Southwest Florida water quality to benefit from new Lake O management plan

“Historic. Collaborative. Important.”

Chauncey Goss, Chairman of the South Florida Water Management District Board, used those powerful words to describe the new Lake Okeechobee System Operating Manual (LOSOM).

LOSOM had been in the works for the last five years.

Brig. Gen. Daniel Hibner, South Atlantic Division, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, signed the Record of Decision on Monday, August 12, 2024, completing the final step in the approval process.

The new plan modernizes the management of Lake Okeechobee and replaces one from 2008.

What does it mean for southwest Florida? It’s designed to reduce harmful discharges to the Caloosahatchee estuary, improve water quality, and send more water south, where it’s needed.

“This is a wonderful day, and we’re really excited to see LOSOM finalized after five years of hard work and public advocacy. LOSOM will provide both coasts with measurable relief from harmful discharges and flow more beneficial water south through the Everglades into Florida Bay—that’s great news for our National Treasure,” stated Capt. Daniel Andrews, Captains For Clean Water Executive Director. 

That will hopefully help prevent a repeat of the red tide and blue-green algae outbreaks from 2017 and 2018.

The red tide outbreak started in October 2017 after Hurricane Irma and continued through the spring of 2018. By early summer, the bloom had resurged in the Gulf of Mexico and was detected along Charlotte, Lee, and Collier counties. 

In 2018, thick blankets of blue-green algae also invaded our canals and waterways, particularly in Cape Coral.

Business and tourism plummeted as 90 miles away massive volumes of nutrient-packed freshwater flowed out of Lake O, fueling blooms and devastating the Caloosahatchee’s ecology.

Those outbreaks came after water, sometimes containing blue-green algae, was released from Lake O to the Caloosahatchee. The releases were necessary at the time because of the lake’s elevated water level.

“The Army Corps of Engineers after 2018 stepped back and said, ‘Hey, we’re making a mess here’, essentially,” said Andrews.

Under the new guidelines, lake-level management will focus on making beneficial releases at times and in quantities that improve water supply availability and enhance fish and wildlife in the area. LOSOM also improves water managers’ ability to use system-wide analysis to adapt to real-time conditions, like if algae is on the lake, and make informed decisions about releases.

It considers all the players—to the north, south, east, and west.

“Our Nation made a $1.8 Billion investment in the rehabilitation of Herbert Hoover Dike to allow development of a new operating manual that balances the needs of the entire system,” explained Col. Brandon Bowman, Jacksonville District commander.

• RELATED: Herbert Hoover Dike rehabilitation project completed ahead of schedule
• RELATED: Model run chosen as framework for Lake Okeechobee operating manual
• RELATED: LOSOM discussions underway to outline future for Lake Okeechobee

“LOSOM won’t solve all of our problems, but it will lower the number of damaging discharges, which transport massive amounts of polluted lake water into our estuarine ecosystems,” Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation Environmental Policy Director Matt DePaolis said in a release.

“LOSOM provides more flexibilities to water managers to be able to put water where it needs to be…We will still have harmful discharges under this plan, but we will have less of them, about 37% less,” explained Andrews.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers also releases water from Lake O to the St. Lucie River, the Lake Worth Lagoon, water conservation areas, and Everglades National Park.

“As more Everglades restoration projects come online, we will be able to worry less about the impact that Lake Okeechobee has on our coastal environment and focus more attention on cleaning up our own watershed,” added DePaolis. 

Captains For Clean Water calls LOSOM the most impactful step to reduce harmful discharges, now in tandem with Everglades restoration, means infrastructure to send more water south, instead of east and west.