Critics: Could more Lake Okeechobee reservoir modeling cut project costs, more discharges?

WEST PALM BEACH — State officials Wednesday touted modeling results showing how three options for the reservoir south of Lake Okeechobee would cut damaging discharges to the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers.

But many of the people at a public meeting on planning for the reservoir wanted more: specifically, more options on more land.

South Florida Water Management District engineers ran computerized experiments, called modeling, to see how different options of the project would perform under varying weather conditions over the last 41 years. They looked at three variations of two basic designs:

• A 10,100-acre, 23-foot deep reservoir with a 6,500-acre manmade marsh to clean water
• A 19,700-acre reservoir 18 feet deep with an 11,500-acre marsh

The three configurations, when combined with other projects already in the works, would reduce annual average flow from Lake O to the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee by about 60 percent, said Walter Wilcox, the district's chief modeling engineer.

"They would basically get rid of all small and moderate discharge events," Wilcox said.

In particularly heavy discharge years — such as the hurricane years of 2002 to 2005 — the flow would be reduced by about 45 percent, Wilcox said.

More: Track Lake O discharges past and present

All three options meet the goal of sending, on average, an extra 98 billion gallons of excess Lake O water south each year, instead of east to the St. Lucie and west to the Caloosahatchee, said Eva Velez, the district's director of Everglades policy.

"There should be balloons" to celebrate, Velez said.

The crowd "should be celebrating these modeling results," agreed Matt Morrison, the district's head of federal policy and coordination. "We're there. We're hitting the flows and reducing the damaging discharges to the estuaries."

Opposition

Instead of celebration, there was mostly consternation.

All three options would be built on land already owned by the state; and that was a problem for a lot of people at Wednesday's meeting.

More: Lake O reservoir would 'dent" discharges

Several asked the district to run similar models for larger projects that incorporate some private land that could be bought or swapped for other public land south of Lake O.

"It's true you've got some great numbers," said Lisa Interlandi of the Everglades Law Center. "But my concern is that we don't know if that's the best alternative or if others, with more land, could do better at a lower cost. ... I can't jump on board when there are so many unanswered questions."

Morrison replied: "I'm not going to assume there's all this land available when we don't actually have that land. I can't make that assumption. ... If someone comes forward (with an offer to sell or swap land), we'll evaluate that as an option."

The law calling for the project approved by the Florida Legislature and Gov. Rick Scott last spring says the reservoir should be built on public land and any other acreage acquired from "willing sellers." Getting land through eminent domain is forbidden.

The district has been "very aggressive" in seeking land from private landowners, said real estate manager Ray Palmer, but "we've not gotten a lot of yeses."

"You can't say there are no willing sellers when you haven't made an offer on some land and been refused," Interlandi said.

Costs, timelines

The district is scheduled to give a report on the reservoir's progress Jan. 9 to the Florida Legislature. That report, Morrison said, will include both the modeling results and an as-yet unfinished cost analysis of the various options.

The project is supposed to cost $1.6 billion, with the district and the Army Corps of Engineers each paying $800 million.

Asked what would happen if the cost analysis shows the project can't be completed with that amount, Morrison said, "The hope is that we'll get some direction from the Legislature on how to proceed."

The next public meeting on the project will be at 9 a.m. Dec. 21 at the district headquarters, 3301 Gun Road in West Palm Beach.

The district and the Corps are scheduled to submit a final report to the Army’s assistant secretary for Civil Works in March.

Congress is expected to authorize its half of the $1.6 billion project cost by the end of 2019.

A completion date for the project has not been set.