Lake Okeechobee releasing tons of water over the weekend

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Lake Okeechobee
Lake Okeechobee. CREDIT: WINK News

About 30,000 gallons of water per second will pour into the Caloosahatchee from Lake Okeechobee beginning over the weekend.

The United States Army Corps of Engineers says the lake level is too high, and they need to get it down before the peak rainy and algal-bloom summer months.

Captains for Clean Water’s Daniel Andrews recognizes that water may be better coming our way now than later but adds it’s not good.

“It’s pretty much guaranteed that if you get to June 1 with a 14, 14-and-a-half foot like that. The summer rains are going to fill that up quickly, and we’d run into issues. But looking at the discharges, we’ll be getting starting this weekend. It’s not going to do any, any benefit to our estuary, and knowing that we have rain coming this Sunday, Monday as well, we’ll probably actually see flows higher at the Franklin Locks well above that 4000 CFS,” said Andrews.

The water is expected to come toward SWFL for a while.

Captains for Clean Water feel the real solution comes with Everglades restoration infrastructure and sending water south.

That infrastructure would hold water, treat it and hydrate the Everglades.

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