted.

Up until about a month ago billions of gallons of dirty water from the lake was being flushed down the Caloosahatchee River and the St. Lucie Canal to prevent lake water from eroding and seeping through the Herbert Hoover Dike.

The water killed oyster beds, sea grasses and crabs, and darkened waters in the river, the San Carlos Bay estuaries and the near-shore environment of the Gulf of Mexico.

Sanibel Mayor Carla Brooks Johnston gave an impassioned speech to the board, pleading for an immediate alternative to releasing large volumes of dirty water to the estuaries during rainy times.

From the agriculture-dependent towns of South Bay, Pahokee and Belle Glade, local leaders said converting sugar farm fields south of the lake for water storage would decimate their economy and do-away with their livelihood. Water from the lake flowed south into what is now the Everglades Agricultural Area, until attempts to drain the Everglades began in the 1880s.

More than 400 people showed up at the meeting. Those who spoke all had one message in common: clean up Lake Okeechobee.