![]() ![]() ![]() “Recommendation: Entering into the rainy season, Lake Okeechobee is at a concerningly high level and has already started to develop worrisome cyanobacterial blooms. ![]() This week, the group’s tone turned serious: On a weekly basis, the SCCF gives its Ph.D-level recommendation to the Army Corps on how much water, and when, should be released from Lake Okeechobee into the Caloosahatchee River. That summer was also the first after a big Hurricane Irma churned up the lake bottom in 2017.Īlso called cyanobacteria, blue-green algae has already bloomed in the lake this spring and things are shaping up for a repeat of 2018 in the river this summer after Hurricane Ian set in motion the same events as Irma. In 2018, heavy releases of lake water into the river are believed responsible for a massive blue-green algae outbreak that fouled the greater Caloosahatchee River estuary all summer. Problem is, the lake water is hopelessly polluted with nitrogen and phosphorus that’s flowed into it from more than a century of fertilizer use by industrial-sized agriculture operations and people wanting the grass to grow around their homes. These days, that waterway is the most common one the Army Corps uses to release water from Lake Okeechobee when levels are high. More than a century ago, the Army Corps of Engineers linked the Caloosahatchee River to Lake Okeechobee by digging a canal through the river’s swampy headwaters west of the lake. The Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation is monitoring the region’s water quality with a focus on releases from Lake Okeechobee into the Caloosahatchee River.īlue-green algae quite often first shows up at the Alva and Davis Boat Ramps, which taken as a pair are way upstream and are the nearest large public boat ramps to Moore Haven where the Big Lake’s water is released into the river. ![]()
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