East and West coasts seek co-operation and Plan 6 W. E. "Ted" Guy, Jr.

The St. Lucie River Legal Defense Fund, Inc. submits the following brief
but important comment on the draft EIS for the proposed modifications to the
WSE management schedule for Lake Okeechobee.

First of all, we concur with and adopt by reference the excellent
comments previously submitted by the St. Lucie River Initiative, PURRE and
Audubon of Florida, with whom we work very closely.

Our specific comment, in addition to theirs, is that another alternative
to the proposed operational schedule has been overlooked by the Corps in the
DEIS. In 1994, the Corps published its Comprehensive Review Study
Reconnaissance Report which contained a description and a "Plate 10"
depiction of a storage flow way from the southeast part of the Lake to the
STAs well South of the Lake and ultimately to the Everglades, flowing
between the New River and Miami River Canals.

That flow way would also provide a spillway for the Lake when it
overflows whatever maximum safe height the Corps selects so that you can
comply with the new Federal declaration that the Herbert Hoover Dike is a
"dam" with ensuing safety requirements under Federal law. One of those
requirements is that a spill way be provided to prevent over topping and
flooding of adjacent low lands. Such a spill way is not now
present. (The C-43 and C-44 canals are not adequate spill ways as this
very DEIS demonstrates. They don't and shouldn't serve as spill ways.) Six
thousand six hundred cubic feet per second spill way flow through the EAA is
recomended according to your own Reconnaissance Report.

While we understand that the drafters of your DEIS probably thought
"That's a turn dirt project and we are only doing a modification to an
operational schedule", when they looked at alternative actions, they should
have taken a spill way in to account as an alternative to lowering the
maximum Lake level from 18.5 ft to 17.25 ft. and dumping still more Lake
overflow down to the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie River Estuaries.

Most of the sugar farm land in the way of "Plan Six" is leased from the
State of Florida through the South Florida Water Management District. Thus,
the excuse we have heard that "Plan Six is too expensive" doesn't hold
water, so to speak. Eminent Domain takings damages are largely limited to
leasehold, not ownership, values, in this case.

Most other farms in Florida are required by law to retain their own
storm water discharge; why aren't EAA sugar farms? Why should they be
allowed to violate the law of the land by sending all their discharge to the
STAs, filling them up and preventing them from accepting Lake "O"
overflow?

Plan Six is the "only Fix" we have seen to alleviate the continued and
cumulative destruction of our estuaries, and to provide flood safety to the
40,000 citizens (if I have that number correct) living on lands in the
Okeechobee/Pahokee/Belle glade/South Bay areas that are now threatened with
flooding if hurricanes coincide with the AMO warm/wet cycle that you must
know we are now experiencing since about 1995, and breach the Dike as nearly
happened in 2004 and 2005.

Plan Six is the only viable way we have found in extensive research to
begin to restore the "River of Grass" sheet flow to the Everglades that
naturally prevailed as a spill way for the Lake until the Corps stopped it
with the Herbert Hoover dike. It is the only viable way to begin to restore
the oyster beds, sea grass and manatee, snail kite and other endangered
species habitat that past Corps projects have destroyed.

Please add Plan Six consideration to your Final EIS. If you don't
consider it fairly and squarely, we will consider the omission as another
admission that Big Sugar politics is keeping the Corps from ever solving
Lake Okeechobee's man made (Corps made) problems.

God forbid a major flood causing major loss of human life during
hurricane season because the Corps' dike failed because there was no
adequate spillway, as the Corps' own scientists pointed out was available in
1994.

Sincerely,

W. E. "Ted" Guy, Jr.
President, St. Lucie River Legal Defense Fund, Inc.