Lake Okeechobee releases to start this weekend
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced on Feb. 14 that it will start releasing water from Lake Okeechobee to the Caloosahatchee River, sending damaging freshwater flows into the river’s estuary.
Lake Okeechobee has remained higher than normal since Hurricanes Ian and Nicole raised levels by over 2 feet in autumn 2022.
“Since those storms, the Army Corps has been working to manage the lake, attempting to lower it at times, and ‘banking’ [storing] water when it deemed releases were not prudent,” said SCCF Environmental Policy Director Matt DePaolis. “Now, however, a wetter dry season due to el Niño has prevented the drawdown we normally expect to see during the drier winter months.”
Lake Okeechobee is currently at 16.38 feet, which is deemed to be in the ‘intermediate’ band of LORS08 (the current management schedule), allowing for up to 4,000 cubic-feet-per-second (cfs) to be released into the Caloosahatchee from the lake. With more rain on the way, the Corps has decided to begin those lake releases.
The releases are set to begin this weekend, currently slotted for Saturday. The USACE aims to send 5,800 cfs out of the lake, with 4,000 cfs heading west to the Caloosahatchee, and 1,800 cfs heading east to the St. Lucie Estuary.
Discharge levels will be damaging to the estuary when they leave the lake. These releases will likely be augmented by basin runoff from rainfall in the river’s watershed, increasing their impact to the estuary.