WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — The rainy season is far from over and worries grow about what that could mean for communities on the Treasure Coast and in Palm Beach County.
The water level in Lake Okeechobee is at 15.3 feet. The Army Corps of Engineers is on record saying if that level rises to 16.5 feet, it will trigger big discharges of water to the east and west to protect lake communities from flooding concerns.
Mark Perry, who heads the Florida Oceanographic Society, did not mince words.
"It will be devastating (if it happens)," Perry said.
The problem, as Perry sees it, is that the Corps left lake levels too high in late spring and now may have no choice but to open the spigot wide, so to speak, if tropical weather swells the lake. The Corps has argued it must deal with many competing needs – agriculture and thirsty crops, navigational needs and flood concerns.
"How do you weigh that against – for navigation and water supply purposes – against exposing people to toxic algae?" Perry said.
Nature will decide what happens in the next few months.
Perry is pressing regional water managers for long-term solutions to the pollution, spawned by fertilizer runoff that, in turn, feeds the algae blooms in the big lake. One solution is in the works: a reservoir south of Lake Okeechobee.
But the push cannot end there, Perry said.
"The answer is looking at north of the lake and all the 4,700 metric tons of nitrogen coming in that watershed," he said. "It's just blooming that algae, no problem."
What's the solution?
"Stop all that nutrient inflow coming in," Perry said.
The rules, Perry said, are in place to do that, but the willpower, he argues, is not. So, he keeps fighting.
"If nobody speaks up or says anything, they'll think everything is just fine ... and it's not," he said.
