Ray Judah

JUDAH REBUTTAL TO COKER

11-30-05

In his most recent commentary, Mr. Robert Coker, Senior Vice-President of Public Affairs for U.S. Sugar Corporation, asks the question as to what can we do to stop the damaging excessive fresh water releases to the Caloosahatchee River and estuaries.

In a veiled attempt to obfuscate and sensationalize the issue, Mr. Coker is unable to focus on the answer that is crystal clear to the Lee County community and our sister counties and cities along the west and east coast of south Florida.

The answer is to utilize the sugarcane fields south of Lake Okeechobee for storage of excessive fresh water releases to avoid further harmful discharges to the Caloosahatchee River and coastal estuaries.

For decades the water level in Lake Okeechobee has been managed to provide optimum growing conditions for the sugarcane fields in the Everglades Agricultural Area south of the lake.

A very efficient irrigation and drainage system in the Everglades Agricultural Area incorporates an expansive network of pumps, pipes, drainage canals and earthen dikes to ensure adequate and timely delivery of water to the sugarcane fields. In fact, the sugarcane fields are periodically flooded to control nematodes.

While the sugarcane fields are currently in various forms of production, the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) has chosen to ignore section 373.439 Florida Statutes that provides the agency with broad based authority to take emergency action to prevent further harm to the health of the public and aquatic life in the coastal counties in south Florida. Instead, the SFWMD takes the position that our estuaries are resilient enough to recover from continued releases of polluted fresh water from Lake Okeechobee.

However, local marine scientists are of the opinion that the destruction of marine habitat and fisheries to date will take a minimum of ten years to recover. Preliminary estimates indicating 90% loss of clamming, 80% crabbing and elimination of baitfish have resulted in drastic reduction in commercial and recreational fishing. The spawning season for a wide variety of saltwater fish is in late winter, and without the optimum salinity gradient, due to continued excessive fresh water releases, an entire year class of fish will be lost.

The SFWMD needs to reassess water management objectives in the Everglades Agricultural Area, and since there is a direct correlation between the degradation of the Caloosahatchee estuaries and federal and state management of Lake Okeechobee that inures to the benefit of sugarcane production, the federal or state government should compensate the sugarcane growers for the use or purchase of the sugarcane fields for water storage.

Even with the proposed long term fix to enhance the quantity and quality of water in Lake Okeechobee, the SFWMD Acceler8 capital improvement program of reservoirs and special treatment areas, will provide some storage and enhance minimum flows, but have a negligible impact on maximum flows from Lake Okeechobee. In fact, in addition to the water storage capacity projected under Acceler8, the SFWMD needs an additional one million acre feet of water storage to protect coastal estuaries.

The sugarcane industry south of Lake Okeechobee is not sustainable due to their own farming practices. The area has been subsiding at various rates since it was initially converted from wetlands and sheet flow areas to sugarcane fields. Burning of the rich layer of peat or muck for several decades, and the exposure of the soil to oxidation, have resulted in significant loss of substrate. Depending upon which estimates used, parts of the area will no longer be usable for sugarcane or any deep root crop in as little as ten years.

Economic market conditions will soon lead to escalating interest in the transformation of the sugarcane fields to residential and commercial development, which would preclude future opportunities to restore historic flow to the Everglades and abate excessive fresh water discharges to coastal estuaries. Silence is consent to the destruction of our quality of life. The time to act is now!

SUGAR OR ESTUARIES? 11-17-05

Mr. Robert Coker’s recent guest commentary concerning sugarcane fields and his vitriolic personal attack on my integrity failed to shed light on the direct correlation between the degradation of the Caloosahatchee River, our coastal estuaries and the sugar company’s control of water management operations of Lake Okeechobee.

As Senior Vice-President of public affairs for U.S. Sugar Corporation, Mr. Coker is sadly mistaken to allege that my comments concerning the flooding of the sugarcane fields is political grand standing, when in reality it is counties and cities from coast to coast in south Florida that are finally standing their ground.

Prior to Hurricane Wilma, the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) was pursuing permitting with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACOE) to lower the water elevation in Lake Okeechobee from approximately 15.5 feet to 12 feet. For decades, the water level in the lake has been managed exclusively for flood control and water supply, to the detriment of the ecosystems of the lake and coastal estuaries. Lake water level has been held artificially high to meet the irrigation needs of the sugarcane fields.

Due to Federal law suits and warnings from the scientific community, the SFWMD and the USACOE recognized the need to change the water supply and environmental protocol for lake water management and lower the water level to restore wetlands and aquatic habitat in Lake Okeechobee, and abate excessive fresh water flows that have proven to be so damaging to our estuaries.

The recession drawdown plan to lower the lake water level was to occur over an extended time period of approximately six months to minimize further damage to our estuaries. Unfortunately, the heavy rains associated with Wilma raised the water level in Lake Okeechobee above 17 feet and the SFWMD decided to delay the recession drawdown plan and to exceed optimum flows of 500 to 2,800 cubic feet per second (cfs) by directly discharging lake level release of 6500 cfs or greater to the estuaries on the west and east coasts of Florida.

The SFWMD has shown an alarming trend during the past several years of discharging excessive fresh water flows of polluted water laden with high levels of nitrogen and phosphorus from agricultural operations to the estuaries on the west and east coasts of Florida in lieu of directing lake water release along the historical flow way to the south.

Such practices have caused tremendous harm and destruction to our sea grass beds and marine fisheries, exacerbated red tide blooms resulting in massive fish kills, jeopardized our national wildlife refuges and aquatic preserves, and caused public health concerns in the form of toxic blue green algae in the Caloosahatchee River and residential canals.

Flying over the Lake Okeechobee Watershed on November 4 th, I was able to confirm that several hundred thousand acres of sugarcane fields in the Everglades Agricultural Area south of Lake Okeechobee were not only dry, but under various stages of production.

Given the current circumstances, it would be far less costly from an environmental and economic standpoint to compensate the sugarcane growers to utilize the sugarcane fields for water storage than to continue harmful discharges to the Caloosahatchee River and coastal estuaries. The latest price tag to restore the Everglades in now in excess of $10.5 billion. There would be no such flooding of any communities in south central Florida as alleged by Mr. Coker.

South Florida is on the verge of an ecological collapse and our quality of life that sustains a vibrant real estate and tourism market will continue to erode with far reaching catastrophic consequences to the health of our community and economic well being if the sugarcane owners maintain their position of defiance and refuse to be a partner in providing a meaningful solution to responsible management of Lake Okeechobee and the coastal estuaries.