South Florida Water Management District Report: February

Cold Weather Affecting Crops

The much colder average temperatures and frosty nights have affected the production and maturity of many crops in south Florida. Frost settled on crops in Homestead and burnt tender foliage that is vital for crop production. In the Everglades Agricultural Area, areas of widespread frost damaged many vegetable crops and sugar cane. The vegetable crops are being replanted and the cane harvested although yield and quality is reduced due to the frost damage.

The continued cool temperatures are reducing germination and vegetative growth of field crops that are scheduled to be harvested in late spring. It will take some time to determine the full extent of damage due to the current weather pattern.

Governing Board Starts Strategic Planning Process

More questions were raised than answers given during the first phase of the annual multi-month strategic planning process of the South Florida Water Management District governing board. Even though they had built in contingencies to address emergencies, the continued stagnant condition of Florida’s economy may start to affect District operations and decisions.

“Florida will have a very long and slow recovery” and it may be just coming out of the recession in 2011 or 2012, according to Ernie Barnett, Director of Legislative Affairs, Regulatory and Public Affairs for the District.

Current economic concerns are the operating impacts of District and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers capital projects, levee inspection and rehabilitation, and various Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) projects. The TMDL projects are especially important in the Northern Everglades planning process above Lake Okeechobee.

New economic concerns are sea level rise and the cost to provide major retrofit to structures, federal cost sharing, and the impending action by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to impose statewide numeric nutrient criteria on all surface waters in the state.

Governing board members urged staff to not base the district’s budget on projections that bring Florida’s economy out of the recession quickly. “We are in much better shape than local governments because we were conservative when there was a lot of growth. We need to continue to be conservative”, noted member Mike Collins.

Dispersed Storage Continues to be a Hot Topic

Dispersed storage is continually discussed in meetings and hallways around the water management district as a means to efficiently store and provide a level of treatment to water before it enters Lake Okeechobee. In the October 2009 report, I noted that “dispersed storage is the modification of existing water management structures and strategies to hold additional water on working ranch and farm land. In many situations, this will only be visible in the rehydration of areas that were once native wetlands as the (subsurface) water table across the ranch property is raised.”

When discussing water quality in south Florida, Lake Okeechobee is often dubbed the ‘elephant in the room’ due to the volume of phosphorus in the lake. Any additional phosphorus that enters the lake exacerbates the problem. This is especially problematic when phosphorus sources that contribute include natural sources.

Dispersed storage has the capability of taking water bound for Lake Okeechobee and diverting it to private lands where it will be held and released to the lake at a slower regulated rate. Slowing the water flow will decrease the amount of sediment entering the lake. The bulk of transported phosphorus is bound to sediment materials.

Besides developing the framework for valuation of environmental services, two key roadblocks remain before ranchers will step forward.
• Ranchers must have assurance that they will be held harmless due to wetland habitat creation and the endangered and threatened species issues that may result from the creation of the wetland.
• Ranchers must also have assurance that they will be held harmless due to the initial reflux of nutrients when the lands are rehydrated.

Florida Farm Bureau Federation fully supports the concept of dispersed storage as it provides an additional stream of cash flow and it adds to the suite of activities that the rancher is performing to improve the environment.

Dry Season Water Supply Improving with Time

The level of Lake Okeechobee, the bellwether instrument for water supply, has been holding steady at about 13.5 feet for the past thirty days. Although rainfall was not abundant in January, it was above normal for the beginning of the dry season and through mid-February it is slightly above average at 8.62 inches. Ground water levels throughout south Florida are also at or above normal.

As the dry season spans from December through May, each month that passes with an acceptable lake level lowers the chance of water restrictions towards the end of the dry season. During the winter and spring, water users are wary of water managers (SFWMD and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) basing water release decisions based solely on long-term rainfall forecasts that have a history of inaccuracy. Additionally, basing decisions that the summer tropical season will start on the first of June are equally erroneous as this date is but an average and the actual date could be several weeks either side of June 1.

Agriculturalists are constantly concerned about water supply due to the lower lake schedule that has been implemented to address integrity concerns to the Herbert Hoover Dike. Although the lower lake schedule greatly benefits the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie Estuaries by reducing the number of instances of high discharges from the lake, agriculture is damaged by increasing the risk of water supply shortfalls by over 30%.

Lake Okeechobee Adaptive Protocols Advancing

The Water Resources Advisory Commission (WRAC) is continuing to hold workshops to update the Lake Okeechobee Adaptive Protocols so that they are consistent with the new lake regulation schedule. Some of the objectives of the Adaptive Protocols process are to:
• Clarify advisory role for the SFWMD to make lake release recommendations to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE).
• Recommend to the USACE to be conservative in releases in the Low Release sub-band at the beginning of the dry season as long as it does not impact dike safety.

• Develop release decision flow chart for guiding releases in the Base Flow and Beneficial Use sub-bands.

The objective of Adaptive Protocols is to provide additional release guidance toward maximizing benefits of base flow releases while minimizing adverse impacts to the lake levels and permitted water supply users such as agriculture. Florida Farm Bureau Federation maintains that there are existing legal rights of permitted water users that must be maintained.