SWFWMD meeting at FGCU focuses on Caloosahatchee River, estuary projects

Water managers are looking at more than two dozen ways to clean water stored along the Caloosahatchee River system.

The South Florida Water Management District also discussed several other projects that could mean cleaner water in the region at its meeting in Lee County Thursday.

The meeting at the Florida Gulf Coast University campus was the district's first meeting on the west coast of Florida since June 2016.

Jennifer Leeds, staff member with the district, presented the board members with updates on the projects along the Caloosahatchee.

"We recently had a celebration event getting the C-43 contract under way," Leeds said. "With all of these projects, everything is focused on adding additional storage within the Caloosahatchee."

Along with the recent groundbreaking of the C-43 reservoir, the district has completed the first part of a storage project in Lake Hicpochee.

The C-43 reservoir is meant to hold 178,000 acre feet of water for releases down the river. The Lake Hicpochee storage project is supposed to add to C-43's reservoirs giving the Caloosahatchee region a greater water storage capacity.