Army Corps starts lowering Lake Okeechobee heading into dry season

The Caloosahatchee River and Estuary receives freshwater from two sources — watershed runoff, which largely comes from precipitation, and Lake Okeechobee releases.

On Saturday, Oct. 26, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Jacksonville District began using the operation flexibility inherent in the Lake Okeechobee System Operating Manual (LOSOM) to start releasing water from Lake Okeechobee into the Gulf Coast for the first time since mid-June. Under LOSOM, the Corps is aiming to release an average of 2,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) to the Moore Haven Lock and Dam (S-77).

The Corps aims to use these discretionary releases to lower the lake by the end of dry season. These releases should build more resilience into the lake prior to the next wet season, and provide much-needed flows to the Caloosahatchee Estuary during the dry season, when watershed runoff is not enough to meet the demand.

In May, the lake entered the rainy season at around 13.7 feet, with enough capacity to absorb water from summer rains and what was predicted to be an extremely active hurricane season. As of Oct. 28, the lake was over 16 feet. This height is detrimental to the lake’s ecology, hindering the growth of submerged aquatic vegetation and preventing essential filtration to the ecosystem.