Posted on 09/05/2003 12:32:03 PM PDT by AAABEST
The Herbert Hoover Dike, which is holding back high water in Lake Okeechobee, sprung a leak.
This wasn’t the gusher type that normally comes to mind, but rather more seepage than normal, says the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Last week’s seepage and one in June were considered minor and have been fixed.
But with a tropical storm brewing in the Gulf of Mexico and already heavy inflow to the lake, Okeechobee’s water will keep rising — increasing the chances of more leaks, damage to the lake’s health and greater releases of water to the Caloosahatchee River and St. Lucie Canal.
“All levees leak,” said Karen Estock, the corps’ chief of field operations and readiness in Clewiston. “They’re designed to do that.”
The Corps inspects the levee every seven days.
“At this time we haven’t found anything causing alarms,” Estock said.
Until Everglades restoration is done, the fastest way to get water out of the lake is via the Caloosahatchee.
Too much fresh water for too long, however, stresses fish, kills oysters, chases off crabs and damages the grasses these critters need for protection and food.
“We did have some mortalities,” said Aswani Volety, a Florida Gulf Coast University associate professor conducting oyster research on the Caloosahatchee. “The spawning was delayed this year.”
The Corps started releasing close to 50,000 gallons a second from the lake to the river since Aug. 29. Smaller releases have been made throughout the dry season.
The Corps is not likely to increase water releases unless a storm dumps a lot of water over the lake or its drainage basin, Estock said.
That may be on the way.
A tropical depression was churning 145 miles offshore in the Gulf on Thursday, according to the National Hurricane Center.
“The Kissimmee area and Lake Okeechobee have the potential of seeing 6 inches or more of rain,” said NBC-2 meteorologist Eileen Javora.
Lee County will probably see less, no more than 2 inches.
“We’re on the outer fringes of the system,” Javora said. “Expect it to become breezy (later today). There’s a possibility that we might see some bands moving in off the Gulf, possibly (today) and early Saturday. The heaviest rain, however, will stay north of our area.”
The lake was 16.64 feet above sea level Thursday and rising. That’s about 1.5 feet higher than the Corps would like it this time of year.
At 18 feet, the leaks are almost guaranteed, and breaching becomes a concern.
“Everybody’s kind of setting on edge right now,” said Jim Wells, who works at Angler’s Marina in Clewiston on the south side of the lake. “Just cross your fingers that we don’t get to 18 feet this year.”
The Corps is prepared to handle more leaks and has supplies on hand to make the fixes just as it did in 1995 and ’98 when high water threatened to breach the dike, Estock said.
Sandbags fixed the second of this year’s leaks Friday and another was remedied in June with a French drain along 1.1 miles at South Bay.
Inspections on Wednesday showed no new leaks, Estock said.
No doubt there is! But they have to be able to get there.
I thought that the primary motivation, truly, was to provide a regulated water supply in a region where the water supply had a highly seasonal (wet season/dry season) pattern. In so doing, it disturbed the natural cycle in the Everglades. That's common knowledge, and I didn't think it was controversial.
Since you know so much about the area where I live and work, could you define "prime Everglades" for me?
Sure. It's where the flow out of Okeechobee to Florida Bay was sheet flow, not channelized and canal-ized.
Did you rknow that they built your house on what was once "prime woodlands"? Sorry to break that news to you, hope you were sitting down.
I believe I knew that. What's happening with Okeechobee and environs (and what has happened over the past decades) merely demonstrates that it's very difficult to entirely regulate and control a natural system; nature still has a way of mucking things up.
We don't have a ACE-lake problem, just too-small sewers. There're manhole covers popping up and spilling raw sewage down the streets.
Too many people, and more coming. We're on our own septic system, so water's not a problem, but we don't dare try any external home improvements that require a building permit - a new, giant septic system is required if we do..............FRegards
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