FGCU studying the storage of water deep underground with view of Lake O ASR

Getting down to the core of managing our state’s water.? One duo at Florida Gulf Coast University is studying the rock beneath the surface to make sure it’s a viable option for storing water in the future.

Managing water flowing in and out of Lake Okeechobee is a puzzle.

Tom Missimer Ph.D., P.G. is the executive-in-residence and professor at the U.A. Whitaker College of Engineering at FGCU.

“What we’re doing right now under a grant for the South Florida Water Management District is looking at the chemistry of rock materials that have come in collected in a core as part of the north Lake Okeechobee aquifer storage and recovery project” Missimer explained.

He said the project itself is meant to inject and store water underground, in turn helping slow the flow into Lake Okeechobee.

“You can pump billions of gallons of water into the aquifer system during wet periods, and then pump it back out during dry periods,” Missimer added, “to manage the water levels in Lake Okeechobee and the environmental flows necessary to maintain the Caloosahatchee River and the Saint Lucie Canal.”

But how do we make sure that water is safe?