Group working on feasibility study on water quality for Caloosahatchee reservoir

A long-awaited Everglades restoration project should be operational four years from now, but experts say it's not going to solve the water quality problems plaguing the Caloosahatchee River and its estuary.

A group of scientists, government agencies, water quality experts and advocates met Wednesday in Fort Myers to talk about the Caloosahatchee reservoir, often called C-43.

The largest Everglades project for Lee County, the $600 million, 55 billion-gallon, water-storage project was designed to capture water from the river during the wet season, store and treat that water and then release it during the dry season.

“We have too much and too little and this is really focused on the too little side," said Jennifer Hecker, director of the Coastal & Heartland National Estuary Partnership, formerly known as the Charlotte Harbor National Estuary Program. "It’s an important piece to fixing our river and water quality.”