Lake Okeechobee is in rough shape. The lake as of this writing remains over 16 feet, and it’s been high for a long time. Submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) has died off; South Florida Water Management District officials say they like to have around 35,000 acres of SAV; there’s less than 3,800 acres now.

Unfortunately it appears the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is looking to solve this problem by creating another.

At the Rivers Coalition meeting Thursday in Stuart, Maj. Cory Bell said the Army Corps new commander, Col. Brandon Bowman, has recommended initiating “Recovery Operations” on Dec. 7, discharging water east and west in an attempt to bring the lake down to 12 feet for at least 90 consecutive days (or to 11.5 feet for 60 days).

The Caloosahatchee would get 2,100 cubic feet of water per second (cfs); that’s not much more than the 2,000 cfs the Caloosahatchee is already getting, a level the estuary sometimes needs during the dry season to maintain salinity levels. But the river currently isn’t in great shape — and more water from the lake won’t help.

Then there’s the St. Lucie, which needs no water from the lake, but will get up to 1,400 cfs under the Recovery plan, which includes both lake water and local basin runoff. That’s bad news for an estuary that’s been struggling with poor water quality due to runoff alone in recent months.

At the meeting, Maj. Bell said the Corps would hope to terminate Recovery by May 1; Lawrence Glenn from the South Water Management District said SFWMD officials are recommending discharges stop by March 1.

Still, that means we’re looking at nearly 3 months of daily discharges — at least.

Then there’s the possibility the discharges won’t work, won’t get the lake down to where the Corps wants it. If we have a wetter than anticipated dry season, hitting those targets by the time the wet season begins in June could be tough.

t’s important to note Corps officials have said they would periodically assess Recovery efforts and could stop the process if necessary. At the meeting, Bell said the presence of toxic blue-green algae in the lake could compel the Corps to halt Recovery, which is good.

But this is all just more proof that even with LOSOM, the new lake management plan, discharges will happen. Even when the EAA Reservoir and STA come online, discharges will happen.

When will discharges NOT happen? When we finally have enough land to store and clean water and send it south — instead of sending it to the estuaries.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

In the meantime, you can voice your opinion by writing to the U.S. Army Corps’ Col. Brandon Bowman at Br**************@us***.mil. Other organizations, including our friends at Friends of the Everglades, have sent formal letters to Bowman, asking him to hold off.

The more pushback, the better.

Water quality in the estuaries has been sketchy for months; this is only going to make things worse.

And if on top of that Recovery Mode fails to succeed — we’re looking at a lot of pain for no gain.