Army Corps Begin Lower Releases From Lake Okeechobee
On Thursday, July 1, 2010, the Corps will began a new, 10-day low level pulse release from the Lake to both the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie estuaries. Flows to the Caloosahatchee are to drop from an average 3,000 cfs to an average of 450 cfs. You read that right, it is July 1 – our wet season — and the Corps is reducing lake releases. While the break in damaging flows is welcome news, it is very odd timing. The summer wet season is usually the time of year that our flows are the highest and most damaging but this year’s weather patterns have been pretty odd as well.
Our exceptionally wet “dry” season raised lake levels in May to 15 feet, a level more normal at the end of the wet season - in August or September. The aggressive releases that began in March to lower the lake, in conjunction with new longer term forecasts, have encouraged the Corps to significantly reduce the damaging releases for now.
According to the Corps the short-term forecast is for above-average rainfall; the longer-term forecast (3 to 6 months) is for an emerging La Niña condition, with lower than normal rainfall. This would carry us into the remainder of our wet season and into our normally drier fall months. So the Corps is reducing releases now to conserve water in the lake in the event that a reduction in rainfall could prematurely draw down water resources.
The schedule is evaluated each week in a scientist phone call in which we participate with our west coast partners — the City of Sanibel, J.N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge and Lee County — to address conditions in the river and estuary resulting from the releases.
Unfortunately, blue green algae has been spotted in Hickey’s Creek and Alva upriver of the locks so we know that high nutrient conditions are present in the river. With lower releases out of the lake, we expect water clarity in the estuary to improve. However, greater clarity leads to greater light penetration, which increases the possibility of algal blooms. We encourage you to watch water conditions and report changing conditions to us at rawessel@sccf.org.
In response to this year’s odd conditions, we began tracking the lake releases on our web site home page (www.sccf.org) and added a page with more information about lake releases. We invite you can track the latest information on Lake O levels, Caloosahatchee releases and flows as well as water quality data from Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation’s RECON sensor network.
One thing’s for sure this year, we’re making no bets about the weather!
Rae Ann Wessel, Natural Resource Policy Director, the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation
Freshwater Releases Over the Last Seven Days:
Date Flow (cfs) Flow(daily gallons)
Jun 24 3268 2.1 Million
Jun 25 3038 2.0
Jun 26 3036 2.0
Jun 27 3931 2.5
Jun 28 3270 2.1
Jun 29 3011 1.9
Jun 30 2941 1.9
