Army Corps puts two-week hold on polluted Lake O water flowing into Caloosahatchee

The Army Corps of Engineers has stopped releasing 3.5 million gallons of water daily from Lake Okeechobee into the Caloosahatchee River for two weeks to allow the environment to recover.

Recover from what? And why, if it’s known the environment is being harmed by the releases, are the releases happening at all after holding water in the Big Lake for most of the winter months?

It’s well-established that water released from Lake Okeechobee is polluted with nutrients like phosphate and nitrogen, much of which critics contend come from large agricultural operations near the lake such as Big Sugar and other farmers.

During the past six weeks, the Army Corps has released tens of billions of gallons of polluted water from Lake Okeechobee, lowering the lake level by nearly a foot. Water has been sent at millions of gallons-a-day velocities westward down the Caloosahatchee River, eastward down the St. Lucie River, and in one smaller river.